bees place over the cell, a cap which is made of wax and pollen, and admits the air freely. Then the young bee in the solitude of her own cell eats all the food that has been provided, spins about herself a cocoon of finest silk, which she weaves from a gland which opens in her lip; this is a very, very delicate cocoon, which remains in the cell as a lining, but so delicate is it that not until years have elapsed do the brood cells become contracted by these many silk wrappings of bees which have been developed in them. When the worker sheds for the last time her skeleton, she sheds the lining of the stomach and alimentary canal and all its contents, and changes to a pupa, which is a state of utter quiescence and during which wonderful changes take place in her anatomy. These changes which occur in the pupa are almost like new creation, for the legs, wings, antennae, and all of the other organs of the adult bee are developed from what was within the body of the footless, white grub.
Twenty-one days from the date of the laying of the egg, twelve days after the cell is capped, the worker bee sheds her pupa skin, pushes it behind her to the bottom of the cell, cuts a lid in the cap of her cell and pushes her way out, very likely after some friendly nurse has given her a little food to "stay her stomach." As she crawls out, she is a silvery-gray bee, as damp as if she had been out in a fog; no one hastens to greet her, or pays her the slightest attention, which is quite different from the case with the young ant, which is always fussed over
