Chapter XXI: Section 2: Cenobites (dwellers in community) (1)

Subsection 1. SPURRED.
† _Parasitical._
Genus 25. APATHUS, _Newman_.
(Plate XIV. figs. 1 and 2.)
APIS ** _e_ 2 partly, Kirby.—PSITHYRUS, St. Fargeau.

_Gen. Char._: BODY subhirsute. HEAD subglobose; _vertex_ broad, glabrous, with a deeply impressed cross upon its summit, in the centre of which the ocelli are placed in an almost straight line and contiguously; _antennæ_ short, filiform, geniculated, the _scape_ slightly curved, the basal joint of the _flagellum_ subglobose, its second joint as long as the terminal one and subclavate, the rest short, subequal, but gradually increasing in length to the terminal one, which is laterally compressed; the _face_ flat; _clypeus_ transversely lunate but straight in front; _labrum_ lunulate, tuberculated laterally; _mandibles_ broad and obscurely bidentate; _cibarial apparatus_ moderate; _tongue_ twice the length of the labium, tapering from base to apex, where it terminates in a small knob, and is clothed with short hair; _paraglossæ_ obsolete; _labial palpi_ as long as the tongue, the two first joints long and membranous and tapering to the apex of the second, which is acute, and about one-fourth the length of the first, it has the two very short, subclavate, terminal joints, which are conterminous, and articulated just before its acute apex; _maxillæ_ subhastate and acuminate; _maxillary palpi_ very short, linear, and equal. THORAX globose, pubescent, concealing its divisions; _metathorax_ truncated; _wings_ with three submarginal cells nearly equal, or the third the largest, the second receiving the first recurrent nervure at about one-third its length, and the second is received by the third submarginal cell near its extremity; _legs_ setose; the _posterior tibiæ_ convex, very slightly enlarging from base to apex, rounded at the extremity externally, and unfurnished with means to convey pollen; _posterior plantæ_ oblong, narrowly equal, and not auriculated; _claws_ bifid. ABDOMEN ovate, convex above, deflecting toward its extremity, and subglabrous on the disk, the terminal dorsal segment triangular, and its ventral plate straight at its apex with the lateral angles reflected, making it concave beneath and subcarinated longitudinally in the centre, or also triangular and the sides of the prominent angle deflected.

The MALE differs in having the antennæ slightly longer, in being rather more pubescent, more highly and rather differently coloured, and its terminal segment merely rounded.

NATIVE SPECIES.

3. _campestris_, Panzer, ♂ ♀. 6-9 lines. (Plate XIV. fig. 2. The
fig. marked ♂ by mistake for ♀.)
_campestris_, Kirby, ♀.
_Rossiella_, Kirby, ♂.
_Leeana_, Kirby.
_Franciscana_, Kirby.
_subterranea_, Kirby.
2. _Barbutellus_, Kirby, ♂ ♀. 6-9 lines.
3. _vestalis_, Fourcroy, ♂ ♀. 6-10 lines. (Plate XIV. fig. 2 ♀.)
_vestalis_, Kirby, ♀.
4. _rupestris_, Fabricius, ♂ ♀. 6-10 lines. (Plate XIV. fig. 1 ♂ ♀.)
_albinella_, Kirby, ♂.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

Named from _α_, privative, _πάθος_, _affection_; that is to say, without affection, from their habit of leaving their young to be nurtured by others, in allusion to their parasitical instincts, for the young of these bees are brought up in the nests of the _Bombi_. They form the only instance in bee-parasitism of the parasite closely, or nearly so, resembling its sitos, if not always in colour, certainly in habit. Having no labours to undergo they consist of merely males and females, but the latter, although very like the large female _Bombi_, are much less pubescent than these, for they have a broad disk, upon the upper surface of the abdomen, always smooth and shining. Both sexes appear to have free in- and egress to the nests of those _Bombi_ which they infest, without any let or hindrance on the part of the latter, with whom they seem to dwell in perfect amity. In the times of their appearance they closely resemble the _Halicti_ and the neighbouring _Bombi_. Thus the females, after impregnation in the autumn, having hibernated during the winter in selected receptacles, come out with the first gleams of spring conjunctively with the large maternal _Bombi_, in whose nests they have taken their long repose in perfect torpidity; and as soon as these begin to accumulate the masses of conglomerated honey and pollen whereon to deposit their eggs, the parasite takes advantage of it, lays her eggs too, and thus secures food for her offspring. There being two broods of them in the year, many are gradually developed with the advance of summer, but the great hatching takes place in the autumn, when the thistles are in blossom. Then both males and females come forth in abundance, the latter are made fertile, and their partners enjoy the brief interval of the still blossoming flowers until the usual period is put to their existence by natural decay, the first frosts, or the rapacity of insectivorous birds. Connected with this last circumstance I have a personal experience to record, and which its repetition would indicate as being one of Nature’s prompting acts. A lofty sandy level, very near the high-road which leads at the upper part of Hampstead Heath, to Highgate, from which road it was separated by merely a band of whins and coarse grass, used to be a very favourite collecting place of mine, for there, and in its immediate vicinity, I have often caught, within a very brief period, more than half the genera, and a very large number of the species of the fossorial _Hymenoptera_. One particular little spot was inhabited by _Psen equestris_, rare everywhere else, and our largest _Cerceris_, who carried on their instinctive pursuits during all the summer months, but at a particular time in the autumn, varying slightly with the nature of the season, a flock of wagtails (_Motacilla_) would alight and make brief work of those fossores which were still aflight; and this was repeated season after season, as if the wagtails thought it was time that their own rapacity should stop the course of these predacious insects. But to return, the female _Apathi_ then resort to the nests of the _Bombi_ whence they have issued, and lay themselves up in their winter dormitory. That this must take place speedily after impregnation is rendered almost conclusive by the fine state in which their pubescence appears in the spring, which would be tarnished did they loiter about visiting flowers previous to their return home. But the labours of the female and neuter _Bombi_ themselves are now over, and they would therefore find no store whereon to deposit their eggs. The parasitical allocation of these insects is as follows. _Apathus rupestris_ infests _Bombus lapidarius_; _A. vestalis_ the _B. terrestris_, and this forms an instance in which the parasite is not clothed in the colours of its sitos. But _A. Barbutellus_ has a wide range, for it frequents the nests of _B. pratorum_, _B. Derhamellus_, and _B. Skrimshiranus_.

