From egg to bee The personal record of a honey bee

The booklet Belgium 01.09.1997 is fantastic. Not only because of the detailed designs of Andre Buzin. The booklet counts four elements, (hat have not been depicted on previous stamps. Following the worker from egg to adult, you will see how good the Belgium stamps and cover are.
	The bee-life starts with the egg. Albania 1995 shows a laying queen.
	The first three fases egg-larva-pupa are found on two stamps: Cuba 1971
	and Belgium 1997.
	After 21 days the development in the cell is finished and the young bee emerges after the gnawing of the cell-lid.  The first two days as an adult worker the bee has to clean cells and warm the brood. No stamp known.
	From the third till the twelfth day has two jobs: a.) she is nurse-bee for the brood or the drones. Feeding a drone is again a new topical element in the Belgium booklet
	Or she feeds as "court lady" the queen. Belgium 1997 shows this feeding too. But I prefer Russia 1989 or Cyprus l989.
	b.) the intake of nectar and the ramming of pollen. With a little fantasy this work is depicted on Albania 1995.
	Between the 12 and 16 day are the wax glands are fully trained. The bee can begin with the building of honeycombs.
	Around the sixteenth day the worker starts its first flying hours. See for example Guinee 1973.
	From the seventeenth till the nineteenth day the worker is beehive-guard. Some-times she has to fight to protect the colony: Cuba 1971.
	From the twentieth day the worker is collector-bee.  There are a lot of stamps with bees on a flower. A beauty is Burkina Faso 1992.
In summer the life-period of a bee is 6-7 weeks - A short life with a lot of work.

by Jan de Crom  
taken from "The Postal Bee" 1/1998 
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