THE HONEY BEE. 
7 !) 
of the loss of their stores. The tenderest mother 
could not watch over her children ■with more affec- 
tion, nor supply them with nourishment more impar- 
tially, or in greater abundance. At the same time it 
is done without waste, for the quantity is so propor- 
tioned to the demand, that none of it remains in the 
cells where the larvae undergo their transformation to 
the nymph state.”* 
At the moment of being hatched, the insect pre- 
sents the appearance of a small straight worm, com- 
posed of several ventral wings. It quickly grows 
so as to touch the sides of the cell, when it con- 
tracts its body, and coils itself into a semicircular 
figure, and continues enlarging its dimensions till the 
extremities meet, and form a complete ring. In this 
state it continues, receiving food from its nurses for 
five days, when it ceases to cat ; its supplies are, of 
course, cut off, and the bees proceed to seal - up the 
cell with a waxen cover, of a brownish colour, and 
slightly convex. Thus left to itself, the larva begins 
spinning around its body, after the manner of the 
silk-worm, a fine silken film or cocoon, which com- 
pletely envelops it. “ The silken thread employed 
in forming this covering,” Kirby and Spence tell us, 
" proceeds from the middle part of the under lip, and 
is in fact composed of two threads, gummed together, 
as they issue from the two adjoining orifices of the 
spinner.” In the formation of its cocoon, the larva 
occupies thirty-six hours, and in three days after, it 
is metamorphosed into a nymph or pupa — terms ap- 
* Traits des Abeilles. 
