356 
BRITISH BEES. 
it becomes inconveniently thronged, especially as spring 
advances and hot weather sets in. These promptings 
then urge her to lay drone eggs, for which preparations 
have already been made by the workers, who have 
already framed for their reception—they being much 
larger insects—larger cells moulded precisely in the same 
manner, and which are also used occasionally as recep¬ 
tacles for honey, and always skirt the bottom of the 
several combs. This task she has completed in about 
five days, and it is carried on precisely in the same way 
as is practised in the case of the neuters; and they are 
nurtured by nursing-workers just like them. Of these 
eggs she lays, as before said, about a thousand, and the 
workers by some instinctive faculty have framed about 
such a number of the needful cells. The transforma¬ 
tions of the drone occupy about twenty-four or twenty- 
five days, of which three are passed in the maturing of 
the egg which then hatches into the larva. This occupies 
nearly seven days in attaining its full growth, and the 
remaining portion of the time is spent in its spinning 
its cocoon, in the same way as the larva of the worker 
does, and it changes into the imago. To effect all these 
changes in the transformations of all the sexes, a beat of 
about seventy degrees is indispensable, but that of the 
hive in summer is considerably higher. They as well as 
the workers are assisted to emerge from the cocoon by 
some of the older workers, who use their mandibles to 
bite through the enclosure, and who also help to cleanse 
them from their exuviae. 
Concurrently with the formation of the brood cells of 
the drones, some of the workers are constructing cells to 
receive the royal eggs. These cells are totally unlike 
the other cells of the hive, and are of a sort of pear- 
