102 EVOLUTION APPLIED TO BEES 



anything that appertains thereto. Having regard 

 to the fact that the workers possess atrophied 

 organs of sex, we may fairly claim that originally 

 the insect possessed powers of reproduction and 

 was presumably a solitary creature. 



Is it not peculiar, then, that two such definite 

 lines of development as those of the bee and 

 the wasp should take place ? For consider how 

 entirely different the two are. The wasp, feeding 

 on honey and animal matter, the bee on honey 

 and pollen ; the wasp building vertical cells, the 

 bee horizontal ; the wasp constructing those 

 cells of an alien material, the bee of a substance 

 derived from its own body ; the wasp main- 

 taining a number of queens, the bee only one ; 

 above all, the wasp being an annual colony, 

 sinking to nothingness, and only surviving as a few 

 scattered members in the winter ; the beehive a 

 permanent establishment, lasting, as in some well- 

 accredited instances, for fifty or sixty years. How 

 are these things to be explained on evolutionary 

 lines ? For, consider the difficulties in the way 

 of the bee's survival. On one solitary female the 

 existence of the whole colony depends. At very 

 most three or four new colonies are formed each 

 year. 



Supposing a swarm to issue in the height of the 

 honeyflow. It betakes itself to what appears to 

 be a suitable location, but which may prove, when 

 winter arrives, if it survives till then, a most 



