FINDING NATURE’S TREASURES 
17 
feed and take care of the babies in the nursery. Who 
remembers what we call an insect baby while it is eating 
and growing?” 
“I do! I do!” cried Buddy, before the others could 
answer. “It is called a larva. You told us that when we 
talked about the baby wasps.” 
Uncle Jack then continued, “The mother ant stays 
down in the nest all of the time and is very busy laying 
eggs. She is called the Queen. Each nest has one Mother 
Queen. The worker ants, which you see, are only as 
large around as the lead in your pencil, but the Queen 
is nearly as large as a shelled peanut. At certain times 
of the year a large number of king ants and queen ants 
hatch out in the nest. All of these young kings and 
queens have wings. They soon leave the old nest and fly 
away. Each queen flies as far as she can, then she comes 
down to the ground. She hunts a good place for a nest 
of her own. That is the only time she will ever fly. She 
will never need her wings again; so she breaks them off 
with her legs.” 
“Doesn’t it hurt her when she does that?” asked 
Marylee. 
“I don’t think it hurts her any more than it hurts 
a tree when its leaves fall off in the autumn,” replied 
Uncle Jack. “The wings are almost ready to come loose, 
because she is through with them. Now, if the new queen 
cannot find a little cave already made under a stone, she 
digs a round hole in the ground. When her new nest is 
ready for her to live in, she goes inside and fills the door¬ 
way with earth.” 
