nurses. In about six days after an egg is laid it hatches, 
and a small white, legless grub, or larva (corresponding to 
the larva of the house-fly, which we called the maggot) is 
born in the cell. The nurses visit it frequently and feed it, 
for it is helpless and cannot go in search of food. While 
very young, the grub is given a kind of pap prepared from 
the pollen, or bee-bread, as it is called. The pap is pre¬ 
pared in the stomach of the bee, and resembles paste made 
from flour. As the young larva gets older, its food is made 
to resemble honey, and in five days its growth as a larva is 
completed and it has no more use for food, as it is about to 
pupate — that is, turn into a chrysalis. Therefore, the nurse 
pays a last attention by closing up the cell with a cover of 
wax. Thus confined within its cell, the larva spins about it 
a fine silky cocoon and awaits its resurrection day. About 
eight days later a wonderful transformation has been com¬ 
pleted and the young bee is ready to come forth, with fully 
developed wings, legs and mandibles, and for the first time 
see daylight. It cuts through the wax covering of its cell 
and is greeted by the nurse bees. They lick it, brush it, and 
offer it honey. After twenty-four hours the new bee joins 
the working force of the colony. The time for the develop¬ 
ment of a worker bee from the laying of the egg to the ma¬ 
ture bee is about twenty days ; for a drone, it takes twenty- 
four days. 
The process for the development of a Queen is slightly 
different. The egg is laid in a royal cell, and, as the larva 
grows, the dimensions of the cell are increased, and instead 
of common pap for food, the young princess receives a spe¬ 
cial and peculiar food. It is called royal jelly. It is heavier 
and sweeter than the pap of the common bees, but is pro¬ 
duced similarly in the stomach of the bees. It has a re¬ 
markable power in producing Queens, for if the Queen of a 
hive dies, the workers select a larva of a worker bee under 
three days old, enlarge its cell to the size of a royal cell and 
begin feeding it royal jelly, and it becomes a Queen instead 
of a simple worker. Thus we see that the food and cradle 
make the Queen. It takes but thirteen days for the develop¬ 
ment of the Queen from the time the egg is laid. 
Of course, each day several hundred new bees are being 
added to the hive, which soon becomes crowded. When a 
7 
