30 



BULLETIN 1222, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



nurse bees actually spend within the cell 19.68 per cent of the whole 

 time. These figures indicate the unceasing care of the developing 

 bees even more than do the data on the number of separate visits 



made to them by the 

 nurse bees. 



Few successive obser- 

 vations on individual 

 larvae were made, since 

 the number of visits and 

 the time spent within the 

 cells were fairly uniform 

 for each age. Occasion- 

 ally, where a particu- 

 larly small or a partic- 

 ularly large total was 

 obtained for a certain 

 cell in one 10-minute 

 period, a second observa- 

 tion was made at once. 

 Usually in such cases the 

 average of two such 

 readings was about equal 

 to the average per 10- 

 minute period for the 

 given age. It therefore 

 appears that if a cell has 

 received more than the 

 usual amount of atten- 

 tion during one observa- 

 tion period of 10 min- 

 utes, the nurses during 

 the ensuing period de- 

 vote less than the aver- 

 age amount of attention 

 to that particular cell, 

 though they may inspect 

 it as many or even more 

 times than they did dur- 

 ing the preceding obser- 

 vation period. Likewise 

 any slighting of a certain 

 cell during one period is 

 compensated in a subse- 

 quent period by more 

 than the average amount 

 of attention. 



s>o 



&o 



TO 



eo 



&o 



**c> 



*?<? 



&o 



Fig. 13.— Showing the relation of average time (sec- 

 onds) spent in nursing honeybee larvae per 10- 

 minute period to age. (Table 7.) 



CHANGE IN FEEDING 

 BEHAVIOR. 



It has long been known 

 that the developing larva 

 is not fed the same kind of material throughout larval life, it being 

 usually believed that the change in the character of the food occurs 

 on the fourth day. The data herein recorded show not only that such 



