,,the ,,life ,,of ,,the ,,bee ,by ,maurice ,maeterlinck ,translated ,by ,alfred ,sutro ,,new ,,york #aiad ,published ,may1 #aija ,contents ,i4 ,,on ,,the ,,threshold ,,of ,,the ,,hive ,,ii4 ,,the ,,swarm ,,iii4 ,,the ,,foundation ,,of ,,the ,,city ,,iv4 ,,the ,,life ,,of ,,the ,,bee ,v4 ,,the ,,young ,,queens ,,vi4 ,,the ,,nuptial ,,flight ,,vii4 ,,the ,,massacre ,,of ,,the ,,males ,,viii4 ,,the ,,progress ,,of ,,the ,,race ,,appendix ,i -- ,,on ,,the ,,threshold ,,of ,,the ,,hive #a ,,it is not my intention to write a treatise on apiculture1 or on practical bee-keeping4 ,excellent works of the kind abound in all civilised countries1 and it were useless to attempt another4 ,france has those of ,dadant1 ,georges de ,layens and ,bonnier1 ,bertrand1 ,hamet1 ,weber1 ,clement1 the ,abbe ,collin1 etc4 ,english-speaking countries have ,langstroth1 ,bevan1 ,cook1 ,cheshire1 ,cowan1 ,root1 etc4 ,germany has ,dzierzon1 ,van ,berlespoch1 ,pollmann1 ,vogel1 and many others4 ,nor is this book to be a scientific monograph on ,apis ,mellifica1 ,ligustica1 ,fasciata1 ,dorsata1 etc41 or a collection of new observations and studies4 ,i shall say scarcely anything that those will not know who are somewhat familiar with bees4 ,the notes and experiments ,i have made during my twenty years of beekeeping ,i shall reserve for a more technical work2 for their interest is necessarily of a special and limited nature1 and ,i am anxious not to over-burden this essay4 ,i wish to speak of the bees very simply1 as one speaks of a subject one knows and loves to those who know it not4 ,i do not intend to adorn the truth1 or merit the just reproach ,reaumur addressed to his predecessors in the study of our honey-flies1 whom he accused of substituting for the marvellous reality marvels that were imaginary and merely plausible4 ,the fact that the hive contains so much that is wonderful does not warrant our seeking to add to its wonders4 ,besides1 ,i myself have now for a long time ceased to look for anything more beautiful in this world1 or more interesting1 than the truth2 or at least than the effort one is able to make towards the truth4 ,i shall state nothing1 therefore1 that ,i have not verified myself1 or that is not so fully accepted in the text-books as to render further verification superfluous4 ,my facts shall be as accurate as though they appeared in a practical manual or scientific monograph1 but ,i shall relate them in a somewhat livelier fashion than such works would allow1 shall group them more harmoniously together1 and blend them with freer and more mature reflections4 ,the reader of this book will not learn therefrom how to manage a hive2 but he will know more or less all that can with any certainty be known of the curious1 profound1 and intimate side of its inhabitants4 ,nor will this be at the cost of what still remains to be learned4 ,i shall pass over in silence the hoary traditions that1 in the country and many a book1 still constitute the legend of the hive4 ,whenever there be doubt1 disagreement1 hypothesis1 when ,i arrive at the unknown1 ,i shall declare it loyally2 you will find that we often shall halt before the unknown4 ,beyond the appreciable facts of their life we know but little of the bees4 ,and the closer our acquaintance becomes1 the nearer is our ignorance brought to us of the depths of their real existence2 but such ignorance is better than the other kind1 which is unconscious1 and satisfied4 ,does an analogous work on the bee exist8 ,i believe ,i have read almost all that has been written on bees2 but of kindred matter ,i know only ,michelet's chapter at the end of his book ,the ,insect1 and ,ludwig ,buchner's essay in his ,mind in ,animals4 ,michelet merely hovers on the fringe of his subject2 ,buchner's treatise is comprehensive enough1 but contains so many hazardous statements1 so much long-discarded gossip and hearsay1 that ,i suspect him of never having left his library1 never having set forth himself to question his heroines1 or opened one of the many hundreds of rustling1 wing-lit hives which we must profane before our instinct can be attuned to their secret1 before we can perceive the spirit and atmosphere1 perfume and mystery1 of these virgin daughters of toil4 ,the book smells not of the bee1 or its honey2 and has the defects of many a learned work1 whose conclusions often are preconceived1 and whose scientific attainment is composed of a vast array of doubtful anecdotes collected on every side4 ,but in this essay of mine we rarely shall meet each other2 for our starting-point1 our aim1 and our point of view are all very different4 #b ,the bibliography of the bee 7we will begin with the books so as to get rid of them as soon as we can and go to the source of the books7 is very extensive4 ,from the beginning this strange little creature1 that lived in a society under complicated laws and executed prodigious labours in the darkness1 attracted the notice of men4 ,aristotle1 ,cato1 ,varro1 ,pliny1 ,columella1 ,palladius all studied the bees2 to say nothing of ,aristomachus1 who1 according to ,cicero1 watched them for fifty-eight years1 and of ,phyliscus1 whose writings are lost4 ,but these dealt rather with the legend of the bee2 and all that we can gather therefrom--which indeed is exceedingly little--we may find condensed in the fourth book of ,virgil's ,georgics4 ,the real history of the bee begins in the seventeenth century1 with the discoveries of the great ,dutch savant ,swammerdam4 ,it is well1 however1 to add this detail1 but little known3 before ,swammerdam a ,flemish naturalist named ,clutius had arrived at certain important truths1 such as the sole maternity of the queen and her possession of the attributes of both sexes1 but he had left these unproved4 ,swammerdam founded the true methods of scientific investigation2 he invented the microscope1 contrived injections to ward off decay1 was the first to dissect the bees1 and by the discovery of the ovaries and the oviduct definitely fixed the sex of the queen1 hitherto looked upon as a king1 and threw the whole political scheme of the hive into most unexpected light by basing it upon maternity4 ,finally he produced woodcuts and engravings so perfect that to this day they serve to illustrate many books on apiculture4 ,he lived in the turbulent1 restless ,amsterdam of those days1 regretting ,het ,zoete ,buiten ,leve --,the ,sweet ,life of the ,country--and died1 worn-out with work1 at the age of forty-three4 ,he wrote in a pious1 formal style1 with beautiful1 simple outbursts of a faith that1 fearful of falling away1 ascribed all things to the glory of the ,creator2 and embodied his observations and studies in his great work ,bybel der ,natuure1 which the doctor ,boerhave1 a century later1 caused to be translated from the ,dutch into ,latin under the title of ,biblia ,naturae4 7,leyden1 #agcg47 ,then came ,reaumur1 who1 pursuing similar methods1 made a vast number of curious experiments and researches in his gardens at ,charenton1 and devoted to the bees an entire volume of his ,notes to ,serve for a ,history of ,insects4 ,one may read it with profit to-day1 and without fatigue4 ,it is clear1 direct1 and sincere1 and possessed of a certain hard1 arid charm of its own4 ,he sought especially the destruction of ancient errors2 he himself was responsible for several new ones2 he partially understood the formation of swarms and the political