by her reproductive organs are stimulated and fully developed, which is not the case with the workers. Think how much farther advanced are the bees than we, since, by giving the proper food, they are able to develop and fit each class of citizens to do the work required of it in the social organisation!
The queen larva is fed for five days on this most nourishing food, and then her cell is sealed. Within this cell the royal princess is for the first time self-dependent, and weaves about herself a silken cocoon and changes into a pupa. When she issues from this state she waits a little until she "finds herself," and then starts to cut an opening in the cell. She is a good mathematician, and with her jaws, cuts a circle very accurately, usually leaving it hinged like the lid to a pot. Professor Kellogg tells us that some-times when she cuts this door, the workers do not wish her to come out. They accomplish their purpose by carrying wax and pasting it over the opening as fast as she cuts it, at the same time quite devotedly feeding her through a small crevice. But if they wish her to come out, they rush to assist her, and perhaps for two or three days before she issues, make the wax thin where she is to cut. It usually requires sixteen days to develop a queen from the egg to the adult.
When a queen issues from her cell, she is light-coloured and, as her body is not yet distended with eggs, it is scarcely larger than that of one of the workers. Sometimes she chooses to stay in her cell for a day or two after it is opened. When she
