. The transformations (or metamorphoses) of insects (Insecta, Myriapoda, Arachnida, and Crustacea) : being an adaptation, for English readers, of M. Émile Blanchard's "Metamorphoses, moeurs et instincts des insects;" and a compilation from the works of Newport, Charles Darwin, Spence Bate, Fritz Müller, Packard, Lubbock, Stainton, and others. THE APIS MELLIFICA. 255 inside old trunks of trees. They make their hive, and their societyconsists of a crowd of workers and a single female or queen. Cellmaking goes on, the queen lays, and larvae are born, and a newgeneration is thus produced ; and thu
. The transformations (or metamorphoses) of insects (Insecta, Myriapoda, Arachnida, and Crustacea) : being an adaptation, for English readers, of M. Émile Blanchard's "Metamorphoses, moeurs et instincts des insects;" and a compilation from the works of Newport, Charles Darwin, Spence Bate, Fritz Müller, Packard, Lubbock, Stainton, and others. THE APIS MELLIFICA. 255 inside old trunks of trees. They make their hive, and their societyconsists of a crowd of workers and a single female or queen. Cellmaking goes on, the queen lays, and larvae are born, and a newgeneration is thus produced ; and thus some hundreds of malesmay be counted in a hive at one particular period of the year,besides the queen and the workers. These three kinds of individuals present striking fertile females and workers of wasps and humble bees arevery much alike ; the fertile females are only slightly larger thanthe others—but were they not workers at one period of theirexistence .- The queen bee is incapable of working ; the workersor neuters are smaller than she is, and are not so large as the. Female. Worker. Male. DOMESTIC BEES {Apis mcllifica). drones or males, and it is not necessary to describe them, for theyare well known to every one. The production of wax is one of the most remarkable physio-logical phenomena of the organisation of these Hyuicnoptcra. Itwas generally thought, formerly, that the bees disgorged their waxfrom the mouth, and Reaumur certainly held this opinion; butJohn Hunter discovered the manner in which the wax was formed;and it is now evident that the bees carry within themselves thisimportant building material. The segments of the abdomen ofbees overlap from before backwards, but when the margin of one islifted up, two broad and smooth surfaces will be noticed on theuncovered surface of the next ^liing ; these surfaces maintain duringone part of the year two thin, white, and almost transparentlaminae, which are really composed of wax. The wax is real
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1870, booksubjec, booksubjectcrustacea
