The Life of the Bee 
an indescribable prestige. It is here that 
the mothers are formed. In each one of 
these capsules, before the swarm departs, 
an egg will be placed by the mother, or 
more probably —though as to this we 
have no certain knowledge — by one of 
the workers; an egg that she will have 
taken from some neighbouring cell, and 
that is absolutely identical with those from 
which workers are hatched. 
From this egg, after three days, a small 
larva will issue, and receive a special and 
very abundant nourishment; and hence- 
forth we are able to follow, step by step, 
the movements of one of those magnifi- 
cently vulgar methods of nature on which, 
were we dealing with men, we should 
bestow the august name of fatality. The 
little larva, thanks to this regimen, as- 
sumes an exceptional development; and 
in its ideas, no less than in its body, there 
ensues so considerable a change that the 
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