†† _Not parasitical._ _Collectors of pollen._
‡ _Temporarily social._
Genus 26. BOMBUS, _Latreille_.
(Plate XIV. figs. 3 and 4, and Plate XVI. figs. 1, 2, 3.)
APIS ** _e_ 2, Kirby.

_Gen. Char._: BODY densely hirsute. HEAD small, subglobose, not so wide as the thorax; the _vertex_ glabrous, with a longitudinal, short, deep channel, crossed in its centre by a deeper transverse one, wherein the _ocelli_ are disposed in a very slightly-curved line; _antennæ_ short, geniculated, and filiform; the _scape_ half as long as the flagellum, the first joint of which is globose, the second subclavate, the rest short and subequal, and the terminal one compressed laterally; _face_ flat, densely pubescent; _clypeus_ subtriangular, gibbous, its base truncated, and apex convexly lobated, or straight and margined; _labrum_ lunulate; _mandibles_ broad at the base, and obscurely tridentate; _cibarial apparatus_ moderate; _tongue_ twice the length of the labium, clothed with pubescence to within a brief distance of its apex, and terminating in a small knob; _paraglossæ_ about one-fourth the length of the tongue, coadunate at the base, and acuminate; _labial palpi_ three-fourths the length of the tongue, broad at the base, and tapering to the extremity of the acute apex of the second joint, which is about one-fifth the length of the first, the two terminal joints very short and articulated laterally just before the end of the second; _labium_ one-half the length of the tongue, broadest at its base, and acutely produced in the centre of its inosculation; _maxillæ_ as long as the tongue, subhastate and acuminate; _maxillary palpi_ two-jointed, short, sometimes equal, and slightly robust, or with the basal joint very robust, and its terminal joint twice as long and linear. THORAX globose, very hirsute, whence its divisions are inconspicuous; _scutellum_ lunate; _metathorax_ truncated; _wings_ with three submarginal cells subequal, or the third the longest, and a fourth slightly commenced, the second receiving the first recurrent nervure near its centre, and the third receiving the second recurrent nervure close to its extremity; _legs_ robust, pilose, the four anterior plantæ with a dense, short, setose brush beneath; the _posterior tibiæ_ triangular, very smooth, and irregularly concave on their external surface, fringed with long pile along its two external edges, and its extremity tipped with a short pecten of stiff setæ; the _plantæ_ elongate and broad, nearly equal, externally shagreened and spinulose, with a longish auriculated process at the external angle of the superior edge, a dense brush of short, stiff hair beneath, and a short pecten of stiff setæ edging its subemarginate extremity; the _claw-joint_ the longest of the four short subsequent joints, and the _claws_ bifid. ABDOMEN ovate or globose, deflected towards its extremity, its base retuse, the last segment triangular, and terminating obtusely.

The MALE differs in always being more intensely coloured; in having the _antennæ_ distinctly longer, less distinctly geniculated, the _scape_ shorter, the third joint of the _flagellum_ almost as short as its basal joint, and the fourth as long as the terminal one, which latter two are the longest of all, and the joints from the fourth to the eleventh severally more or less slightly curved.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. _lapidarius_, Linnæus, ♂ ♀ ⚲. 6-10 lines.
_lapidarius_, Kirby.
2. _Harrisellus_, Kirby, ♂ ♀ ⚲. 6-10 lines. (Plate XVI. fig. 1 ♀.)
3. _subterraneus_, Linnæus. ♂ ♀ ⚲. 5-10 lines.
_Soroensis_, Kirby?
4. _Latreillellus_, Kirby, ♂ ♀ ⚲. 5-8 lines.
_Tunstallana_, Kirby.
5. _hortorum_, Linnæus, ♂ ♀ ⚲. 5-10 lines.
_hortorum_, Kirby.
6. _Soroensis_, Fabricius, ♂ ♀ ⚲. 5-8 lines. (Plate XV. fig. 4 ♂.)
_Cullumana_, Kirby, ♂.
7. _lucorum_, Linnæus, ♂ ♀ ⚲. 5-9 lines.
_lucorum_, Kirby.
_virginalis_, Kirby.
8. _terrestris_, Linnæus, ♂ ♀ ⚲. 7-11 lines.
_terrestris_, Kirby.
9. _Skrimshiranus_, Kirby, ♂ ♀ ⚲. 5-8 lines.
_Jonella_, Kirby.
10. _nivalis_, Dahlbom, ♂ ♀. 6-8 lines.
11. _pratorum_, Linnæus, ♂ ♀ ⚲. 4-8 lines.
_pratorum_, Kirby.
_subinterrupta_, Kirby.
_Donovanella_, Kirby.
_Burrellana_, Kirby.
12. _Derhamellus_, Kirby, ♂ ♀ ⚲. 4-8 lines.
_Raiella_, Kirby, ♀.
13. _Lapponicus_, Fabricius, ♂ ♀ ⚲. 5-9 lines.
_regelationis_, Newman.
14. _fragrans_, Pallas, ♂ ♀ ⚲. 5-10 lines. (Plate XIV. fig. 3 ♀.)
_fragrans_, Kirby.
15. _sylvarum_, Linnæus, ♂ ♀ ⚲. 6-8 lines. (Plate XVI. fig. 3 ♀.)
_sylvarum_, Kirby.
16. _Smithianus_, White, ♂♀⚲. 4-10 line
17. _senilis_, Fabricius, ♂♀⚲. 6-9 lines.
_muscorum_, Kirby.
18. _muscorum_, Linnæus, ♂♀⚲. 4-9 lines.
_Francillonana_, Kirby.
_floralis_, Kirby.
_Sowerbiana_, Kirby.
_Beckwithella_, Kirby.
_Curtisella_, Kirby.
_Forsterella_, Kirby.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

