WASPS, ANTS AND BEES 187 



in vertical frames set parallel and lengthwise of the hive, so 

 that the combs will be built symmetrically and conveniently 

 for the bee-keeper's handling. In many of these cells the 

 queen, which has received the fertilizing sperm-cells from a 

 male during a mating flight high in the air, lays fertilized eggs, 

 one at the bottom of each cell. In other cells, pollen and 

 nectar brought by workers are stored for food. In three days 

 the eggs hatch, the tiny larvae being footless, white, soft-bodied 

 helpless grubs. They are fed at first exclusively with "bee- 

 jelly, "a highly nutritious, "pre-digested" substance elaborated 

 in the bodies of the nurse workers and regurgitated by them 

 into the mouths of the larvae. After a couple of days of feeding 

 with this substance, the larvae are fed, in addition to bee-jelly, 

 pollen and honey taken by the nurse from the cells stored with 

 these food-substances. After three days of this mixed feeding, 

 the larvae having grown so as to fill half or two-thirds of the cell, 

 lying curled in it, a small mass of mixed pollen and honey is 

 put into each cell, which is then capped, i.e., sealed over with a 

 thin layer of wax. The larva feeds itself for a day or two 

 longer on the "bee-bread" and then pupates in the cell. The 

 quiescent non-feeding pupal stage lasts for thirteen days, when 

 the fully developed bee issues from the thin pupal cuticle, 

 gnaws away the wax cap and emerges from the cell. For from 

 ten days to two weeks the bee does not leave the hive; it busies 

 itself with indoor work, particularly nurse work, the feeding 

 and care of the young. Then it takes its place with the fully 

 competent bees, makes foraging expeditions or undertakes 

 capably any other of the varied industries of the worker 

 caste. 



After numerous workers have been added to the community, 

 egg-laying by the queen going on constantly, so that the young 

 come to maturity, not in broods, but consecutively, day after 

 day, certain hexagonal cells of plainly larger diameter are made 

 by the comb-building workers, and in these the queen lays 

 unfertilized eggs. This extraordinary capacity for producing 

 either fertilized or unfertilized eggs, as demanded, depends 

 upon the queen's control of the male fertilizing cells held in the 

 spermatheca. This reservoir of fertilizing cells can be kept 



