Having had great success with recipe Saturdays, I’ve decided to add Vocabulary Sundays. Short and sweet vocabulary building for beekeepers and those interested in learning more before taking the leap.
Today’s word is: Larva
Larva stage of a honey bee’s life
Three days after the queen lays the egg, it hatches into a larva (the plural is larvae). Healthy larvae are snowy white and resemble small grubs curled up in the cells (see Figure 2-12). Tiny at first, the larvae grow quickly, shedding their skin five times.
These helpless little creatures have voracious appetites, consuming 1,300 meals a day. The nurse bees first feed the larvae royal jelly, and later they’re weaned to a mixture of honey and pollen (sometimes referred to as bee bread). Within just five days, they are 1,570 times larger than their original size. At this time the worker bees seal the larvae in the cell with a porous capping of tan beeswax.
Source and read more on the lifecycle of the honey bee at: Tracking the Life Cycle of the Honey Bee By Howland Blackiston
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