136 Development of Bees. 
the digestive tube of the larva at this time. It is probable that 
honey is also given them, and so Dufour was wholly right 
in urging that digested food was fed to the larve, for honey 
is digested nectar. He was also correct in supposing the 
food of the larva to be a sort of chyle, M. Quinby, Doo- 
‘little, and others, say water is also an element of this food. 
But bees often breed very rapidly when they do not leave 
the hive at all, and so water, other than that contained in 
the honey, etc., cannot be added. The time when bees 
seem to need water, and so repair to the rill and the pond, 
is during the heat of spring and summer, when they are 
most busy. May this not be quaffed for the most part to 
slake their own thirst? If water is carried to the hives it 
is doubtless given to the nurse bees. They may need water 
when the weather is hot and brood raising at its very 
height. 
At first the larve lie at the bottom of the cell, in the 
cream-like “bee-milk.” Later they curl up, and when 
fully grown, are straight (Fig. 24, f). They now turn 
head down and cast their skin and digestive canal, then 
turn with their head towards the mouth of the cell (Fig. 
24,f). Before this, however, the cell has been capped. 
In eight days from the laying of the egg, the worker cell, 
like the queen cell, is capped over by the worker bees. . 
This cap is composed of pollen and old wax, so it is darker, 
more porous, and more easily broken than the caps of the. 
honey-cells; it is also more convex (Fig. 24,4). The larva, 
now full grown, having lapped up all the food placed before 
it, spins its silken cocoon, so excessively thin that it requires 
a great number to appreciably reduce the size of the cell. 
The silken part of the cocoon extends down from the cap 
but a short distance, but like moths and many other insects, 
the larval bee just before it pupates, spreads a thin glue or 
varnish over the entire inner part of the cell. These cocoons, 
partly of silk and partly of glue, are well seen when we 
reduce combs to wax with the solar wax extractor. These 
always remain in the cells after the bees escape, and give 
to old comb its dark color and great strength. Yet they 
are so thin that cells used even for a dozen years, seem to 
serve as well for brood as when first used. Indeed I have 