These, perhaps the most conspicuous of our native bees, certainly the largest, and probably the most generally known after the domestic bee, have their scientific generic name from _βόμβος_, an imitative word, made to indicate the sound of the hum of the insects themselves. They have many popular names such as bumble bees, dumbledors, humble-bees, and in Scotland they are called foggie bees. They consist of three sexes, males, females, and neuters, which differ considerably in size, the females being very much the largest, and the neuters the smallest. Of course, individually, like all other insects, there is much variation among them in the intensity or diversity of the colouring of their pubescence, from which it is chiefly that they derive their specific distinctions; in the relative sizes of individuals also there are great differences. It is the males, as is usual among the bees, which are the gayest in their attire, and take the widest range of variation, and sometimes so much exceed the typical specific character in their markings as to require experience to identify them, and to place them correctly with their true species, which can only be ascertained with certainty by the examination of the male organs of generation, which differ in the various species, but are undeviating in their specific uniformity. Of this character, which I was the first to discover as being of specific value for critical determination in the separation of the species of very difficult insects, I was enabled to make important use in the genus _Dorylus_, in a monograph on the _Dorylidæ_, an exotic family proximate to the ants, and which was published in Taylor’s ‘Annals of Natural History’ for May, June, and July, 1840. The females and neuters of _Bombus_ are less subject to such extensive dissimilarity, and may be usually associated, by their pubescence, in their legitimate groups. Form also frequently lends its aid as subsidiary to their specific identification.

