130 Beekeeping 



kept for several years in artificial nests and Lubbock ^ 

 reports keeping a queen ant of Formica fusca for nearly 

 fifteen years, "by far the oldest insect on record." Queen 

 bees live several years and it may be that if worker bees 

 were equally well cared for and fed they might live as long 

 as the queen. We get no light on the potential length of life 

 of bumblebees and wasp^ because the colony is not main- 

 tained over winter; possibly if they were protected as bees 

 are or could hibernate like ants they might live for several 

 years. It is perhaps not legitimate to compare the larval 

 or pupal stages of insects which require several years for 

 their development {e.g. Cicada, Lachnosterna). Among 

 insects ants are perhaps the patriarchs, while most insects 

 live but a few days, weeks or months. Many insects take 

 little or no food as adults {e.g. females of Psychidse, Phry- 

 ganids, males of Phylloxera) and it is therefore not surprising 

 that they do not live long. If, now, we compare ants and 

 bees, we find them similarly constructed, similarly they live 

 in colonies and their activities are in many ways almost iden- 

 tical. The marked differences are in the facts (1) that 

 bees fly while ants do not and (2) that ants live on a mixed 

 diet while bees in the adult stage live chiefly on sugars. 



ferred to Weismann's essay "The Duration of Life" (Dauer des Lebens) 

 in his Essays on Heredity (English translation, 1891, Oxford). Prof. 

 Weismann considers death an adaptation, as secondarily acquired, produced 

 by natural selection, not a primary necessity of living matter and that 

 "unlimited existence of individuals would be a luxury without any corre- 

 sponding advantage" to the species. Death is a "beneficial occurrence," 

 whereby worn-out individuals which are harmful to the species are re- 

 moved, leaving room for those which are sound. According to this view, 

 duration of life is hereditary (for which there is much evidence) and there- 

 fore we should expect workers and queens to be potentially equal in dura- 

 tion of life (l. c, p. 60), if the workers were as well protected as the queens. 

 This is seemingly true for ants. However, it is difficult to comprehend 

 the cause of an adaptation which leads to the use of food which fails to 

 nourish the body and thereby shortens the term of life, since it is not evident 

 in what way a shorter span of life for the workers is of benefit to the species. 

 Beekeepers would probably be inclined to believe that if they could get 

 worker bees which would live as long as do worker ants that it would be 

 advantageous to the honey-producer, if not to the bees themselves. 

 » Lubbock, Sir John, Jr. Linn. Soc. (Zool.) XX, p. 133. 



