on the Sex of Sees, 23 
of bees, fattening themfelves to one another, hung clown 
in the form of a curtain from the top to the bottom of the 
hive, in a fimilar manner they had done before at the 
time the queen depofited her eggs ; an operation which 
(if we may conjecture at the inftinCts of infeCts) feems 
contrived to hide what is tranfaCting : be that as it will, 
it anfwered the purpofe of informing me that fome- 
thing was going forward. In fact, I prefently after per- 
ceived feveral bees, the fize of which through this thick 
veil (if I may fo exprefs myfelf) I could not rightly dif- 
tinguifh, inferting the pofterior part of their bodies each 
into a cell, and finking into it, where they continued but 
a little while. After they had retired, I faw plainly with 
the naked eye a fmall quantity of a whitifh liquor left in 
the angle of the balls of each cell, containing an egg : it 
was lefs liquid than honey, and had no fweet tafte at all. 
Within a day after, I found this liquor abforbed into the 
embrio, which on the fourth day is converted into a fmall 
worm, to which the working-bees bring a little honey 
for nourifhment, during the firft eight or ten days after 
its birth. After that time they ceafe to feed them ; for 
they fiiut up the cells, where thefe embrios continue in- 
clofed for ten days more, during which time they un- 
dergo various changes too tedious here to defcribe. 