These and _Apis mellifica_ are our only social bees, which live in numerous communities under a kind of municipal government which is considerably less perfectly organized in the present genus than in the domestic bee, and thence they are called “villagers,” in contradistinction to the citizenship of the hive bee, earned by its comparatively metropolitan institutions, and the centralization of its government, which wholly emanates from the pervading influence of the queen upon the labours, and, indeed, upon the existence of her subjects. But the _Bombi_ are under much less social restraint, and admit of several co-regents in the same community, without its being productive of any disturbance of social harmony. In the account of the genus _Apathus_, the last described, we have seen that the _Bombi_ are subject to bee-parasites, which in some closely resemble the species they infest, and we have also shown there how these are distributed. The hive bee is not exposed to such intrusion, although, like these, they have many enemies. In the very earliest spring months these _Bombi_ are abroad; for as soon as the catkins of the sallow are ripe for impregnation, they are on the wing. But it is now that the large females only are at work, for they have to create their companions before they can be surrounded by them. Their fruition is the result of the previous autumn’s amours, at a period too late to form sufficient stores for the numerous brood they will produce, and accordingly, after revelling in a brief honeymoon, they resort, like staid matrons, to a temporary domicile, some cavity just large enough for themselves. In this retirement they pass the cheerless wintry months, requiring perhaps the incubation of time thoroughly to mature their fruit. Whether this be the case or not, as soon as the earth begins to feel the warmth of the sun upon its return from its far southern journey, and to respond to the renewed vitality it gives to vegetation, these bees feel its active influence and come forth. With the progress of the spring and summer most flowers are exposed to their rifling, but they revel upon the elegant flowers of the Horse-chestnut, and their hum is the music of the lime when it is in blossom. According to the species, they select a cavity for their nest, or construct it upon the surface of the ground, this being the case with the CARDER-BEES, which gather moss to construct their residence. In those which inhabit beneath the surface, the selection of an already formed cavity greatly abridges their labour, and their instinct prompts them to choose one sufficiently large for the prospective community, but the nest itself is gradually extended in size suitable to their progressive increase in numbers. All that the parent female does at first is to form a receptacle sufficiently large for her first gatherings of pollen and honey, whereon to deposit her first eggs, and to form a waxen cruse or two to contain the honey requisite for the nest operations of keeping these masses moist enough for the nurture of the larvæ. The material of these pots although called wax is not properly so, but is an agglutination of collected vegetable matter, for it is not plastic to the fingers like wax, and it burns, leaving a carbonaceous residuum very attractive to moisture. The larvæ hatched from the eggs now deposited produce the first neuters, which spin a cocoon wherein they rapidly undergo their transformations. They are, in the first instance, aided to emerge from their silken cot by the parent gnawing off its top, but subsequently this duty is performed, as the family increases, by the neuters then developed. The young bee, on emerging from its cocoon, is not thoroughly hardened in its integument, and its pubescence also acquires by degrees only its proper colouring; all this is not long in being effected, but, until they are thoroughly able to fly forth, they continue to be fed by their elder sisterhood, for the neuters are properly abortive females. Males, and further productive females are produced later in the spring, and are smaller than the normal sizes of those sexes; the autumnal brood, consisting also of males and females, again resume the full size of the complete insect, and it is these females which, after impregnation, hibernate and reappear in the following early spring to be each the parent of a new progeny. The population of these nests varies considerably in the several species: in some, as in that of _Bombus terrestris_, there are more than two hundred, and in that of _B. senilis_ there are about a hundred and forty; but it is in those that construct their nests above the ground that the fewest are found. As with the general population, so with the relative proportions of the sexes, the several species vary. Of course all these numbers are approximative only, as under certain conditions they will necessarily differ, nor are the general or relative numbers identical, even in the same species, in the same season, and in the same locality. The proportions are usually somewhat like this, about double the number of neuters to females, and nearly the same number of males as of females. In some of the communities there are even as few as twenty neuters, and these, of course, comprise those species which are most rarely found by collectors. The most pugnacious of all, and the fiercest in their attacks and most painful in their stings, are those which live underground or in cavities formed of accumulations of stones, and it is these which are the least constructive in their habitations, as if their truculent nature rejected the concomitants of incipient civilization; for it is those which build moss-nests, requiring a certain amount of skill, that are the most gentle in their habits. With the increase of numbers in the habitation, the rapidity of the labours progresses, and the accumulations quickly increase; but there is always opportunity for the entire community to find employment, either in enlarging their nests, when they build them, or in securing them from the intrusion of water, or repelling enemies, or feeding the young, and accumulating stores. In collecting pollen they are often covered as if they had rolled themselves in it, and this they brush from their hairy bodies chiefly with their posterior legs; sometimes they return in this disguised condition, and free themselves from it only at home; in other cases they bring it home collected in little masses upon the corbiculum, or basket, of the posterior shanks. They may be often caught thus laden, and I once captured a large female of _B. terrestris_, with the shanks and plantæ of both intermediate and posterior legs covered with masses of thick clay, required doubtless at home for some domestic repairs. The instinct of these bees teaches them that where the tube of the flower is too narrow for the introduction of their body, and too long for even their long proboscis to reach the nectarium at the bottom, they may get at the honey by piercing a hole near that organ, which they know where to find, and thus they readily get at the treasure that they seek, lapping it through the aperture and carrying it off. If, in their collecting excursions, they are intercepted by heavy rains, or loiter far away too long until the twilight closes, they will pass the night away from home, and return laden with their gatherings as soon as the warmth of the sun reanimates them to activity; thus they will often sleep in flowers, and a nest therefore taken at night is not always a sure indication in those found within it, of its complete population. In their amours, the autumnal females evince considerable coquetry to attract their partners: they place themselves upon some branch in the most fervid sunshine, and here they practise their cajoleries in the vibrations of their wings, and allure them by their attractive postures. The males are simultaneously abroad, and soon perceive them. The seduction is complete, and they pounce down upon them with impetuosity, but their brief indulgence terminates in death, for with his abating vigour the female repulses him, and he falls to the ground never to take wing again. Amongst their insect enemies the _Dipterous_ genera, _Volucella_ and _Conops_, are very destructive to their larvæ,—the first of these genera in its colouring greatly resembling the species upon which it preys. Foxes, weasels, field-mice, all prey upon them, and, like schoolboys, often destroy the bee for the sake of its honey-bag, an instance of which I have before recorded as illustrative of their endurance of the loss of a considerable portion of the body without its being fatal.

The most interesting part of their history is perhaps that upon which I have not yet enlarged, namely, the structure of their nests. This is particularly the case with the carder-bees, which felt and plait the filaments of moss to form its whole enclosure. Such species select a spot close to an abundant supply of the material; this they bite off and form pellets of. To these nests a moderately long arched passage is formed of the same material, of sufficient size to permit the free passage of the bees to and fro. This necessarily is shorter at first and leads to a smaller receptacle when the parent bee works alone. But as her offspring of workers increases, the passage is lengthened and the nest enlarged. To construct it, when in full activity, the bees form a chain, one behind the other, extending from the growing material to the entrance of their passage to the nest, all their heads being turned towards the moss and their backs to the nest. The first bites off the raw material, rolls it and twists it, and passes it to the second, by whom and the succeeding ones it undergoes further manipulation, and where the chain terminates at the commencement of the passage another bee receives it and conveys it along this into the interior, and then applies it itself or passes it to others thus employed where it is required. A vaulted covering and sides is thus formed or extended within the cavity by the plaiting or wreathing together of these sprigs of moss, and the inside of which is further strengthened by being plastered with a coating of the pseudo-wax, which, however, smells much like true wax, and with which the lower loose filaments of the moss are intermingled, that one cannot be separated from the other without tearing the whole to pieces. Thus ingeniously do these insects enclose their home. These nests are not always on the surface, but often cavities of the necessary size are thus lined, and then they are doubly secure. Within these nests, with the increase of the population the number of the cocoons of course increases, as they are never used twice over, excepting that when they are conveniently situated for the purpose they are converted into honey pots. Thus sometimes several layers are formed of these irregularly-placed cocoons, of which the longest diameter is, however, always perpendicular to the horizon. In this way _B. muscorum_, _senilis_, _fragrans_, and others build. Some use a naked cavity, and merely secure it in its crevices from the filtering intrusion of rain or other water, the closing patches being formed of the usual waxy material. This is the practice of _B. terrestris_, which associates the largest communities of all; and _B. lapidarius_ seeks cavities among stones or in the earth, and forms a nest of a regular oval, but merely clothes the sides, which is done by bits of moss and grass carried carefully home. The domestic arrangements within are much the same in all, the prolific females and the neuters being the labourers, which perform all the duties of building, the collecting and caring for the young, the function of the males being limited to the perpetuation of the species.

