R82 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS, 
separate from the nest, and rendered warm by a carpeting of moss and 
grass, but without any supply of food. arly 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 colon 
without the assistance of any neuters, which all perish before the winter, 
In some instances, however, if a conjecture of M. de la Billardiére be 
correct, these creatures have an assistant assigned to them. He Says, at 
this season (the approach of winter) he found in the nest of Bombus Syl- 
varum some old females and workers, whose wings were fastened together 
to retain them in the nest by hindering them from flying; these wings in 
each individual were fastened together at the extremity, by means of some 
very brown wax applied above and below.! This he conceives to be a pre. 
’ caution taken by the other bees to oblige these individuals to remain in the 
nest, and take care of the brood that was next year to renew the popula- 
tion of the colony. I feel, however, great hesitation in admitting this con- 
jecture, founded upon an insulated and perhaps an accidental fact. For, 
in the first place, the young females that come forth in the autumn, and not 
the old ones, are the founders of new colonies, and their instinct directs 
them to fulfil the great laws of their nature without such compulsion ; and 
in the next, the workers are never known to survive the cold of winter. 
The employment of a large female, besides the care of the young brood 
before described, and the collecting of honey and pollen, is principally the 
constructing of the cells in which her eggs are to be laid; which M. P. 
Huber seems to think, though they often assist in it, the workers are not 
able to complete by themselves. So rapid is the female in this work, that 
to make a cell, fill it with pollen, commit one or two eggs to it, and cover 
them in, requires only the short space of half an hour. Her family at first 
consists only of workers, which are necessary to assist her in her labours ; 
these appear in May and June; but the males and females are later, and 
sometimes are not produced before August and September? As in the 
case of the hive-bee, the food of these several individuals differs ; for the 
grubs that will turn to workers are fed with honey and pollen mixed, while 
Had that are destined to be males and females are supplied with pure 
oney. 
The instinct of these larger females does not develop itself all at once: 
for it is a remarkable fact, that when they are first hatched in the autumn, 
not being in a condition to become mothers, they are no object of jealousy 
to the small queens (as we shall soon see they are when engaged in ovipo- 
sition), and are employed in the ordinary labours of the parent nest—that 
is, they collect honey and pollen, and make wax; but they do not construct 
cells. The building instinct seems as it were in suspense, and does not 
manifest itself till the spring; when the maternal sentiment impels themat 
the same time to lay eggs, and to construct the cells in which they are to 
be deposited. 
I have told you above, that amongst the wasps a small kind of female has 
been discovered: this is the case also amongst the humble-bees, in whose 
societies they are more readily detected ; not, indeed, by any observable 
1 Mémoires du Mustum, &e. i. 55. 
2 P. Huber, in Linn. Trans. vi, 264.—This author says, however, in another 
place (ibid. 285.), that the male eggs are laid in the spring, at the same time with 
those that are to produce workers. Perhaps by the former he means the mule 
offspring of the small females, and by the latter those of the large? 
