“In six days the larvæ, called _brood-comb_, have attained their development. Then, like the larvæ of other insects, they retire from the world to undergo metamorphosis. In order to protect its suffering flesh at the critical moment of its transfiguration, each larva lines the inside of its cell with silk, and the working-bees close the cell with a cover of wax. In the silk-lined case the skin is cast off and the passage to the state of nymph accomplished. Twelve days later the nymph awakes from the deep sleep of the second birth; it shakes itself, tears its narrow swaddling-clothes, and comes forth a bee. The wax cover is gnawed by the inclosed insect as well as by the working-bees lending a ready hand to the resuscitated; and the hive counts one more citizen. The new-born bee makes its toilet a little, dries its wings, polishes its body, and is off to work. It knows its trade without having had to learn it: wax-bee in its youth, nurse in its old age.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER LXXX THE QUEEN BEE “THE eggs destined to give birth to queens are laid in special cells, much more spacious and solid than those where the working-bees hatch. Their shape is, in a general way, that of a thimble. They are fastened to the edge of the combs and are called royal cells.” “When she lays in a large or small cell,” asked Jules, “does the queen know whether the egg is that of a queen or of a working-bee?” [Illustration: Queen Bee] “She does not know, she does not need to know. There is no difference between the queen-eggs and working-bee-eggs. Its treatment alone decides the issue for the egg. Treated in a certain manner, the young larva becomes a queen, on whom depends the future prosperity of the hive; treated in another way, it becomes one of the working people and is furnished with brushes and baskets. Bees make their queens at will; the first egg laid would suffice to fill the royal functions worthily, if treated with that end in view. And what does not treatment, or education, accomplish with us in our tender years? It does not make us kings or peasants, but honest people, which is better; and scoundrels, which is worse. “It need not be said that the bees’ pedagogic methods are not the same as ours. Man, as much mind as matter, if not more, turns his attention above all to the generous impulses of the heart, the noble aspirations of the soul. With bees education is purely animal, and is governed by the dictates of the belly. The kind of food makes either the queen or the working-bee. For the larvæ that are to discharge the functions of royalty the nurses prepare a special pap, a royal dish of which only they know the secret. Whoever eats of it is consecrated queen.