Subsection 2. WITHOUT SPURS TO THE POSTERIOR TIBIÆ.
‡‡ _Permanently social._
Genus 27. APIS, _Linnæus_.
(Plate XVI. fig. 4 ♂ ♀ ⚲.)
APIS ** _e_ 1, Kirby.

_Gen. Char._:—THE NEUTER.—BODY nearly cylindrical and subpubescent. HEAD transverse, about as wide as the thorax; _vertex_ and _face_ deeply longitudinally channelled in the centre, the latter to the apex of a small triangular elevated space between the insertion of the antennæ, and extending to the base of the clypeus, the sides of the face flat; the _ocelli_ rather large, seated far back upon the vertex in a triangle, the anterior one in the depth of the longitudinal channel, the two lateral ones placed further back towards the occiput in a transverse indentation crossing the longitudinal one; _compound eyes_ very pubescent; the _hexagonal facets_ very minute; _antennæ_ short, filiform, geniculated; the _scape_ nearly half the length of the flagellum and subfusiform, the basal joint of the flagellum globose, the second subclavate and subequal with the remainder, very slightly lengthening to the apical joint, which is compressed and as short as the second; _clypeus_ quadrate, convex; _labrum_ transverse, linear, slightly waved in front; _mandibles_ broad at the apex, edentate, obliquely truncated and concavo-convex; _cibarial apparatus_ shortish; _tongue_ nearly twice the length of the labium, linear, pubescent, and terminating in a small knob; _paraglossæ_ obsolete, coadunate with the base of the tongue; _labial palpi_ not quite so long as the tongue, the first joint four times as long as the remainder, and tapering from the base to the apex of the second joint, which is about one-fourth the length of the preceding, and has the two very short terminal joints articulated just before its acute apex; _maxillæ_ broad, hastate; _labium_ half the length of the tongue, its inosculation straightly transverse, not so long as the tongue and acuminate; the _maxillary palpi_ extremely short, the basal one the shortest. THORAX subglobose; _prothorax_ inconspicuous; _scutellum_ lunulate and impending over the post-scutellum, which is transverse and linear; _metathorax_ truncated; _wings_ with a long marginal cell extending nearly to the end of the wing, and obtuse at its extremity, three submarginal cells which terminate at less than half the length of the marginal, the second the largest and receiving the first recurrent nervure towards its commencement, the third oblique and narrow and receiving the second recurrent nervure just beyond its centre; _legs_ slender, subpilose; the anterior and intermediate _tibiæ_ with a spur, their _plantæ_ with a dense short close brush all round, the _posterior tibiæ_ triangular, glabrous within, externally smooth, shining, and irregularly concave, the edges fringed longitudinally with long hair curving inwards, and forming the sides of the corbiculum, or basket, which conveys the _matériel_ of the nest, the apex transverse and pectinated with short rigid setæ, but wholly without spurs; the _plantæ_ oblong, not quite so long as the tibiæ, the sides nearly parallel, the upper edge fringed with long loose hair, subglabrous externally, but furnished internally with ten transverse, parallel rows of short stiff golden hair, with an auricle at the outer angle, forming collectively a dense brush, and its oblique apex pectinated with short stiff setæ, the remainder of the tarsal joints short, the fourth the shortest, and the claw-joint the longest; the _claws_ short, robust, and bifid. ABDOMEN retuse at the base, subcylindrical, convex above, and terminating conically, the first segment very short, the second the longest, the ventral segments ridged longitudinally in the centre.

The FEMALE, or QUEEN differs in the head not being quite so wide as the thorax, in having the _cibarial apparatus_ very much shorter; the _mandibles_ distinctly bidentate, the inner edge of the inner tooth stretching obliquely to the acute inner extremity of the broad apex of the organ; the _labial palpi_ as long as the tongue, with all the joints conterminous, the basal one slightly acuminate, the second linear, the two terminal ones more slender and shorter, the pubescence of the eyes very much longer than in the neuter; the _legs_ more robust and less pilose; the _posterior tibiæ_ convex externally, without the lateral fringes of hair, and their plantæ merely oblong, without the external basal auricle. The ABDOMEN is also considerably relatively longer; and has not the central ventral ridge.

The MALE or DRONE differs from both in being considerably more robust and more completely cylindrical, and very much more densely pubescent; the _compound eyes_ contiguous at the summit, occupying the whole of the vertex, and nearly all the lateral portions of the face, extending below to the articulation of the mandibles, their pubescence much shorter but denser than in the other sex; the _ocelli_ large, and seated at the top of the central portion of the face in a close triangle, a little above the insertion of the antennæ, and in front of the conjunction of the compound eyes, the lateral ones of the triangle being closely contiguous to the upper inner edge of those eyes; the _antennæ_ are more robust and rather longer; the _cibarial apparatus_ very short; the _labial palpi_ about three-fourths the length of the tongue, and the joints conterminous, the _tongue_ robust; the _thorax_ is nearly quadrate; the _legs_ are nearly naked, the four anterior very slender; the _posterior tibiæ_ slightly curved, convex externally; the _posterior plantæ_ more robust, and more convex externally than their tibiæ, they are regularly oblong, and without the basal auricle, the rest of the joints of the tarsi are very short. The ABDOMEN robust, and obtuse at its extremity, but its seventh segment is concealed beneath; the _ventral segments_ concave longitudinally.

