The female deposits her eggs in the water, from which spring the larvæ, which afterwards undergo the same transformations.
The Day Fly (Ephemera), so called on account of the shortness of its life, is a small insect originating from a larva residing in rivers. After remaining several months in the creeping state, a nymph is formed, from which the perfect insect changes, three or four hours after mid-day, into the fly form, and dies soon after. This fly has the singular characteristic of casting off its entire skin very soon after it has attained its perfect state; and the empty coat may often be seen lying about after its occupant has deserted it.
Order V. Hymenoptera.
In this order the wings are neither so large nor so strongly veined as in the previous one. The mouth is furnished with mandibles, maxillæ, and an upper and lower lip; and the abdomen of the female is terminated either with an ovipositor or a sting. The metamorphosis of these insects is complete.
This order contains the Bees, of which there are hundreds of different species. The most interesting of these is the common Hive Bee, from whose industry we obtain wax, and by whose provident habits we are supplied with honey. The inhabitants of a hive are of three kinds: one Queen, a few hundred drones or males, and several thousand workers. The Queen, or Parent Bee, is the soul of the community; to her all the rest are so attached, that they will follow her wherever she goes. She has the power of quelling any disturbance which may arise among her subjects by making a peculiar humming noise. She is so prolific as to lay fifteen or eighteen thousand eggs, which produce about eight hundred males or drones, four or five Queen Bees, and the rest Working Bees or Neuters. The combs of a hive consist of a number of cells, formed of wax, a substance which is secreted by the Working Bees after gorging themselves with honey. These cells are for the habitation and breeding of the young Bees, and are also used as stores for honey, and bee-bread, or the pollen of flowers. The royal cells, in which are laid the eggs of future Queens, are the largest, and shaped like the cup of an acorn. All the other cells are of a beautiful hexagonal form, and of two kinds, one larger than the other: the larger for the young drones, the smaller for the workers. In two or three days the eggs are hatched, when the Neuters nurse the young grubs, whom they feed most tenderly with bee-bread and honey. After twenty-one days, the young Bees are able to form cells with such indefatigable activity that they will then do more in one week than during all the rest of the year. No more than one Queen is ever permitted to inhabit a hive. When a young Queen is about to be hatched, the old one leads away a swarm from the old colony to form a new one. If the Queen die or is lost to the hive by accident, and there be no young Queens in the royal cells, the Bees can repair their loss. They choose a grub of the Neuter species, enlarge its cell by adding to it three or four adjacent ones, feed the young grub on royal food, and it is then developed into a Queen. Sometimes there are Bees who, less laborious than the others, support themselves by pillaging the hives of the rest; upon which a battle ensues between the industrious and the despoiling insects. Their foes are the wasp, the hornet, and various kinds of birds.
The Bee collects the honey by means of its proboscis, or trunk, which is a most astonishing piece of mechanism, consisting of more than twenty parts. Entering the hive, the insect disgorges the honey into cells, for winter subsistence; or else presents it to the labouring Bees.
The combs of cells formed by these industrious insects are constructed with an instinctive ingenuity which must always be regarded as one of the most marvellous things in nature. Each comb consists of two sets of hexagonal cells placed back to back, and not only do the insects adopt this form which enables them to construct the greatest number of cells of the requisite size within the smallest possible space, and with the least possible amount of material, but each cell on one side of the comb is placed opposite to the junction of three cells on the opposite side, so that its centre may be deepened without interfering with the latter, the three diamond-shaped pieces forming the bottom of each cell belonging to three distinct cells of the opposite side of the comb. By all these contrivances the Bees manage to get the greatest possible amount of accommodation in the smallest possible space; and it has been found, by mathematical calculation, that if it were desired to construct a series of cavities of a given size within the smallest possible space and with the smallest possible amount of materials, we should have to adopt precisely the same plan, even to the forms of the sides of the cells and the angles at which they are attached to each other, that has been instinctively adopted by the little Bee. At the entrance of every cell the Bee architect places a flange of wax, which fortifies the aperture, and prevents the injuries it might receive from the frequent ingress and egress of the Bees.
Bees produce honey, which they lay up for winter consumption; wax, of which they form their cells; and a substance called bee-bread, which they extract chiefly from the pollen of flowers, and which they use for feeding their young.
