BEES. 41 



must Leg'in to work. It is the lot of all, bees as well as 

 men. Happily for the bees, they seem never to have any 

 doubt, or to make any fuss, about their " mission," strang-e, 

 and wonderful, and beautiful as are the operations they have 

 to perform. To live, to know their work, and to do it, 

 rre with them convertible propositions. The larva now 

 begins to line the cell with a silky film, alternately shorten- 

 ing- and lengthening- its body in the process. This silky 

 thread proceeds from the middle part of the under lip, and 

 is composed of two threads gummed tog-ether as they issue 

 ii'om the two adjoining- orifices of the spinner. The larva 

 then encloses itself in a cocoon, after the fashion of the silk- 

 worm, and looks not very unlike an Egyptian mummy in its 

 swaddHng-clothes. This process completed, in aoout thirty- 

 six hours, it is no long-er a larva, but a pupa or nymph. At 

 last comes the hour of true birth, when the young- imago, as 

 it is now called, shall breathe the pure air of the external 

 world, and bask in the ra^^s of the g-olden sunsbine. On 

 the twenty-first day after the deposition of the eg-g-s, tbe 

 young- ones, of a grayish colour, may occasionally be seen 

 in front of the hive, undergoing the process of purification 

 at the hands of the nurse-bees. 



After the pupa-bee has passed through its various 

 changes, its first movement towards entering its new state 

 of existence, is to gnaw through the cover of the cell. This 

 it does without much difhculty; but releasing itself from 

 the cell is quite another matter, for the other bees do not 

 c^ive it the slightest assistance towards freeing- itself from 

 its embarrassments. An accurate observer has repeatedly 

 seen an unibrtunate bee, after many struggles, enabled to 

 poke its head out of the cell, and look round upon the 

 new world presented to its gaze, when just as it was on the 

 point of forcing- its shoulders out, a body of unfeeling 

 worker-bees ran over it in the pursuit of their daily avoca- 

 tions, and compelled the unfortunate insect to dive back 

 into the cell from which it had so recently emerged. Again 

 and again had the j)oor bee to retreat just as it had 

 elfected its escape, and not until after numerous interrup- 

 lions of the same nature, were its persevering endeavours 

 crowned with success. The nurse-bees pay the most un- 

 rt^ijiil.tini;- attention to the vouni*- bees, f'om the time that 



