The Young Queens 



[68] 



About a week has passed since the 

 departure of the old queen. The royal 

 nymphs asleep in the capsules are not all 

 of the same age, for it is to the interest 

 of the bees that the births should be 

 nicely gradationed, and take place at 

 regular intervals, in accordance with their 

 possible desire for a second swarm, a 

 third, or even a fourth. The workers 

 have for some hours now been actively 

 thinning the walls of the ripest cell, while 

 the young queen, from within, has been 

 simultaneously gnawing the rounded lid 

 of her prison. And at last her head 

 appears ; she thrusts herself forward ; 



that a special gland in the nurses' head secretes. But 

 after a few days the worker larvae are weaned, and put 

 on a coarser diet of honey and pollen ; whereas the 

 future queen, until she be fully developed, is copiously 

 fed on the precious milk known as " royal jelly." 

 247 



