94 Longevity and Function of Workers. 



porous, and more easily broken than the caps of the honey- 

 cells; it is alsc more convex (Fig. 29, k). The larva, now 

 full grown, having lapped up all the food placed before it, 

 surrounds itself with a silken cocoon, so excessively thin that 

 it requires a great number to appreciably reduce the size- of 

 the cells. 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. In three 

 days the insect assumes the pupa state (Fig. 29, g). In all 

 insects the spinning of the cocoon seems an exhaustive pro- 

 cess, for so far as I have observed, and that is quite at length, 

 this act is succeeded by a variable period of repose. The 

 pupa is also called a nymph. By cutting open cells it is easy 

 to determine just the date of forming the cocoon, and of 

 changing to the pupa state. The pupa looks like the mature 

 bee with all its appendages bound close about it, though the 

 color is still whitish. 



In twenty-one days the bees emerge from the cells. The 

 old writers were quite mistaken in thinking that the advent of 

 these was an occasion of joy and excitement among the bees. 

 All apiarists have noticed how utterly unmoved the bees are, 

 as they push over and crowd by these new-comers in the most 

 heedless and discourteous manner imaginable. Wildman tells 

 of seeing the workers gathering pollen and honey the same 

 day that they came forth from the cells. This idea is quickly 

 disproved if we Italianize black bees. We know that for 

 some days these young bees do not leave the hive at all, 

 except in case of swarming, when bees even too young to fly 

 will attempt to go with the crowd. These young bees, like 

 young drones and queens, are much lighter colored when 

 they first leave the cell. 



The worker-bees never attain a great age. Those reared in 

 autumn may live for eight or nine months, and if in queenless 

 stocks, where little labor is performed, even longer; while 

 those reared in spring will wear out in three months, and 

 when most busy will often die in from thirty to forty-five days. 

 None of these bees survive the year through, so there is a limit 

 to the number which may exist in a colony. As a good queen 

 will lay, when in her best estate, three thousand eggs daily, 

 and as the workers live from one to three months, it might 



