166 Bees and their Counterfeits. 



of bees which live in societies, as is -well known in the case of 

 the hive-bee, is the existence of a third sex, the nenter or 

 worker ; and there are other singular peculiarities of this kind 

 in less known species, such as the existence of two distinct 

 kinds of females. The material of which the egg-cells are 

 composed is very various. The comb of the hive-bee, as 

 is well known, is formed of wax, secreted in a peculiar manner, 

 as described in hundreds of popular works ; but other species, 

 though forming a comb almost identical in appearance, make it 

 by the manipulation of certain substances which they reduce 

 to a material more analogous to common manufactured paper 

 than anything else ; while others, again, make cells with sand, 

 moistened with a glutinous secretion, which reduces it to a 

 kind of tenacious cement. Some of these species, again, collect 

 an inferior kind of honey, while others only collect pollen, of 

 which they place a small mass or ball in each cell in which an 

 egg is to be deposited, so as to form a supply of food for the 

 grub or larva to subsist on till full grown. The exactly suffi- 

 cient quantity is prepared by the instinct of the parent ; and, in 

 fact, when that is consumed, the young grub bee has no choice 

 but to subside at once into the torpor in which his change of 

 organization is to take place. This is a necessity, as he has no 

 powers of locomotion, being a clumsy maggot-formed larva, 

 which, placed at the bottom of a smooth-sided cell, would have 

 no means of seeking food for himself. The tribes of para- 

 sitic bees which do not make cells to contain honey or pollen 

 for the separate use of each infant bee, visit the nests of their 

 more industrious cousins, and surreptitiously place an egg of 

 their own in the cell containing the honey or pollen, as the 

 case may be. 



It was formerly believed that the egg of the parasitic bee was 

 placed in the same cell with the egg of the honey-bee, and that 

 being hatched first, the young parasite devoured all the food, 

 leaving the infant of the honey-bee to find himself born to an 

 empty larder, and consequently speedy starvation ; but more 

 recent observation has led to the conclusion that this is not the 

 case, but that the parasitic bee, on entering the nest, selects 

 cells already furnished with honey or pollen, but in which no 

 egg has as yet been laid. While the unsuspicious female pro- 

 prietors of the nest, finding an unexpected egg deposited in the 

 cell they first visit, exhibit no sign of surprise, but pass on to 

 the next, not seeming to be at all disturbed by the presence of 

 the uninvited deposit; just as small birds make no attempt to 

 exclude the egg of the cuckoo, but hatch it, and rear the young 

 intruder along with their own offspring. 



This occurs in the nests of wild bees constructed in different 

 situations, some kinds making an excavation expressly, others 



