12 
composed of the three different kinds of bees, can 
proceed ; and without all these different members 
no colony can long flourish. The queen deposits 
a small white egg in each cell for breeding, about 
half a line long“ and of the size of a fine cambric 
needle. This egg hatches into a small worm or 
larva, in about three days : a worker remains five 
days in the vermicular state ; a male six and a 
half, and a queen five. The worker’s worm oc- 
cupies thirty-six hours in spinning its cocoon ; in 
three days it changes to a nymph, and on the twen- 
tieth day it becomes a perfect winged animal. 
The queen comes to perfection, after the egg has 
been laid, in sixteen days ; but the males require 
twenty-four days. Food is carried to the young 
as they require it, and great attention is paid to 
their welfare ; but when ready to be changed to a 
nymph, the workers are aware that they require 
it no longer, and prepare to seal up the cell, by a 
covering of wax of concentric circles, convex, if 
including males, and flat, if including workers. 
The same cells may be successively employed 
for the raising of workers and drones, but every 
new queen requires a new cell. Immediately on 
the loss of a queen, the hive is a scene of tumult, 
and if female eggs are not found in the hive, by 
which to repair the loss, they must infallibly per- 
ish. But if female eggs are found, the loss is 
soon repaired ; they construct one or more royal 
cells, place the eggs within the cells, and supply 
them with food, which is not the common farina 
on which the young workers feed, but a peculiar 
paste, or jelly, which is reserved for the queens 
alone. When reached to maturity, a queen comes 
forth qualified to fulfill every indispensable func- 
tion, on which so many thousand lives depend. 
