234: THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 



board and the edges of the hive. It can pass through a 

 very small crevice, and as soon as safe from the bees, it 

 will begin to enlarge its cramped tenement, by gnawing 

 into the solid wood. The time required for the larvse to 

 break forth into winged insects, varies with the tempera- 

 ture to which they are exposed, and the season of the 

 year Avhen they spin their cocoons.* I have known them 

 to spin and hatch in ten or eleven days ; and they often 

 spin so late in the Fall, as not to emerge until the ensuing 

 Spring. 



The male usually keeps away from the hive, but the 

 female seeks in every way to gain an entrance. If the 

 stock is weak and discouraged, she lays her eggsf among 



* In November (1858), I procured a large number of cocoons for winter obser- 

 vations. From many of them, the moths quickly emerged. In others, the larvsa 

 slowly changed into pupae or crysalids; while, in others still, after being exposed 

 for more than two months to a summer temperature, they remained in the worm 

 state. A few were exposed for six weeks to a uniform temperature of over 80, 

 and only one passed into the winged moth. Some, after being taken out of their 

 cocoons six times, would envelop themselves in a new shroud. 



Dr. Diinhoff says, that the larvae become motionless at a temperature of from 38 

 to 40, and entirely torpid at a lower temperature. A number which he left all 

 Winter in his summer-house, revived in the Spring, and passed through their 

 natural changes. He appears to have been more successful than myself in induc- 

 ing them to develop in Winter, by artificial heat ; but this may be owing to the 

 fact that he experimented with larvae which greedily ate the food given to them, 

 and not as I did, with worms which had spun their cocoons. Further experi- 

 ments are needed, in order to determine whether dilatory development is peculiar 

 to those reaching maturity late in the Fall, or is caused by the sudden check 

 given by cold weather. 



" If; when the thermometer stood at 10, I dissected a chrysalis, it was not frozen, 

 but congealed immediately afterwards. This shows that, at so low a temperature, 

 the vital force is sufficient to resist frost. In the hive, the chrysalids and larvse, in 

 various stages of development, pass the Winter in a state of torpor, in corners and 

 crevices, and among the waste on the bottom-boards. In March or April, they 

 revive, and the bees of strong colonies commence operations for dislodging them." 

 DONHOFF. 



Some larvse which I exposed to a temperature of 6 below zero, froze solid, and 

 never revived. Others, after remaining for 8 hours in a temperature of about 12, 

 seemed, after reviving, to remain for weeks in a crippled condition. 



t " The eggs of the bee-moth (see Plate XIII., Fig. 44) are perfectly round, and 

 very small, being only about one-eighth of a line in diameter. In the ducts of the 

 ovariutn, they are ranged together in the form of a rosary. They are not developed 



