Stylops.]

Xenos Peckii, an allied insect, was discovered by Dr. Peck to be
parasitic in the body of wasps, and there are now known to be several
species of this small but curious family, Stylopidae, which are known to
live parasitically on the bodies of our wild bees and wasps. The
presence of these parasites finally exhausts the host, so that the
sterile female bee dies prematurely.

As in the higher animals, bees are afflicted with parasitic worms which
induce disease and sometimes death. The well-known hair worm, Gordius,
is an insect parasite. The adult form is about the size of a slender
knitting needle, and is seen in moist soil and in pools. It lays,
according to Dr. Leidy, "millions of eggs connected together in long
cords." The microscopical, tadpole-shaped young penetrate into the
bodies of insects frequenting damp localities. Fairly ensconced within
the body of their unsuspecting host, they luxuriate on its fatty
tissues, and pass through their metamorphoses into the adult form, when
they desert their living house and take to the water to lay their eggs.
In Europe, Siebold has described Gordius subbifurcus, which infests the
drones of the Honey bee, and also other insects. Professor Siebold has
also described Mermis albicans, which is a similar kind of hair worm,
from two to five inches long, and whitish in color. This worm is also
found, strangely enough, only in the drones, though it is the workers
which frequent watery places to appease their thirst.

[Illustration: 41. Bee fungus.]

Thousands of insects are carried off yearly by parasitic fungi. The
ravages of the Muscardine, caused by a minute fungus (Botrytris
Bassiana), have threatened the extinction of silk culture in Europe, and
the still more formidable disease called _pebrine_ is thought to be of
vegetable origin. Dr. Leidy mentions a fungus which must annually carry
off myriads of the Seventeen Year Locust. A somewhat similar fungus,
Mucor mellitophorus (Fig. 41), infests bees, filling the stomach with
microscopical colorless spores, so as greatly to weaken the insect.

As there is a probability that many insects, parasites on the wild bees,
may sooner or later afflict the Honey bee, and also to illustrate
farther the complex nature of insect parasitism, we will for a moment
look at some other bee parasites.

[Illustration: Pl. 1

PARASITES OF BEES.]

Among the numerous insects preying in some way upon the Humble bee are
to be found ot