GROWTH AND FEEDING OF HONEYBEE LARVAE. 
13 
varying conditions strengthens this assumption. Larvse destined to 
become queens, however, receive a highly nutritious food, "royal 
jelly," produced by 
the worker bees, 
throughout the entire 
larval period. It is 
well known that 
queen larvse at ma- 
turity are larger and 
heavier than worker 
larvae. Unfortunate- 
ly, no weighings of 
queen larvae were 
made, so that figures 
are not available for 
comparison with 
those of worker lar- 
vae, but it is safe to 
assume that although 
they would raise 
somewhat the per- 
centage increases for 
the last two days, yet 
the drop would doubt- 
less still be evident. 
<*oo 
\ 
k 
I 
I 
I 
I 
RATE OF GROWTH. 
/oo 
\ • 
I jfus]) 
Fig. 4.- 
The weighings re- 
corded above are too 
few in number to jus- 
tify broad generaliza- 
tions, but are never- 
theless of value in 
some particulars. 
The most obvious and 
striking feature is the remarkably rapid growth of the larva, which 
within 4 J to 5 days increases its initial weight more than 1,500 times. 
The ratio of initial weight to weight at maturity of several insects is 
shown below : 
Cossus (}) 
Sphinx (6) 
Bombvx (1)—. 
Telea* (10) 
Apis 
/ 2 ^ + J" 
*^&£ //v Gstr'S' 
-Per cent ratio of unconsumed food in the cell to 
weight of honeybee larva. (Table 3.) 
Anthophora (6) 
Sarcophaga (#) 
Lucilia (2) 
1 
72,000 
( Lyonet ) . 
1 
9, 970 
( Newport). 
1 
9,500 
( Dandolo). 
1 
8,600 
(Trouvelot) 
1 
1,580 
1 
1,020 
( Newport ). 
1 
451 
( Herms). 
1 
404 
i Herms), 
The first four of the insects listed above, as compared with the 
honeybee, have an extended larval period — 3 years in the case of 
Cossus — and their food is of low nutritive value. In the case of 
the last four, particularly the honeybee, the larval food is of high 
nutritive value and is rapidlv assimilated. In rate of growth the 
honeybee larva exceeds all of those listed, followed by the fly Sar- 
cophaga. which attains 451 times its initial weight in about 71 hours. 
