vV 
THE YOUNG QUEENS 
[ 64 ] 
ERE let us close our hive, where we 
find that life is reassuming its cir- 
cular movement, is extending and multi- 
plying, 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 departure of the 
swarm. 
The tumult having subsided, the hap- 
less 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 thou- 
sands of bees have remained, however ; and 
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