310 THE LIVING ANIMALS OF THE WORLD 
The ancients had observed something of the economy of bees, but many of their ideas 
on the subject were strangely fantastic. It was perhaps natural to suppose that the leader of 
the bees was a king rather than a queen ; but it was also supposed that a swarm of bees 
could be obtained by killing an ox and leaving the carcase to rot. This notion appears to have 
originated in swarms of flies, more or less resembling bees, having been noticed flying round or 
near putrefying carcases. 
Among all the truly social insects — i.e. hive-bees, wasps, ants, and termites, or so-called 
white ants — we find that the bulk of the community consists of sterile females, and the number 
of fertile females is very small, even in those cases where more than one female is permitted to 
live in a nest, as among wasps. 
R/joro by C. Reid"] 
BEES 
[ Pf'ishaw^ N, 
S'zvarming from the hive after the queen 
Humbi.E-BEES live in small communities, consisting of males, females, and workers; but 
their economy is very simple compared with that of the hive-bee, and they do not confine 
themselves to a single female to a nest. 
The Solitary Bees are very numerous in species, and consist only of males and females. 
They do not live in communities, but each female constructs a dwelling for her own 
young. Many of them burrow in the ground, and they are so far gregarious that a large 
number of females will sometimes form their burrows near each other in the same bank. 
The solitary bees are very varied in their habits, and some of them are parasitic on other 
species. 
The large Carpenter-bees, which form their nests in wood, are not British ; but there 
are some small species which make theirs in the interior of bramble-sticks. Some are very 
hairy; others are smooth, and look at first sight like small wasps, being banded with black and 
yellow. But one of the handsomest and most conspicuous of the solitary species is the FULVOUS 
Bee, which is a hairy species much resembling a small humble-bee, and is one often seen in 
abundance along with other bees, flying round sallow blossoms in spring. 
