SOCIAL ECONOMY. 229 
among: Naturalists as to the changes which the bee- 
larva undergoes, and the number of times that it 
casts its skin. The interest which attaches to the 
subject on this account, and the light which the 
history of the bee and wasp mutually throw on each 
other must be my excuse for a somewhat long 
digression into the history of the larva of the honey- 
bee. This inquiry is altogether much more difficult 
than the examination of the wasp-larva. For the 
structures are much slighter; they are not to be 
displayed without a great deal of trouble, and, after 
all, there is much less to see. With a saucer of : 
warm water we can loosen and unravel all the. parts 
of a wasp’s comb, but the honey-comb requires long 
soaking in an alkaline solution to separate the silk 
lining from the waxen wall. Under this treatment, 
however, the cocoons will float out entire, and in- 
cidentally we may satisfy ourselves of a fact which 
has been often disputed, namely that cells which 
have not been used for breeding, but only for stormg 
honey in, have no lining. Indeed, as the lining of 
the cell is the cocoon of the larva, it could not be 
otherwise. 
As the bee-larva is fed on bee-bread, which leaves 
little or no indigestible residue, the grub is not 
provided with a large pouch within its body to 
receive such matters. The yellow substance which 
we find in the angles of the bottom of the bee-cell is 
shown by the microscope to consist almost entirely 
of pollen granules, and to be, in fact, identical with 
bee-bread. It is probably superabundant food which — 
the larva has not eaten, and which has worked its 
way down to the bottom of the cell. It certainly is 
