330 THE INSECT WORLD. 
retarded by an accidental captivity of two or three weeks. The 
longer this delay, the greater will be the number of male eggs. 
If the queen is shut up for more than twenty days after her birth, 
-she can then lay nothing 
but male eggs during the 
remainder of her existence. 
It seems, also, that this 
delay troubles her intel- 
lect; for she then often 
makes blunders as to the 
cells. She lays the eggs 
of the males, or drones, in 
the cradles prepared for 
the queens, and thus brings 
confusion into the future 
community. 
The eggs, once laid, are 
left to the care of the 
working bees, which Réau- 
7 mur called the nurses, in 
7 ns aoa com ih te sececermyig opposition to the wax 
Queen. workers, which are em- 
ployed in works of construction. According to many bee-keepers, 
and especially M. Hamet,* this division of duties is not positive. 
The young workers are the wax-workers; the old ones, collectors 
of honey, and nurses. However, when the honey-harvest is at its 
height, all the workers collect the spoil. Every individual is 
pressed into the service at the harvest-time, as with men. 
The eggs are not long in being hatched. From the moment 
when the larva comes out of the egg till that of its metamorphosis 
into a pupa, it keeps in its cell, rolled up, motionless as an Indian 
idol in its sacred temple. The working bees visit it from time to 
time, to see that it wants for nothing, and to renew its provisions. 
They also carefully inspect the different cells, and assure them- 
selves of the good condition of their nurslings. The pap which 
they give them as food is whitish, and resembles paste made of 
flour. It is apparently a preparation of pollen, prepared in the 
* “Cours d’Apiculture,” in 8vo. Paris, 1864. _ 















