CHAPTER II. 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



Orders of Insects — Stages of Development — Egg, Larva, Pupa, Imago 

 or Perfect Insect — Three Classes of Bees ; Queen, Drones, 

 Workers. 



It will be observed from the title of this book that 

 it deals with the honey-bee. The necessity of this 

 restriction will become immediately evident when we 

 mention the fact that in Great Britain there are no 

 less than twenty-seven genera and 177 species of 

 native bees, none of which have been successfully 

 domesticated except Apis mellifica, or the ordinary 

 hive-bee. 



The term " insect " has unfortunately been loosely 

 employed in popular parlance to include such diverse 

 beings as coral-polyps and house-flies. As the name 

 itself indicates, it is properly applicable only to such 

 animals as are more or less distinctly divided into 

 segments. All true insects, in fact, are plainly divisi- 

 ble in their perfect state into three portions, the head, 

 thorax, and abdomen. The most important classes in 

 this portion of the animal kingdom are distinguished 

 by the characteristics of their wings, and are — 



