The Swarm 
a future that goes further and further 
back ever since the world began. And, 
for the sake of this future, each one 
renounces more than half of her rights 
and her joys. The queen bids farewell 
to freedom, the light of day, and the 
calyx of flowers; the workers give five 
or six years of their life, and shall never 
know love, or the joys of maternity. 
The queen’s brain turns to pulp, that the 
reproductive organs may profit; in the 
workers these organs atrophy, to the bene- 
fit of their intelligence. Nor would it 
be fair to allege that the will plays no 
part in all these renouncements. We 
have seen that each worker’s larva can 
be transformed into a queen if lodged 
and fed on the royal plan; and similarly 
could each royal larva be turned into 
worker if her food were changed and 
her cell reduced. These mysterious elec- 
tions take place every day in the golden 
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