Things to Find Out
Questions from the original Key to the Nature Library to send you back into Insects — and out of doors.
- Do all bees live in communities?
- Which of our native bees most closely resemble the honeybee (which is European) in habits?
- Through how many transformations does a bee pass in its development?
- In the bumblebee colony in midsummer there are the queen mother, young queens, drones, and workers. What becomes of each at the approach of winter?
- Describe the interesting division of labour in the nest as observed by Dr. Coville.
- How are the young larvae fed?
- How does a young bee spend the pupa stage, and how does it get out when fully grown?
- Are guests made welcome in the bumblebee's nest?
- What of cuckoo bees and their ways?
- Have you opened a hollow stem of bramble or sumac to find a carpenter bee's family?
- Does not the industry of the various carpenter bees justify the old lines,
- How doth the little busy bee
- Improve each shining hour?
- Have you found your rose bush leaves cut as if some one had been at work with a tiny cake cutter? The leaf-cutter bees.
- What did you find in the mud-wasp's nests you used to break to pieces?
- With how many kinds of creatures do solitary wasps provision their nests?
- Are their nest-making habits similar?
- What remarkable insects use tools?
- How does the mother wasp preserve the food for her young ones?
- Who were the first to use wood pulp in making paper?
- Compare the life history of a wasp with that of a bee.
- Is the social life of the wasp colony as well organized as that of the bee colony?
- Of what materials are the nests of social wasps made?
- What use does the “tarantula-killer” make of her prey?
- Which wasp builds the attic of its residence first and proceeds downward to the other stories?
- Do social wasps store provisions for winter? Why?
- Is it safe to ornament one's “cozy corner” with a large paper wasp's nest?
- Describe the construction of the nest of Vespa maculata.
- Do wasps make honey?
- How can true ants be distinguished from all other insects?
- Have you seen ants with wings?
- Do ants sting?
- What do ants live on?
- What of the intelligence of ants?
- Who are the great students of ants?
- Are ant communities perpetual?
- What are ant cows?
- What does Mark Twain think of ants?
- Mention some evidence of self-sacrifice on the part of ants.
- What are honey ants?
- What causes oak-apples?
- How does the little insect get into the centre of the oak-gall?
- If you find more than one insect in a gall, what would you conclude?
- What parasitic insect has done much to save our shade trees from damage?
- What is the meaning of the term “tertiary parasites.''
- Why does the mother horn-tail girdle the twig?
- How many wings have the true flies?
- What common household pests are of this order?
- What beneficial insects are there in the group?
- What crimes has modern science laid at the door of flies and mosquitoes?
- What is the normal food of mosquitoes?
- What does the male mosquito live upon?
- How is the mosquito responsible for the spread of disease?
- Where do mosquitoes breed?
- What are the most effectual methods of extermination?
- Will it not pay to carry out these methods locally?
- Besides mosquitoes, what other true flies are bloodthirsty?
- How big is our biggest American fly?
- Are bee-flies harmful or beneficial?
- What insects are true cannibals?
- Of what use is it to a robber fly to resemble a bee?
- What fly is a scavenger in nests of bumblebees?
- Is it probable that our kitchen flies are bred in our back yards?
- What enemies destroy house flies?
- What causes the swellings on goldenrod stems?
- What insect catches its prey with a net?
- What insect has the longest list of “pet'' names?
- Does the portrait justify these names?
- Of what lovely insect may it most truly be said “Distance lends enchantment''?
- Is it not well to learn to distinguish at sight certain very beneficial insects, and to prevent their destruction?
- What insect lays its eggs on silken stalks, and for what purpose?
- What insect requires seventeen years for its development?
- What insect look like one of “Nature's jokes''?
- Explain the appearance of masses of spittle on weed stems along the paths in midsummer?
- What insects are of the greatest economic importance?
- What trees are likely to be infested with scale insects?
- What is the greatest enemy of the scale?
- What is the “hen pecked husband” among insects?
- What are the habits of the “assassin bugs”?
- What insects have their ears in their elbows?