During that brief, weird honeymoon in the clouds she received a store of spermatozoa, the fertilizing male germs, sufficient for all the eggs she can ever lay, and they may amount to nigh on a million. Incredible as this may seem, their purpose is yet more so; for they are destined to be expended solely in the production of female offspring doomed for the most part to perpetual spinsterhood. One youngster in ten thousand may attain to a higher state, may, if Fate wills, become a queen and mother. And because of this need for mothers to carry on the race, this extraordinary state of affairs has been brought about. All is under the control of her daughters—the spinster-workers. As she proceeds on her rounds of egg-laying an attendant crowd waits upon her, controlling her actions by gentle caresses. As she passes from cell to cell, the cradles of the young that are to be, she thrusts down her abdomen and lays an egg in each. The cells destined to produce the workers are the smallest, those for drones are larger, and those for queens are largest of all, and the walls are formed of pure pollen, not of wax as are those of the workers and drones. But it would seem that she never lays an egg in any of the last named. The sight of a queen-cell rouses her to fury. These cells, then, are filled by the workers, who remove the requisite number of worker—eggs from the cells in which they were laid and deposit them in the queen-cradles. The larvæ at hatching, and for the first three days of life, differ in no wise from their sisters around them. Their Royal state is determined solely by the food which is administered to them. This consists of “bee-jelly,” which is furnished in abundance: a white, shining liquid, regurgitated by the ever-zealous nurse-bees. These superfed babies cease feeding at about the fifth day, and each spins for herself a silken vestment in which to undergo the pupal state. This done, the door of each cell is sealed up with pollen. During the following sixteen days strange transformations take place: the queen that is to be is taking shape. But the cradle now becomes a prison, for at the end of the sixteenth day each of the four or five young queens begins to clamour for release. But this cannot be, for such as succeeded in emerging would immediately be slain by the reigning queen. A small hole is bored through the roof of the cell, and through this each is fed, and a close guard is kept night and day to ensure that they shall not emerge till the moment is ripe. Soon each captive begins to gnaw away the roof of her prison chamber, and as rapidly more material is placed by her guards on the outer surface. Not until the old queen leaves the hive with thousands of her daughters to “swarm” and found a new colony will freedom be allowed; and then only to one. The rest must remain till the new queen either also “swarms,” or returns from her nuptial flight, and in this case all will be slaughtered in their cramped quarters, unable to resist.