The Young Queens
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 larvæ are weaned, and put on a coarser diet of honey and pollen; whereas the future queen, until she be fully developed, is copiously fed on the precious milk known as "royal jelly."
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