C. BEE-LIKE INSECTS (HYMENOPTERA) 



19. THE HIVE-BEE {Apis melUfica) 



More is known of the hive-bee than of any other insect. 

 Its great industrial importance has led many observant 

 persons in every country to attend to its mode of life; 

 professional advisers, the "bee-masters" of former genera- 

 tions, have collected and transmitted the teachings of practical 

 experience ; while the talents of the minute anatomist and 

 draughtsman have been employed to delineate every detail 

 of structure. If there are still problems to be solved, it is 

 because the life-history and economy of the hive-bee are 

 of unparalleled complexity. We shall first relate the life- 

 history of the hive-hee, and then give a short account of the 

 orderly life of the bee-community. The practical details of 

 bee-management must be left to special teachers. 



The eggs are laid by the queen-bee in the honeycomb, 

 each at the bottom of a separate cell. They are of long- 

 oval shape, and covered with a microscopic netted pattern. 

 From the eggs are hatched larvae, which are fed by the 

 workers with a mixture of honey and pollen, supplied so 

 profusely that they are bathed in the pap. They grow fast, 

 change their skins several times, and after five or six days, 

 as a rule, are full-fed and nearly fill the cell, which is then 

 closed by the attendant workers with a convex, porous cap, 

 suitable for the admission of fresh air. The larvae, thus 

 imprisoned, spin their cocoons, and await the change which 

 converts them into pupae. 



The larva has a head followed by thirteen body-segments. 

 It has no appendages, though before it left the egg every 

 segment bore legs, or leg-like prominences. The small 

 head is furnished with a pair of simple eyes, mandibles, 

 maxillary palps, besides a labium, which bears the spinneret 

 and the labial pafps. Spiracles open on the sides of nearly 

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