establishment of queens2 in a word1 he discovered many difficult truths1 and paved the way for the discovery of more4 ,he fully appreciated the marvellous architecture of the hive2 and what he said on the subject has never been better said4 ,it is to him1 too1 that we owe the idea of the glass hives1 which1 having since been perfected1 enable us to follow the entire private life of these fierce insects1 whose work1 begun in the dazzling sunshine1 receives its crown in the darkness4 ,to be comprehensive1 one should mention also the somewhat subsequent works and investigations of ,charles ,bonnet and ,schirach 7who solved the enigma of the royal egg72 but ,i will keep to the broad lines1 and pass at once to ,francois ,huber1 the master and classic of contemporary apiarian science4 ,huber was born in ,geneva in #agej1 and fell blind in his earliest youth4 ,the experiments of ,reaumur interested him2 he sought to verify them1 and soon becoming passionately absorbed in these researches1 eventually1 with the assistance of an intelligent and faithful servant1 ,francois ,burnens1 devoted his entire life to the study of the bee4 ,in the annals of human suffering and human triumph there is nothing more touching1 no lesson more admirable1 than the story of this patient collaboration1 wherein the one who saw only with immaterial light guided with his spirit the eyes and hands of the other who had the real earthly vision2 where he who1 as we are assured1 had never with his own eyes beheld a comb of honey1 was yet able1 notwithstanding the veil on his dead eyes that rendered double the veil in which nature enwraps all things1 to penetrate the profound secrets of the genius that had made this invisible comb2 as though to teach us that no condition in life can warrant our abandoning our desire and search for the truth4 ,i will not enumerate all that apiarian science owes to ,huber2 to state what it does not owe were the briefer task4 ,his ,new ,observations on ,bees1 of which the first volume was written in #aghi1 in the form of letters to ,charles ,bonnet1 the second not appearing till twenty years later1 have remained the unfailing1 abundant treasure into which every subsequent writer has dipped4 ,and though a few mistakes may be found therein1 a few incomplete truths2 though since his time considerable additions have been made to the micrography and practical culture of bees1 the handling of queens1 etc41 there is not a single one of his principal statements that has been disproved1 or discovered in error2 and in our actual experience they stand untouched1 and indeed at its very foundation4 #c ,some years of silence followed these revelations2 but soon a ,german clergyman1 ,dzierzon1 discovered parthenogenesis1 i4 e4 the virginal parturition of queens1 and contrived the first hive with movable combs1 thereby enabling the bee-keeper henceforth to take his share of the harvest of honey1 without being forced to destroy his best colonies and in one instant annihilate the work of an entire year4 ,this hive1 still very imperfect1 received masterly improvement at the hands of ,langstroth1 who invented the movable frame properly so called1 which has been adopted in ,america with extraordinary success4 ,root1 ,quinby1 ,dadant1 ,cheshire1 ,de ,layens1 ,cowan1 ,heddon1 ,howard1 etc41 added still further and precious improvement4 ,then it occurred to ,mehring that if bees were supplied with combs that had an artificial waxen foundation1 they would be spared the labour of fashioning the wax and constructing the cells1 which costs them much honey and the best part of their time2 he found that the bees accepted these combs most readily1 and adapted them to their requirements4 ,major de ,hruschka invented the ,honey-,extractor1 which enables the honey to be withdrawn by centrifugal force without breaking the combs1 etc4 ,and thus1 in a few years1 the methods of apiculture underwent a radical change4 ,the capacity and fruitfulness of the hives were trebled4 ,great and productive apiaries arose on every side4 ,an end was put to the useless destruction of the most industrious cities1 and to the odious selection of the least fit which was its result4 ,man truly became the master of the bees1 although furtively1 and without their knowledge2 directing all things without giving an order1 receiving obedience but not recognition4 ,for the destiny once imposed by the seasons he has substituted his will4 ,he repairs the injustice of the year1 unites hostile republics1 and equalises wealth4 ,he restricts or augments the births1 regulates the fecundity of the queen1 dethrones her and instals another in her place1 after dexterously obtaining the reluctant consent of a people who would be maddened at the mere suspicion of an inconceivable intervention4 ,when he thinks fit1 he will peacefully violate the secret of the sacred chambers1 and the elaborate1 tortuous policy of the palace4 ,he will five or six times in succession deprive the bees of the fruit of their labour1 without harming them1 without their becoming discouraged or even impoverished4 ,he proportions the store-houses and granaries of their dwellings to the harvest of flowers that the spring is spreading over the dip of the hills4 ,he compels them to reduce the extravagant number of lovers who await the birth of the royal princesses4 ,in a word he does with them what he will1 he obtains what he will1 provided always that what he seeks be in accordance with their laws and their virtues2 for beyond all the desires of this strange god who has taken possession of them1 who is too vast to be seen and too alien to be understood1 their eyes see further than the eyes of the god himself2 and their one thought is the accomplishment1 with untiring sacrifice1 of the mysterious duty of their race4 #d ,let us now1 having learned from books all that they had to teach us of a very ancient history1 leave the science others have acquired and look at the bees with our own eyes4 ,an hour spent in the midst of the apiary will be less instructive1 perhaps2 but the things we shall see will be infinitely more stimulating and more actual4 ,i have not yet forgotten the first apiary ,i saw1 where ,i learned to love the bees4 ,it was many years ago1 in a large village of ,dutch ,flanders1 the sweet and pleasant country whose love for brilliant colour rivals that of ,zealand even1 the concave mirror of ,holland2 a country that gladly spreads out before us1 as so many pretty1 thoughtful toys1 her illuminated gables1 and waggons1 and towers2 her cupboards and clocks that gleam at the end of the passage2 her little trees marshalled in line along quays and canal-banks1 waiting1 one almost might think1 for some quiet1 beneficent ceremony2 her boats and her barges with sculptured poops1 her flower-like doors and windows1 immaculate dams1 and elaborate1 many-coloured drawbridges2 and her little varnished houses1 bright as new pottery1 from which bell-shaped dames come forth1 all a-glitter with silver and gold1 to milk the cows in the white-hedged fields1 or spread the linen on flowery lawns1 cut into patterns of oval and lozenge1 and most astoundingly green4 ,to this spot1 where life would seem more restricted than elsewhere--if it be possible for life indeed to become restricted--a sort of aged philosopher had retired2 an old man somewhat akin to ,virgil's-- ,man equal to kings1 and approaching the gods2 whereto ,lafontaine