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Rapt attention:

Our Staff photographer, Susantha Wijegunasekera captured the picture of these children on our cover, at an education and art exhibition in their school premises, Kilinochchi Maha Vidyalaya.

Students from schools around the island participated in the exhibition. Students from Defence College, Colombo and Royal College, Colombo also participated. Kilinochchi Maha Vidyalaya is a mixed school and was re-built recently. The school accommodates nearly one thousand students.

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'Stirring up a hornet's nest':

Viraj Thanuja, an amateur photographer captured this picture of a bee in flight on a trip to Mahiyangana. We give below some information about bees and their lifestyles.

The bee belongs to the family of hymenoptera (from the Greek hymen = membrane, these insects having translucent, membranous wings), like the wasp and the ant. Bees live all over the world, except in regions

where the winter is too cold. There are many bee species,but the one we are most familiar with has the scientific name Apis mellifica (or Apis mellifera). The bees (queen bee, worker bees or drones) are all produced from tiny eggs, laid in an alveolus by the queen bee.

An inseminated egg (female), once laid a normal cell and fed with pollen and honey pulp, will become a worker bee. The egg transforms into a larva on the fourth day, and on the eighth day, the bees install the operculum and the metamorphosis takes place in secret : the larva forms a cocoon, then a nymph, and the nymph becomes a chrysalis until it finally hatches on the 15th day.

The fully formed winged insect tears open the operculum, ready to set to work.

-Internet