98 



PEKFECT SOCIETIES OE INSECTS. 



though they often assist in it, the workers are not able to com- 

 plete 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. 1 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 those that are destined to be males and 

 females are supplied with pure honey. 



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 oviposition), 

 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 them at 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 difference 

 between them and the workers, but chiefly by the diversity of 

 their instincts: — from the other females they are distinguished 

 solely by their diminutive size. Like those of the wasps and 

 hive-bees, these minor queens produce only male eggs, which 

 come out in time to fertilise the young females that found the 

 vernal colonies. M. P. Huber suspects that, as in the case of 

 the female bee, it is a different kind of food that develops 



1 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 

 male offspring of the small females, and by the latter those of the large ? 



