After the departure of the colony, the remaining workers set another queen at liberty, and treat her with equal indifference as the first. They drive her from the royal cells; being perpetually harrassed, she becomes agitated; departs, and carries a new swarm along with her. In a populous hive this scene is repeated three or four times during spring. As the number of bees is so much reduced, that they are no longer capable of preserving a strict watch over the royal cells, several females then leave their confinement at once; they seek each other, fight, and the queen at last victorious reigns peaceably over the republic. The longest intervals we have observed between the departure of each natural swarm have been from seven to nine days. This is the time that usually elapses after the first colony is led out by the old queen, until the next swarm is conducted by the first young queen set at liberty. The interval between the second and third is still shorter; and the fourth sometimes departs the day after the third. In hives left to themselves, fifteen or eighteen days are usually sufficient for the throwing of the four swarms, if the weather continues favourable, as I shall explain. A swarm is never seen except in a fine day, or, to speak more correctly, at a time of the day when the sun shines, and the air is calm. Sometimes we have observed all the precursors of swarming, disorder and agitation, but a cloud passed before the sun, and tranquillity was restored; the bees thought no more of swarming. An hour afterwards, the sun having again appeared, the tumult was renewed; it rapidly augmented; and the swarm departed. Bees generally seem much alarmed at the prospect of bad weather. While ranging in the fields the passage of a cloud before the hive induces them precipitately to return. I am induced to think they are disquieted by the sudden diminution of light. For if the sky is uniformly obscured, and there is no alteration in clearness or in the clouds dispelling, they proceed to the fields for their ordinary collections, and the first drops of a soft rain does not make them return with much precipitation.