PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. » 365 
bees, which, before I enter upon the history of them in their perfect form, 
I shall now detail to you. Sixteen days is the time assigned to a queen 
for her existence in her preparatory states, before she is ready to emerge 
from her cell. Three she remains in the egg ; when hatched she continues 
feeding five more ; when covered in she begins to spin her cocoon, which 
occupies another day ; as if exhausted by this labour, she now remains per- 
fectly still for two days and sixteen hours ; and then assumes the pupa, 
in which state she remains exactly four days and eight hours — making in 
all the period I have just named. A longer time, by four days, is required 
to bring the workers to perfection; their preparatory states occupying 
twenty days, and those of the male even twenty-four. The former con- 
sumes half a day more than the queen in spinning its cocoon, — a circum- 
stance most probably occasioned by a singular difference in the structure 
and dimensions of this envelop, which I shall explain to you presently. 
Thus you see that the peculiar circumstances which change the form and 
functions of a bee accelerate its appearance as a perfect insect ; and that 
by choosing a grub three days old, when the bees want a queen, they ac- 
tually gain six days ; for in this case she is ready to come forth in ten days, 
instead of sixteen, which would be required was a recently laid egg fixed 
upon. 
The larvee of bees, though without feet, are not altogether without 
motion. They advance from their first station at the bottom of the cell, 
as I before hinted, in a spiral direction. This movement, for the first three 
days, is so slow as to be scarcely perceptible ; but after this it is more 
easily discerned. The animal now makes two entire revolutions in about 
an hour and three quarters; and when the period of its metamorphosis 
arrives, it is scarcely more than two lines from the mouth of the cell. Its 
attitude, which is always the same, is a strong curve.?_ This occasions the 
inhabitants of a horizontal cell to be always perpendicular to the horizon, 
and that of a vertical one to be parallel with it. 
A most remarkable difference, as I lately observed, takes place in spin- 
ning their cocoons, — the grubs of workers and drones spinning complete 
cocoons, while those that are spun by the females are incomplete, or open 
at the lower end, and covering only the head and trunk and the first seg- 
ment of the abdomen. This variation is probably occasioned by the dif- 
ferent forms of the cells: for if a female larva be placed in a worker's cell, 
it will spin a complete cocoon ; and, vice versd, if a worker larva be placed 
in a royal cell, its cocoon will be incomplete? No provision of the Great 
Author of nature is in vain. In the present instance, the fact which we 
are considering is of great importance to the bees; for, were the females 
wholly covered by the thick texture of a cocoon, their destruction by their 
rival competitors for the throne could not so readily be accomplished ; 
they either would not be able to reach them with their stings, or the 
stings might be detained by their barbs in the meshes of the cocoon, so 
that they would not be able to disengage them. On the use of this in- 
stinctive and murderous hatred of their rivals I shall soon enlarge. 
_ | Huber, i, 215. Schirach asserts, that in cold weather the disclosure of the 
imago takes place two days later than in warm; and Riem, that in a bad season 
HE ee will remain in the cells many months without hatching. (Schirach, 79. 
2 Schirach, t. 8. f. 10. 5 Huber, i. 224, 
