The Swarm 
open vats by whose side watchful cohorts 
maintain an incessant current of air. In 
the centre, and far from the light whose 
diamond rays steal in through the only 
Opening, in the warmest part of the hive, 
there stands the abode of the future; here 
does it sleep, and wake. For this is the 
royal domain of the brood-cells, set apart 
for the queen and her acolytes; about 
10,000 cells wherein the eggs repose, 15 
or 16,000 chambers tenanted by larve, 
40,000 dwellings inhabited by white nymphs 
to whom thousands of nurses minister.’ 
And finally, in the holy of holies of these 
parts, are the three, four, six, or twelve 
sealed palaces, vast in size compared with 
the others, where the adolescent princesses 
lie who await their hour; wrapped in a kind 
of shroud, all of them motionless and pale, 
and fed in the darkness. 
12 
On the day, then, that the spirit of the 
hive has ordained, a certain part of the 
1 The figures given here are scrupulously exact. They 
are those of a well-filled hive in full prosperity. 
41 
