"Yes, something, Jack; but you mustn't tell that story yet. Every one of Mrs. Bumblebee's first family are workers. While the first workers are out getting food for their brothers and sisters, Mrs. Bumblebee takes the old cocoons which they have left behind and makes them over into rooms for the new babies, who are to be drones and queens.
"They are very happy all summer long, but as it grows colder they begin to shiver and shake. At last all die except the young queens, who have crawled away from the nest and found a warm crack somewhere in which to take a long nap. When the spring comes the young queens rub their eyes, stretch their legs and wings, and are off looking for a home for their coming families."
"But what kind of bee's-nest did old Paw Bear get into?" asked Hope.
"This nest was a wild honey-bee's nest. Some honey-bees are wild this way, but most live close to the homes of men. When they live in our gardens they live in a hive we make for them, and the families consist of Mrs. Honey-Bee, the queen, about a hundred Mr. Honey-Bees, and many thousands of workers. The workers are the little bees, the drones the middle-sized ones, and the queen is the great big bee.
"Men often help the workers to build the little cells in which they store the honey and in which the queen lays the eggs. These cells are six-sided rooms. Every day the queen lays an egg in one of the little rooms, and with it the workers put some pollen and honey. In three days out comes the larva from the egg. It is a helpless creature, soft and white, and without feet.
"Busy, busy workers are always on hand to take the best care of the babies. The first food the nurses give them is bee jelly, which looks something like blanc-mange. This bee jelly the workers make in their stomach, then feed it from their own mouths into the baby mouths. After lunching a couple of days on bee jelly they are old enough to eat pollen and honey, which the workers get out of the six-sided rooms where they have packed it away.
"These babies grow very quickly. Soon they are so long that they almost fill their rooms. Then the nurses put in some extra food, tuck in the babies, and make a roof of wax over each room. For a whole day the baby has to feed itself, shut away all alone; then it stops eating, and lies very quietly while it is being made into a real bee. In about thirteen days it splits its dried skin, in which it has been napping, gnaws a hole in the wax roof, and out it comes—a full-fledged bee.
"But it is too new and young to go out in the big world yet, so for a few weeks it is kept busy in the hive nursing other baby bees. When it has grown stronger it leaves the hive, flying out over the sunny pastures in search of buttercups and clover heads.
"Whenever the honey-bees want to make a queen they know just how to do it. You know, a queen is a very important person. A bee queen is like an ant queen, not the ruler of a kingdom, but the mother of many, many children. Since a queen is a person of such note, she must have a larger room than an ordinary worker, so they set to work and tear down the partitions between two or three cells. When the egg in the large room hatches the white larva is fed bee jelly, just like the little worker larva, but it is never given any pollen or honey. When it is five days old some jelly is put in the room with it and a roof is built over its head. For seven long days the baby stays here all alone, then it gnaws its way out, and, wonder of wonders, we have a queen instead of a worker!
"Now, Mrs. Honey-Bee has been the queen of the family so long she is very angry to have a young queen hatch out, and does all she can to kill her. But the workers have spent much time and labor in making this queen, and they stand close around her to protect her from the jealous old queen. The honey-bee family, however, has grown so big that there is room for no new babies in the hive, and that is the reason that the workers have raised a new queen, so that she may start a new family.