Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee: A Bee Keeper's Manual. L. L. Langstroth

farina, honey and water, partly digested in the stomachs of the nursing-bees."

      "The larva having derived its support, in the manner above described, for four, five or six days, according to the season," (the development being retarded in cool weather, and badly protected hives,) "continues to increase during that period, till it occupies the whole breadth and nearly the length of the cell. The nursing bees now seal over the cell, with a light brown cover, externally more or less convex, (the cap of a drone cell is more convex than that of a worker,) and thus differing from that of a honey cell which is paler and somewhat concave." The cap of the brood cell appears to be made of a mixture of bee-bread and wax; it is not air tight as it would be if made of wax alone; but when examined with a microscope it appears to be reticulated, or full of fine holes through which the enclosed insect can have air for all necessary purposes. From its texture and shape it is easily thrust off by the bee when mature, whereas, if it consisted wholly of wax, the young bee would either perish for lack of air, or be unable to force its way into the world! Both the material and shape of the lids which seal up the honey cells are different, because an entirely different object was aimed at; they are of pure wax to make them air tight and thus to prevent the honey from souring or candying in the cells! They are concave or hollowed inwards to give them greater strength to resist the pressure of their contents!

      To return to Bevan. "The larva is no sooner perfectly inclosed than it begins to line the cell by spinning round itself, after the manner of the silk worm, a whitish silky film or cocoon, by which it is encased, as it were, in a pod. When it has undergone this change, it has usually borne the name of nymph or pupa. The insect has now attained its full growth, and the large amount of nutriment which it has taken serves as a store for developing the perfect insect."

      "The working bee nymph spins its cocoon in thirty-six hours. After passing about three days in this state of preparation for a new existence, it gradually undergoes so great a change as not to wear a vestige of its previous form, but becomes armed with a firmer mail, and with scales of a dark brown hue. On its belly six rings become distinguishable, which by slipping one over another enables the bee to shorten its body whenever it has occasion to do so.

      "When it has reached the twenty-first day of its existence, counting from the moment the egg is laid, it comes forth a perfect winged insect. The cocoon is left behind, and forms a closely attached and exact lining to the cell in which it was spun; by this means the breeding cells become smaller and their partitions stronger, the oftener they change their tenants; and may become so much diminished in size as not to admit of the perfect development of full sized bees."

      "Such are the respective stages of the working bee: those of the royal bee are as follows: she passes three days in the egg and is five a worm; the workers then close her cell, and she immediately begins spinning her cocoon, which occupies her twenty four hours. On the tenth and eleventh days and a part of the twelfth, as if exhausted by her labor, she remains in complete repose. Then she passes four days and a part of the fifth as a nymph. It is on the sixteenth day therefore that the perfect state of queen is attained."

      "The drone passes three days in the egg, six and a half as a worm, and changes into a perfect insect on the twenty-fourth or twenty-fifth day after the egg is laid."

      "The development of each species likewise proceeds more slowly when the colonies are weak or the air cool, and when the weather is very cold it is entirely suspended. Dr. Hunter has observed that the eggs, worms and nymphs all require a heat above 70° of Fahrenheit for their evolution."

      In the chapter on protection against extremes of heat and cold, I have dwelt, at some length, upon the importance of constructing the hives in such a manner as to enable the bees to preserve, as far as possible, a uniform temperature in their tenement. In thin hives exposed to the sun, the heat is sometimes so great as to destroy the eggs and the larvæ, even when the combs escape from being melted; and the cold is often so severe as to check the development of the brood, and sometimes to kill it outright.

      In such hives, when the temperature out of doors falls suddenly and severely, the bees at once feel the unfavorable change; they are obliged in self defence to huddle together to keep warm, and thus large portions of the brood comb are often abandoned, and the brood either destroyed at once by the cold, or so enfeebled that they never recover from the shock. Let every bee keeper, in all his operations, remember that brood comb must never be exposed to a low temperature so as to become chilled: the disastrous effects are almost as certain, as when the eggs of a setting hen are left, for too long a time, by the careless mother. The brood combs are never safe when taken for any considerable time from the bees, unless the temperature is fully up to summer heat.

      "[4]The young bees break their envelope with their teeth, and assisted, as soon as they come forth, by the older ones, proceed to cleanse themselves from the moisture and exuviæ with which they were surrounded. Both drones and workers on emerging from the cell are, at first grey, soft and comparatively helpless so that some time elapses before they take wing.

      "With respect to the cocoons spun by the different larvæ, both workers and drones spin complete cocoons, or inclose themselves on every side; royal larvæ construct only imperfect cocoons, open behind, and enveloping only the head, thorax, and first ring of the abdomen; and Huber concludes, without any hesitation, that the final cause of their forming only incomplete cocoons is, that they may thus be exposed to the mortal sting of the first hatched queen, whose instinct leads her instantly to seek the destruction of those who would soon become her rivals.

      "If the royal larvæ spun complete cocoons, the stings of the queens seeking to destroy their rivals might be so entangled in their meshes that they could not be disengaged. 'Such,' says Huber, 'is the instinctive enmity of young queens to each other, that I have seen one of them, immediately on its emergence from the cell, rush to those of its sisters, and tear to pieces even the imperfect larvæ. Hitherto philosophers have claimed our admiration of nature for her care in preserving and multiplying the species. But from these facts we must now admire her precautions in exposing certain individuals to a mortal hazard.'"

      The cocoon of the royal larva is very much stronger and coarser than that spun by the drone or worker, its texture considerably resembling that of the silk worm's. The young queen does not come forth from her cell until she is quite mature; and as its great size gives her abundant room to exercise her wings she is capable of flying as soon as she quits it. While still in her cell she makes the fluttering and piping noises with which every observant bee keeper is so well acquainted.

      Some Apiarians have supposed that the queen bee has the power to regulate the development of eggs in her ovaries, so that few or many are produced, according to the necessities of the colony. This is evidently a mistake. Her eggs, like those of the domestic hen, are formed without any volition of her own, and when fully developed, must be extruded. If the weather is unfavorable, or if the colony is too feeble to maintain sufficient heat, a smaller number of eggs are developed in her ovaries, just as unfavorable circumstances diminish the number of eggs laid by the hen; if the weather is very cold, egg-laying usually ceases altogether. In the latitude of Philadelphia, I opened one of my hives on the 5th day of February, and found an abundance of eggs and brood, although the winter had been an unusually cold one, and the temperature of the preceding month very low. The fall of 1852 was a warm one, and eggs and brood were found in a hive which I examined on the 21st of October. Powerful stocks in well protected hives contain some brood, at least ten months in the year; in warm countries, bees probably breed, every month in the year.

      It is highly interesting to see in what way the supernumerary eggs of the queen are disposed of. When the number of workers is too small to take charge of all her eggs, or when there is a deficiency of bee bread to nourish the young, (See chapter on Pollen,) or when, for any reason, she judges it not best to deposit them in cells, she stands upon a comb, and simply extrudes them from her oviduct, and the workers devour them as fast as they are laid! This I have repeatedly witnessed in my observing hives, and admired the sagacity of the queen in economizing her necessary work after this fashion, instead of laboriously depositing the eggs in cells where they are not wanted. What a difference between