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Large Deposiit of Honey, Development of the Worker Egg · American Bee Journal

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  Section six of the American b Journal, Volume one, number one, January
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  eighteen sixty one. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot
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  org. The American Bee Journal, volume one, number one, January eighteen
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  sixty one. By various large deposit of honey development of the worker egg.
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  Large deposit of honey, A somewhat singular discovery was made a few days ago
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  in the house occupied by Missus jen Wingate on the corner of Spring and High
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  Streets, Saint Louis. The Argus has the following account of the store.
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  The inmates of one of our largest uptown mansion houses a few days since were
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  surprised to find a large number of bees flying about in two of the upper
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  rooms. As the little fellows continued to occupy the places, a bee naturalist
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  was sent to investigate the matter. On entering the rooms, he exclaimed,
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  you have honey somewhere here, and proceeded to search for it. On removing
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  the fireboard, he discovered that one flu of the chimney was full of honeycomb,
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  which was hanging down into the fireplace and the honey dropping from it.
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  Proceeding to the top of the house to sound the chimney, he found it
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  the same. One flu of the chimney was full, and the bees were
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  industriously at work. There Also, these flus of the chimney had never been
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  used. They were plastered smooth inside, and were perfectly dark, a stone
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  having been placed on the top of each flue. The bees had descended the
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  adjoining flues and found small holes about ten inches from the top of the chimney
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  leading into the closed flues, and through these holes they had made their way
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  in and out. They have, as is supposed, occupied these places for
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  three years, having been kept warm in the winter by the heat from the
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  adjoining flues. On removing the fireboard, the bees, seeing the great light
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  which had broken in upon them, descended to the room and gathered on the
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  windows until they were covered to the thickness of three inches. It is estimated
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  that there are in the two flues from forty thousand to fifty thousand bees and
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  from two to three thousand pounds of honey end quote quote. He may be
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  regarded as a master in bee culture who knows how to winter his stocks in
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  a healthy condition, with the least loss of bees, the smallest consumption of
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  stores, and with the combs unsoiled. Development of the worker egg. The
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  eggs of the queen bee are ovoid, oblong in shape, and of a
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  pearly white color. They are laid in the cells of the comb by the
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  queen and attached to the bottom of the cell at their lower end by means
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  of a glutinous substance with which they are covered. They are hatched by the
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  heat of the hive, concentrated within the brooding space by the bees clustered on
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  the combs. The larvae emerge from the eggs in the course of from forty
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  to sixty hours after these are laid, the time being longer or shorter according
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  to the temperature maintained in the hive. The emerged larvae lie at the bottom
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  of the cell in a curved form, and are immediately fed by the workers
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  with a pellucid jelly prepared in their chyal stomachs by the digestion of honey and
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  pollen mixed with water. The food is thus a finely adulcorated substance which the
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  larvae can easily digest, and which they assimilate so perfectly that no excrementitious matter
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  accumulates in the intestinal canal. This is an important provision, as the larvae
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  could not void feces till they reach their full development as insects. The larvae
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  grow rapidly and in six days attain such size as to be no longer able
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  to lie in a curved form on the bottom of the cell, and now
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  stretch themselves out lengthwise. As soon as this occurs, the workers close the
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  mouth of the cell with a waxen cap or cover, performing the work with
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  great celerity as the larvae are fed during six days. If we now assume
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  that the queen lays, on the average only five hundred eggs per day,
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  the workers have to provide food for three thousand larvae daily. Eight days elapse
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  from the time the egg is laid till the cell is capped. On the
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  ninth day, the larvae is fully stretched out and then begins to coat over
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  the internal surface of the cell with a whitish gummy liquid, which rapidly dries
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  and becomes glossy. She first comes over the inside of the cap or cover,
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  then curving back the anterior portion of her body, she gumes the upper
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  half of the cylindrical cells from front to rear, with the liquid, which
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  issues from an orifice directly below her mouth. Her body becomes elongated and much
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  attenuated as her head moves onward toward the base of the cell, which point
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  being reached. The head is directly over the tip of her tail, and
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  she lies completely doubled up in her waxen prison. It is only by thus
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  elam lungating and attenuating her body that the larva becomes able to turn herself within
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  her narrow cell in order to gum the lower half, likewise proceeding now from
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  rear to front. When her head has again reached the cap, she gradually
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  turns her body again on its axis, and then lies stretched at length,
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  with head in front and mouth downward, ready to undergo transformation to a nymph
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  or chrysalis. Between the tenth and eleventh days, the mandibles make their appearance.
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  In the chrysalis. On the twelfth day, the head and thorax begin
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  to protrude, though the head appears as if still infolded within the thorax,
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  the latter being yet imperfectly developed. The insection between the thorax and the abdomen
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  is scarcely perceptible, and the legs and wings are not yet visible. At
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  the close of the thirteenth day, the insection betweeneen the thorax and the abdomen
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  is perfectly formed. The legs, wings, antennae, and proboscis begin to
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  make their appearance, and on the fifteenth day these are complete, though the
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  wings are still small and lie on the thorax in the direction of the first
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  pair of legs, and are thus scarcely observable. In this stage of its
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  advance, the insect is very soft and perfectly white. On the sixteenth day,
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  the several parts have become fully developed, The eyes begin to assume a
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  brownish hue, and the proboscis lies extended under the thorax. On the seventeenth
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  day, the eyes become black and the wings are almost fully unfolded. On
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  the nineteenth day the insect is in all respects fully developed, though its color
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  is still somewhat grayish. The proboscis is enclosed in its sheaths, but the
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  abdomen remains enfolded in the nymphal and on the twenty first day the bee is
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  mature. Its limbs have become firm, and the body has assumed a brownish
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  hue. The nymphal envelope has been stripped off and lies at the bottom of
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  the cell as a pellet about the size of a pin's head. Thus,
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  in the process of transformation, the anterior portion of the bee's body seems to
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  grow out of the chrysalis, because the nymphal envelope remains nearly stationary, or
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  seems rather to retrograde slightly on the abdomen. The envelope itself, which is
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  exceedingly thin, dries up on the abdomen of the bee and is then pushed
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  back by means of the feet and legs. When stripped off, it is
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  so shrunken or compressed as to form a scarcely visible pellet. On the twenty
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  first day, the bee cuts through the cover of the cell with her mandibles,
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  requiring about forty five minutes for the operation, and then issues from her
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  confinement. She first puts her wings in gentle motion to give them their due
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  shape and position, as they had necessarily been much compressed in the narrow cell.
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  The heirsutics with which her head and thorox are covered, have still a
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  grayishue by which the eye may readily distinguish recently hatched bees from their older companions,
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  though they speedily become darker. The young bees do not immediately leave the
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  hive or engage in the gathering of honey or pollen, but remain within about
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  a week longer employed first and principally in nursing the brood. In very favorable
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  weather, the worker bees may emerge in twenty days from the time the eggs
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  are laid, but ordinarily twenty one days are required for the perfect development of
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  the insect. Gundelach end of Section six