48 
FIRST BOOK. 
4. Some cells are for holding hopey, and others 
for the eggs; but the queen lays only one egg in 
each cell. A few cells are made larger than the 
rest, and in them queen-bees are reared. 
5. As soon as an egg is laid^ the workers put 
beside it a little food, which they have made by 
mixing honey with the yellow dust gathered from 
flowers. 
6. In a few days a little grub, or worm, hatches 
from the egg, and begins to eat the food which it 
finds ready. Then the workers bring it ''^bee- 
bread", made of the yellow flower-dust, and on 
this it feeds for the rest of its short life. 
7. After about seven days the workers shut it 
in by fixing a waxen lid over its cell. 
Does the grub die then? Oh, no! It begins 
to spin silken threads all over itself, and then 
becomes still and quiet ; so that if you saw it you 
might think that it was indeed dead. 
8. But all the time a great change is going on. 
After it has been in its silken cocoon for about 
ten days, its dry skin bursts, and a bee comes 
forth. 
9. The insect soon breaks through its prison 
cell, and is at once fed by the others, until it 
grows strong enough to work and find food for 
itself 
