. An introduction to zoology, with directions for practical work (invertebrates). 372 INTRODUCTION TO ZOOLOGY CHAP. Worker Larvae. workers. She works hard, laying at first about 3000 eggs a day ! These first eggs are all alike and develop in the same way. Kept warm by the bodies of the workers who cluster over the combs, each egg hatches in about three days as a little white legless grub or larva, which lies curled up at the bottom of the cell (Fig. 296, A). It has a head and thirteen body- segments. The " nurse-bees," who ____^_^ are usually some of the older ""vI^^wBBHHh
. An introduction to zoology, with directions for practical work (invertebrates). 372 INTRODUCTION TO ZOOLOGY CHAP. Worker Larvae. workers. She works hard, laying at first about 3000 eggs a day ! These first eggs are all alike and develop in the same way. Kept warm by the bodies of the workers who cluster over the combs, each egg hatches in about three days as a little white legless grub or larva, which lies curled up at the bottom of the cell (Fig. 296, A). It has a head and thirteen body- segments. The " nurse-bees," who ____^_^ are usually some of the older ""vI^^wBBHHh workers, now feed it. At first ^ I ⢠m' Zb they give it a " pap," which they 4-^^^â~^^g^ themselves secrete from a special i^^^^^^ill^wj, gland opening into their mouths, ^^â ^^HHSb^l^ffi but soon it is put on a diet of \|iiMliIHS^M^ pollen and honey made into a soft ' ° paste, which is placed in the cell so that the larva lies partly im- mersed in it, and can feed as â>i^HHS^^^^MH5/ much as it will. In about five yJBBl^pMBfi^ days, during which time it has changed its skin several times, the grub is full grown, and nearly fills the cell in which it now lies longitudinally. At this stage the nurses form a convex porous cap of wax over the mouth of the cell, and the larva begins to spin from a gland on the lower lip a silk thread, with which it makes a little mass of interwoven threads at the mouth end of the cell. These threads partly cover the body, forming an imperfect cocoon. In about two days the larva pupates, appearing finally as a pupa in which the organs of the adult bee are clearly visible through the transparent skin in which it is swathed. This stage lasts for seven or eight days; then the pupal skin is cast off and the young bee is ready to emerge. With its jaws it breaks the silken threads of the cocoon and bites round the cap of the cell, sometimes helped by a nurse-bee, until the cap swings back on a little hinge- piece, and so is readily pu
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublisherlondo, bookyear1913
