INSECTS IN COMMERCE 143 



Instead of at once seeking for food after the 

 usual manner of newly hatched insects, the Sitaris 

 larvae remain in a torpid condition until the 

 early spring of the following year. Then, when 

 the male bees, who are always the first to appear, 

 emerge from their galleries and sun themselves at 

 the entrance of their cells, the motionless larvae 

 at once awake from their trance, spring up, and 

 cling to the hairy bodies of the bees with their 

 grappling hooks ; there they remain firmly 

 anchored for a short time, and then, when an 

 opportunity occurs, transfer themselves to the 

 females. As soon as the mother bee deposits 

 an egg in a cell well stored with honey, the 

 parasitic larva of the beetle carefully slips from 

 her body on to the egg floating on the sweet, 

 sticky pool, and immediately tears it open and 

 begins to devour the contents. For eight days 

 the carnivorous little larva feasts and increases 

 in size ; then, its first repast being quite finished, 

 it at once proceeds to adapt itself to a new mode 

 of life; its skin splits down the back and the 

 larva wriggles out of it quite a different creature. 

 It is now a soft, fat, white grub, and quite blind, 

 while on its back a row of spiracles or breathing- 

 holes have appeared. The grub rolls off the 

 empty egg-shell, for which it has no further use, 

 into the honey, and there it lies submerged with 

 the exception of its back, on which is situated its 

 breathing apparatus. 



Here it lies contentedly sucking up the honey 

 until all is gone, then the insect again changes 

 its form and becomes what M. Fabre has called 

 a pseudo-chrysalid ; it becomes lethargic, and 



