464 INSECTA. 



than elaborated honey, and the pollen mixed with a little of that substance 

 only serves as food for these Insects and their larv3e. 



We have seen that the labourers or working bees resemble the females 

 in several particulars. Certain curious experiments have proved that they 

 are of one sex, and that they are merely females that have not been fully 

 developed in consequence of the nature of the food given to them while in 

 the state of larva. 



The substance of which their combs are composed, being ill adapted to 

 resist the effects of the weather, and as they do not construct a nest or ge- 

 neral envelope, these Insects can only establish their colonies in cavities 

 where their work finds a natural shelter. The labourers, which are alone 

 charged with the work, form those laminse composed of two opposing rows 

 of hexagonal alveoli with a pyramidal base formed of three rhombs. These 

 alveoli have received the name oi cells, and each lamina that of comb. They 

 are always perpendicular, parallel, fixed at top or by one of the edges, and 

 separated by spaces which allow the Bees to pass between them. The 

 cells are thus placed horizontally. Distinguished geometricians have de- 

 monstrated that their form is the most economical with respect to the ex- 

 penditure of wax, and the most advantageous as to the extent of the space 

 contained in each cell. Bees, however, know how to modify this form ac- 

 cording to circumstances. They cut away and fit their faces piece by piece. 

 These ceUs, with the exception of that proper to the larva and nymph of 

 the female, are almost equal; some contain the brood, and the remainder 

 the honey and pollen of flowers. Some of the cells containing honey are 

 open, and the remainder, or those held in reserve, are sealed up with a flat 

 or slightly convex lid. The royal cells, which vary in number from two to 

 forty, are much larger, almost cylindrical, somewhat narrower at the end, and 

 have little cavities on their external surface. They usually hang from the 

 margin of the combs, in the manner of stalactites, so that the larvae con- 

 tained in them are in a reversed position. Some of them weigh as much 

 as one hundred and fifty of the ordinary cells. The cells of the males are 

 of an intermediate size, between those of the preceding and those of the 

 labourers, and placed here and there. Bees always continue their combs 

 from above downwards. They stop the httle chinks and apertures of their 

 domicil with a species of mastich, which they collect from different ti-ees, 

 called propolis. 



Bees take care to furnish their larvae with patee in quantities proportioned 

 to their age, and on which they cling with their bodies curved into an arc. 

 Six or seven days after they are hatched, they prepare to undergo their 

 metamorphosis. Shut up in their cells by the labourers who close the ori- 

 fice with a convex lid, they line the parieties of their domicil with a tissue of 

 silk, spin a cocoon, become nymphs, and, at the expiration of about twelve 

 days, issue forth in their perfect state. The labourers immediately clean out 

 the vacant cells, in order that they may be prepared for the reception of 

 another t^^. This is not the case however with the royal cells; they are 



