372 



INTRODUCTION TO ZOOLOGY 



CHAP. 



workers. She works hard, laying at first about 3000 eggs 

 a day ! These first eggs are all alike and develop in the 

 same way. 



Kept warm by the bodies of the workers who 



Larvae 1 " clu^ 61 " over the combs, each egg hatches in about 



three days as a little white legless grub or larva, 



which lies curled up at the bottom of the cell (Fig. 296, A). 



It has a head and thirteen body- 

 segments. The " nurse-bees," who 

 are usually some of the older 

 workers, now feed it. At first 

 they give it a " pap," which they 



J themselves secrete from a special 



IT gland opening into their mouths, 



-\WvillH jjfc ml bUi soon it is put on a diet of 

 pollen and honey made into a soft 

 paste, which is placed in the cell 

 so that the larva lies partly im- 

 mersed in it, and can feed as 

 much as it will. In about five 

 days, during which time it has 

 changed its skin several times, 

 the grub is full* grown, and nearly 

 fills the cell in which it now lies 

 longitudinally. At this stage the 

 nurses form a convex porous cap 

 of wax over the mouth of the cell, 

 and the larva begins to spin from a gland on the lower lip a 

 silk thread, with which it makes a little mass of interwoven 

 threads at the mouth end of the cell. These threads partly 

 cover the body, forming an imperfect cocoon. 



In about two days the larva pupates, appearing 

 finally as a pupa in which the organs of the adult 

 bee are clearly visible through the transparent skin in which 

 it is swathed. This stage lasts for seven or eight days ; 

 then the pupal skin is cast off and the young bee is ready to 

 emerge. With its jaws it breaks the silken threads of the 

 cocoon and bites round the cap of the cell, sometimes helped 

 by a nurse-bee, until the cap swings back on a little hinge- 

 piece, and so is readily pushed aside. As the bee comes out, 

 she is met by workers who clean and brush her, and feed her 





FIG. 296. Three separate Cells 

 from the Brood-comb of a 

 Honey Bee, showing a young 

 larva A, a full-grown larva 

 7>, and a pupa G. 



The Pupa. 



