128 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
of workers, the wax-makers and nurses*. They may 
also be further divided into fertile and sterile®: for some 
of them, which in their infancy are supposed to have par- 
taken of some portion of the royal jelly, lay male eggs. 
There is found in some hives, according to Huber, a 
kind of bees, which from having less down upon the 
head and thorax appear blacker than the others, by 
whom they are always expelled from the hive, and often 
killed. Perfect ovaries, upon dissection, were discovered 
in these bees, though not furnished with eggs, This dis- 
covery induced M!!* Jurine, the lady who dissected 
them, to examine the common workers in the same way ; 
and she found in all that she examined, what had es- 
caped Swammerdam, perfect though sterile ovaries*. It 
is worth inquiry, though Mr. Huber gives no hint of 
this kind, whether these were not in fact superannuated 
bees, that could no longer take part in the labours of 
the hive. Thorley remarks, which confirms this idea, 
that, if you closely observe a hive of bees in July, you 
may perceive many amongst them of a dark colour, with 
wings rent and torn; but that in September not one of 
them is to be seen‘. Huber does not say whether the wings 
of the bees in question were lacerated ; but in superan- 
ments is covered, and as it were banded, with pale hairs. The apex 
of the three intermediate ventral segments is rather fulvescent, and 
their base is distinguished en each side by a trapeziform wax-pocket 
covered bya thin membrane. The sting, or rather vagina of the 
spicula, is straight. 
4 See Vor. I. 4th Ed. p. 490. 
> In hives where a queen laying male eggs has been killed, the 
workers continue to make only male cells, though supplied with a 
fertile queen, and the fertile workers lay eggs in them. Schirach, 258. 
© Huber, it, 425— 4 Thorley, Ox Bees, 179. 
