The Book of Nature Study, Vol. 2 (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Book of Nature Study, Vol. 2 Over two hundred species of bees are found in this country. The lower members of the group do not surpass the social wasps in the complexity of their structure, and fall distinctly below them in matters of domestic economy. The females construct simple tubular nests in the earth, or in walls or stems of plants, and in these they rear a few young, which are nourished on the pollen and nectar of flowers, but never upon animal food. Each female is entirely responsible for her own house and Offspring; there are no workers (sterile females), but simply fertile females and males. In habits they Vary greatly some merely excavate burrows in the soil, others construct their nests of mud, Of woolly fibres, or of pieces neatly cut from leaves of rose trees, sallows, privet and other plants, employing wall crevices, door-locks, spaces beneath roof-slates or tiles, or holes in the earth or in trees as safe hiding-places for their young. Others again build no nest, but cuckoo-like deposit their eggs in the nests formed by other species. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.