Energy budgets do balance-A comment on a paper by Wightman and Rogers.

In a recently published energy budget for the larvae of the leafcutter bee (Wightman and Rogers, Oecologia (Berl.) 36 (1978) 245-257) respiration as estimated by respirometry amounted to only 67% of the respiration as estimated from the difference between assimilation and production. In this note it is shown that this discrepancy seems to result from an incorrect value of the oxycalorific equivalent and that a more reasonable value makes the two estimates of respiration agree.