24 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



being, and, in short, an organisation is built up which 

 has baffled, and is still in great part baffling, our 

 highest powers of research. That which was the 

 blind grub, living in darkness, is soon to be the 

 active bee, rejoicing in the sunbeam, attracted both 

 by the perfume and the colour of flowers, and so 

 organs of sense are being prepared for it, the struc- 

 ture of which we cannot yet stay to consider ; 

 the antennae are developing, and, at the sides 

 of the head, dark brown spots are indicating the 

 position of the future compound eyes. In some- 

 thing more than twelve days from the time of 

 sealing, the transformations are complete, and a 

 pellicle, delicate as cobweb, is rolled from every part 

 of the frame, and pushed downwards to the base of 

 the cell {ex, Fig. 4), where we soon may be at 

 liberty to find it, for now a creature, lacking in 

 nothing that its subsequent duties will require, bites 

 at the door of its prison-house, into which it soon 

 carves a long, curved slit, as seen in three or four 

 cases (Fig. 3) ; and then, by a push, it makes way 

 for its emergence, the head is advanced as at N, and 

 a pale but perfect bee walks into view. Its down, 

 like that of the recently-hatched chick, adheres, but 

 soon it will dry and preen itself, and in twenty-four 

 hours we shall have our nurse already entering upon her 

 duties to spend and be spent, in order that she render 

 to others those very attentions she has herself received 

 But we ask, Whence the grubs whose history we 

 have so far examined? and now, in searching, we 

 discover, on one of the combs, an insect— commonly 

 but very erroneously called the queen (Fig. 5, b), for 



