
THE PARASITES OF THE HONEY-BEE. 203 
sues, and pass through their metamorphoses into the adult 
form, when they desert their living house and take to the 
water to lay their eggs. In Europe, Siebold has described 
Gordius subbifurcus which infests the drones of the honey-bee, 
and also other insects. Professor Siebold has also described 
Mermis albicans, which is a similar kind of hair-worm, from 
two to five inches long, and whitish in color. This worm is 
also found, strangely enough, only in the drones, though it is 
the workers which frequent watery places to appease their 
thirst. 
Thousands of insects are carried off yearly by parasitic 
fungi. The ravages of the Muscardine, caused by a minute 
fungus (Botrytris Bassiana Balsamo), has threatened the 
extinction of silk culture in Europe. Dr. Leidy mentions a 
fungus which must annually carry off myriads of the Seven- 
teen Year Locust. A somewhat similar fungus, Mucor mel- 
litophorus (Plate 4, fig,15), infests bees, filling the stomach 
with microscopic colorless spores, so as to greatly weaken 
the insect. 
As there is a probability that many insects, parasitic on 
the wild bees, may sooner or later afflict the honey-bee, and 
also to farther illustrate the complex nature of insect para- 
sitism, we will for a moment look at some other. bee- 
parasites, 
‘Among the numerous insects preying in some way upon the 
Humble-bee are to be found other species of bees and moths, 
flies and beetles. Insect parasites often imitate their host : 
Apathus (Plate 5, fig. 1, A. Ashton’) can scarcely be dis- 
tinguished from its host, and yet it lives cuckoo-like in the 
cells of the humble-bee, though we know not yet how inju- 
rious it really is. Then there is the Conops and Volucella, 
the former of which lives like Tachina and Phora within the 
bee’s body, while the latter devours the brood. The young 
(Plate 5, figs. 5, 5a) of another fly allied to Anthomyia, of 
Which the Onion-fly is an example, is also not infrequently 
met with. A small beetle (Plate 5, fig. 4, Antherophagus 

