AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 247 



ally perish ; but that they may suffer as little as possible, the Creator, 

 mindful of the happiness of the smallest of his creatures, has endowed a 

 part of the society, at the destined time, with the wonderful instinct which, 

 previously to their own death, makes them the executioners of the rest. 



Wasps in the construction of their nests have solely in view the accom- 

 modation of their young ones ; and to these their cells are exclusively 

 devoted. Bees, on the contrary (I am speaking of the common hive-bee), 

 appropriate a considerable number of their cells to the reception of honey 

 intended for the use of the society. Yet the education of the young 

 brood is their chief object, and to this they constantly sacrifice all personal 

 and selfish considerations. In a new swarm the first care is to build a 

 series of cells to serve as cradles; and little or no honey is collected until 

 an ample store of bee-bread, as it is called, has been laid up for their food. 

 This bee-bread is composed of the pollen of flowers, which the workers 

 are incessantly employed in gathering, flying from flower to flower, brushing 

 from the stamens their yellow treasure, and collecting it in the little baskets 

 with which their hind legs are so admirably provided; then hastening to 

 the hive, and having deposited their booty, returning for a new load. The 

 provision thus furnished by one set of laborers is carefully stored up by 

 another, until the eggs which the queen-bee has laid, and which, adherino- bv 

 a glutinous covering, she places nearly upright in the bottom of the cell, 

 are hatched. With this bee-bread, after it has undergone a conversion 

 into a sort of whitish jelly by being received into the bee's stomach, where 

 it is probably mixed with honey^ and regurgitated, the young brood imme- 

 diately upon their exclusion, and until their change into nymphs, are dili- 

 gently fed by other bees, which anxiously attend upon them and several 

 times a day afford a fresh supply. Different bees are seen successively to 

 introduce their heads into the cells containing them, and after remaining 

 in that position some moments, during which they replace the expanded 

 provision, pass on to those in the neighborhood. Others often immediately 

 succeed, and in like manner put in their heads as if to see that the young 

 ones have every thing necessary ; which being ascertained by a glance, 

 they immediately proceed, and stop only when they find a cell almost 

 exhausted of food. That the office of these purveyors is no very simple 

 affair will be admitted, when it is understood that the food of all the grubs 

 is not the same, but that it varies according to their age, being insipid 

 when they are young, and, when they have nearly attained maturity, 

 more sugary and somewhat acid. The larvae destined for queen-bees, too, 

 require a food altogeiher different from that appropriated to those of drones 

 and workers. It may be recognized by irs sharp and pungent taste. 



So accurately is the supply of food proportioned to the wants of the 

 larvae, that when they have attained their full growth and are ready to 

 become nymphs, not an atom is left unconsumed. At this period, intui- 

 tively known to their assiduous foster-parents, they terminate their cares 

 by sealing up each cell with a lid of wax, convex in those containing the 

 larvae of drones, and nearly flat in those containing the larvae of workers, 

 beneath which the enclosed tenants spin in security their cocoon. In all 



* It is not unlikely that it may undergo some other alteration in the bee's stomach, 

 which may possibly secrete some peculiar substance, as John Hunter discovered that the 

 crop of the pigeon does. 



