BEE MANUAL. val 
to hour. This includes the pupa or nymph period, and lasts 
altogether thirteen days for workers and fourteen and a half 
for drones ; and at length, on the twenty-second day from the 
laying of the egg in the former, or on the twenty-fifth day in 
the latter case, the fully formed bee cuts through the capping 
of the cell with its mandibles, and emerges complete in every 
respect, and ready, without any previous training, education, or 
experience, to fulfil its functions, to execute all the delicate 
operations, and to observe those rules of conduct which appear 
to us (and justly) to be such marvels of intelligence, ingenuity, 
dexterity, and even foresight. Itis true that the actions of 
these insects, from the moment they break through the cover- 
ing of their cells, are evidently prompted and guided by such 
intelligence and foresight—so indeed was the action of the grub 
in spinning its own cocoon ;—but is it not absurd to attribute 
the consequent results to any exercise of a reasoning faculty in 
Fig, 21.—WORKER NYMPH AND LARVA, IN COMB. 
the insect? Even if we suppose it endowed at once with the 
reasoning powers of man himself, would it not require a long 
period of experience, or education, or both, before it could be 
capable of building a cell or seeking for and bringing home a 
load of honey or of pollen? It is therefore a mistake to talk 
of the intelligence or ingenuity of the bee ; we have here to 
deal evidently with istinet, which is simply the exercise, on 
the part of the insect, of an intelligence not its own, and which, 
to make use again of Mr. Cheshire’s most appropriate words, 
“but thinly veils the Worker whese understanding is infinite.” 
The foregoing illustration (Fig. 21) shows very clearly, at 
about three times the natural size, the larva when just closed 
in its cell, and before spinning its cocoon, and the pupa, or 
nymph, when nearly developed, with the exception of the wings. 
