Wasps, Bees, and Ants 



5 2 3 



issues from a community nest (hive, hollow tree, or elsewhere) and finds, 

 through the efforts of a few of the workers, a place for a new nest (in another 

 sheltered hollow place, usually, through the intervention of the bee-keeper, 

 another hive). Taking possession of this new nesting-place, the workers 

 immediately begin to secrete wax (method described later) and to build 

 "comb," i.e., double-tiered layers of waxen cells, usually as "curtains" 

 or plates hanging down from the ceiling of the nest (the bee-keepers supply 

 artificially made "foundations" or beginnings of these curtains in vertical 

 frames set parallel and lengthwise of the hive, so that the combs will be 

 built symmetrically and conveniently for the bee-keeper's handling). In 

 many of these cells the queen, which has received the fertilizing sperm-cells 



FIG. 730. Brood-cells from honey-bee comb showing different stages in the metamor- 

 phosis of the honey-bee; worker brood at top and three queen-cells below; begin- 

 ning at right end of upper row of cells and going to left, note egg, young larva, old 

 larva, pupa, and adult ready to issue; of the large curving queen-cells, two are cut 

 open to show larva within. (After Benton; natural size.) 



from a male during a mating flight high in the air, lays fertilized eggs, one 

 at the very bottom of each cell. In other cells, pollen and honey brought 

 by workers (the honey brought as flower-nectar and made from this, as 

 explained later) are stored for food. In three days the eggs hatch, the tiny 

 larvae being footless, white, soft-bodied, helpless grubs. They are fed at 

 first exclusively with "bee-jelly," a highly nutritious, predigested substance 

 elaborated in the bodies of the nurse workers and regurgitated by them 

 into the mouths of the larvae. After a couple of days of feeding with this 

 substance, the larvae are fed, in addition to bee-jelly, pollen and honey taken 

 by the nurses from the cells stored with these food-substances. After three 

 days of this mixed feeding, the larvae having grown so as to fill half or two- 

 thirds of the cell, lying curled in it (Fig. 730), a small mass of mixed pollen 





