Bees, like other hymenopterous insects, are extremely well provided with organs of sight, and evidently possess that sense in very great perfection. In the front of the head, they have two large eyes, the surface of each consisting of many hexagonal plates, \which perhaps may not unaptly be likened to the object-glasses of so many telescopes; and the faculty which these insects certainly possess, of returning in a direct line to their hive or nest, from the utmost distance of their wanderings, has been with greatest probability ascribed to their power of sight. But besides these large eyes, they have, like the rest of the hymenopterous order, three small eyes on the very top of the head. which are supposed to lie intended to give a defensive vision upwards from the cups of flowers.—They are evidently, however. possessed of organs which enable them to guide their movements in the dark as accurately as in the full light of day, at least within the nest or hive; and this power is generally ascribed to the antenna? (q.v.), which are sometimes supposed to be not merely delicate organs of touch, but also organs of hearing, or of some special sense unknown to us. It is certain that the social bees have some means of communicating with each other by means of their antennfe; and that they avail themselves of these organs both for their ordinary operations, for recognition of each other, and for what may be called the conduct of the affairs of the hive. There can be no doubt that bees possess in a very high degree the 'sense of smell; and their possession of the senses of taste and hearing is almost equally unquestionable, whatever difficulty there may be in determining the particular organs of the latter sense.—The wings of bees, like those of. other hy inenepterous insects, are four in number; thin and membra naceous; the hinder pair always smaller than the others; and in flight, attached to them by a number of small hooks, so that the four wings move as if they were two.
The sting of bees is a very remarkable organ. It consists of two long darts, with a protecting sheath. A venom bag is connected with it, and powerful muscles for its pro pulsion. The wound appears to be first made by the sheath, along which the poison passes by a groove; and the darts thrust out afterwards in succession, deepen the wound. The darts are each furnished with a number of barbs, which render it so diffi cult to withdraw them quickly, that bees often lose their lives by the injury which they sustain in the effort.—The males are destitute of sting.
The great family of bees is divided Into two principal sections called andreneice and apiaria, or andrenicial and apkirs; the latter names, however, being sometimes employed in senses more restricted. In the first of these sections, the lzgula is comparatively short arid broad; in the second, it is lengthened, and has the form of a filament. All the andrenette live solitarily, as well as several subdivisions of the apiaricr. These soli tary bees do not lay up stores for their own winter subsistence; but they display very wouderful and various instincts in the habitations which they construct and the provi sion which they make for their young. There are among them nudes and perfect
females only, and no neuters. The work of preparing nests and providing food for the young seems, in all of the species, to be performed exclusively by the females. Colktes succinct!, a common British species of the andrencta, affords an example of a mode of nest-making, which, with various modifications, is common to many species of that section. The parent B. excavates a cylindrical bole in the earth, usually horizontal, to the depth of about two inches. in a dry bank or a wall of stones and earth. The sides of this hole are compacted by means of a sort of gelatinot4 liquid, secreted by the insect, and it is occupied with cells, formed of a transparent and delicate membrane, the sub stance of which is the same secretion in a dried state. The cells are thimble-shaped, fit ting into each other, a little space being left at the furthest end of each for the reception of an egg and a little paste of pollen and honey. The last cell being completed, and its proper contents deposited in it, the mouth of the whole is carefully stopped up with carth.—Some of the solitary bees, possessing great strength of mandibles, excavate their nests in old wood. Xylocnpn riolacca, one of the apiaria, not uncommon in some parts of Europe, makes a tunnel not less than 12 or 15 in. long, and half an inch wide, which is divided into 10 or 12 cells; an egg with store of pollen and honey is deposited in each compartment, and as the lowest egg is hatched first, a second orifice is provided at that part of the tunnel, through which each of the young ones in succession comes forth to the light of day, each larva, as it is about to change into the pupa state, placing itself with its head downwards in the cell.—Numerous species of solitary bees excavate their tunneishaped nests in the soft pith of decayed briers or brambles, of the particles of which they also form their cells.—Some species of nugachile onnia, etc., line them and divide them into cells with portions of leaves or of the petals of flowers. See LE. F cerrEit BEE. Some of the solitary bees make their nests, not in the earth, but in cavi ties of decaying trees, or other such situations, where they construct their cells without the same necessity of excavation; but sonic of them, by a very admirable instinct, sur round their nest with down collected froth the leaves of plants, an excellent non-con ductor of heat, so that a nearly uniform temperature is maintained in situations in which the chauges would otherwise be great and rapid. Some bees make their little nests in old oak-galls, and there are species which appropriate empty snail shells to that use.— Some species of the genus their nests of a sort of mason-work of gmins of sand glued together with their viscid saliva. The nest of .31: muraria, thus constructed, Is so hard as not to be easily penetrated by a knife, and very much resembles a splash of mud upon a wall.