46 THE 'HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 



" 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 begins spinning her 

 cocoon, which occupies her twenty-four hours. On the 

 tenth and eleventh days, and a part of the twelfth, as if 

 exhausted by her labor, she remains in complete repose. 

 Then she passes four days and a part of the fifth as a 

 nymph. It is on the sixteenth day, therefore, that the 

 perfect state of queen is attained. 



" The drone passes three days in the egg, and six and a 

 half as a worm, and changes into a perfect insect on the 

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



" The development of each species likewise proceeds 

 more slowly when the colonies are weak, or the air cool. 

 Dr. Hunter has observed that the eggs, worms, and 

 nymphs all require a heat above 70 of Fahrenheit for 

 their evolution. Both drones and workers, on emerging 

 from the cell, are at first gray, soft, and comparatively 

 helpless, so that some time elapses before they take wing. 



"The workers and drones spin complete cocoons, or 

 inclose themselves on every side, while the royal larvae 

 construct only imperfect cocoons, open behind, and envel- 

 oping only the head, thorax, and first ring of the abdo- 

 men ; and Huber concludes, without any hesitation, that 

 the final cause of this is, that they may be exposed to the 

 mortal sting of the first hatched queen, whose instinct 

 leads her instantly to seek the destruction of those who 

 would soon become her rivals. 



"If the royal larvae spun complete cocoons, the stings of 

 the queens seeking to destroy their rivals might be so en- 

 tangled in their meshes that they could not be disengaged. 

 ' Such,' says Huber, ' is the instinctive enmity of young 

 queens to each other, that I have seen one of them, imme- 



