Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/85

Rh of bees to which it has been the birth-place. The Bee, thus stripped of its silken envelope, and having all its parts unfolded by degrees, and changed through a succession of colours, from a dull white to black, arrives at the state of a perfect insect on the 20th day, counting from the moment the egg is laid. She then eagerly commences the operation of cutting through, with her mandibles, the cover of her cell, and in half an hour succeeds in escaping from her prison. On quitting her cradle she appears, for a few seconds, drowsy and listless, but soon assumes the agility natural to the race—and on the same day on which she has emerged from her prison, sets out with her seniors to engage in the labours of the field. Some of the ancient Bee-masters enlarge on the attention paid by the seniors to the young worker on emerging from her prison, describing them as licking her body, supplying her with food, and seeming to instruct her in what is necessary to render her a useful member of the community. These descriptions have been repeated by succeeding writers on the subject; and the existence of these amiable traits in the kind nurses of the young, is taken for granted as an indubitable fact in their natural history. We have reason, in consequence of repeated observations, to