THE SlUE EN-BEE. \i-j 



the working-bee. Those of the royal cell are as follows : 

 she passes three days in the egg, and is five a worm; the 

 workers then close her cell, and she immediately begins 

 spinning her cocoon, which occupies her twenty-four hours; 

 in the tenth and eleventh days and part of the twelfth, as 

 if exhausted by her labour, she remains in complete repose. 

 Then she passes four days and part of the fifth as a 

 nymph. It is on the sixteenth day, therefore, that the 

 perfect state of queen is attained. 



The drone passes three days in the egg, and six and 

 a-half as a worm, and changes into a perfect insect on the 

 twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth day after the egg is laid. 



The development of each insect proceeds more slowly 

 when the colonies are weak or the air cool. Dr. Hunter 

 has observed that the eggs, worms, or nymphs all require 

 a heat above 70° Fah. for their evolution. Both drones 

 and workers, on emerging from the cell, are at first grey, 

 soft, and comparatively helpless, so that some time elapses 

 before they take wing. The workers and drones spin 

 complete cocoons, or inclose themselves on every side, 

 while the royal larvae construct only imperfect cocoons, 

 open behind, and enveloping only the head, thorax, and 

 first ring of the abdomen, and Huber concludes, without 

 hesitation, that the final cause of this is, that they may be 

 exposed to the mortal sting of the first hatched queen, 

 whose instinct leads her instantly to seek the destruction 

 of those who would soon become her rivals. 



If the royal larvae spun complete cocoons, the sting of 

 the queen seeking to destroy her rivals might be so en- 

 tangled in their meshes that it could not be disengaged. 

 "Such," says Huber, " is the instinctive enmity of young 

 queens to each other, that I have seen one of them, im- 

 mediately on its emergence from the cell, rush to those of 

 its sisters, and tear to pieces even the imperfect larvae. 

 Hitherto philosophers have claimed our admiration of 



