140 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



cumstances which change the form and functions of a 

 bee, accelerate its appearance as a perfect insect ; and 

 that by choosing a grub three days old, when the bees 

 want a queen, they actually gain six days ; for in this 

 case she is ready to come forth in ten days, instead of 

 sixteen, which would be required, was a recently laid 

 egg fixed upon^. 



The larvae of bees, though without feet, are not alto- 

 gether without motion. They advance from their first 

 station at the bottom of the cell, as I before hinted, in 

 a spiral direction. This movement, for the first three 

 days, is so slow as to be scarcely perceptible ; but after 

 this it is more easily discerned. The animal now makes 

 two entire revolutions in about an hour and three quar- 

 ters ; and when the period of its metamorphosis arrives, 

 it is scarcely more than two lines from the mouth of 

 the cell. Its attitude, which is ahvays the same, is a 

 strong curve ''. This occasions the inhabitant of a ho- 

 rizontal cell to be always perpendicular to the hori- 

 zon, and that of a vertical one to be parallel with it. 



A most remarkable diflerence, as I lately observed, 

 takes place in spinning their cocoons, — the grubs of 

 w orkers and drones spinning complete cocoons, while 

 those that are spun by the females are incomplete, or 

 open at the lower end, and covering only the head and 

 trunk and the first segment of the abdomen. This va- 

 riation is probably occasioned by the diiferent forms 

 of the cells ; for, if a female larva be placed in a w orkers 



" Hubcr, i, 215—. Schirach asserts, that in cold weather the dij;clO'» 

 sure of the imago takes place two days later than in warm : and Riem, 

 that in a bad season the eggs will remain in the cells many months with- 

 out hatching, bchirach, 79. 211. " Schirach, t. 3. f. 10. 



