CHAPTER XV 
AFTER THE FEAST 
S the year grows in the bee-garden, so it 
goes, with all but imperceptible tread and 
tread. In southern England, after the seed- 
hay is down, there is little more for the bees to do 
but prepare their hives for the coming winter. 
The queen is slowly weaned fromther absorption in 
egg-laying by a gradual change in food. Day by 
day she receives less of the mysterious bee-milk 
which was her urging and inspiration ; day after 
day she finds herself the more constrained to slake 
her hunger at the open honey-cells with the com- 
mon crowd. Every day sees fewer bee-children 
born to the hive, and every day sees more and 
more of the old workers—-worn out with a short 
six weeks or so of summer toil—pass away in that 
inexplicable fashion, using, perchance, their last 
strength of wing to hie them to the traditional 
graveyard of their kind. What becomes of them 
all, not the wisest among beemen knows ; but it is 
certain that, as they lived by communal principle, 
in the same faith they die; and their last act may 
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