The Young Queens 
of the city is one of absolute unanimity, 
preordained, which reigns over all; and 
every one of the bees would appear to 
know in advance the thought of her 
sisters. And yet this moment is the 
gravest, the most vital, in their entire 
history. ‘They have to choose between 
three or four courses whose results, in the 
distant future, will be totally different; 
which, too, the slightest accident may 
render disastrous. They have to rec- 
oncile the multiplication of species — 
which is their passion, or innate duty — 
with the preservation of the hive and 
its people. They will err at times; 
they will successively send forth three or 
four swarms, thereby completely denuding 
the mother-city ; and these swarms, too 
feeble to organise, will succumb, it may 
be, at the approach of winter, caught un- 
awares by this climate of ours, which is 
different far from their original climate, that 
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