Thirdly. _After the old queen has conducted the first swarm from the hive, the remaining bees take particular care of the royal cells, and prevent the young queens successively hatched from leaving them, unless at an interval of several days between each._ In the preceding letter, I have given you the detail and proof of this fact, and I shall here add some reflexions. During the period of swarming, the conduct or instinct of bees seems to receive a particular modification. At all other times, when they have lost their queen, they appropriate workers worms to replace her; they prolong and enlarge the cells of these worms; they supply them with aliment more abundantly, and of a more pungent taste; and by this alteration, the worms that would have changed to common bees are transformed to queens. We have seen twenty-seven cells of this kind constructed at once; but when finished the bees no longer endeavour to preserve the young females from the attacks of their enemies. One may perhaps leave her cell, and attack all the other royal cells successively, which she will tear open to destroy her rivals, without the workers taking any part in their defence. Should several queens be hatched at once, they will pursue each other, and fight until the throne remain with her that is victorious. Far from opposing such duels, the other bees rather seem to excite the combatants. Things are quite reversed during the period of swarming. The royal cells then constructed are of a different figure from the former. They resemble stalactites, and in the beginning are like the cup of an acorn. The bees assiduously guard the cells when the young queens are ready for their last metamorphosis. At length the female hatched from the first egg laid by the old queen leaves her cell; the workers at first treat her with indifference. But she, immediately yielding to the instinct which urges her to destroy her rivals, seeks the cells where they are enclosed; yet no sooner does she approach than the bees bite, pull, and drive her away, so that she is forced to remove; but the royal cells being numerous, scarce can she find a place of rest. Incessantly harassed with the desire of attacking the other queens, and incessantly repelled, she becomes agitated, and hastily traverses the different groupes of workers, to which she communicates her agitation. At this moment numbers of bees rush towards the aperture of the hive, and, with the young queen at their head, depart to seek another habitation.