194 A TOCa HOUND MY GABDEN. 



she deposits an egg in it, and resumes her march. During 

 all this time, the workers which surround her lick her, clean 

 her, and offer her honey with their little trunks. All the 

 cells are not of the same size ; some, of similar form to the 

 ordinary cells destined to contain provisions, and to serve as 

 nests for the eggs which are to produce common hees, are 

 larger by a ninth than these ; they will be the cradles of the 

 males. Others of a different form, of a rounded and oblong 

 figure, are destined to contain the eggs which will become 

 females like the queen. 



Bees employ admirable economy in the use of their wax. 

 Several learned geometricians have endeavoured to prove 

 what should be the form of cells that would require the least 

 possible wax, and, as the result of their problem, have arrived 

 at the conclusion that it is exactly that which is adopted by 

 the bees. Well, but when the object is to build a royal cell, 

 they renounce this economy altogether : a single one of 

 these cells requires as much wax as a hundred and fifty ordi- 

 nary cells. According to the time of year, the queen chooses, 

 for depositing her eggs, one of these three sorts of cells. Such 

 of the cells as contain the provision of honey are hermeti- 

 cally sealed with lids of wax; those in which the eggs are 

 placed are left uncovered : these eggs are of a bluish white. 

 Two days afterwards, from this egg issues a worm; several 

 times in the course of the day a working bee brings it food. 

 A bee often passes over several cells without stopping; the 

 reason of which is that it finds the worms sufficiently pro- 

 visioned. In proportion with the growth of the worms, their 

 food, a kind of pap which they give them, becomes more sub- 

 stantial and is otherwise composed. A paste quite different 

 in taste is given to the worms which are to become fruitful 

 queens. At the end of six days the worms are about to 

 be transformed, and no more food is brought to them; the 

 workers fasten them into their cells by placing lids of wax 

 over them. The worm thus shut up lines its dwelling with 

 a hanging of extremely fine silk, and then undergoes two 

 transformations. At the second, it is a perfect bee. 



The bee opens the lid with its teeth, and comes out of the 

 cell. During this time other bees clean out the cell that has 

 just been abandoned, taking away the cast-off vestments of the 



