12 
PLANTS AND INSECTS 
overtakes the hive, she is fed with the best food remaining. If a num¬ 
ber of the bees are sent away with the queen in a tiny hive, they feed 
her as long as a scrap of food remains, and die themselves rather than 
take food from, her. 
Summer work in a beehive is very heavy. As the queen-mother 
lays a large number of eggs, many baby bees have to be fed, the hive 
kept clean and cool, new comb made, and honey stored for winter’2 
use. Perhaps you would like to know more particulars about how bees 
do this. 
From the eggs laid by the queen, three kinds of bees are to be 
hatched—workers, drones, and queens—and the wise mother seems 
to know the proper cell for each egg. The drones ’ cells are larger 
than the workers ’ cells, and the queens ’ cells are very unlike the others. 
They are usually built at the edge of the comb, and, when empty, re¬ 
semble acorn cups in appearance. 
The tiny bluish-white egg hatches in about three days, but the 
hatch, or larva, does not look, at all like a bee. It is a little worm-like 
creature, having no feet, and coiledi up like a ring at the bottom of the 
cell. Gentle nurses supply it with food—pollen, honey, Water, and milk 
from' a gland in their head, for five or six days. With this good care 
the tiny worm grows fat and strong and soon fills its little cell-house. 
But one day it refuses food. What can be the trouble? Is it ill? 
No; this is a sign to the nurse to cover its cell-house with a wax roof. 
When thus , shut in, the fat worm-like creature spins for itself a silken 
cradle. In four or five days it changes its form. It is no more a worm, 
or larva; it has legs and wings. In six more days it gnaws its way out. 
Workers clean out its cell, and nurses flock to help it. They caress it 
with their antennae, and feed it; but it does not usually try its wings for 
about a week. At the end of that time it is sent to gather pollen or to 
help clean and keep the hive cool. 
The larvae in the queen-cells are fed with an especially rich food, 
known as “royal jelly.” This causes them to develop into perfect 
queens, much larger than the worker-bees. 
In the summer, keeping the inside of the hive cool is- very impor¬ 
tant. If it grows too warm the little waxen Walls become soft and 
bend. To avoid this calamity, a number of bees called fanners take 
turns standing at their posts' of duty and moving their little wings 
very rapidly. 