might have added1-- ,and1 like the gods1 content and at rest4 ,here had he built his refuge1 being a little weary2 not disgusted1 for the large aversions are unknown to the sage2 but a little weary of interrogating men1 whose answers to the only interesting questions one can put concerning nature and her veritable laws are far less simple than those that are given by animals and plants4 ,his happiness1 like the ,scythian philosopher's1 lay all in the beauties of his garden2 and best-loved and visited most often1 was the apiary1 composed of twelve domes of straw1 some of which he had painted a bright pink1 and some a clear yellow1 but most of all a tender blue2 having noticed1 long before ,sir ,john ,lubbock's demonstrations1 the bees' fondness for this colour4 ,these hives stood against the wall of the house1 in the angle formed by one of those pleasant and graceful ,dutch kitchens whose earthenware dresser1 all bright with copper and tin1 reflected itself through the open door on to the peaceful canal4 ,and the water1 burdened with these familiar images beneath its curtain of poplars1 led one's eyes to a calm horizon of mills and of meadows4 ,here1 as in all places1 the hives lent a new meaning to the flowers and the silence1 the balm of the air and the rays of the sun4 ,one seemed to have drawn very near to the festival spirit of nature4 ,one was content to rest at this radiant crossroad1 where the aerial ways converge and divide that the busy and tuneful bearers of all country perfumes unceasingly travel from dawn unto dusk4 ,one heard the musical voice of the garden1 whose loveliest hours revealed their rejoicing soul and sang of their gladness4 ,one came hither1 to the school of the bees1 to be taught the preoccupations of all-powerful nature1 the harmonious concord of the three kingdoms1 the indefatigable organisation of life1 and the lesson of ardent and disinterested work2 and another lesson too1 with a moral as good1 that the heroic workers taught there1 and emphasised1 as it were1 with the fiery darts of their myriad wings1 was to appreciate the somewhat vague savour of leisure1 to enjoy the almost unspeakable delights of those immaculate days that revolved on themselves in the fields of space1 forming merely a transparent globe1 as void of memory as the happiness without alloy4 #e ,in order to follow1 as simply as possible1 the life of the bees through the year1 we will take a hive that awakes in the spring and duly starts on its labours2 and then we shall meet1 in their natural order1 all the great episodes1 viz43 the formation and departure of the swarm1 the foundation of the new city1 the birth1 combat and nuptial flight of the young queens1 the massacre of the males1 and finally1 the return of the sleep of winter4 ,with each of these episodes there will go the necessary explanations as to the laws1 habits1 peculiarities and events that produce and accompany it2 so that1 when arrived at the end of the bee's short year1 which extends only from ,april to the last days of ,september1 we shall have gazed upon all the mysteries of the palace of honey4 ,before we open it1 therefore1 and throw a general glance around1 we only need say that the hive is composed of a queen1 the mother of all her people2 of thousands of workers or neuters who are incomplete and sterile females2 and lastly of some hundreds of males1 from whom one shall be chosen as the sole and unfortunate consort of the queen that the workers will elect in the future1 after the more or less voluntary departure of the reigning mother4 #f ,the first time that we open a hive there comes over us an emotion akin to that we might feel at profaning some unknown object1 charged perhaps with dreadful surprise1 as a tomb4 ,a legend of menace and peril still clings to the bees4 ,there is the distressful recollection of her sting1 which produces a pain so characteristic that one knows not wherewith to compare it2 a kind of destroying dryness1 a flame of the desert rushing over the wounded limb1 as though these daughters of the sun had distilled a dazzling poison from their father's angry rays1 in order more effectively to defend the treasure they gather from his beneficent hours4 ,it is true that were some one who neither knows nor respects the customs and character of the bee suddenly to fling open the hive1 it would turn at once into a burning bush of heroism and anger2 but the slight amount of skill needed to handle it with impunity can be most readily acquired4 ,let but a little smoke be deftly applied1 much coolness and gentleness be shown1 and our well-armed workers will suffer themselves to be despoiled without dreaming of drawing their sting4 ,it is not the fact1 as some have maintained1 that the bees recognise their master2 nor have they any fear of man2 but at the smell of the smoke1 at the large slow gestures that traverse their dwellings without threatening them1 they imagine that this is not the attack of an enemy against whom defence is possible1 but that it is a force or a natural catastrophe whereto they do well to submit4 ,instead of vainly struggling1 therefore1 they do what they can to safeguard the future2 and1 obeying a foresight that for once is in error1 they fly to their reserves of honey1 into which they eagerly dip in order to possess within themselves the wherewithal to start a new city1 immediately and no matter where1 should the ancient one be destroyed or they be compelled to forsake it4 #g ,the first impression of the novice before whom an observation-hive99 is opened will be one of some disappointment4 ,he had been told that this little glass case contained an unparalleled activity1 an infinite number of wise laws1 and a startling amalgam of mystery1 experience1 genius1 calculation1 science1 of various industries1 of certitude and prescience1 of intelligent habits and curious feelings and virtues4 ,all that he sees is a confused mass of little reddish groups1 somewhat resembling roasted coffee-berries1 or bunches of raisins piled against the glass4 ,they look more dead than alive2 their movements are slow1 incoherent1 and incomprehensible4 ,can these be the wonderful drops of light he had seen but a moment ago1 unceasingly flashing and sparkling1 as they darted among the pearls and the gold of a thousand wide-open calyces8 ,by observation-hive is meant a hive of glass1 furnished with black curtains or shutters4 ,the best kind have only one comb1 thus permitting both faces to be studied4 ,these hives can be placed in a drawing-room1 library1 etc41 without inconvenience or danger4 ,the bees that inhabit the one ,i have in my study in ,paris are able even in the stony desert of that great city1 to find the wherewithal to nourish themselves and to prosper4 ,they appear to be shivering in the darkness1 to be numbed1 suffocated1 so closely are they huddled together2 one might fancy they were ailing captives1 or queens dethroned1 who have had their one moment of glory in the midst of their radiant garden1 and are now compelled to return to the shameful squalor of their poor overcrowded home4 ,it is with them as with all that is deeply real2 they must be studied1 and one must learn how to study them4 ,the inhabitant of another planet who should see men and women coming and going almost imperceptibly through our streets1 crowding at certain times around certain buildings1 or waiting for one knows not what1 without