INTRODUCTORY. 5 



You are of course well aware that in various stages 

 of infancy the human being requires and receives a 

 modification of his food, which becomes more solid 

 as he advances in years; first he is provided with 

 milk, then with farinaceous compounds, and finally 

 with the ordinary food of an adult. 



Smile not, reader, when we teU you that the young 

 Bees (that is to say, the larvse) are treated by their 

 "nurses" very much after the same fashion. 



In order to render this comprehensible, we shall 

 have to enter into some of the details of the Bee^s 

 natural history ; but as we shall, in so doing, touch 

 upon two or three of its most interesting traits, we 

 trust that no apology is necessary for dwelling on 

 this part of the subject. 



As you doubtless know, there are three varieties of 

 Bees composing a hive; namely, a single queen, the 

 mother of the hive ; numerous workers, or unfruitful 

 females ; and the males, or drones. In speaking of 

 the queen as the "mother'^ of the hive, we are 

 borrowing a German expression, and a most appro- 

 priate one ; for she deposits the eggs from which pro- 

 ceed all the inhabitants of the hive — ^workers, drones, 

 and future queens, laying the ova in three distinct 

 kinds of cells : those of the workers and drones are 

 the ordinary hexagonal cells, varying a little in size ; 

 whilst the queen-eggs are placed in large oval ones, 

 called royal cells, specially prepared by the worker- 

 bees for their reception. (PI. VIII. figs. 5 & 6.) 

 Here already, as a little reflection wiU show, we 



