XXVI 



With regard to the queen, the exhaustion of the two ovaries constitutes in my 

 opinion the life of the queen, which would only extend to the second season of 

 egg-laying, provided the queen were left in her normal condition, free to go 

 and come into her hive, in a mild and equable climate, and amidst an 

 abundant harvest of honey and pollen for the workers to collect and feed the 

 larvae. 



" I turn now to the question. How are the larvas fed, and wherein is the 

 feeding different for the queen-bee ? Take the worker first in order : the egg, 

 having been attached on one of the rhombs at the base of the hexagonal cell, 

 hatches after three days, and even six or longer, according to the season ; the 

 small white maggot exhibits no trace of external organs or members, but on 

 closer examination by the lens, shows a very imperfect oral apparatus or mouth, 

 for the reception of food as has been commonly stated by all writers ; through 

 this imperfect apparatus the workers are supposed to feed the larvae. Prof. 

 Westwood informs me the mouth is quite perfect when the larva is full-grown, 

 and on the lower lip a pair of spinnerets may be found, with which it spins its 

 cocoon preparatory to becoming a pupa. Moreover there is no anal orifice, as 

 no food passes through the stomach until just before the final change to the 

 pupa. Why then should not the first stage of the larval existence be maintained 

 and increased by endosmosis or absorption ? The larvae are not fed whilst in 

 the cells, but are constantly lubricated with honey and water ; the larva has no 

 motion, nor can any impulse be given it by the application of turpentine or the 

 prick of a needle ; it is simply a sack, with markings of a mouth, with the body 

 divided into thirteen or fourteen rings, along the sides of which may be seen the 

 ten spiracles or breathing holes, or perhaps in this stage glands as well, to 

 convey more perfectly the nourishment, and form the ganglia of the perfect bee. 

 The changes in internal structure are rapid ; one day you find a mere integu- 

 ment, filled with corpuscles of white creamy-looking flakes — which on chemical 

 analysis I find to be grape-sugar and water, the very material with which the 

 nurse-bees lubricate the larvae (this however in the queen-cell forms a strong 

 pulpy bed, upon which the larva rests, but of which the worker and drone cells 

 contain none, whilst in the queen ceU the jelly occupies nearly a third of the 

 cell, making it as it were a hot-bed around the queen larva) — a third day wiU 

 show the oesophagus commenced and the silk-forming glands also formed on 

 either side, and thus ready on the fifth day to be used through the spinnerets 

 to spin its cocoon — an act which is a marvel to me. I have discovered that the 

 bees do not form the silken respirator as has been hitherto stated, nor do they 

 hermetically seal up the cell, but leave the larva to finish the silken respirator, 

 and merely cover the sides and angles of the cells so as to strengthen them, and 

 make them fit to pass over, Uke stepping-stones over the heads of the pupa, 

 now resting to pass into the perfect or imago state. This the worker 

 accomplishes in twenty days, the drone in twenty-four, and the queen in 

 sixteen, subject to variations of weather, but as an average correct. 



