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 larve are weaned, and put 
on a coarser diet of honey and pollen; whereas the 
future queen, until she be fully developetl, is copiously 
fed on the precious milk known as << royal jelly.” 
247 
