170 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1792. 



rather to work themselves into royalty, or mistresses of the community. The 

 bees are readily detected feeding the young maggot; and indeed a young maggot 

 might easily be brought up, by any person who would be attentive to feed it. 

 They open their 2 lateral pincers to receive the food, and swallow it. As they 

 grow, they cast their coats, or cuticles; but how often they throw their coats, 

 while in the maggot state, I do not know. I observed that they often removed 

 their eggs; I also find they very often shift the maggot into another cell, even 

 when very large. The maggots grow larger till they nearly fill the cell; and by 

 this time they require no more food, and are ready to be inclosed for the chrysalis 

 state: how this period is discovered I do not know, for in every other insect, as 

 far as I am acquainted, it is an operation of the maggot, or caterpillar itself; 

 but in the common bee, it is an operation of the perfect animal; probably it 

 arises from the maggot refusing food. The time between their being hatched 

 and their being inclosed is, I believe, 4 days; at least, from repeated observa- 

 tions, it comes nearly to that time: when ready for the chrysalis state, the bees 

 cover over the mouth of the cell, with a substance of a light brown colour, much 

 in the same manner that they cover the honey, excepting that, in the present in- 

 stance, the covering is convex externally, and appears not to be entirely wax but 

 a mixture of wax and farina. The maggot is now perfectly inclosed, and it be- 

 gins to line the cell and covering of the mouth above mentioned, with a silk it 

 spins out similar to the silk-worm, and which makes a kind of pod for the chry- 

 salis. Bonnet observed, that in one instance the cell was too short for the chry- 

 salis, and it broke its covering, and formed its pod higher, or more convex than 

 common: this I can conceive possible; we often see it in the wasp. Having com- 

 pleted this lining, they cast oft', or rather shove off^, from the head backwards, 

 the last maggot coat, which is deposited at the bottom of the cell, and then 

 they become chrysalises. 



Of the food of the maggot, or what is called bee-hread. — One would naturally 

 suppose that the food of the maggot bee should be honey, both because it is the 

 food of the old ones, and it is what they appear principally to collect for them- 

 selves; however, the circumstance of honey being food for the old ones is no ar- 

 gument, because very few young animals live on the same food with the old, and 

 therefore it is probable the maggot bee does not live on honey ; and if we reason 

 from analogy, we shall be led to suppose the bee-bread to be the food of the 

 maggot. It is the food of the maggot of the humble bee, who feeds on honey, 

 and even lays up a store of honey for a wet day, yet does not feed the young 

 with it. It is the food of the maggot of a black bee, and also of several others 

 of the solitary kind, who also feed on honey ; and wasps, &c. who do not bring 

 in such materials, do not feed themselves on honey. We cannot suppose that 

 the bee-bread is for the food of the old bees, when we see them collecting it in 



