114 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
of their history, concerning which we are now in dark- 
ness. 
Having given you some idea, imperfect indeed from 
the want of materials, of the societies of wasps, I must 
next draw up for you the best account I can of those of 
the humble-bees. These form a kind of intermediate link 
between the wasps and the hive-bees, collecting honey 
indeed and making wax, but constructing their combs 
and cells without the geometric precision of the latter, 
and of a more rude and rustic kind of architecture; and 
distinguished from both, though they approach nearer to 
the bees, by the extreme hairiness of their bodies. 
The population of a humble-bees nest may be divided 
into four orders of individuals: the large females; the 
small females; the males; and the workers. 
The large females, like the female wasps, are the ori- 
ginal founders of their republics. They are often so 
large, that by the side of the small ones or the workers, 
which in every other respect they exactly resemble, they 
look like giants opposed to pygmies. They are excluded 
from the pupa in the autumn; and pair in that season, 
with males produced from the eggs of the small females. 
They pass the winter under ground, and, as appears 
from an observation of M. P. Huber, in a particular 
apartment, separate from the nest, and rendered warm 
by a carpeting of moss and grass, but without any supply 
of food. Early in the spring, (for they make their first 
appearance as soon as the catkins of the sallows and 
willows are in flower,) like the female wasps, they lay the 
foundations of a new colony without the assistance of any 
neuters, which all perish before the winter. In some in- 
