Mr. Hunter’s Observations on Bees. 159 
yet it must be the same materials, for now nothing is taken in. 
How far this change is only the old parts new modelled, or 
gradually altering their form, is not easily determined. To 
bring about the change, many parts must be removed, out of 
which the new ones are probably formed. As bees are not dif- 
ferent in this state from the common flying insects in general, 
I shall not pursue the subject of their changes further ; although 
it makes a very material part in the natural history of insects. 
When the chrysalis is formed into the complete bee, it then 
destroys the covering of its cell, and comes forth. The time it 
continues in this state is easier ascertained than either in that of 
the egg, or the maggot ; for the bees cannot move the chrysalis, 
as they do the two others. In one instance it was thirteen days 
and twelve hours exactly ; so that an egg in hatching being 
five days, the age of the maggot being four days, and the 
chrysalis continuing thirteen and a half, the whole makes 
twenty-two days and a half : but how far this is accurate, I 
will not pretend to say. I found that the chrysalis of a male 
was fourteen days, but this was probably accidental. When 
they first come out, they are of a greyish colour, but soon turn 
brown. 
When the swarm of which I have hitherto been giving the 
history has come off early, and is a large one, more espe- 
cially if it was put into too small a hive, it often breeds too 
many for the hive to keep through the winter; and in such 
case a new swarm is thrown off, which, however, is commonly 
not a large one, and generally has too little time to complete 
its comb, and store it with honey sufficient to preserve them 
through the winter. This is similar to the second or third 
swarm of the old hives. 