apparent movement1 in the depths of their dwellings1 might conclude therefrom that they1 too1 were miserable and inert4 ,it takes time to distinguish the manifold activity contained in this inertia4 ,and indeed every one of the little almost motionless groups in the hive is incessantly working1 each at a different trade4 ,repose is unknown to any2 and such1 for instance1 as seem the most torpid1 as they hang in dead clusters against the glass1 are intrusted with the most mysterious and fatiguing task of all3 it is they who secrete and form the wax4 ,but the details of this universal activity will be given in their place4 ,for the moment we need only call attention to the essential trait in the nature of the bee which accounts for the extraordinary agglomeration of the various workers4 ,the bee is above all1 and even to a greater extent than the ant1 a creature of the crowd4 ,she can live only in the midst of a multitude4 ,when she leaves the hive1 which is so densely packed that she has to force her way with blows of her head through the living walls that enclose her1 she departs from her proper element4 ,she will dive for an instant into flower-filled space1 as the swimmer will dive into the sea that is filled with pearls1 but under pain of death it behoves her at regular intervals to return and breathe the crowd as the swimmer must return and breathe the air4 ,isolate her1 and however abundant the food or favourable the temperature1 she will expire in a few days not of hunger or cold1 but of loneliness4 ,from the crowd1 from the city1 she derives an invisible aliment that is as necessary to her as honey4 ,this craving will help to explain the spirit of the laws of the hive4 ,for in them the individual is nothing1 her existence conditional only1 and herself1 for one indifferent moment1 a winged organ of the race4 ,her whole life is an entire sacrifice to the manifold1 everlasting being whereof she forms part4 ,it is strange to note that it was not always so4 ,we find even to-day1 among the melliferous hymenoptera1 all the stages of progressive civilisation of our own domestic bee4 ,at the bottom of the scale we find her working alone1 in wretchedness1 often not seeing her offspring 7the ,prosopis1 the ,colletes1 etc472 sometimes living in the midst of the limited family that she produces annually 7as in the case of the humble-bee74 ,then she forms temporary associations 7the ,panurgi1 the ,dasypodoe1 the ,hacliti1 etc47 and at last we arrive1 through successive stages1 at the almost perfect but pitiless society of our hives1 where the individual is entirely merged in the republic1 and the republic in its turn invariably sacrificed to the abstract and immortal city of the future4 #h ,let us not too hastily deduce from these facts conclusions that apply to man4 ,he possesses the power of withstanding certain of nature's laws2 and to know whether such resistance be right or wrong is the gravest and obscurest point in his morality4 ,but it is deeply interesting to discover what the will of nature may be in a different world2 and this will is revealed with extraordinary clearness in the evolution of the hymenoptera1 which1 of all the inhabitants of this globe1 possess the highest degree of intellect after that of man4 ,the aim of nature is manifestly the improvement of the race2 but no less manifest is her inability1 or refusal1 to obtain such improvement except at the cost of the liberty1 the rights1 and the happiness of the individual4 ,in proportion as a society organises itself1 and rises in the scale1 so does a shrinkage enter the private life of each one of its members4 ,where there is progress1 it is the result only of a more and more complete sacrifice of the individual to the general interest4 ,each one is compelled1 first of all1 to renounce his vices1 which are acts of independence4 ,for instance1 at the last stage but one of apiarian civilisation1 we find the humble-bees1 which are like our cannibals4 ,the adult workers are incessantly hovering around the eggs1 which they seek to devour1 and the mother has to display the utmost stubbornness in their defence4 ,then having freed himself from his most dangerous vices1 each individual has to acquire a certain number of more and more painful virtues4 ,among the humble-bees1 for instance1 the workers do not dream of renouncing love1 whereas our domestic bee lives in a state of perpetual chastity4 ,and indeed we soon shall show how much more she has to abandon1 in exchange for the comfort and security of the hive1 for its architectural1 economic1 and political perfection2 and we shall return to the evolution of the hymenoptera in the chapter devoted to the progress of the species4 ,,ii -- ,,the ,,swarm #i ,,we will now1 so as to draw more closely to nature1 consider the different episodes of the swarm as they come to pass in an ordinary hive1 which is ten or twenty times more populous than an observation one1 and leaves the bees entirely free and untrammelled4 ,here1 then1 they have shaken off the torpor of winter4 ,the queen started laying again in the very first days of ,february1 and the workers have flocked to the willows and nut-trees1 gorse and violets1 anemones and lungworts4 ,then spring invades the earth1 and cellar and stream with honey and pollen1 while each day beholds the birth of thousands of bees4 ,the overgrown males now all sally forth from their cells1 and disport themselves on the combs2 and so crowded does the too prosperous city become that hundreds of belated workers1 coming back from the flowers towards evening1 will vainly seek shelter within1 and will be forced to spend the night on the threshold1 where they will be decimated by the cold4 ,restlessness seizes the people1 and the old queen begins to stir4 ,she feels that a new destiny is being prepared4 ,she has religiously fulfilled her duty as a good creatress2 and from this duty done there result only tribulation and sorrow4 ,an invincible power menaces her tranquillity2 she will soon be forced to quit this city of hers1 where she has reigned4 ,but this city is her work1 it is she1 herself4 ,she is not its queen in the sense in which men use the word4 ,she issues no orders2 she obeys1 as meekly as the humblest of her subjects1 the masked power1 sovereignly wise1 that for the present1 and till we attempt to locate it1 we will term the spirit of the hive4 ,but she is the unique organ of love2 she is the mother of the city4 ,she founded it amid uncertainty and poverty4 ,she has peopled it with her own substance2 and all who move within its walls--workers1 males1 larvae1 nymphs1 and the young princesses whose approaching birth will hasten her own departure1 one of them being already designed as her successor by the spirit of the hive--all these have issued from her flanks4 #aj ,what is this spirit of the hive--where does it reside8 ,it is not like the special instinct that teaches the bird to construct its well planned nest1 and then seek other skies when the day for migration returns4 ,nor is it a kind of mechanical habit of the race1 or blind craving for life1 that will fling the bees upon any wild hazard the moment an unforeseen event shall derange the accustomed order of phenomena4 ,on the contrary1 be the event never so masterful1 the spirit of the hive still will follow it1 step by step1 like an alert and quickwitted slave1 who is able to derive advantage even from his master's