344 GROWTH OF THE LARVA. 



to place its body in every possible curve ; but this is rendered 

 impossible by the very construction of the cell, and therefore 

 it is left to our own ingenuity to solve the problem in the 

 best way that we are able. 



We admit that it is not Huber alone, but the majority of 

 writers on the natural history of the bee, who speak of the 

 administration of food to the larvae as a settled and indis- 

 putable point ; we, however, profess ourselves to be decid- 

 edly sceptical as to the administration of any food, from the 

 moment of the hatching of the larva, to the final envelop- 

 ment of the nymph in its cocoon. The larva passes regu- 

 larly through all the stages of its growth without any aid 

 or assistance from the bees ; nor is there any required, in 

 order to enable it to complete its full development ; and 

 granted, that we were to admit the fact, that food is ad- 

 ministered to the larva, the question then arises, in what 

 manner is it imbibed by it ? The proboscis is not yet 

 formed, its digestive organs are in a state of embryo, it is 

 in fact in a state of positive inertness. We admit that 

 analogically considered, we ought to bestow our assent to 

 the hypothesis of the administration of food to the larvae 

 of the bees, for the worms of the silk worm, as well as of 

 almost all of the phalenae tribe, are nourished by food imme- 

 diately on bursting from the eggs ; but the very power of 

 locomotion, with which the worms of the moth tribe are 

 endowed, constitutes the most essential difference between 

 them and the larvae of the bees, and is in itself a tacit 

 implication, that no food whatever is required to support it 

 through the different stages of its growth. 



It has been asserted by some apiarians that bee bread, or 

 the pollen of the flowers, is the food which is administered 

 to the young ; but so far from that substance being 

 gathered as the food of the larvae, we can affirm that, under 

 no circumstances whatever, is it applied to that purpose, 

 nor does it, under any modification whatever, form a part of 

 the food of the bees. Honey is their only natural food, and 



