118 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
it at the same time. ‘These small females perish in the 
autumn. 
The males are usually smaller than the large females, 
and larger than the small ones and workers. ‘They may 
be known by their longer, more filiform, and slenderer 
antennz; by the different shape and by the beard of 
their mandibles. Their posterior tibiz also want the 
corbicula and pecten that distinguish the individuals of 
the other sex, and their posterior plantee have no au- 
ricle. We learn from Reaumur that the male humble- 
bees are not an idle race, but work in concert with the 
rest to repair any damage or derangement that may be- 
fall the common habitation. 
The workers, which are the first fruits of the queen- 
mother’s vernal parturition, assist her, as soon as they 
are excluded from the pupa, in her various labours. 
To them also is committed the construction of the waxen 
vault that covers and defends the nest. When any in- 
dividual larva has spun its cocoon and assumed the pupa, 
the workers remove all the wax from it; and as soon as 
it has attained to its perfect state, which takes place in 
about five days, the cocoons are used to hold honey or 
pollen. When the bees discharge the honey into them 
upon their return from their excursions, they open their 
mouths and contract their bodies, which occasions the 
honey to fall into the reservoir. Sixty of these honey- 
pots are occasionally found in a single nest, and more 
than forty are sometimes filled in a day. In collecting 
honey, humble-bees, if they cannot get at that contained 
in any flower by its natural opening, will often make an 
aperture at the base of the corolla, or even in the calyx, 