most dangerous orders4 ,it disposes pitilessly of the wealth and the happiness1 the liberty and life1 of all this winged people2 and yet with discretion1 as though governed itself by some great duty4 ,it regulates day by day the number of births1 and contrives that these shall strictly accord with the number of flowers that brighten the country-side4 ,it decrees the queen's deposition or warns her that she must depart2 it compels her to bring her own rivals into the world1 and rears them royally1 protecting them from their mother's political hatred4 ,so1 too1 in accordance with the generosity of the flowers1 the age of the spring1 and the probable dangers of the nuptial flight1 will it permit or forbid the first-born of the virgin princesses to slay in their cradles her younger sisters1 who are singing the song of the queens4 ,at other times1 when the season wanes1 and flowery hours grow shorter1 it will command the workers themselves to slaughter the whole imperial brood1 that the era of revolutions may close1 and work become the sole object of all4 ,the spirit of the hive is prudent and thrifty1 but by no means parsimonious4 ,and thus1 aware1 it would seem1 that nature's laws are somewhat wild and extravagant in all that pertains to love1 it tolerates1 during summer days of abundance1 the embarrassing presence in the hive of three or four hundred males1 from whose ranks the queen about to be born shall select her lover2 three or four hundred foolish1 clumsy1 useless1 noisy creatures1 who are pretentious1 gluttonous1 dirty1 coarse1 totally and scandalously idle1 insatiable1 and enormous4 ,but after the queen's impregnation1 when flowers begin to close sooner1 and open later1 the spirit one morning will coldly decree the simultaneous and general massacre of every male4 ,it regulates the workers' labours1 with due regard to their age2 it allots their task to the nurses who tend the nymphs and the larvae1 the ladies of honour who wait on the queen and never allow her out of their sight2 the house-bees who air1 refresh1 or heat the hive by fanning their wings1 and hasten the evaporation of the honey that may be too highly charged with water2 the architects1 masons1 wax-workers1 and sculptors who form the chain and construct the combs2 the foragers who sally forth to the flowers in search of the nectar that turns into honey1 of the pollen that feeds the nymphs and the larvae1 the propolis that welds and strengthens the buildings of the city1 or the water and salt required by the youth of the nation4 ,its orders have gone to the chemists who ensure the preservation of the honey by letting a drop of formic acid fall in from the end of their sting2 to the capsule-makers who seal down the cells when the treasure is ripe1 to the sweepers who maintain public places and streets most irreproachably clean1 to the bearers whose duty it is to remove the corpses2 and to the amazons of the guard who keep watch on the threshold by night and by day1 question comers and goers1 recognise the novices who return from their very first flight1 scare away vagabonds1 marauders and loiterers1 expel all intruders1 attack redoubtable foes in a body1 and1 if need be1 barricade the entrance4 ,finally1 it is the spirit of the hive that fixes the hour of the great annual sacrifice to the genius of the race3 the hour1 that is1 of the swarm2 when we find a whole people1 who have attained the topmost pinnacle of prosperity and power1 suddenly abandoning to the generation to come their wealth and their palaces1 their homes and the fruits of their labour2 themselves content to encounter the hardships and perils of a new and distant country4 ,this act1 be it conscious or not1 undoubtedly passes the limits of human morality4 ,its result will sometimes be ruin1 but poverty always2 and the thrice-happy city is scattered abroad in obedience to a law superior to its own happiness4 ,where has this law been decreed1 which1 as we soon shall find1 is by no means as blind and inevitable as one might believe8 ,where1 in what assembly1 what council1 what intellectual and moral sphere1 does this spirit reside to whom all must submit1 itself being vassal to an heroic duty1 to an intelligence whose eyes are persistently fixed on the future8 ,it comes to pass with the bees as with most of the things in this world2 we remark some few of their habits2 we say they do this1 they work in such and such fashion1 their queens are born thus1 their workers are virgin1 they swarm at a certain time4 ,and then we imagine we know them1 and ask nothing more4 ,we watch them hasten from flower to flower1 we see the constant agitation within the hive2 their life seems very simple to us1 and bounded1 like every life1 by the instinctive cares of reproduction and nourishment4 ,but let the eye draw near1 and endeavour to see2 and at once the least phenomenon of all becomes overpoweringly complex2 we are confronted by the enigma of intellect1 of destiny1 will1 aim1 means1 causes2 the incomprehensible organisation of the most insignificant act of life4 #aa ,our hive1 then1 is preparing to swarm2 making ready for the great immolation to the exacting gods of the race4 ,in obedience to the order of the spirit--an order that to us may well seem incomprehensible1 for it is entirely opposed to all our own instincts and feelings--#fj1jjj or #gj1jjj bees out of the #hj1jjj or #ij1jjj that form the whole population1 will abandon the maternal city at the prescribed hour4 ,they will not leave at a moment of despair2 or desert1 with sudden and wild resolve1 a home laid waste by famine1 disease1 or war4 ,no1 the exile has long been planned1 and the favourable hour patiently awaited4 ,were the hive poor1 had it suffered from pillage or storm1 had misfortune befallen the royal family1 the bees would not forsake it4 ,they leave it only when it has attained the apogee of its prosperity2 at a time when1 after the arduous labours of the spring1 the immense palace of wax has its #abj1jjj well-arranged cells overflowing with new honey1 and with the many-coloured flour1 known as bees' bread1 on which nymphs and larvae are fed4 ,never is the hive more beautiful than on the eve of its heroic renouncement1 in its unrivalled hour of fullest abundance and joy2 serene for all its apparent excitement and feverishness4 ,let us endeavour to picture it to ourselves1 not as it appears to the bees1--for we cannot tell in what magical1 formidable fashion things may be reflected in the #f1jjj or #g1jjj facets of their lateral eyes and the triple cyclopean eye on their brow1--but as it would seem to us1 were we of their stature4 ,from the height of a dome more colossal than that of ,st4 ,peter's at ,rome waxen walls descend to the ground1 balanced in the void and the darkness2 gigantic and manifold1 vertical and parallel geometric constructions1 to which1 for relative precision1 audacity1 and vastness1 no human structure is comparable4 ,each of these walls1 whose substance still is immaculate and fragrant1 of virginal1 silvery freshness1 contains thousands of cells1 that are stored with provisions sufficient to feed the whole people for several weeks4 ,here1 lodged in transparent cells1 are the pollens1 love-ferment of every flower of spring1 making brilliant splashes of red and yellow1 of black and mauve4 ,close by1 in twenty thousand reservoirs1 sealed with a seal that shall only be broken on days of supreme