LAYING AND HATCHING OF EGGS. 61 



" Such are the respective stages of the working 

 bee ; those, of the royal bee are as follows. She 

 passes three days in the egg and is five a worm ; the 

 workers then close her cell, and she immediately be- 

 gins spinning the cocoon, which occupies her twenty- 

 four hours. On the tenth and eleventh days, as if 

 exhausted by her labor, she remains in complete 

 repose, and even sixteen hours of the twelfth. Then 

 she passes four days and one-third as a nymph. It 

 is on the sixteenth day, therefore, that the perfect 

 state of queen is attained. 



" The male passes three days in the egg, six and 

 a half as a worm, and metamorphoses into a fly on 

 the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth day after the egg is 

 laid. The great epoch of laying the eggs of males 

 may be accelerated or retarded by the state of the 

 atmosphere*, promoting or impeding the collection of 

 the bees. The development of each species likewise 

 proceeds more slowly when the colonies are weak or 

 the air cool, and when the weather is very cold it is 

 entirely suspended. Mr. Hunter has observed that 

 the eggs, maggots and nymphs all require a heat 

 above 70 of Fahrenheit for their evolution. The in- 

 fluence of temperature in the development of embryo 

 insects is very strongly illustrated in the case of the 

 Papilio Machaon. According to Messrs. Kirby and 

 Spence, ' if the caterpillar of the Papilio Machaon 

 becomes a pupa in July, the butterfly will appear in 

 thirteen days ; if it do not become a pupa till Sep- 

 tember, the butterfly will not make its appearance 



