On the habits and instincts of animals / By William Swainson.

  • William Swainson
Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the habits and instincts of animals / By William Swainson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    370/396 page 356
    head within, and, seizing the eggs that had been laid, proceeded to devour them with great avidity. The same extraordinary scene was again renewed, and with the same result. After this, one of the small females returned, and covered the empty cells with wax. When the queen-mother was removed, several of the small females contended for the cell with the utmost rage,— all endeavouring to lay their eggs in it at the same time, as if conscious that the approaching autumn was hastening the period of their death. (358.) The size of the males is intermediate between that of the large and the small females; they are to be known, also, by their more lengthened, filiform, and slenderer antenne. We learn from Reaumer, that the male humble bees are by no means an idle race, but work in company with the rest in repairing the dwell- ing; and, probably, like the male wasps, it is their peculiar province to keep it clean and neat. (359.) The labourers, or working bees, as we have already observed, are the produce of the first eggs laid by the queen-mother in the spring. By this beautiful dispensation of Providence, she is assisted, in a very short time, by a numerous and industrious class of sub- sects, who aid her in all the various duties of the hive. When an individual grub has spun its cocoon, and assumed the chrysalis state, the workers remove all the wax from it; and so soon as it has attained its perfect state,-which usually happens in about five days,— the empty cocoons are employed to hold honey or pollen. Into these reservoirs the bees discharge the honey they have collected upon returning from their excursions : this is done by opening their mouths, and contracting their bodies. Sixty of these honey-pots are occasion- ally found in a single nest ; and more than forty are sometimes filled in a day. The humble bees, if they cannot get at the honey contained in a flower by its natural opening, will often have recourse to art to effect their object. For this purpose, they will frequently cut an aperture at the base of the corolla, or even
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image