4 BEES FOE PLEASURE AND PROFIT. 



a great deal concerning the economy of the beehive. In fine 

 weather, in about twenty-four hours from the time they are 

 hived, a swarm of bees will have constructed three or four 

 combs measuring some three inches along the top and tapering 

 towards the base (fig. 3). 



The cells nearest the hive's roof will be fille 1 by the bees 

 with honey and pollen — though the bulk of the pollen is 

 placed in the lower parts of the combs when they are corn- 



Fig. 4. — Comb stored wilh Uoaey and Brood, a, Honey ; jj, Brood. 



plated. It is also in tlie centre of the combs that the queen 

 lays her eggs, the bees storing the honey above and at the 

 sides of the brood (fig. 4). 



One egg only is placed in the bottom of each cell, though it 

 occasionally happens that a young and prolific queen, if con- 

 fined to a small hive, will deposit two or three in a cell. This, 

 however, rarely happens ; and when it does, the bees eat the 

 superfluous eggs, only allowing one in each cell. The eggs, 

 though so minute, are composed of shell, " white" or albumen, 

 and yolk. 



Development of the Bee. 



From the egg, kept warm by the bees which cluster on the 

 combs, a small white grub or "larva" hatches out in three 

 days. The bees feed it sparingly for five days on a food com- 

 posed of half-digested honey and pollen, and daring this time 

 it grows with such rapidity that by the fifth day it nearly 

 fills the cell : the bees then cap over the cell with a porous 

 covering made of beeswax and pollen. Capped or " sealed " 

 brood is easily distinguished fi-om sealed honey, as the cappings 

 of the former are more convex than those of the latter, and, 

 being partly composed of pollen, they are also of a darker 

 colour. When the larva is capped over, it spins its cocoon, 

 and three days later— i.e., when it is eight days old — it assumes 

 the " pupa " or " nymph " state. Ten daj-s later, or twenty- 

 one days fi-om the time that the queen deposited the egg, the 



