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The Life of the Bee
of years. The tribe in question is already known to us; it is that of the "Apiens," whose essential characteristics are so distinct and well-marked that one is inclined to credit all its members with one common ancestor.[1]
The disciples of Darwin, Hermann Müller among others, consider a little wild bee, the Prosopis, which is to be found all over the universe, as the actual representative of the primitive bee whence all have issued that are known to us to-day.
The unfortunate Prosopis stands more
- ↑ It is important that the terms we shall successively employ, adopting the classification of M. Émile Blanchard,—"APIENS, APIDÆ and APITÆ,"—should not be confounded. The tribe of the Apiens comprises all families of bees. The Apidæ constitute the first of these families, and are subdivided into three groups: the Meliponæ, the Apitæ, and the Bombi (humble-bees). And, finally, the Apitæ include all the different varieties of our domestic bees.
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