
HYMENOPTERA. 
tion. The workers add then to its domicile a sort of vertical tube, 
‘into which they push, and turn round the young grub, which is 
ithe hope of the community. For twelve days a bee, a sort of body- 
‘guard, has special charge of the person of our infant. It offers 
it food, and pays it many other delicate little attentions. When 
the moment for the metamorphosis has come, the orifice of the 
|tube is closed, and the bees await the hatching of the new queen. 
| Thus the loss of the queen is speedily replaced. The larvee of the 
|} queens, when they are shut up in their cells, have the head down- 
} wards, whilst the larve of the males have the head upwards. Their 
i hatching takes place thirteen days after the laying of the eggs. 
As soon as they have quitted their cradles, the young queens 
fare ready to take flight. The others, workers and males, are 
Hless strongly organized. Before they are able to take a part in 
}the sports and labours of the old ones, they require a rest of 
itwenty-four hours, during which the nurses lek them, brush 
‘them, and offer them honey. But the young workers require to 
| undergo no apprenticeship before they do the work which devolves 
jupon them. They «go straight to their work, and suppress all 
}apprenticeship. Nature is their guide and counsellor 
| . When the hatching has begun, each day adds some hundreds of 
young bees to the population of the hive, which is not long in 
| becoming too small for the number of its inhabitants. It is then 
‘that those curious emigrations of this winged people take plac 
which are called swarms. The queen leaves the hive, with a part 
of her subjects, and founds a new colony elsewhere. In the 
climate of France the bees generally swarm in the months of 
May and June. In the south, very thickly populated hives may 
furnish as many as four swarms in a season; but in the north, 
rarely more than one or two. But in. some years swarming does 
not take place at all, for the want of a sufficient population. In 
i such cases, the workers do not construct royal cells at the period 
iwhen the eggs of the males are laid, and the swarming is put 
off till the following spring. It occasionally happens that a hive, 
although full of bees, cannot make up its mind to send out a 
i swarm, and also that the hives thinly populated send out abundant 
iswarms. ‘There are, then, other causes than the excess of popula- 
tion which exercise an influence on this annual crisis in the life 








































