32 HYPOTHESIS OF K1RBY. 



merit's reflection, however, or a very limited degree of actual 

 experience, would have taught that entomologist, that the 

 notion of a superannuated worker turning black, and there- 

 fore condemned to be killed, is at direct variance with 

 the well known habits of the bee. Huber, however, carries 

 his hypothesis still further than Kirby ; for consistently with 

 his experience, they are in themselves a distinct species, 

 having no interest in the general concerns of the hive, and 

 no one having any interest in them. 



It is affirmed by Kirby that Thorley confirms the exist- 

 ence of these black bees ; but we cannot find any such 

 confirmation in the works of that writer. Thorley merely 

 says, " that in the month of July, you will perceive many 

 bees of a dark colour, with wings rent and torn ; but that in 

 September, not one of them is to be seen." Now there are 

 some parts of the foregoing observation, which are perfectly 

 agreeable to experience, for it is well known to every apiarian, 

 that an old resident in the hive, is of a much darker colour, 

 than one that has just emerged from the cell. He has lived, 

 as it were, during the whole of his life, in the hot and dense 

 atmosphere of the hive, and like the combs, which were 

 originally white, but which have assumed a blackish hue, 

 owing to the internal heat of the hive, he exhibits a deeper 

 and blacker hue, than his newly-born brother. In no part, 

 however, of Thorley's work do we find that there are black 

 bees in the hive, which form a distinct species, but such is 

 the affirmation of Huber, and, accordingly, it is given in 

 Kirby's entomology, as an accredited fact in the natural his- 

 tory of the bee. 



As one proof, however, of the very gross ignorance of 

 Kirby in the natural history of the bee, he says, " that it ap- 

 pears to be the law of their nature to rid their community of 

 all supernumerary and useless members," and he founds this 

 erroneous opinion upon the annual destruction of the drones. 

 When, however, did Kirby, or any other naturalist ever 



