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The Young Queens After the second swarm the bees, as a rule, will renounce further division, owing either to their having observed the excessive feebleness of their own stock, or to the prudence urged upon them by threatening skies. In that case they will allow the third queen to slaughter the captives; ordinary life will at once be resumed, and pursued with the more ardour for the reason that the workers are all very young, that the hive is depopulated and impoverished, and that there are great voids to fill before the arrival of winter.

The departure of the second and third swarms resembles that of the first, and the conditions are identical, with the exception that the bees are fewer in number, less circumspect, and lacking in scouts; and also that the young and virgin queen, being unencumbered and ardent, will fly 263