HYMENOPTEEA. 333 



tion. The workers add then to its domicile a sort of vertical tube, 

 into which they push, and turn round the young grub, which is 

 the hope of the community. For twelve days a bee, a sort of body- 

 guard, has special charge of the person of our infant. It offers 

 it food, and pays it many other delicate little attentions. When 

 the moment for the metamorphosis has come, the orifice of the 

 tube is closed, and the bees await the hatching of the new queen. 

 Thus the loss of the queen is speedily replaced. The larvae of the 

 queens, when they are shut up in their cells, have the head down- 

 wards, whilst the larvae of the males have the head upwards. Their 

 hatching takes place thirteen days after the laying of the eggs. ' 



As soon as they have quitted their cradles, the young queens 

 are ready to take flight. The others, workers and males, are 

 less strongly organized. Before they are able to take a part in 

 the sports and labours of the old ones, they require a rest of 

 twenty-four hours, during which the nurses lick them, brush 

 them, and offer them honey. But the young workers require to 

 undergo no apprenticeship before they do the work which devolves 

 upon them. They go straight to their work, and suppress all 

 apprenticeship. Nature is their guide and counsellor, 



When the hatching has begun, each day adds some hundreds of 

 young bees to the population of the hive, which is not long in 

 becoming too small for the number of its inhabitants. It is then 

 that those curious emigrations of this winged people take place 

 which are called swarms. The queen leaves the hive, with a part 

 of her subjects, and founds a new colony elsewhere. In the 

 climate of France the bees generally swarm in the months of 

 May and June. In the south, very thickly populated hives may 

 furnish as many as four swarms in a season ; but in the north, 

 rarely more than one or two. But in some years swarming does 

 not take place at all, for the want of a sufficient population. In 

 such cases, the workers do not construct royal cells at the period 

 when the eggs of the males are laid, and the swarming is put 

 off till the following spring. It occasionally happens that a hive, 

 although full of bees, cannot make up its mind to send out a 

 swarm, and also that the hives thinly populated send out abundant 

 swarms. There are, then, other causes than the excess of popula- 

 tion which exercise an influence on this annual crisis in the life 



