FACTITIOUS QUEENS. 



The following is the process by which this miracle of nature is 

 performed. 



Having chosen a worker grub, from one to three days old, the 

 workers pull down two of the cells adjacent to that in which the 

 chosen grub lies. They pull down the walls which separate 

 these three chambers, so as to throw them into one three times 

 more spacious than the single cell of the grub. Leaving the 

 pyramidal bases of these three cells untouched, they construct 

 around the grub a large cylindrical tube, which is consequently 

 included within the remaining walls of the three demolished cells, 

 the axis of the tube being parallel to that of the cells, and there- 

 fore horizontal. 



It seems, however, that to accomplish the desired change on 

 the nature of the grub, it is not only necessary to give it an 

 enlarged cell, but one of which the axis is vertical instead of 

 being horizontal. On the third day, therefore, from the com- 

 mencement of their operations, they take measures to cement to 

 the horizontal tube a vertical chamber having a conical form, 

 making with the horizontal tube an elbow. To accomplish this 

 they gnaw away several cells below the end of the tube, sacrificing 

 without mercy the grubs which occupy these, as well as those 

 which occupied the two cells adjacent to the original cell of the 

 chosen grub. 



This rectangular cell, therefore, composed of the original 

 cylindrical, and the more recently constructed conical cell, may 

 be considered as having some such form as here roughly sketched, 



.A B 



Fig. 53. 



(fig. 53,) where A BCD is the horizontal cylindrical part formerly 

 filled by three worker hexagonal cells, and B F E D, the vertical 

 conical part, subsequently cemented to it, and built with the wax 

 obtained from the demolition of the worker cells under A B c D. 



During two days which the grub inhabits this vertical cell, 

 B F D E, a nurse may always be observed with its head plunged 



71 



