Cradle-Cells. 131 



altogether wrong when he said bees sat 

 upon their eggs like hens. 



In about three days the eggs hatch, but 

 not into pretty downy bees with gauzy 

 wings. No, indeed ! If you were to see 

 what hatches out of a bee's tgg you would 

 not imagine that queer -\ 

 thing could ever make a bee. 

 It is a little white atom, 

 with no legs and no wings^ 

 and looks like a maggot. // 

 Here is a picture of one very much 

 enlarged. It may not look like a bee, 

 but still it is a baby bee. 



If you do not like to call it a bee, you 

 may call it a laroa. For larva is the name 

 we give to the first form of an insect after 

 it leaves the tgg. 



This little larva is born hungry, and the 

 kind nurse-bees, knowing that, feed it 

 with plenty of — what shall I call it ? Bee- 

 milk, perhaps. This bee-milk is manu- 

 factured by the nurses in glands in their 



