358 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
Needham was the first that observed the latter; and their existence, M, 
P. Huber tells us, has been confirmed by several observations of his father, 
They are bred in cells as large as those of the common queens, from 
which they differ only in size. Though they have ovaries, they have 
never been observed to lay eggs.1 Having never seen one of these, for 
they are of very rare occurrence, my description must be confined to the 
common female, the genuine monarch of the hive.? 
1 Bonnet, x. P. Huber in Linn. Trans. vi. 283. Reaumur (v. 373.) observes 
that some queens are much larger than others; but he attributes this difference 
of their size to the state.of the eggs in their body, 
2 As every reader is not aware of the differences of form, &c., that distinguish 
the females, males, and workers from each other (I have seen the male mistaken for 
a distinct species, and placed in a cabinet as Apis lagopoda L.), I shall here subjoin 
a description of each. 
i, The body of the Female bee is considerably longer than that of either the 
drone or the worker. ‘he prevailing colour in all three is the same, black or 
black-brown; but with respect to the female this does not appear to be invariably 
the case : for — not to insist upon Virgil’s royal bees glittering with ruddy or golden 
spots and scales, where allowance must be made for poetic licence—Reaumur 
affirms, after describing some differences of colour in different individuals of this 
sex, that a queen may always be distinguished, both from the workers and males, 
by the colour of her body." If this observation be restricted to the colour of some 
parts of her body, it is correct; but it will not apply to all generally (unless, as I 
suspect may be the case, by the term body he means the abdomen), for, in all that 
T have had an opportunity of examining, the prevailing colour, as I have stated it, 
is the same. 
The head is not larger than that of the workers; but the tongue is shorter and 
more slender, with straighter maqille. The mandibles are forficate, and do not jut 
out like theirs into a prominent angle; they are of the colour of pitch with a red 
tinge, and terminate in two teeth, the exterior being acute, and the interior blunt 
or truncated. The /abrum or upper lip is fulvous; and the antenne are piceous, 
In the trunk, the tegule or scales that defend the base of the wings are rufo-piceous. 
The wings reach only to the tip of the third abdominal segment. The ¢arsi and the 
apex of the tibia are rufo-fulyous. The posterior tilia are plane above, and covered 
with short adpressed hairs, having neither the corbicula (or marginal fringe of 
hairs for carrying the masses of pollen) nor the pecten; and the posterior plante 
have neither the brush formed of hairs set in striw, nor the auricle at the base. 
The abdomen is considerably longer than the head and trunk taken together, re- 
ceding from the trunk, elongato-conical, and rather sharp at the anus. The dorsal 
segments are fulyous at the tip: covered with very short, pallid, and, in certain 
lights, shining adpressed hairs; the first eae ite very short, and covered 
with longer hairs. The ventral segments, except the anal, which is black, are ful- 
vescent or rufo-fulyous, and covered with soft longer hairs. The vagina of the 
spicula Cooramany called the sting) is curved. : 
ii, The Male bee, or drone, is quite the reverse of his royal paramour; his body 
being thick, short, and clumsy, and very obtuse at each extremity. + It is covered 
also, as to the head and trunk, with dense hairs. 
The head is depressed and orbicular. ‘The tongue is shorter and more slender 
than that of the female; and the mandibles, though nearly of the same allay, aro 
smaller. ‘The eyes are very large, meeting at the back part of head. In the 
space between them are placed the antenne and stemmata, The former consist of 
* Reaumur, v. 875. 
} Virgil seems to have regarded the drone as one of the sorts of kings or leaders 
of the bees, when he says, speaking of the latter, 
He cece win loin Ile horridus alter 
Desidia, latamque trahens inglorius alyum.” 
Georgie. iv. 1. 98. 
