. The wonder of life. Biology; Natural history; Zoology. THE WEB OF LIFE 343 but it does show how gradually the state of afEairs in the hive-bee community might evolve. This becomes even more convincing when we go into detail; thus, among humble-bees, some (in the North) are quite sohtary—^female and males, without any workers; some ( in Britain and Germany) form temporary summer societies ; some ( in Corsica and the Balearic Islands) partiaUy sur- vive the winter as societies; and, finally, some tropical forms (according to E. von Jhering) are permanently Fig. 55.—Section of
. The wonder of life. Biology; Natural history; Zoology. THE WEB OF LIFE 343 but it does show how gradually the state of afEairs in the hive-bee community might evolve. This becomes even more convincing when we go into detail; thus, among humble-bees, some (in the North) are quite sohtary—^female and males, without any workers; some ( in Britain and Germany) form temporary summer societies ; some ( in Corsica and the Balearic Islands) partiaUy sur- vive the winter as societies; and, finally, some tropical forms (according to E. von Jhering) are permanently Fig. 55.—Section of nest of Humble-Bee, Bombus lapidarius. {After Wagner.) To the outside there is a felt work of grass stems and the like. The entrance is to the right on the level of the ground. In the middle of the cavity of the nest of this species, lies a dome of wax, above but not below the cells which contain the pupae. The entrance is shown by which the queen—^stUl the only tenant —enters to brood over the cells or to give honey to the larvse. In a finely made nest the roof of the cavity of the neat is plastered with wax, where the figure shows a dark hue. We have figured a stage in the history of the nest of the humble-bee (Bombus). In the early Spring the queens, who are the only survivors of the previous summer's colony, awaken from their winter sleep, and make for the early flowers, such as the catkins of the dwarf willow. Bach seeks out a nesting-place imderground, perhaps Ln the. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Thompson, John Arthur, Sir, 1861-1933. London, A. Melrose, Ltd
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booksubjectzoology
