Order of the Honey-Iiei, 



ORDER OF THE HONEY-BEE. 



The honey-bee belongs to the order Hy menoptera (from 

 two Greek words meaning membrane and wings), which 

 also includes the wasps, ants, ichneumon-flies, gall-flies, and 

 saw-flies. This grouj) contains insects which possess a 

 tongue by which they may suck (Fig. 35, /), and strong 

 jaws (Fig. 42) for biting. Thus the bees can sip the hon- 

 eyed sweets of flowers, and also gnaw^ away mutilated 

 comb. They ha\e, besides, four wings, and undergo com- 

 plete transformations. 



There are among insects strange resemblances. Insects 

 of one order will show a marked likeness to those of 

 another. This is known as mimicry, and sometimes is 

 wonderfully striking between very distant groups. Dar- 

 win and Wallace have shown this to be a developed pecul- 

 iarity, not always possessed by the ancestors of the 

 animal, and that it comes through the laws of variation 

 and natural selection to serve the purpose of protection. 

 Right here we have a fine illustration of this mimicry. 

 Juht the other day I received, through Mr. A. I. Root, an 

 insect which he and the person sending it to him supposed 

 to be a bee, and he desired to know, whether it was a mal- 

 formed honey-bee, or some other species. This insect, 

 though looking in a general way much like a bee, had only 

 two wings, had no jaws, and its antenna were close together 

 in front and mere stubs. In fact, it was no bee at all, but 

 belonged to the order Diptera, or two-winged flies. I 

 have received several similar insects, with like inquiries. 

 Among Dijstera there are several families, as the Estridse. 

 or bot-flies, some of the Asilidas, or robber-flies (Fig. 196), 

 which are often fierce enemies of our bees, the Syrphida 

 — -a very useful family, as the larvae or maggots live on 

 plant lice —whose members are often seen sipping sweets 

 from flowers or trying to rob the honey and other bees 

 — the one icferred to above belonged to this family — 

 and the Bomhyliida;, which in color, form, and hairy cov- 

 ering are strikingly like wild and domesticated bees. The 

 maggots of some of these feed on the larvae of various of 

 our wild bees, and of course the mother fly must steal into 



