when it has consumed the quantity of bee bread already deposited in the cell by some of these nurses as soon as the egg was laid. This bee bread consists of pollen, taken from the cells by the nurses, where it is garnered for the purpose, being therein mixed with a slight quantity of honey. This, in masticating, the nurses intermingle with some secretion of their own, which gives it a sort of gelatinous frothy appearance, and upon this the young thrives so rapidly, greedily opening its jaws to receive it, that in four more days it is full grown, and fills the whole cell. The nursing-bees then cover this in with a light brown top, convex externally, and within it the larva spins for itself a cocoon to undergo its subsequent transformations. This cocoon is spun of a fine silk, which issues from the organ of the larva called the spinner, in two delicate threads, which, as they pass out, cohere together. It works at this labour for thirty-six hours, and then changes into the pupa or grub; thus it lies quiescent for three days, when it gradually undergoes its transformation into the imago, and it issues as a perfect insect about the twenty-first day after being deposited as an egg. The cocoon it has formed exactly fills the cell it has left, which still continues to serve as a brood cell until the succession of cocoons with which it is thus lined renders it too small for the purpose, it is then cleaned out by the scavengers of the hive and changed into a honey depository, but the honey stored in such a cell is never so pure as that which comes from the exclusively waxen cell. Thus is effected the transformation of the working bee, which, upon the very day of its emancipation from its nursery, commences its duties as an active member of the community, in the successive and several labours undertaken for the benefit of the commonwealth, and these it assiduously follows for the period of its natural life, which extends to about six or eight months.