There are two bees which are parasitic upon this unfortunate insect, both belonging the genus _Melecta_.
But the most destructive of these parasites appears to be an insect which belongs to the great family of _Chalcididæ_. These insects are of the hymenopterous order, are of very minute dimensions, and of the most brilliant colours. Indeed, if they were an inch or two in length, instead of the eighth or twelfth of an inch, they would not suffer in comparison with the most gorgeous inhabitants of tropical countries.
Their forms are most eccentric, some species having the abdomen small and round and set on a long footstalk, while others have that portion of the body placed so closely against the thorax, that the short footstalk is scarcely visible. Others have certain joints of the legs so large that a single joint equals the entire abdomen. Some have the ovipositor projecting boldly from the body, while others have it tucked up underneath, and others again have it quite short. But there is one point which distinguishes them all, namely, the almost veinless character of the wings.
Some of the _Chalcididæ_ are parasitic upon insects in their earliest stages, actually depositing their eggs in those of moths and butterflies. Others are entirely parasitic upon parasites, laying their eggs in the aphidii, which are parasites of the aphis. Some of them haunt the galls, and contrive to make their young parasitic upon the immature cynipidæ which lie within the gall. The common small tortoise-shell butterfly is terribly infested with these little creatures, and we have bred hundreds of the gem-like _Chalcididæ_ from the larvæ and pupæ of that butterfly.
One of the _Chalcididæ_, belonging to the genus _Melittobia_, is a parasite upon the _Anthophora_; and the curious part of the proceeding is, that it finds there another parasite, which becomes developed in the home of the bee: the _Melittobia_ feeds indiscriminately upon the bee and parasite.
Although the _Melittobia_ does not make such wholesale destruction as is wrought by the earwig when it gets into a nest, it does more damage to the bee, on account of its great numbers. Some three or four females will lay a great quantity of eggs within a nest, and from those eggs a hundred of the young will be developed. When the larvæ are fully grown, they quit their hold of their prey, and fall to the bottom of the cell, where they lie until they have assumed the perfect form. They then burst forth, together with those of the bee that may have escaped their attacks.]