distress1 the honey of ,april is stored1 most limpid and perfumed of all1 wrapped round with long and magnificent embroidery of gold1 whose borders hang stiff and rigid4 ,still lower the honey of ,may matures1 in great open vats1 by whose side watchful cohorts maintain an incessant current of air4 ,in the centre1 and far from the light whose diamond rays steal in through the only opening1 in the warmest part of the hive1 there stands the abode of the future2 here does it sleep1 and wake4 ,for this is the royal domain of the brood-cells1 set apart for the queen and her acolytes2 about #aj1jjj cells wherein the eggs repose1 #ae1jjj or #af1jjj chambers tenanted by larvae1 #dj1jjj dwellings inhabited by white nymphs to whom thousands of nurses minister499 ,and finally1 in the holy of holies of these partss are the three1 four1 six1 or twelve sealed palaces1 vast in size compared with the others1 where the adolescent princesses lie who await their hour1 wrapped in a kind of shroud1 all of them motionless and pale1 and fed in the darkness4 99,the figures given here are scrupulously exact4 ,they are those of a well-filled hive in full prosperity4 ,on the day1 then1 that the ,spirit of the ,hive has ordained1 a certain part of the population will go forth1 selected in accordance with sure and immovable laws1 and make way for hopes that as yet are formless4 ,in the sleeping city there remain the males1 from whose ranks the royal lover shall come1 the very young bees that tend the brood-cells1 and some thousands of workers who continue to forage abroad1 to guard the accumulated treasure1 and preserve the moral traditions of the hive4 ,for each hive has its own code of morals4 ,there are some that are very virtuous and some that are very perverse2 and a careless bee-keeper will often corrupt his people1 destroy their respect for the property of others1 incite them to pillage1 and induce in them habits of conquest and idleness which will render them sources of danger to all the little republics around4 ,these things result from the bee's discovery that work among distant flowers1 whereof many hundreds must be visited to form one drop of honey1 is not the only or promptest method of acquiring wealth1 but that it is easier to enter ill-guarded cities by stratagem1 or force her way into others too weak for self-defence4 ,nor is it easy to restore to the paths of duty a hive that has become thus depraved4 #ac ,all things go to prove that it is not the queen1 but the spirit of the hive1 that decides on the swarm4 ,with this queen of ours it happens as with many a chief among men1 who though he appear to give orders1 is himself obliged to obey commands far more mysterious1 far more inexplicable1 than those he issues to his subordinates4 ,the hour once fixed1 the spirit will probably let it be known at break of dawn1 or the previous night1 if indeed not two nights before2 for scarcely has the sun drunk in the first drops of dew when a most unaccustomed stir1 whose meaning the bee-keeper rarely will fail to grasp1 is to be noticed within and around the buzzing city4 ,at times one would almost appear to detect a sign of dispute1 hesitation1 recoil4 ,it will happen even that for day after day a strange emotion1 apparently without cause1 will appear and vanish in this transparent1 golden throng4 ,has a cloud that we cannot see crept across the sky that the bees are watching2 or is their intellect battling with a new regret8 ,does a winged council debate the necessity of the departure8 ,of this we know nothing2 as we know nothing of the manner in which the spirit conveys its resolution to the crowd4 ,certain as it may seem that the bees communicate with each other1 we know not whether this be done in human fashion4 ,it is possible even that their own refrain may be inaudible to them3 the murmur that comes to us heavily laden with perfume of honey1 the ecstatic whisper of fairest summer days that the bee-keeper loves so well1 the festival song of labour that rises and falls around the hive in the crystal of the hour1 and might almost be the chant of the eager flowers1 hymn of their gladness and echo of their soft fragrance1 the voice of the white carnations1 the marjoram1 and the thyme4 ,they have1 however1 a whole gamut of sounds that we can distinguish1 ranging from profound delight to menace1 distress1 and anger2 they have the ode of the queen1 the song of abundance1 the psalms of grief1 and1 lastly1 the long and mysterious war-cries the adolescent princesses send forth during the combats and massacres that precede the nuptial flight4 ,may this be a fortuitous music that fails to attain their inward silence8 ,in any event they seem not the least disturbed at the noises we make near the hive2 but they regard these perhaps as not of their world1 and possessed of no interest for them4 ,it is possible that we on our side hear only a fractional part of the sounds that the bees produce1 and that they have many harmonies to which our ears are not attuned4 ,we soon shall see with what startling rapidity they are able to understand each other1 and adopt concerted measures1 when1 for instance1 the great honey thief1 the huge sphinx atropos1 the sinister butterfly that bears a death's head on its back1 penetrates into the hive1 humming its own strange note1 which acts as a kind of irresistible incantation2 the news spreads quickly from group to group1 and from the guards at the threshold to the workers on the furthest combs1 the whole population quivers4 #ad ,it was for a long time believed that when these wise bees1 generally so prudent1 so far-sighted and economical1 abandoned the treasures of their kingdom and flung themselves upon the uncertainties of life1 they were yielding to a kind of irresistible folly1 a mechanical impulse1 a law of the species1 a decree of nature1 or to the force that for all creatures lies hidden in the revolution of time4 ,it is our habit1 in the case of the bees no less than our own1 to regard as fatality all that we do not as yet understand4 ,but now that the hive has surrendered two or three of its material secrets1 we have discovered that this exodus is neither instinctive nor inevitable4 ,it is not a blind emigration1 but apparently the well-considered sacrifice of the present generation in favour of the generation to come4 ,the bee-keeper has only to destroy in their cells the young queens that still are inert1 and1 at the same time1 if nymphs and larvae abound1 to enlarge the store-houses and dormitories of the nation1 for this unprofitable tumult instantaneously to subside1 for work to be at once resumed1 and the flowers revisited2 while the old queen1 who now is essential again1 with no successor to hope for1 or perhaps to fear1 will renounce for this year her desire for the light of the sun4 ,reassured as to the future of the activity that will soon spring into life1 she will tranquilly resume her maternal labours1 which consist in the laying of two or three thousand eggs a day1 as she passes1 in a methodical spiral1 from cell to cell1 omitting none1 and never pausing to rest4 ,where is the fatality here1 save in the love of the race of to-day for the race of to-morrow8 ,this fatality exists in the human species also1 but its extent and power seem infinitely less4 ,among men it never gives rise to sacrifices as great1 as unanimous1 or as complete4 ,what far-seeing fatality1 taking the place of this