THE WOBKING BEE. 67 



described as made of bee-silk. The fluid escapes from spinerets 

 in the lips of the larvae, and after its extrusion quickly hardens 

 and becomes fibrous. On the completion of the capping, all 

 further attention from the nurse-bees ceases. The construction 

 of the cocoon occupies about thirty-six hours. While the final 

 development of the chrysalis stages are completing they remain 

 motionless until the twenty-first day is reached, when they emerge 

 from the cell to commence the duty of perpetuating their race, 

 having all the maternal instincts of the mother bee without the 

 sexual appetite and the power of parturition. The queen is ono 

 of the most unconcerned onlookers in the hive, as it regards the 

 rearing of the family that is developing from the very eggs she 

 has laid. Not so with the workers. Their one thought is the 

 protection and nurture of the helpless young ; an incessant, 

 laborious, patient, and life-long toil ; a life cut short by premature 

 death when the family is most numerous ; not a death from a 

 ripe old age, but a life worn out by industrious labour, in what 

 should be the spring-time of energy. 



NURSE BEES. 

 The first duty devolving on working bees on entering the 

 world is the care of her brothers and sisters during their infantile 

 lives ; a solicitude for their welfare ; their cleanliness, their health, 

 always anticipating their every want. Huber was the discoverer 

 of nurse-bees. He speaks of two kinds of workers. One of these 

 is, he says, "In general destined for the elaboration of wax, and 

 its size is considerably enlarged when full of honey; the other 

 immediately gives what it has collected to its companions ; its 

 abdomen undergoes no sensible change, o<r it retains only the 

 honey necessary for its own subsistence. The particular function 

 of the bees of this kind is to take care of the young, for they 

 are not charged with provisioning the hive. In opposition to the 

 wax-workers, we shall call them small bees, or nurses. Although 

 the external difference be inconsiderable this is not an imaginary 

 distinction. Anatomical observations prove that the stomach is 

 not the same ; experiments have ascertained that one of the species 

 cannot fulfil all the functions shared among the workers of a hive. 

 We painted those of each class with different colours, .in order to 

 study their proceedings; and these were not interchanged. In 

 another experiment, after supplying a hive (deprived of a queen) 

 with brood and pollen, we saw the small bees quickly occupied 

 in nutrition of the larvae, while those of the wax-working class 



