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The Swarm disease, or war. No, the exile has long been planned, and the favourable hour patiently awaited. Were the hive poor, had it suffered from pillage or storm, had misfortune befallen the royal family, the bees would not forsake it. They leave it only when it has attained the apogee of its prosperity; at a time when, after the arduous labours of the spring, the immense palace of wax has its 120,000 well-arranged cells overflowing with new honey, and with the many-coloured flour, known as "bees' bread," on which nymphs and larvæ are fed.

Never is the hive more beautiful than on the eve of its heroic renouncement, in its unrivalled hour of fullest abundance and joy; serene for all its apparent excitement and feverishness.

Let us endeavour to picture it to ourselves, not as it appears to the bees,—for we cannot tell in what magical, formidable 47