PHYSIOLOGY. 49 



days and a part of the twelfth, as if exhausted by her labor, 

 she remains in complete repose. Then she passes four 

 days and a part of the fifth as a nymph. It is on the six- 

 teenth day therefore that the perfect state of queen is 

 attained." 



" The drone passes three days in the egg, six and a half as 

 a worm, and changes into a perfect insect on the twenty- 

 fourth or twenty-fifth day after the egg is laid." 



" The development of each species likewise proceeds more 

 slowly when the colonies are weak or the air cool, and 

 when the weather is very cold it is entirely suspended. Dr. 

 Hunter has observed that the eggs, worms and nymphs all 

 require a heat above 70° of Fahrenheit for their evolution." 



In the chapter on protection against extremes of hecU and 

 cold, I have dwelt, at some length, upon the importance of 

 constructing the hives in such a manner as to enable the 

 bees to preserve, as far as possible, a uniform temperature 

 in their tenement. In thin hives exposed to the sun, the 

 heat is sometimes so great as to destroy the eggs and the 

 larvse, even when the combs escape from being melted ; 

 and the cold is often so severe as to check the development 

 of the brood, and sometimes to kill it outright. 



In such hives, when the temperature out of doors fetlls 

 suddenly and severely, the bees at once feel the unfavorable 

 change ; they are obliged in self defence to huddle together 

 to keep warm, and thus large portions of the brood comb 

 are often abandoned, and the brood either destroyed at once 

 by the cold, or so enfeebled that they never recover from the 

 shock. L'et every bee keeper, in all his operations^ remem- 

 ber that brood comb must never be exposed to a law tem- 

 perature so as to become chilled : the disastrous efiects are 

 almost as certain, as when the eggs of a setting hen are 

 left, for too long a time, by the careless mother. The 

 5 



