The Life of the Bee 
Lye] « 
These measures concern the care of the 
youthful queens who still lie immured in 
their waxen prisons. Let us assume that 
the “spirit of the hive” has pronounced 
against the despatch of a second swarm. 
Two courses still remain open. The 
bees may permit the first-born of the 
royal virgins, the one whose birth we have 
witnessed, to destroy her sister-enemies ; 
or they may elect to wait till she have 
performed the perilous ceremony known 
as the “nuptial flight,’ whereon the 
nation’s future depends. The immediate 
massacre will be authorised often, and 
often denied; but in the latter case it is 
of course not easy for us to pronounce 
whether the bees’ decision be due to a de- 
sire for a second swarm, or to their recog- 
nition of the dangers attending the nuptial 
flight ; for it will happen at times that, on 
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