^6 AUSTRALIAN BEE LORE AND BEE CULTURE- 



Draughty hives have much to answer for in preventing eariy 

 spring swarms. So also has the too common practice of leaving 

 the supers on the brood-chamber without an intervening warm 

 quilt between the two boxes. The more snugly in the brood- 

 chamber the bees are kept during the winter months and early 

 spring, the sooner will early swarms issue, always providing the 

 old stock has been kept numerically strong since the previous 

 autumn. If "the early bird gets the first worm," it is the early 

 swarm that gets the most honey. 



When the inmate of the egg hatches, a little whitish 

 worm is seen lying on the bottom of the cell a,nd parallel to it. 

 As soon as the little inmates are liberated from the egg-covering 

 they are supplied with a white semi-transparent fluid by the 

 nursing bees. After receiving this food they grow rapidly and 

 very soon touch the angles on either side of the cell. The little 

 inmates literally float in this milky fluid. Very soon their couch 

 becomes too short to stretch themselves upon. Then they assume 

 a bent or semicircular position. The degrees of these circular 

 segments increases until both ends meet. When there is no further 

 room to coil they stretch themselves along the sides of the cell 

 and parallel to it. 



When the larval transformation is nearly completed the 

 ■organs of locomotion commence developing, first the legs followed 

 by the wings, and so on ; this is the beginning of the chrysalis 

 stage. Then the nurse bees begin the work of enclosing the in- 

 mates by sealing them in with a brownish mixture composed of 

 wax and pollen, or bee-bread, the same kind of material as the larger 

 cappings of the drone cells and that of the queen-bee are formed 

 with. Under the microscope these cappings are seen to be full of 

 small holes, which freely admit the warm air from the 

 clustering bees to be utilised by the two spiracles in the thorax 

 of the maturing inmate, the ten in the abdomen remaining in- 

 active during the final stage of this transformation. 



During the second stage of transformation the larvae fre- 

 quently moult or change their skin; this occurs five or six times 

 during growth. After the final moult they are fed for about 

 four days. The inmate is now supplied with no more food, a,nd 

 the work of cocoon-spinning begins as soon as the capping of 

 the cells is completed. The silken threads composing the cocoon 

 are produced from a fluid yielded by a gland, and the work of 

 its construction is exactly similar to that of the silkworm and 

 other cocoon-building insects. Indeed, the bee cocoon may be 



