14 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BROOD. 
labor, alternately extending and shortening its body, whilst it lines 
the cell by spinning round itself, after the manner of the silk-worm, 
a whitish silky film or cocoon, by which it is encased, as it were, in a 
pod or pellicle. The silken thread employed in forming this covering 
proceeds from the middle part of the under lip, and is in fact com- 
posed of two threads, gummed together as they issue from the two 
adjoining orifices of the spinner.”* When it has undergone this 
change it has usually borne the name of nymph or pupa. “The work- 
ing bee nymph spins its cocoon in thirty-six hours. After passing 
about three days in this state of preparation for a new existence, it 
gradually undergoes so great a change as not to wear a vestige of 
its previous form, but becomes armed with a firmer mail, and with 
scales of a dark brown hue, fringed with light hairs. On its belly six 
rings become distinguishable, which by slipping one over another en- 
able the bee to shorten its body, whenever it has occasion to do so; 
its breast becomes entirely covered with gray feather-like hairs, which 
as the insect advances in age assume a reddish hue. 
When it has reached the twenty-first day of its existence, counting 
from the moment the egg is laid, it quits the exuvia of the pupa 
state, comes forth a perfect winged insect, and is termed an imago, 
The cocoon or pellicle is left behind, and forms a closely attached and 
exact lining to the cell in which it was spun. By this means the 
breeding cells become smaller, and their partitions strongeg, the oft- 
ener they change their tenants; and when they have become so 
much diminished in size by this succession of pellicles or linings, as 
not to admit of the perfect development of full-sized bees, they are 
converted into the receptables for honey. Such are the respective 
stages of the working bee; those of the queen bee are as follows : 
She passes three days in the egg, and is five days a worm; the 
workers then close her cell, and she immediately begins spinning the 
cocoon, which occupies her twenty-four hours. On the tenth and 
eleventh days, as if exhausted by her labor, she remains in complete 
repose, and even sixteen hours of the twelfth day. Then she passes 
four days and one third as anymph. Itis on the sixteenth day, 
therefore, that the perfect state of a queen is attained.” “The drone 
* Kirby and Spencer. 
