. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College. Zoology. 126 Bulletin Museum of Comparative Zoology, Vol. 144, No. 3 140 130-. Figure 23. Nest growth, colony 174. A. Nest size in number of cells. 8. Number of empty cells. to this was colony 195 in Belem, which was active for at least 242 clays (based on spot checks spanning 242 days). Unless a colony was observed daily for its entire postemergence development, it was impossible to know the total number of offspring produced. Colony 310 was observed for its entire cvcle, but with a 13-day gap during the postemergence period.
. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College. Zoology. 126 Bulletin Museum of Comparative Zoology, Vol. 144, No. 3 140 130-. Figure 23. Nest growth, colony 174. A. Nest size in number of cells. 8. Number of empty cells. to this was colony 195 in Belem, which was active for at least 242 clays (based on spot checks spanning 242 days). Unless a colony was observed daily for its entire postemergence development, it was impossible to know the total number of offspring produced. Colony 310 was observed for its entire cvcle, but with a 13-day gap during the postemergence period. During this gap 12 cells containing pupae were emptied. If they all produced adults the total production for the colony would have been 78 adults. Colony 268 declined during the same gap in observa- tions. Though some of the 39 pupae present in the nest when obsei"vations ended may have been al:)orted, if they had all produced adults, the total adult production of the colony \\ould have been 200. On the basis of these admittedly limited data, it would appear that the total productivity of a colony (in tenns of adult offspring produced) bears little relation eitlicr to the number of foundresses or to the length of the colony cycle. It is prob- ably more dependent upon the success \\ ith which it produces workers early in the postemergence stage. No cell was obser\'ed to produce more than three adults throughout the entire colony cycle, though many of these con- tained larvae or even pupae of a fourth generation when the colony declined. This apparent constancy of the number of generations of brood produced by a colony is correlated with the relatively constant duration of colony development. 3. The Regulation of the Colony Cycle Several attempts have been made to analyze the colony cycles of social wasps. Bodenheimer (1937) reviewed the litera- ture pertaining to this problem. Richards and Richards (1951) have produced a mathematical description of the growth of colonies i
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