IV 
THE YOUNG QUEENS 
66 
Here let us close our hive, where we find 
that life is reassuming its circular movement, 
is extending and multiplying, to be again 
divided as soon as it shall attain the fulness 
of its happiness and strength ; and let us for 
the last time reopen the mother-city, and 
see what is happening there after the de- 
parture of the swarm. 
The tumult having subsided, the hapless 
city, that two-thirds of her children have 
abandoned for ever, becomes feeble, empty, 
moribund ; like a body from which the blood 
has been drained. Some thousands of bees 
have remained, however, and these, though 
a trifle languid perhaps, are still immovably 
faithful to the duty a precise destiny has 
189 
