448 INSECTA. 



that still remains a large colony ; while all the others colonize from a 

 single bee, which is a female, not from a stock. The females of the 

 stock that survive the winter, have left their nest like a bird, and have 

 sought out each her winter quarters, to lie dormant in. Thus, gregarious 

 bees might be divided into two classes ; one which forms a family for 

 one season only, and the second which continues the family for several 

 seasons. 



The different species of the bee-tribe are not equally irritable. The 

 common bee appears to be the most so ; they will make an attack when 

 a person is only standing near their hive ; but a wasp or hornet must 

 be attacked before it attacks : it is in them rather defence than offence. 

 It appears that the humble-bee is the least irritable of any. 



Some have an instinctive knowledge of the living surface of an 

 animal they mean to sting : this is most remarkable in the wasp. A 

 wasp shall run over the surface of your clothes, and the moment they 

 come to the skin, shall immediately sting it ; or, if they alight on the 

 skin at first, they sting immediately. But the common bee does not 

 seem to make the distinction so accurately; if pressed by anything, 

 they sting or attempt to sting it, whether it be animate or inanimate. 

 They have the power of moving the sting in all directions, so as to strike 

 the object on any side. The common bee commonly leaves its sting in 

 the wound. Why this should happen I cannot tell : they do so when 

 they sting things inanimate. The sting and the two projecting parts 

 [the sheath] in the bee-tribe 1 are formed on the outside in the chrysalis, 

 just at the time when the wings and legs are elongating. They are 

 afterwards enclosed as the perfect animal forms. 



They are not equally early in their propagation. I believe the common 

 bee is the first, the humble-bee next, and the hornet and wasp the 

 latest. The reason of this is, probably, because the common bee is 

 always of an equal heat, and has always provision ready for the young : 

 but they leave off breeding sooner, because they have to fill the breeding 

 cells with honey for the winter stock. The humble-bee can only come 

 forth in warm weather ; but she is earlier than the wasp and hornet ; 

 because wax and honey are earlier than fruit ; and of course the fruit- 

 eaters breed later. 



They differ very much in the number of young they produce in one 



1 [Hunt. Preps. Nos. 2156 (wasp), 2157—9 (humble-bee). The structure of the 

 sting in the hive-bee is shown in the Hunterian drawing, engraved in plate 67. 

 figs. 1 & 2, Physiol. Catalogue, 4to. vol. v. p. 217 : but the magnifying power em- 

 ployed was not sufficient to show the teeth of the saw-like sting. Mr. Fr. Smith 

 remarks, that "by reason of the serrate structure, the bee's sting will not easily leave 

 the wound. In the sand-wasps (Sphegidce) there is no serration, and the sting is not 

 left behind."] 



