HYMENOPTERA. 
601 
habitations in societies of fifty or sixty, but sometimes two or three hundred individuals: the society is, however, 
broken up at the approach of winter [like that of the Wasps]. The males are disting’uished by their small size, the 
mandibles narrower, bidendate, and bearded, and the body often differently coloured. The females are the largest, 
and have the mandibles spoon-shaped, as they are also in the neuters, which are intermediate in size between the two 
others. Reaumur and Huber have observed two varieties amongst the neuters, differing in size from the ordinary 
ones: according to the latter author, several of the workers which are produced in the spring, couple in June 
with males which are produced from the common parent, and soon afterwards deposit eggs, which produce only 
males, which fecundate the females which only appear towards the end of the summer, and which are destined to 
become the foundresses of fresh colonies in the following year ; all the rest perish. These females, which survive 
the winter, employ the first fine days in spring to commence their nest, which is formed in the earth, often at one 
or even two feet deep. One species, B, lapidaria, builds it on the surface of the ground, under stones. The cavi- 
ties in which these nests are formed, are vaulted with earth and moss, which the Bees card with their hind legs. 
A layer of rough wax lines the interior of the nest. Sometimes an opening is merely made into the bottom of the 
nest, but sometimes it is one or two feet long, and lined with moss. A layer of leaves lines the floor of the nest, 
on which the female deposits masses of brown wax, their inner spaces being destined to inclose the eggs and 
larvae. These larvae there live in society until the period when they are ready to change to pupae, when they separate, 
and each forms for itself a silken cocoon of an oval form, attached to each other vertically, the pupae being always 
head downwards ; hence they always make their escape out of the bottom of the cocoon on arriving at the imago 
state. Reaumur asserts that the larvae feed upon the wax which forms their abode ; but in the opinion of Huber, 
it simply protects them from the cold ; the food of these larvae consisting of a large supply of pollen paste moist- 
ened with honey, with which the pupae provide them : there are, moreover, found in the nests two or three small 
cups of honey always open. 
The larvae appear four or five days after the eggs are deposited, and undergo their changes in the months of May 
and June. The workers remove the wax around the cocoon in order to facilitate the escape of the Bee. It has 
been supposed that these produced only neuters, but we have seen above that they also produce males. These 
workers assist the female in her works. The number of the cocoons, which serve for the abode of the larvae and 
pupae, increases, forming iri'egular layers of cells, one above another, on the sides of which the brown matter, which 
Reaumur names pat^e, is ordinarily found. The wax which these insects make, has, according to Huber, the 
same origin as that of the Domestic Bee, being only an elaborated kind of honey, which exudes from between the 
segments of the abdomen ; several females live on good terms together in the same nest ; the females are far less 
productive than the queen of the hive. [The species are very numerous. Types, Apis musconm, Linn., the Moss- 
carder Humble Bee] ; Apis lapidaria [the Lapidary Humble Bee, which builds amongst stones, but also uses moss] ; 
and A. terrestris, [which builds in the ground without using moss. The females of some Humble Bees are desti- 
tute of apparatus for carrying pollen paste on the hind legs, and are consequently considered as parasites. They 
form the genus Psithyrus, St. Farg., changed by Newman to Apathus.'] 
The other Social Bees have no spurs at the extremity of the posterior tibiae. 
Apis, Linn., — 
The workers of which have the basal joint of the hind tarsi oblong, and furnished on the inside with transverse 
rows of short hairs. 
Apis mellijica, Linn., or common Hive Bee, is much smaller and more oblong than the Humble Bee ; the body 
Fig. 123.— Drone Bee. Fig. 124.— Queen Bee. Fig. 125.— Neuter Bee. 
is clothed with a plush in some parts, and its colours are but little varied ; the Hive consists of neuters or Workers, 
of which the number is from 15,000 to 20,000, or even sometimes 30,000,— of about 600 or 800, or even sometimes 
more than 1000 males, and which are commonly called Drones, and generally of a single female, which the ancients 
called the King, and the moderns term the Queen. The workers, smaller than the other individuals, have 
12-jointed antennae and 6-jointed abdomen ; the basal joint of the hind tarsi dilated into a pointed ear at the outer 
basal angle, and covered on the inside with a short, fine, close silken coating, and armed with a sting. The female 
exhibits the same characters, but the workers have the abdomen shorter, the mandibles spoon-shaped, without 
1 teeth ; the outside of their hind tibiae are also furnished with the pollen basket ; the coating of the basal joint of 
the hind tarsi has seven or eight transverse striae. The males and females are larger, with the mandibles notched 
beneath the tip, and pilose ; the proboscis is shorter, especially in the males. These differ from the two other 
kinds in having 13-jointed antennae ; the head rounded ; the eyes large, and united on the crown ; the mandibles 
smaller and more hairy ; the want of a sting ; the four hind feet short. 
The ventral segments of the workers, with the exception of the first and last, have within two pockets, where the 
wax is secreted and moulded into plates, which are discharged between the ventral segments. The wax, according 
