3o8 the living ANIxMALS OF THE WORLD 
Photos by W, P. Dando^ F.Z.S.y Regent's Park 
SOLITARY ANT 
(MALE) (FEMALE) 
Not a true ant, but a burroiving-ivasp, believed 
to be parasitic in the nests of humble-bees 
and more or less metallic. A photograph of a large and 
beautiful South American species appears in the Coloured 
Plate. The largest British bees are the stout-bodied HuMBLE- 
BEES, or Bumble-bees, which are generally yellow, more or 
less banded with black, or else black with a red tail. They 
form a small nest of cells just beneath the surface of the 
ground in meadows. A common European species, not found 
in England, is the large black, violet-winged Carpenter-BEE, 
which makes its nest in a gallery burrowed in a post, where 
there is a separate compartment for each grub. 
There are only a few species belonging to the True Hive- 
BEES found in different parts of the world. They can always be 
distinguished from any of the SOLITARY Bees, some of which 
much resemble them, by having a single long, narrow cell, about four times as long as broad,, 
running along the front edge of the fore wing. In the solitary bees the corresponding cell 
is much broader and shorter, rarely more than one and a half times as long as broad, and 
only occupying a small portion of the front edge of the wing. 
Hive-bees have always been looked upon with more interest than most other insects, both 
on account of the valuable products of honey and wax which they produce, and because of 
their remarkable habits. They are probably less intelligent than ants, but they are larger;, 
and as all classes of their adult population are winged insects, and have been kept in a 
domesticated or semi-domesticated state for many centuries, they have lent themselves more 
readily to observation. 
The hive-bees live in very large communities, and in a state of nature they make their 
nests in hollow trees or in crevices of rocks, where they build their waxen cells, store their 
honey, and rear their young. There are three classes among them, — the queen-bee, the female 
and the mother of the hive; the male, or drone; and the neuter, or worker, which is really 
an imperfectly developed and usually sterile female. Like other insects, bees pass through 
a metamorphosis, which in their case is of the description called “ complete,” for the immature 
forms of the bee show no resemblance whatever to the winged insect which will finally be 
perfected. Every bee commences its life in the form of an egg. Each egg is laid by the 
queen-bee in a separate cell, and in a few days the egg hatches into a white footless maggot,, 
which is carefully tended by the workers, and fed 
by them with a preparation secreted by the bees, 
which is carefully graduated, not only according 
to the age of the grub, but is differently 
constituted according to the sex and status of 
the bee; for it is well known that it is in the 
power of the workers to develop a young grub 
which would otherwise become a sterile worker 
into a perfect queen-bee, by placing it in a 
large cell, and rearing it on the same nourishing 
food which is supplied to those grubs which 
are intended to become perfect queens. When 
the grub is full-grown, it spins itself a small 
silken cocoon, and becomes a pupa, or nymph, 
as it is called. The pupa somewhat resembles 
a swathed mummy, for all the external portions 
of the future bee can be seen outlined in the 
hard casing which encloses it. As soon as it 
arrives at maturity, it makes its way out 
through the upper end, when the cell is at 
Photo by IV» P. Dando, S.] 
HORNET 
iRegent's Park 
