270 
DEVELOPMENT OF BEES 
its rounded bottom and its six flat sides. 
In fact, during the fourth and fifth days, 
the larva fits the cell so snugly that its 
removal is scarcely possible without severe 
damage to either larva or cell. It is thus 
evident that, during the later stages of 
growth, the larva is greatly distorted. 
When removed from the cell, however, it 
presents the appearance shown in Pig. 4c, 
and it is scarcely conceivable that such a 
plump-looking creature could ever have oc¬ 
cupied such narrow quarters. During the 
first three days of the larval stage of the 
worker bee, and during all of the larval 
stage of the queen, it is fed a highly nitro¬ 
genous food produced by the nurse bees. 
The origin of this food, whether it is a se¬ 
cretion from special glands of the nurse 
bees, or is regurgitated from their stom¬ 
achs, is not at present known. After the 
first three days, however, the worker bees 
are fed honey and pollen. When the larva 
has attained its full size, which in the case 
of the worker bee occurs after about five 
days, it is sealed up in its cell by the work¬ 
er bees, which place a thin cap of porous 
wax and pollen over the mouth of the 
cell. Next the entire interior of the cell is 
lined with a delicate but tough silken co¬ 
coon spun by the larva and secreted by 
special glands which become active at this 
time—the silk-glands (Fig. 2, c and d, 
SlkGl). To accomplish this task the larva 
has to turn lengthwise of the cell at least 
twice. At the time of spinning the cocoon 
a connection between the mid and hind in¬ 
testines (Pig. 3, Mint, Hint) becomes es¬ 
tablished, and the dark-colored residue of 
the food digested during the feeding period 
is evacuated on the bottom of the cell, usu¬ 
ally in its angles. Soon after the spinning 
of the cocoon, which consumes about one 
day’s time, the larva gradually becomes 
motionless, lying extended on its back, 
with its head toward the mouth of the cell. 
The larva now becomes a semipupa or 
pronymph. Its form is much like that of 
an old larva, but its color seems paler and 
less glistening. If touched a semipupa 
seems soft and pulpy, and if an attempt is 
made to renfove it from the cell it will be 
found very delicate and easily ruptured. 
After about three days in this stage, or 
four days after capping, the semipupa 
moults its larval skin and becomes a pupa, 
with the form and all the parts of an adult 
bee (Pig. 4d). These—legs, antennas, etc. 
—have been developing rapidly during the 
semipupal stage, but were covered and 
therefore hidden from view by the larval 
skin. On the eleventh day after hatching, 
the eyes begin to turn from white to pink, 
which color later turns to reddish brown 
and finally, on the sixteenth day, to black; 
the thorax at the same time becomes a light 
yellowish brown. On the nineteenth day 
after hatching the development is- com¬ 
plete, the young bee sheds its pupal skin 
and gnaws its way out of the cell. The 
duration of the larval and pupal stages in 
the development of queens and drones is 
different from those of the worker. See 
Bee Metamorphoses, in “Beekeepers’ Dic¬ 
tionary,” in the back part of this work. 
It is evident that, during the period after 
the larva is sealed up in the cell, the de¬ 
velopmental changes which it undergoes 
must be active and radical indeed in order 
to bring forth a creature as different from 
the larva as is the adult bee. The follow¬ 
ing is only a brief sketch of these complex 
processes. In general they involve a tear¬ 
ing down and rebuilding of many of the 
tissues of the bee as well as the coming 
into activity of portions of the larva which 
have been dormant ever since it left tbe 
egg, or even before this time. To the for¬ 
mer category belongs in particular the ali¬ 
mentary tract, which is literally tom down 
and cast away, being replaced by new cells. 
To the latter category belong the legs, 
wings, and eyes, which are developed from 
groups of cells whose activities have been 
held in abeyance during the larval period. 
These are formed from growth centers of 
the body wall which are formed before the 
larva hatches from the egg, but which are 
quiescent during the growth period of the 
larva. After the larva is sealed up these 
rudiments are roused into activity. The 
legs and wings are formed in pockets of 
the body wall, and, after the moult of the 
propupal skin, are pushed out by blood 
pressure from the interior, as the fingers 
of a glove may be pushed out by blowing 
into them. The muscles of the larva are 
partly torn down and replaced by new 
muscles, and partly persist as the muscles 
of the adult. The changes undergone by 
the nervous system and the trachea are 