one1 do we ourselves obey8 ,we know not2 as we know not the being who watches us as we watch the bees4 ,but the hive that we have selected is disturbed in its history by no interference of man2 and as the beautiful day advances with radiant and tranquil steps beneath the trees1 its ardour1 still bathed in dew1 makes the appointed hour seem laggard4 ,over the whole surface of the golden corridors that divide the parallel walls the workers are busily making preparation for the journey4 ,and each one will first of all burden herself with provision of honey sufficient for five or six days4 ,from this honey that they bear within them they will distil1 by a chemical process still unexplained1 the wax required for the immediate construction of buildings4 ,they will provide themselves also with a certain amount of propolis1 a kind of resin with which they will seal all the crevices in the new dwelling1 strengthen weak places1 varnish the walls1 and exclude the light2 for the bees love to work in almost total obscurity1 guiding themselves with their many-faceted eyes1 or with their antennae perhaps1 the seat1 it would seem1 of an unknown sense that fathoms and measures the darkness4 #af ,they are not without prescience1 therefore1 of what is to befall them on this the most dangerous day of all their existence4 ,absorbed by the cares1 the prodigious perils of this mighty adventure1 they will have no time now to visit the gardens and meadows2 and to-morrow1 and after tomorrow1 it may happen that rain may fall1 or there may be wind2 that their wings may be frozen or the flowers refuse to open4 ,famine and death would await them were it not for this foresight of theirs4 ,none would come to their help1 nor would they seek help of any4 ,for one city knows not the other1 and assistance never is given4 ,and even though the bee-keeper deposit the hive1 in which he has gathered the old queen and her attendant cluster of bees1 by the side of the abode they have but this moment quitted1 they would seem1 be the disaster never so great that shall now have befallen them1 to have wholly forgotten the peace and the happy activity that once they had known there1 the abundant wealth and the safety that had then been their portion2 and all1 one by one1 and down to the last of them1 will perish of hunger and cold around their unfortunate queen rather than return to the home of their birth1 whose sweet odour of plenty1 the fragrance1 indeed1 of their own past assiduous labour1 reaches them even in their distress4 #ag ,that is a thing1 some will say1 that men would not do1--a proof that the bee1 notwithstanding the marvels of its organisation1 still is lacking in intellect and veritable consciousness4 ,is this so certain8 ,other beings1 surely1 may possess an intellect that differs from ours1 and produces different results1 without therefore being inferior4 ,and besides1 are we1 even in this little human parish of ours1 such infallible judges of matters that pertain to the spirit8 ,can we so readily divine the thoughts that may govern the two or three people we may chance to see moving and talking behind a closed window1 when their words do not reach us8 ,or let us suppose that an inhabitant of ,venus or ,mars were to contemplate us from the height of a mountain1 and watch the little black specks that we form in space1 as we come and go in the streets and squares of our towns4 ,would the mere sight of our movements1 our buildings1 machines1 and canals1 convey to him any precise idea of our morality1 intellect1 our manner of thinking1 and loving1 and hoping1--in a word1 of our real and intimate self8 ,all he could do1 like ourselves when we gaze at the hive1 would be to take note of some facts that seem very surprising2 and from these facts to deduce conclusions probably no less erroneous1 no less uncertain1 than those that we choose to form concerning the bee4 ,this much at least is certain2 our little black specks would not reveal the vast moral direction1 the wonderful unity1 that are so apparent in the hive4 ,whither do they tend1 and what is it they do8 he would ask1 after years and centuries of patient watching4 ,what is the aim of their life1 or its pivot8 ,do they obey some ,god8 ,i can see nothing that governs their actions4 ,the little things that one day they appear to collect and build up1 the next they destroy and scatter4 ,they come and they go1 they meet and disperse1 but one knows not what it is they seek4 ,in numberless cases the spectacle they present is altogether inexplicable4 ,there are some1 for instance1 who1 as it were1 seem scarcely to stir from their place4 ,they are to be distinguished by their glossier coat1 and often too by their more considerable bulk4 ,they occupy buildings ten or twenty times larger than ordinary dwellings1 and richer1 and more ingeniously fashioned4 ,every day they spend many hours at their meals1 which sometimes indeed are prolonged far into the night4 ,they appear to be held in extraordinary honour by those who approach them2 men come from the neighbouring houses1 bringing provisions1 and even from the depths of the country1 laden with presents4 ,one can only assume that these persons must be indispensable to the race1 to which they render essential service1 although our means of investigation have not yet enabled us to discover what the precise nature of this service may be4 ,there are others1 again1 who are incessantly engaged in the most wearisome labour1 whether it be in great sheds full of wheels that forever turn round and round1 or close by the shipping1 or in obscure hovels1 or on small plots of earth that from sunrise to sunset they are constantly delving and digging4 ,we are led to believe that this labour must be an offence1 and punishable4 ,for the persons guilty of it are housed in filthy1 ruinous1 squalid cabins4 ,they are clothed in some colourless hide4 ,so great does their ardour appear for this noxious1 or at any rate useless activity1 that they scarcely allow themselves time to eat or to sleep4 ,in numbers they are to the others as a thousand to one4 ,it is remarkable that the species should have been able to survive to this day under conditions so unfavourable to its development4 ,it should be mentioned1 however1 that apart from this characteristic devotion to their wearisome toil1 they appear inoffensive and docile2 and satisfied with the leavings of those who evidently are the guardians1 if not the saviours1 of the race4 #ah ,is it not strange that the hive1 which we vaguely survey from the height of another world1 should provide our first questioning glance with so sure and profound a reply8 ,must we not admire the manner in which the thought or the god that the bees obey is at once revealed by their edifices1 wrought with such striking conviction1 by their customs and laws1 their political and economical organisation1 their virtues1 and even their cruelties8 ,nor is this god1 though it be perhaps the only one to which man has as yet never offered serious worship1 by any means the least reasonable or the least legitimate that we can conceive4 ,the god of the bees is the future4 ,when we1 in our study of human history1 endeavour to gauge the moral force or greatness of a people or race1 we have but one standard of measurement--the dignity and permanence of their ideal1 and the abnegation wherewith they pursue it4 ,have we often encountered an ideal more conformable