BEES. 



67 



BEES. 



is favorable, these eggs will hatch out in 

 about three days or a little more, when, in 

 place of the egg, you will, if you look sharp 

 enough, see a tiny white worm or grub float- 

 ing in a minute drop of milky fluid. If you 



A queen's egg uxdek the mickoscope. 



watch you will find bees incessantly poking 

 their heads into these cells ; and very 

 likely the milky fluid is placed on and about 

 the egg a little before the inmate breaks its 

 way out of the shell. We infer this, because 

 we have never been able to get the eggs to 

 hatch when taken away from the bees,* al- 



3 4 .5 6 9 13 1.5 

 THE DAILY GROWTH OF LARV^. 



though we have -carefully kept the temper- 

 ature at the same point as in the hive. The 

 net-work, as shown in tlie cut above, allows 

 the milky fluid to penetrate the shell of the 

 egg to furnish nourishment for the young 

 bee at just the time required. These worms 

 are really young bees in their larval state, 

 and we shall in future call them larvae. 

 They thrive and grow vei y rapidly on their 

 bread-and-milk diet, as you can see if you 

 look at them very often. They will more 

 than double in size in a single half-day, and 

 in the short space of 12 days will expand 

 from a mere speck (the larva just hatched) 

 to the size of a full-grown bee, filling the cell 

 completely. This seems almost incredible. 

 but there they are, right before your eyes. 

 We presume it is owing to the highly con- 

 centrated nature of tliis "bread-and-milk" 

 food that the workers are so constantly giving 

 them that they grow so rapidly. If you take 

 the comb away from the bees for a little 

 while you will see the larvae opening their 



* Since this was written it has been proven that 

 eg'g-s. removed from the hive, when subjected to 

 proper temperature will hatch if supplied artiflciallj' 

 with the milky food; otherwise, not. 



mouths to be fed, like a nest of young birds, 

 for all the w^orld. 



Figures under the cut represent the age in 

 days from the laying of an egg. First the 

 larva just having broken the egg-shell on 

 the third day ; next, a larva on the fourth 

 day. During the fifth and sixth days they 

 grow very rapidly, but it is difiicult to fix 

 any precise mark in regard to size. On the 

 ninth day, the larva, having straightened 

 itself out, the worker-bees cap it over. We 

 have made a pretty accurate experiment on 

 this point, and it was just six days and seven 

 hours after the first egg hatched, that the 

 bees completely capped it over. Just when 

 larvae begin to have legs and eyes, we have 

 not discovered ; but we found that the wings 

 develop toward the last of the growth. 



Regarding this point, Frank Cheshire, in 

 his work on " Bees and Bee-keeping,'" says : 



The chorion of the egg- breaks, usually after three 

 days (the time varies according to temperature), 

 and a footless larva, with thirteen segments, exclu- 

 sive of the head, alternately straightens and bends 

 its bod J' to free itself of the envelope. It is ex- 

 tremely curious that, before hatching, the larva 

 presents rudimentary legs, which disappear— a fact 

 which some have supposed to indicate "atavism," a 

 reference to an ancestral type in which the larva 

 bore feet; but this does not seem to be valid, for 

 reasons which would encroach too much on our 

 space. Toward the end of the larval period, the 

 three segments following the head have little scales 

 beneath the skin on the ventral side, which are the 

 beginnings of the legs, and which can not be seen 

 until the creature has been immersed in alcohol: the 

 budding wings outside these, on second and third 

 segments, are, by the same treatment, brought un- 

 der ^-iew, as are also the rudiments of the sting in 

 queen or worker larvfe, the male organs appearing 

 in that of the drone. After sealing, the fourth seg- 

 ment begins to contract, and the fifth becomes 

 partly atrophied, so that, soon, the former consti- 

 tutes only a partial cover for the base of the devel- 

 oping thorax, and the petiole between it and the 

 abdomen, while the latter becomes the narrow, first 

 abdominal segment. It has been explained that the 

 last three segments disappear in forming the sting; 

 and now we find the fourth forming the petiole, leav- 

 ing nine of the thirteen original segments, of which 

 three go to the thorax and six to the abdomen. 



After the larvae are 6 days old, or between 

 9 and 10 days from the time the egg was laid, 

 you will find the bees sealing up some of the 

 largest. This sealing is done with a sort of 

 paper-like substance ; and while it shuts the 

 young bee uj), it still allows it a chance to 

 breathe througli the pores of the capping. 

 It is given its last food, and the niu-ses seem 

 to say, " There 1 you have been fed enough; 

 spin your cocoon, and take care of yourself." 



After this, as a general thing, the young 

 bee is left covered up until it gnaws off the 

 capping and comes out a perfect bee. This 



