§vill.] EGGS AND TRA.XSFORAfATIONS. 61 



where the temperature is likely to be most congenial. 

 The cells destined for the rearing of drones are larger 

 than those from which workers will proceed, the former 

 standing nineteen to the square inch against twenty- 

 seven of the latter : the former are also one-third as 

 deep again as the latter, and are made slightly more 

 convex when sealed over. But between the eggs them- 

 selves there is externally no difference whatever. 



In from nineteen to twenty-one days after the egg is 

 first laid (unless cold weather should have retarded it) 

 the bee quits the pupa state, and, nibbling its way 

 through the waxen covering that has enclosed it, comes 

 forth a winged insect. The eggs of drones require 

 twenty-four or twenty-five days, and those of queens six- 

 teen or seventeen, to arrive at maturity. In the unicomb 

 observatory hives the young bees may distinctly be seen 

 as they literally fight their way into the world, for the 

 other bees do not take the slightest notice, nor afford 

 them any assistance. We have frequently been amused 

 in watching the eager little new comer, now obtruding 

 its head, and anon compelled to withdraw into the cell 

 to escape being trampled on by the apparently unfeeling 

 throng, until at last it has succeeded in making its exit. 

 The little grey creature, after brushing and shaking itself, 

 enters upon its duties in the hive, and after a while issues 

 forth to the more laborious occupation of gathering honey 

 in the fields — thus early illustrating that character for 

 industry which has been proverbial at least since the 



