The Young Queens 
powdery dust of the ways that lead unto 
life. She is perfect, however, from head 
to foot ; she knows at once all that has to 
be known ; and, like the children of the 
people, who learn, as it were, at their birth, 
that for them there shall never be time 
to play or to laugh, she instantly makes 
her way to the cells that are closed, and 
proceeds to beat her wings and to dance 
in cadence, so that she in her turn may 
quicken her buried sisters; nor does she 
for one instant pause to decipher the 
astounding enigma of her destiny, or her 
race. 
[65] 
The most arduous labours will, how- 
ever, at first be spared her. A week 
must elapse from the day of her birth 
before she will quit the hive; she will 
then perform her first “cleansing flight,” 
and absorb the air into her trachez, which, 
237 