NATIVE SPECIES.

1. _mellifica_, Linnæus. (Plate XVI. fig. 4 ♂♀⚲.)
_mellifica_, Kirby.

GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.

The name of this genus, _Apis_, adopted by Linnæus as the classical generic name of the bee, although with him it comprised the whole modern family of these insects, but which, as now restricted, in accordance with its limitation exclusively to the congeners of his adopted type, is the ancient Latin vernacular name of the honey-bee, and to which it has been ever since uniformly attached. This name, as shown by its derivative meaning, was originally imposed with direct reference to the insect’s constructive habits, as was the case with the names given to it in the more primitive languages before referred to, and which is also the origin of its Teutonic and Scandinavian appellations—_Biene_, _Bie_, and _Bi_, whence our own common name for it is obtained through the Saxon _Beo_, and we have beside Bye or bee, signifying _a dwelling_. From this circumstance it would seem that a very early and universal discernment existed of its ingenuity and skill, its significant name being everywhere analogous.

The habits and economy of these industrious little creatures have been a source of greater wonder and admiration the more closely and accurately they have been observed. They have attracted the thoughtful speculation of minds of the largest compass throughout all ages, which, reasoning upon the _modus operandi_ of these insects, have endeavoured to define, and determine the differences between instinct and reason, with their precise limitations. But baffled in their attempt to settle whether these be affinities or analogies, it should rather have persuaded them to adopt the motto of Montaigne, and exclaim, _Que sais-je?_ Into these metaphysical discussions it is not necessary to enter, and I confine myself to the natural history of the insect.

Although the description of the three sexes which comprise the population of the hive are technically given above with scientific precision, it will be as well, perhaps, to recapitulate them briefly, with their distinctive attributes, in a more popular form.

They consist of a queen, or productive female, whose function is thought to be exclusively to lay eggs, but who may perhaps have some hitherto undiscovered control over the executive of the hive, to be implied by the confusion invariably following her death or her removal from the community, and which becomes totally destructive to its organic constituency unless stayed by another monarch being improvised, or by one extraneously supplied; one monarch alone rules without a coadjutor, and without any equal being tolerated, for the presence of a second queen, or the immature larva of one, even of her own progeny, maddens her to murderous aggression, or to the impulse of emigration accompanied with a host of adherents. She never leaves the hive when once her duties have fully commenced, for by distinction of structure she is rendered incompetent to execute any of the labours that devolve upon the workers; her tongue is formed only to lap nutriment; she has no cysts for the secretion of wax, she is without the honey-bag for conveying that liquid home, and her posterior shanks are convex externally, and thus deficient in the concave basket for carrying home the stores of pollen or propolis, whilst their plantæ are without the little earlet at the top externally, or the close dense brush arranged in rows within, which aid these workers in their many manipulations. Her wings are too short to convey her ponderous body through the air, and her sting becomes stronger by being curved. Thus she is exonerated from labour by the incapacity of her structure to execute it, although her duties are quite as incessant and as arduous, being indispensable to the perpetuation of the species.

Her consort, the DRONE, is the male of the hive, and although the queen is monandrous or single-spoused, and although the hive during the season rarely throws off more than three swarms, usually restricted to the accompaniment of a single queen, and thus but three males are absolutely required, nature is so provident of the great design of perpetuation, that to provide against the possibility of its frustration, the hive usually produces about a thousand drones. A peculiarity in the structure of the drone which facilitates his discovery of the virgin queen when she issues from the hive on the bridal excursion, which she makes preliminary to her heading a swarm of emigrants, or assuming monarchy at home, consists in the vertical enlargement of his compound eyes, which meet over the brow, and in the posterior expansion of the inferior wings, which take a broad backward sweep, giving the insect larger powers of flight, but perhaps required as much by its own bulkiness and weight as for the purpose of ascending above his bride in the upper regions of the air; but that its weight cannot be the sole reason is testified by the analogous structure in the male of the genus _Astata_, one of the fossorial _Hymenoptera_, where a similar expansion of the inferior wing is concomitant with a similar development of the compound eyes, yet in which the abdomen is very small, and this power is therefore evidently given to these merely to increase the velocity or the duration of their flight. The rest of the structure of these drones disables them, like all other male bees, for any labour; and as they must be sustained as long as they may be of service, the possibility of which terminates with the last issue of a swarm from the hive, a period appreciated by the instinct of the workers, they are then driven forth, but it is in dispute whether the workers destroy them, or whether their destruction is effected by exposure and hunger, or by the natural limitation of their lives, for although their tongues are formed upon the same type as that of the worker, it is considerably less developed, and appears to be adapted only to obtain nutriment from the honey already collected in the cells, as they seem even deficient in the instinct to gather it for themselves from flowers, never being observed to visit them.

