The Life of the Bee. 
life less assured, prosperity more limited, 
than with our bees; and wherever these 
are introduced, the Meliponite tend to 
disappear before them. In both races 
the fraternal idea has undergone equal 
and magnificent development, save in 
one point alone, wherein it achieves no 
further advance among the Meliponite 
than among the limited offspring of the 
humble-bees. In the mechanical organ- 
isation of distributed labour, in the pre- 
cise economy of effort; briefly, in the 
architecture of the city, they display man- 
ifest inferiority. As to this I need only 
refer to what I said in section 42 of this 
book, while adding that, whereas in the 
hives of our Apite all the cells are equally 
available for the rearing of the brood and 
the storage of provisions, and endure as 
long as the city itself, they serve only one 
of these purposes among the Meliponite, 
and the cells employed as cradles for the 
402 
