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Updated: June 23, 2025
Reflecting on this case, it occurred to me that if the Melipona had made its spheres at some given distance from each other, and had made them of equal sizes and had arranged them symmetrically in a double layer, the resulting structure would probably have been as perfect as the comb of the hive-bee.
The two halves are then secured together, by binding round them spirally long fiat strips of the jacitira, or wood of the climbing palm-tree, the whole being afterwards smeared over with the black wax of the melipona bee. The tube tapers towards the muzzle, and a cup-shaped mouthpiece is fitted in the broad end. It is so heavy that only a strong man, accustomed to its use, can employ it.
The mouth of the tube is trumpet-shaped, and at the entrance a number of pigmy bees are always stationed, apparently acting as the sentinels. A hive of the Melipona fasciculata, which I saw opened, contained about two quarts of pleasant-tasting liquid honey. The bees, as already remarked, have no sting, but they bite furiously when their colonies are disturbed.
We must suppose the Melipona to arrange her cells in level layers, as she already does her cylindrical cells; and we must further suppose, and this is the greatest difficulty, that she can somehow judge accurately at what distance to stand from her fellow-labourers when several are making their spheres; but she is already so far enabled to judge of distance, that she always describes her spheres so as to intersect largely; and then she unites the points of intersection by perfectly flat surfaces.
One bee, the Trypoxylon aurifrons, builds a nest of clay like a squat round bottle or carafe; generally in rows, one beside the other, on a branch, or in the corners of a building. The melipona bees are the most numerous of the honey-producing insects, their colonies being composed of vast numbers of individuals. They are smaller than the English hive-bee, and have no sting.
The Melipona itself is intermediate in structure between the hive and humble bee, but more nearly related to the latter: it forms a nearly regular waxen comb of cylindrical cells, in which the young are hatched, and, in addition, some large cells of wax for holding honey. These latter cells are nearly spherical and of nearly equal sizes, and are aggregated into an irregular mass.
In the series between the extreme perfection of the cells of the hive-bee and the simplicity of those of the humble-bee, we have the cells of the Mexican Melipona domestica, carefully described and figured by Pierre Huber.
Reflecting on this case, it occurred to me that if the Melipona had made its spheres at some given distance from each other, and had made them of equal sizes and had arranged them symmetrically in a double layer, the resulting structure would probably have been as perfect as the comb of the hive-bee.
Hence, it would continually be more and more advantageous to our humble-bees, if they were to make their cells more and more regular, nearer together, and aggregated into a mass, like the cells of the Melipona; for in this case a large part of the bounding surface of each cell would serve to bound the adjoining cells, and much labour and wax would be saved.
Here a number of the pigmy bees are stationed to act the part of sentinels. Thus the melipona bees are masons as well as workers in wax and pollen gatherers. Although they have no sting, they defend their habitations, and bite furiously when disturbed. Bates found forty-five species of these bees in different parts of the country, and one hundred and forty of other species.
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