The last inhabitant of the hive is the WORKER, or abortive female, whose labour has several phases. A difference of size amongst them has been supposed to have been noticed by observers as varying with their occupation and duties, but as they are all constructed in the same manner, with precisely the same organs, which are of the same form and in the same situation, this must be a mere imaginative surmise. Their similarity of structure permits them, collectively, to apply themselves to the same occupations which the needs of the community may at any moment demand. Taking them separately with their distinctive occupations at any given time, without implying by it a permanent separation of classes, we find them to consist of wax secreters, builders or cell-sculpturers, honey collectors, pollen collectors, propolis collectors, nurses of the young, ventilators, undertakers to carry off the dead, who are perhaps also the scavengers which cleanse away any occasional dirt, sentinels to guard the hive outside and inside, and attendants upon the queen, or as the “‘Times’ Bee Master” very aptly designates them “ladies in waiting,” and at all times many slumberers are reposing from their toils. That all these duties are transferable, and consequently are transferred indifferently from one to the other, is implied by their general capacity for fulfilling them resulting from this identity of structure, which will be understood as not at all infringed by the separate capacities I unfold as devolving from their temporarily limited functions, all being simultaneously in action, but distributed amongst the several individuals.

The first important occupation of the worker is the secretion of wax for the structure of the cells, and, to effect this, honey must be collected, for it is solely from the digestion of honey that the wax is produced. This in due course passes from the first stomach or honey-pouch wherein it is collected, thence to the second stomach, and then on to the cysts or little bags which run along on each side from the second to the fifth ventral segments, and correspond and communicate with eight trapezoidal depressions placed externally upon the plates of the ventral segments—four on each side, through the concavity of which the secreted wax exudes in a liquid, transparent, hot state, forming a thin scale within each, which the air hardens into a white substance, as the pulp of paper is hardened upon the form into which it is introduced, or like salt crystallizing into flakes from sea-water in shallow salines. This, however, is not yet wax, although its essential constituent, but to become so these scales are removed by the scopulæ of the posterior plantæ and their auricle, to the intermediate feet and by these transferred to the anterior pair, which pass them to the mandibles, where they are masticated and mixed with a saliva issuing from the mouth, and thus intermingled they consolidate into a white opaque mass, which issues from the mouth like a thin strip of riband, and constitutes true wax, plastic to their manipulation. To form this secretion, the bees having collected the honey themselves in the first instance, or having consumed sufficient before leaving the hive with the swarm, but which they subsequently obtain from the supplies stored in the present hive, hang themselves in festoons in all directions about its cavity, each festoon being formed by two parallel chains of bees clinging together; the top bee on each side hangs by its anterior claws to the top of the hive, and the next in succession grasps with its fore claws the hind claws of that and so on, until the depth of the festoon they find to be sufficient, when the bottom bees of each chain swing themselves together, and cling to each other in the same manner by their hind claws only. These festoons are speedily suspended, and with a fresh swarm are in immediate active operation. The secretion requires about twenty-four hours to complete, and as this is accomplished the festoons break up, and these secreters convey it to where the sculpturer bees or builders are moulding the cells, to whom it is successively supplied by the secreters themselves as wanted, for none is stored, although the wax of old or dilapidated parts of the hive, or of the vacated cells of the new-born queens are reconverted to use. These builders are very rapid in their construction of the hexagonal cells, which, as they are progressively completed, are stored with honey, this being during the time assiduously gathered by the honey collectors, and these cells are interspersed occasionally with those wherein pollen or propolis is stored, each of which, as the bees collecting them successively return, is cast into the selected cell by the bee collecting it, who returns at once to the same employment, whilst the store thus deposited is immediately compactly pressed in and warehoused by other bees who fulfil that duty, or who cover it in when the cells are filled, with a waxen covercle formed of concentric circles; or, in the case of the honey-cells, to keep the thickened operculum deposited upon it in due position and repair, after the retiring of the bee which brought home the fresh store of honey, and which had displaced it to regurgitate her addition into the cell. This operculum or cover is of a thicker consistency than the honey itself, and prevents its oozing from the cells, which would often take place from their uniformly horizontal position, were it not for the sagacity which prompts them to introduce this preventive, and which is not removed until the cell is filled; it is then covered hermetically with its waxen top.

A sufficient number of cells being ready, and sufficient stores of honey, pollen, and propolis for the progressive labours of the hive, and a great number of empty cells all finished for the use of the queen, she begins to lay her eggs. As these are hatched the duty of the nursing-bees commences, which is to feed the young, who crave for food like young birds, and are as diligently supplied by these nurses with a material called bee-bread, which consists of masticated pollen, the pollen being exclusively stored and used for the purpose. This is mixed with some secretion from the mouth, which converts it into a sort of frothy jelly. These bees are never negligent of their duties, and with their feeding the larvæ rapidly grow.

To keep up a necessary supply of air in the hive, and to prevent suffocation from heat, a certain number of the community are employed in fanning the passages between the cakes of comb and the whole interior of the hive, by the vibration of their wings, which thoroughly ventilates it, and the accumulation of deleterious air is prevented; some, for this purpose, being posted at the aperture to the hive, where, this vibration causing a temporary vacuum, the external air rushes in, and the chain of succession of bees within becoming thus vibrating air-valves completes the ventilating arrangement. While all these operations are progressing, a certain number are acting as a militia of citizens, who have substitutes only in the succession and change of duties. These act as sentinels, who guard the entrance and patrol the interior and courageously intercept all inimical intrusion, for the bees have many enemies, but who are merely so to benefit themselves, and are not parasites of the nature of the bee-parasites of the solitary kinds; and where they cannot individually avert it, they obtain collateral aid from others of their staff. The next class is the attendants upon the queen: these vary in number from twelve to twenty; they invariably accompany her wherever she proceeds throughout the hive, for the purpose of laying her eggs; and whether their custom gave rise to the etiquette which attends human royalty, that a subject may never turn the back upon the sovereign, these attendant bees surround her with the head always turned towards her, and seem to caress her with their antennæ and pay her every kind of deferential homage, those in front moving backwards as she advances, and those on each side, laterally, so that they ever face her; and as they tire others succeed them in their duties. Another set fulfil the office of keeping the hive thoroughly clean, for the transit of such large numbers will inevitably collect occasional dirt, as will the drift of the wind at the entrance of the hive and the action of the ventilators themselves. Their duty it is also to remove any extraneous organic body that has forcibly entered and which may have succumbed to the vindictiveness of the bees. Where they are not strong enough, even collectively, to effect the removal, as in the case of a mouse or anything else as large or larger, they then call to their aid the wax workers and the repairers; these enclose the obnoxious body, which they have the judgment to know will become dangerous from putrefaction, to aid in its prevention, by a cerement of wax or propolis, which prevents any offensive exhalation, and thus secures the wholesomeness of the hive.

