Photos by W. P. Dando, F.Z.S., Regent's Park.
WOOD-ANT.
The largest species found in Britain.
The last group in this order are the Bees. They may generally be easily recognised by their shaggy bodies and legs. As with the Wasps, most species are solitary, or live in very small communities. Some few are smooth, and more or less metallic. A photograph of a large and beautiful South American species appears in the Coloured Plate. The largest British bees are the stout-bodied Humble-bees, or Bumble-bees, which are generally yellow, more or less banded with black, or else black with a red tail. They form a small nest of cells just beneath the surface of the ground in meadows. A common European species, not found in England, is the large black, violet-winged Carpenter-bee, which makes its nest in a gallery burrowed in a post, where there is a separate compartment for each grub.
Photos by W. P. Dando, F.Z.S., Regent's Park.
SOLITARY ANT.
(MALE.) (FEMALE.)
Not a true ant, but a burrowing-wasp, believed to be parasitic in the nests of humble-bees.
There are only a few species belonging to the True Hive-bees found in different parts of the world. They can always be distinguished from any of the Solitary Bees, some of which much resemble them, by having a single long, narrow cell, about four times as long as broad, running along the front edge of the fore wing. In the solitary bees the corresponding cell is much broader and shorter, rarely more than one and a half times as long as broad, and only occupying a small portion of the front edge of the wing.
Hive-bees have always been looked upon with more interest than most other insects, both on account of the valuable products of honey and wax which they produce, and because of their remarkable habits. They are probably less intelligent than ants, but they are larger; and as all classes of their adult population are winged insects, and have been kept in a domesticated or semi-domesticated state for many centuries, they have lent themselves more readily to observation.