302 FUNDAMENTALS OF AGRICULTURE. 



The workers do all the work for the community. 

 Certain ones go forth each day in search of honey and 

 pollen, others act as nurses and feed the baby bees, 

 others build new cells of wax and still others stand 

 guard at the door of the hive. 



The Life of a Worker. About three days after the 

 tiny white egg is laid in a cell of the honey-comb it 

 hatches into a very small larva. The nurse bees im- 



A MODERN TEN-FRAME HIVE. 



mediately surround it with a white, milk-like food and 

 it grows rapidly, sometimes doubling in size in twenty- 

 four hours. In six days more, or in about ten days 

 after the egg is laid, the larva is so large that it fills the 

 entire cell. It needs no more food, for it is now ready 

 to enter the pupal stage. The nurse bees cover the 

 cell with a waxen cap and the little bee is left undis- 

 turbed. Within the sealed cell a wonderful change 

 is taking place. The larva spins a thin cocoon about 

 itself and gradually changes to a pupa, with its head, 



