WILD AND HIVE BEES. 13 



in every case the hybernated mother commences a 

 nest alone ; e.g., the Bombus muscorum, known by 

 its light and dark brown hairs, establishes itself not 

 infrequently in the middle of fields, taking care that 

 the spot selected is in the neighbourhood of abund- 

 ance of flowering plants. A vaulted roof is formed 

 of cleverly entangled pieces of moss, plastered beneath 

 by a layer of greyish wax, and so rains, which would 

 pass the moss, are effectually kept out. Pollen and 

 honey are collected in pellets, eggs laid, and so, in 

 due course, workers produced ; for, as her children 

 gather about her, the mother leaves to them the 

 duties of nest extension, cell construction, and food 

 collection, and, confining herself to ovipositing, becomes 

 a stay-at-home, and a very close representative of 

 the so-called queen of the bee-hive. 



Later in the season, instead of workers, which are 

 much smaller than the queen, a Bombus, a size between 

 the two, begins to make its appearance in the nest; 

 this is the male, and now, soon, creatures as large as 

 the original mother are added to the colony. These, 

 the true females, mate as we have hinted, and alone 

 survive the rigour of winter to be the instruments for 

 continuing the race. To those conversant with Hive 

 Bees, the closeness of the analogies between the two 

 insects last mentioned, will suggest themselves; but 

 they will become evident to all as we study the next 

 chapter. Amidst the analogies, however, there are 

 differences, and so the family of British Apidae are 

 marked off into nineteen genera, the typical genus 

 being Apis, in which the Hive Bee finds its place. 

 In this genus, there is but one British species, mellifica, 



