BEES IN THE HIVE. 211 
which the larva lies. In five or six days the larva 
grows so fat upon this that it nearly fills the cell, and 
then the bees seal up the mouth of the cell with a thin 
cover of wax, made of little rings and with a tiny hole 
in the centre. 
As soon as the larva is covered in, it begins to give 
out from its under-lip a whitish, silken film, made of 
two threads of silk glued together, and with this it 
spins a covering or cocoon all round itself, and so it 
remains for about ten days more. At last, just twenty- 
one days after the egg was laid, the young bee is quite 
perfect, lying in the cell as in Fig. 61, and she begins 
to eat her way through the cocoon and through the 
waxen lid, and scrambles out of her cell. Then the 
nurses come again to her, stroke her wings and feed 
her for twenty-four hours, and after that she is quite 
ready to begin work, and flies out to gather honey 
and pollen like the rest of the workers. 
By this time the number of working bees in the 
hive is becoming very great, and the storing of honey 
and pollen-dust goes on very quickly. Even the empty 
cells which the young bees have left are cleaned out 
by the nurses and filled with honey ; and this honey is 
darker than that stored in clean cells, and which we 
always call " virgin honey " because it is so pure and 
clear. 
At last, after six weeks, the queen leaves off laying 
worker-eggs, and begins to lay, in some rather larger 
cells, eggs from which drones, or male bees, will grow 
up in about twenty days. Meanwhile the worker-bees 
have been building on the edge of the cones some 
very curious cells (q, Fig. 61) which look like thimbles 
