100 



PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



The workers, which are the first fruits of the queen- 

 mother's vernal parturition, assist her, as soon as they are ex- 

 cluded 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 individual 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, that they may 

 insert their proboscis in the very place where nature has 

 stored up her nectar. 1 M. Huber relates a singular anecdote 



Eughssa (Hist, of Ins. by Swainson and Shuckard, 169. West wood's Mod, 

 Class, of Ins., ii. 281.) 



1 Hub. Nouv. Observ. ii. 375. Of the especial love of humble-bees for the 

 nectar of the Passion-flower (Passifora ccerulea), and the effect which it has on 

 them, the following paragraph gives a graphic description. 



" We regret extremely to announce that some honest humble-bees of our ac- 

 quaintance have taken to drinking, and to such excess that they are daily found 

 reeling and tumbling about the door of their houses of call — the blossoms of the 

 Passion-flower, which flow over with intoxicating beverage; and there, not con- 

 tent with drinking like decent bees, they plunge their great hairy heads into the 

 beautiful goblet that nature has formed in such plants, thrusting each other aside, 

 or climbing over each other's shoulders, till the flowers bend beneath t heir weight. 

 After a time they become so stupid that it is in vain to pull them by the skirts, 

 and advise them to go home, instead of wasting their time in tippling : they are, 

 however, good-natured in their cups, and show no resentment at being disturbed ; 

 on the contrary, they cling to their wine goblet, and crawl back to it as fast as 

 they are pulled away, unless, indeed, they fairly lose their legs and tumble down, 

 in which case they lie sprawling on the ground, quite unable to get up again." 

 (Gardener's Chronicle, 1841, p. 519. ) If this account be not over-coloured 

 these jovial, reckless proceedings of humble-bees are in strong contrast with the 

 temperate habits of hive-bees, which, to judge from the interesting account 

 Mr. Wailes has given us of their visits to his Passion-flowers (Ent. Mag. i. 525.), 

 hurried back to the hive as soon as they had imbibed their supply of nectar ; and 

 certainly the anecdote given below, from Huber, of the way in which humble-bees 

 suffered themselves to be cajoled out of their honey by hive-bees indicates such a 

 good-natured weakness of disposition as may easily be supposed to be combined 

 with a propensity to carousing when the opportunity presents itself. To speak 

 seriously, however, it would be well worth ascertaining, by exact observations, 



