The bee gathers from every flower that is furnished with a calyx
or cup, and from all other flowers that are sweet-tasted, without
doing injury to any fruit; and the juices of the flowers it takes up
with the organ that resembles a tongue and carries off to the hive.
Swarms are robbed of their honey on the appearance of the wild
fig. They produce the best larvae at the time the honey is a-making.
The bee carries wax and bees' bread round its legs, but vomits the
honey into the cell. After depositing its young, it broods over it
like a bird. The grub when it is small lies slantwise in the comb, but
by and by rises up straight by an effort of its own and takes food,
and holds on so tightly to the honeycomb as actually to cling to it.
The young of bees and of drones is white, and from the young
come the grubs; and the grubs grow into bees and drones. The egg of
the king bee is reddish in colour, and its substance is about as
consistent as thick honey; and from the first it is about as big as
the bee that is produced from it. From the young of the king bee there
is no intermediate stage, it is said, of the grub, but the bee comes
at once.
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