MANUAL OF THE APIARY. 35 



Probably the bumble-bees are no sharper, or they would re- 

 fuse ingress to these merciless vagrants. 



The larvae (Fig. 12) of all insects of this family are maggot-like 

 — wrinkled, footless, tapering at both ends, and, as before stated, 

 feed upon pollen and honey. They are helpless, and thus, 

 all during their babyhood — the larvse state — the time when 

 all insects are most ravenous, and the only time when many 

 insects take food, the time when all growth in size, except 

 such enlargement as is required by egg-development, occurs, 

 these infant bees have to be fed by their mothers or elder 

 sisters. They have a mouth with soft lips, and weak jaws, 

 yet it is doubtful if all or much of their food is taken in at 

 this opening. There is some reason to believe that they, like 

 many maggots — such as the Hessian-fly larvas — absorb much 

 of their food through the body walls. From the mouth leads- 

 the intestine, which has no anal opening. So there are no ex- 

 creta other than gas and vapor. What commendation for 

 their food, all capable of nourishment, and thus all as- 

 similated. 



To this family belongs the genus of stingless bees, Melipo- 

 na, of Mexico and South America, which store honey not 

 only in the hexagonal brood-cells, but in great wax reservoirs. 

 They, like the unkept hive-bee, build in hollow logs. They 

 are exceedingly numerous in each colony, and it has thus 

 been thought that there were more than one queen. They 

 are also very prodigal of wax, and thus may possess a pros- 

 pective commercial importance in these days of artificial 

 comb-foundation. In this genus the basal joint of the tarsus 

 is triangular, and they have two submarginal cells, not three, 

 to the front wings. They are also smaller than our common 

 bees, and have wings that do not reach to the tip of their 

 abdomens. 



Another genus of stingless bees, the genus Trigona, have 

 the wings longer than the abdomens, and their jaws toothed. 

 These, unlike the Melipona, are not confined to the New 

 World, but are met in Africa, India and Australasia. These ' 

 build their combs in tall trees, fastening them to the branches 

 much as does the Apis dorsata, soon to be mentioned. 



Of course insects of the genus Bombus — our common 

 bumble-bees — belong to this family. Here the tongue is very 



