BOMBUS TEBRESTRIS. 461 



itself. There are two convoluted vessels on each side which enter 

 the canal at the termination of the stomach part. The canal was 

 filled with a substance similar to the waxy part of the cell. There 

 are ten air-holes : the air- canals are made of spiral turns of a small 

 line. 



Of their Lice. — The humble-bee has a number of small animals upon 

 it, which are of the tick-kind, and they get fuller and fuller towards 

 the autumn ; but this insect is not peculiar to them, being found on the 

 black-beetle [Geotrwpes] and earth-worm. It is probable that this insect 

 attaches itself to those animals when they are under ground ; and, what 

 makes this still more probable, is that the large queens are much more 

 infested with them than the others, probably because they stay much 

 more at home. 



In many I have found in their abdomen what I suspect to be 

 ' worms,' but of a particular kind ; some of which are very small, only 

 to be distinctly seen by a magnifying glass. 



Experiments to ascertain some facts. — In one of my bee-traps where 

 there was only the queen, she began to work, and had gone so far as to 

 have made a square-shaped mass, or hive, in which were a vast number 

 of maggots. I removed the honey-reservoir, which was a complete 

 globe : the day following I looked at the hive again, and found that she 

 had formed another, but had not completed it all round: an opening 

 was left to fill it with honey, and this was nearly done. On this day 

 I took from her the mass containing the maggots, and put her into a 

 mass broken off from another hive containing maggots, &c. On the 

 evening of the same day, and on the following morning, she was 

 observed going out and in ; but, on this day, I found she had forsaken 

 the hive. The reservoir and maggots in the mass were all devoured by 

 the ants. 



As the size of females differs very much, so as to make it uncertain 

 what ought to be called queens, I believe our best guide in this respect 

 is to observe the size of those which come forth in the spring ; as we 

 know they are to be the breeders of the season, and we shall find that 

 they are all of the largest size. The difference in size between the queen 

 and the very smallest labourer is considerable. I have been able, in 

 some hives, to distinguish six or eight different sizes among the labourers. 

 The proportion that the different classes, viz. queens, males, and la- 

 bourers, bear to the other is uncertain, for each class differs in number 

 at the different seasons very much. At first there is but one, and that 

 is the queen: afterwards it is queen and labourers; and very soon 

 males ; though the labourers may increase to 100 or 150 before a 

 young queen is formed : and when they come to be formed, the labourers 



