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Social insects, esj> ecially bees and wasps exhibit such a bewildering variety of social organizations that we would be quite lost without a sound classification and some technical terms with universally accepted definitions. A system of classification that is built along lines of progressively varying degrees of social organization and sophistication would be even more attractive. Michener (1969) has presented just such a system of classification that has been so popularized by Wilson (1971) that it has now the added virtue of being nearly universally acceptable. According to'this systemof classification, eusocial insects (the only truly social insects, by definition) are defined as those that possess all of the three fundamental traits of eusociality namely: