I think I ought here to say why I propose to limit myself to an account of
a certain portion only of the Hymenoptera. The reason for this, in the
first place, is that the section which I have selected is the only one of
which I have any special knowledge; it consists of the bees, wasps, ants
and sandwasps, four groups which make up the stinging section of the
order--or perhaps more accurately, which have poison bags connected with
their egg-laying apparatus or _ovipositor_. Another reason for their
selection lies in their nesting habits; these enable one to get a further
insight into their economy and ways than can be obtained from those of
almost any other group or order--at any rate they make them comparatively
easy to study; one can, so to say, find these little creatures at home,
whereas in most orders there seems to be no definite home to which the {2}
individuals may be traced; a great advantage also in selecting the stinging
groups for study is that they are creatures of the spring and summer, and
of the sunshine, so that the weather which tempts them out to their duties
is of the kind most agreeable to those who wish to investigate their
habits.
The habits of the hive bee have not been touched on, as so many excellent
treatises have been written on them that any observations here would be
superfluous.
Although these groups are distinguished by their stinging habits, it is
only the female that possesses a sting--the male is a most harmless
creature and quite incapable of injuring any one. A male wasp or even a
male hornet may be handled with absolute impunity, only it is wise to be
certain as to the sex of the individual before presuming to play with it
too much! A word here may perhaps be said about stinging. People often talk
about a gnat stinging or a stinging fly; it may be difficult to define
exactly what "to sting" means, but the writer has always considered that a
sting is inflicted by the tail end of the creature or a {3} bite by the
mouth. A fly or gnat no doubt inserts its proboscis into one's flesh just
as a wasp does its sting; but the actions of such opposite parts of the
body surely demand distinct names. As we have been alluding to flies it may
not be inappropriate to say here that all the creatures we are going to
consider have four membranous wings except the worker ants and a very few
forms which are comparatively seldom met with. By this character they may
at once be known from flies, which have only two membranous wings. The
large brown "drone flies", so often seen on the windows of our rooms,
especially in autumn, and which most people mistake for hive bees, to which
they certainly bear a considerable general resemblance, may be detected at
once by wanting the two hind wings of the bee.
The "aculeate", or stinging, Hymenoptera, are divided into sections and
families according to their structure; but the groups which stand out most
clearly in regard to their habits are the solitary and social species, the
predaceous and non-predaceous and the inquilines or cuckoos. {4}
The vast majority of the aculeate Hymenoptera are what are called
"solitary", i.e. one male and one female alone are interested in the
production of the nest; but there are also three "social" groups--the ants,
the true wasps, and the humble and hive bees.
These are called social because they form communities and all work together
towards the maintenance of the nest. In the social species there are two
forms of the females--the queens and the workers; these latter have the
ovaries imperfectly developed, and in the humble bees and wasps they only
differ outwardly from the fully developed females or queens by being
smaller. In the ants, however, the workers are wingless, and of a very
different form from that of the queen. The role of these workers seems to
be to do the general work of the nest; they have been known to lay fertile
eggs, but the resulting offspring has always been male.
Between these conditions of solitary and social we know of no actually
intermediate stages. We do not seem to see any attempts on the part of
solitary bees to become social or vice versa. The only condition known
which {5} could possibly be considered as intermediate is shown in certain
species where a number of individuals make their nests close to each other
in some particular bank, forming a colony. These colonies are sometimes
very extensive, and the burrows of the individual bees very close together;
it has also been shown that the burrows sometimes unite--at the same time
there seems to be no positive evidence that there is any work done in the
colony which could be considered as done for the common good.
* * * * *
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