THE HONEY-BEE. 
143 
perience may convince us, that bees, like human 
beings, are often the slaves of circumstances, and 
that their instinct is sometimes at fault. 
Second Swarms . — After the departure of the first 
swarm with the old Queen at its head, the com- 
munity is, for a time, without a reigning Queen. 
There is brood in the royal cells, hut none come to 
maturity ; and it is not till the fifth, sixth, or seventh 
day in ordinary cases, that the senior of the young 
princesses is hatched, and takes her place as Queen 
regnant. Her first step is to hasten to the other royal 
cells, and endeavour to destroy her rivals. In these 
attempts, with which she is incessantly occupied for 
several days, she is strongly opposed by the workers, 
to whom, so long as she remains a virgin, she is an 
object of indifference ; and the scene takes place 
which has been described in page 95. At every 
repulse by the workers, she utters the shrill mono- 
tonous sound which is called piping, and which is 
heard for two or three days previous to the departure 
of a second swarm ; while the younger Queens in 
confinement respond, sometimes two or three of them 
at the same moment, in a voice sounding hoarse from 
the recesses of their prison. Irritated by such opposi- 
tion, and annoyed at the sight of so many royal cells 
in every quarter, the young Queen becomes extremely 
agitated, and at last rushes, together with the hees to 
whom she has imparted her agitation, through the out- 
lets of the hive, and thus forms the second swarm. 
Circumstances sometimes occur to prevent the de- 
parture of a second swarm. If the young Queen, as 
