98 MANUAL OF THE APIARY. 



caring for the brood. M. Quinby, Doolittle, and others, say- 

 water is also an element of this food. But bees often breed 

 very rapidly when they do not leave the hive at all, and so 

 water, other than that contained in the honey, etc., cannot be 

 added. This makes it a question if water is ever added. 

 The time when bees seem to need water, and so repair 

 to the rill and the pond, is during the heat of summer, when 

 they are most busy. May this not be quaffed to slake their 

 own thirst ? 



In six days the cell is capped over by the worker-bees. This 

 cap is composed of pollen and wax, so it is darker, more 

 porous, and more easily broken than the caps of the honey- 

 cells ; it is also more convex (Fig. 26, k). The larva, 

 now full grown, having lapped up all the food placed before 

 it, surrounds itself with a silken cocoon, so excessively thin 

 that it requires a great number to appreciably reduce the size 

 of the cells. These always remain in the cell, after the bees 

 escape, and give to old comb its dark color and great strength. 

 Yet they are so thin, that cells used even for a dozen years, 

 seem to serve as well for brood as when first used. In three 

 days the insect assumes the pupa state (Fig. 26, h). In all 

 insects the spinning of the cocoon seems an exhaustive pro- 

 cess, for so far as I have observed, and that is quite at length, 

 this act is succeeded by a variable period of repose. The 

 pupa is also called a nymph. By cutting open cells it is easy 

 to determine just the date of forming the cocoon, and of 

 changing to the pupa state. The pupa looks like the mature 

 bee with all its appendages bound close about it, though the 

 color is still whitish. 



In twenty-one days the bee emerges from the cell. The 

 old writers were quite mistaken in thinking that the advent of 

 these was an occasion of joy and excitement among the bees. 

 All apiarists have noticed how utterly unmoved the bees are, 

 as they push over and crowd by these new-comers in the most 

 heedless and discourteous manner imaginable. Wildman tells 

 of seeing the workers gathering pollen and honey the same 

 day that they came forth from the cells. This idea is quickly 

 disproved if we Italianize black-bees. We know that for 

 some days these young bees do not leave the hive at all, 

 except in case of swarming, when bees even too young to fly 