Here is completed, with the enumeration of those which successively repose from their toil, the several labours of the community which inhabits the hive.

The structure of the workers, which enables them to carry on all these operations with the requisite facility, is very different from that of the two sexes we have just described. As before said, they are abortive females, but, as I shall have occasion to explain lower down, capable of having this special incapacity removed, if the necessary process requisite to be adopted for the purpose be applied within three days of their being hatched into the larva state. The acquisition of the faculty of fertility entails, however, the loss of all power of pursuing any of the other occupations of the hive practised exclusively by the workers in general. The nurture that gives it them converts them into queens, and moulds them to the structure of this sex described above. As a remarkable and rare exception, some one or other of these workers will occasionally have power of laying a few eggs, but which are always those of drones. The other peculiarities of their structure are its adaptation to the secretion of wax above described; and their power of throwing up the honey they have collected in the first stomach or honey-bag, before it passes on by digestion, somewhat in the way the ruminant quadrupeds bring up the cud, of course by muscular action, without the convulsion of vomiting. Their next distinction is that their mandibles are edentate and more like spoons, and are often so used, or as the plastering-trowel of masons is for smoothing surfaces. Their legs remarkably differ from those of the other sexes, all of their limbs being somewhat adapted to the collection and conveyance of pollen and its manipulation, as well as that of propolis; but it is the posterior shanks which are specially constructed for the conveyance of these materials, by being framed externally like a little basket; being hollowed longitudinally and their lateral edges fringed with recurved hair, which retains whatever may be placed within the smooth and hollow surface, and the apical extreme edge has a pecten or comb of short stiff bristles. The first joint of the posterior feet have also their distinctive form, adapted to special branches of their economy. These are oblong, wider than the shank, and about two-thirds its length, and consequently powerful limbs; at the outer angle of the edge, nearest the shank, is a little projection called the auricle or earlet, the inner surface is clothed with ten parallel transverse rows of close dense hair, and its apical edge has along its whole width a pecten similar to that of the apex of the shank. This shank being without spurs, which only the domestic bee is deficient in, gives the pecten a freedom of action it would not otherwise have, and enables it to be used together with the earlet opposite to it on the foot, as an instrument for laying hold of the thin flakes of wax upon the venter, and to bring them forward to the intermediate legs to be passed on to the mouth, and there to be converted into wax. The pecten of the foot and also its brush aid in their removal in case of need, and help as well both in the manipulation and the storing the materials collected. Thus, this whole structure, exclusively possessed by the worker, is pre-eminently designed for the manifold operations of the hive; and the bee itself and its works are but one closely linked chain of wonderful contrivances.

The entire economy of the hive seems to emanate exclusively from the two most prominent attributes of instinct, that of self-preservation, and that other more important axis of the vast wheel of creation, the secured perpetuation of the kind by the conservative _στοργὴ_, or absorbing love of the offspring. The latter is more eminently developed in the social bees than in any other group of the family of these insects. In the solitary bees it presents itself as a blind impulse, unconscious of its object; for did we admit the consciousness of the purpose of their labours, we should evidently endow them with reason. How could they know, without reflection, that the food they store in the receptacle they form for the egg they will deposit, and which receptacle is exactly adapted to the size that the larva which will be hatched from it will take, is to nurture a creature they will never see, and whose wonderful transformations they will not therefore witness? In the hive bee the maternal instinct exhibits itself as an energy diffused through a multitude of individuals, but these witness the results of their solicitude, and exclusively promote its successful issue; and in these also the instinct of self-preservation is a diffused impulse, which likewise includes the preservation of the society.

As male and female conjunctively make up the species, thus do the queen-bee and the neuters collectively make up one sex,—the mother,—for the functions performed by the female alone in the case of the solitary kinds of bees are, in the genus _Apis_, separately executed. The cares and labours of maternity devolve upon these neuters, while the queen-bee’s maternal function is limited to merely laying the eggs with which she is replete, with the instinctive power of selecting for them their proper depository,—each of which is adapted in size to that of the sex which will be produced. Her maternal instinct stops abruptly here, without the development of an afterthought or care for their future thriving. The instinct of the neuters, like the anticipative promptings of the human mother, to prepare the clothing and other necessaries for her expected infant, has forecast the queen’s needs in its intermittent urgency, by progressively constructing cells fitted severally in size for the growth and nurture of neuters, the first developed; of drones, the next produced; and lastly, of queens, which soon afterwards appear; she instinctively knowing the proper time and the suitable use of them, having the faculty of distinguishing them with a view to the deposit of the particular kind of eggs of which she is for the moment parturient.