106 



PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



sorts of females have been observed amongst the bees, a large 

 one and a small. Mr. 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. 2 



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 (1 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. The prevailing colour in all three is the same, black or 

 black-brown ; but with respect to the female this does not appear to be inva- 

 riably 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 indi- 

 viduals 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 I have had an opportunity of examining, the pre- 

 vailing 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 maxilla. 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 labrum or upper lip is fulvous ; and the antenna are 

 piceous. 



In the trunk, the teguloz 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 

 tarsi and the apex of the tibice are rufo-fulvous. The posterior tibia 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 plantce have neither the brush formed of hairs set in stria?, nor the 

 auricle at the base. 



The abdomen is considerably longer than the head and trunk taken together, 

 receding from the trunk, elongato-conical, and rather sharp at the anus. The 

 dorsal segments are fulvous at the tip ; covered with very short, pallid, and, in 

 certain lights, shining adpressed hairs ; the first segment being very short, and 

 covered with longer hairs. The ventral segments, except the anal, which is black, 

 are fulvescent or rufo-fulvous, and covered with soft longer hairs. The vagina 

 of the spicula (commonly called the stiilg) is curved. 



ii. The Male bee, or drone, is quite the reverse of his royal paramour ; his 



* Reaumur, v. 375. 



