The collective term for the developing young: eggs, larvae, and pupae.
Walled in with no way out, she will neither eat nor forage. Everything her first brood needs comes from her own body — stored fat and her dissolved wing muscles. This is “claustral” founding.
She lays her first small clutch — typically 6–14 eggs — and tends them constantly, licking them clean to keep mould and bacteria at bay.
The new workers break open the sealed entrance and step outside for the first time. Food finally flows in from the world, and the queen can stop living off her own body.
With foragers bringing food home, the colony grows on an accelerating curve: more workers raise more brood, which become yet more workers.
claustraldealationnaniticcallowtrophallaxisalatenuptial flighteclosion