ITALIAN QUEEN BEE 15 



ing to consciousness, I found myself, was 

 only three-eighths of an inch wide and not 

 much longer. But I kept growing from a 

 speck one-sixteenth of an inch in length, 

 that first looked like a wee piece of a white 

 grain of rice, or a little clip of white thread, 

 into a larva, then a pupa, and afterwards 

 showed a developing head, two long and two 

 short wings, and six legs, beside some cun- 

 ning antennae, or feelers, that would always 

 help me know "where I was at." The nurse 

 bees of our colony had to make my home 

 a little larger all the while. Accordingly 

 they kept building on beeswax very cutely, 

 artistically making diminutive elevations 

 and recesses all over the outside until my 

 cell was larger and longer than any of the 

 others in the hive, being about seven-eighths 

 of an inch in length. It was tapered some- 

 what at the end where some of my feet 

 were, and, with all the turrets and fancy 

 indentations, was as elegant in its way as is 

 Buckingham Palace in which good Queen 

 Alexandra has been so magnificently housed. 



