Mouth-to-mouth sharing of liquid food between colony members (and how the queen feeds her larvae).
She lays her first small clutch — typically 6–14 eggs — and tends them constantly, licking them clean to keep mould and bacteria at bay.
Egg to worker takes about 6–10 weeks. Eggs hatch into legless grubs (larvae) that she feeds from her own saliva; a mature larva spins a silk cocoon and pupates inside it.
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