GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES. 
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Fig. 1. 
The Egg. 
Before the egg is placed within its nidus, this is sup¬ 
plied with the requisite quantity of food needful for the 
support of the young to the full period of its maturity. 
The receptacle is then closed, and the same process is 
repeated again and again until the parent has laid her 
whole store of eggs. In other cases one tube, 
or its ramification, contains but one egg. These 
eggs are usually oblong, slightly curved, and ta¬ 
pering at one extremity; they vary in size ac¬ 
cording to the species, but are never, however, 
above a line in length, and sometimes they are very 
minute. When the stock of the mother bee is exhausted 
she leaves them to the careful nursing of nature, and the 
young is speedily evolved. She then wanders forth; 
time has brought senility; her occupation has gone ; 
and she passes away; but her progeny survive to per¬ 
petuate the continual chain of existence. 
The Larva .—The temperature of the perforated tube 
wherein the egg is deposited must necessarily be higher 
and more equal than that of the external atmosphere, 
being secluded from its vicissitudes. The egg is soon 
hatched, and the larva emerges from its shell to feed 
ravenously upon the sustenance stored up for its supply. 
This consists of an admixture of pollen and honey formed 
into a paste, the quantities varying according to the 
size of the species. By some species it is formed into 
little balls; by others, it is heaped irregularly at the 
bottom of the cell. In the case of Andrena the quan¬ 
tity stored is of about the size of a pea. That it must 
be exceeding nutritious may be inferred from its very 
nature, consisting, as it does, of the virile, energetic, 
and fertilizing powder of plants,—the concentration of 
their living principle. It is strictly analogous to the 
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