to the desires of the universe1 more widely manifest1 more disinterested or sublime2 have we often discovered an abnegation more complete and heroic8 #ai ,strange little republic1 that1 for all its logic and gravity1 its matured conviction and prudence1 still falls victim to so vast and precarious a dream6 ,who shall tell us1 ,o little people that are so profoundly in earnest1 that have fed on the warmth and the light and on nature's purest1 the soul of the flowers1 wherein matter for once seems to smile1 and put forth it8 most wistful effort towards beauty and happiness1--who shall tell us what problems you have resolved1 but we not yet1 what certitudes you have acquired that we still have to conquer8 ,and if you have truly resolved these problems1 and acquired these certitudes1 by the aid of some blind and primitive impulse and not through the intellect1 then to what enigma1 more insoluble still1 are you not urging us on8 ,little city abounding in faith and mystery and hope1 why do your myriad virgins consent to a task that no human slave has ever accepted8 ,another spring might be theirs1 another summer1 were they only a little less wasteful of strength1 a little less self-forgetful in their ardour for toil2 but at the magnificent moment when the flowers all cry to them1 they seem to be stricken with the fatal ecstasy of work2 and in less than five weeks they almost all perish1 their wings broken1 their bodies shrivelled and covered with wounds4 ,tantus amor florum1 et generandi gloria mellis6 cries ,virgil in the fourth book of the ,georgics1 wherein he devotes himself to the bees1 and hands down to us the charming errors of the ancients1 who looked on nature with eyes still dazzled by the presence of imaginary gods4 #bj ,why do they thus renounce sleep1 the delights of honey and love1 and the exquisite leisure enjoyed1 for instance1 by their winged brother1 the butterfly8 ,why will they not live as he lives8 ,it is not hunger that urges them on4 ,two or three flowers suffice for their nourishment1 and in one hour they will visit two or three hundred1 to collect a treasure whose sweetness they never will taste4 ,why all this toil and distress1 and whence comes this mighty assurance8 ,is it so certain1 then1 that the new generation whereunto you offer your lives will merit the sacrifice2 will be more beautiful1 happier1 will do something you have not done8 ,your aim is clear to us1 clearer far than our own2 you desire to live1 as long as the world itself1 in those that come after2 but what can the aim be of this great aim2 what the mission of this existence eternally renewed8 ,and yet may it not be that these questions are idle1 and we who are putting them to you mere childish dreamers1 hedged round with error and doubt8 ,and1 indeed1 had successive evolutions installed you all-powerful and supremely happy2 had you gained the last heights1 whence at length you ruled over nature's laws2 nay1 were you immortal goddesses1 we still should be asking you what your desires might be1 your ideas of progress2 still wondering where you imagined that at last you would rest and declare your wishes fulfilled4 ,we are so made that nothing contents us2 that we can regard no single thing as having its aim self-contained1 as simply existing1 with no thought beyond existence4 ,has there been1 to this day1 one god out of all the multitude man has conceived1 from the vulgarest to the most thoughtful1 of whom it has not been required that he shall be active and stirring1 that he shall create countless beings and things1 and have myriad aims outside himself8 ,and will the time ever come when we shall be resigned for a few hours tranquilly to represent in this world an interesting form of material activity2 and then1 our few hours over1 to assume1 without surprise and without regret1 that other form which is the unconscious1 the unknown1 the slumbering1 and the eternal8 #ba ,but we are forgetting the hive wherein the swarming bees have begun to lose patience1 the hive whose black and vibrating waves are bubbling and overflowing1 like a brazen cup beneath an ardent sun4 ,it is noon2 and the heat so great that the assembled trees would seem almost to hold back their leaves1 as a man holds his breath before something very tender but very grave4 ,the bees give their honey and sweet-smelling wax to the man who attends them2 but more precious gift still is their summoning him to the gladness of ,june1 to the joy of the beautiful months2 for events in which bees take part happen only when skies are pure1 at the winsome hours of the year when flowers keep holiday4 ,they are the soul of the summer1 the clock whose dial records the moments of plenty2 they are the untiring wing on which delicate perfumes float2 the guide of the quivering light-ray1 the song of the slumberous1 languid air2 and their flight is the token1 the sure and melodious note1 of all the myriad fragile joys that are born in the heat and dwell in the sunshine4 ,they teach us to tune our ear to the softest1 most intimate whisper of these good1 natural hours4 ,to him who has known them and loved them1 a summer where there are no bees becomes as sad and as empty as one without flowers or birds4 #bb ,the man who never before has beheld the swarm of a populous hive must regard this riotous1 bewildering spectacle with some apprehension and diffidence4 ,he will be almost afraid to draw near2 he will wonder can these be the earnest1 the peace-loving1 hard-working bees whose movements he has hitherto followed8 ,it was but a few moments before he had seen them troop in from all parts of the country1 as pre-occupied1 seemingly1 as little housewives might be1 with no thoughts beyond household cares4 ,he had watched them stream into the hive1 imperceptibly almost1 out of breath1 eager1 exhausted1 full of discreet agitation2 and had seen the young amazons stationed at the gate salute them1 as they passed by1 with the slightest wave of antennae4 ,and then1 the inner court reached1 they had hurriedly given their harvest of honey to the adolescent portresses always stationed within1 exchanging with these at most the three or four probably indispensable words2 or perhaps they would hasten themselves to the vast magazines that encircle the brood-cells1 and deposit the two heavy baskets of pollen that depend from their thighs1 thereupon at once going forth once more1 without giving a thought to what might be passing in the royal palace1 the work-rooms1 or the dormitory where the nymphs lie asleep2 without for one instant joining in the babel of the public place in front of the gate1 where it is the wont of the cleaners1 at time of great heat1 to congregate and to gossip4 #bc ,to-day this is all changed4 ,a certain number of workers1 it is true1 will peacefully go to the fields1 as though nothing were happening2 will come back1 clean the hive1 attend to the brood-cells1 and hold altogether aloof from the general ecstasy4 ,these are the ones that will not accompany the queen2 they will remain to guard the old home1 feed the nine or ten thousand eggs1 the eighteen thousand larvae1 the thirty-six thousand nymphs and seven or eight royal princesses1 that to-day shall all be abandoned4 ,why they have been singled out for this austere duty1 by what law1 or by whom1 it is not in our power to divine4 ,to this mission of theirs they remain inflexibly1 tranquilly faithful2 and though ,i have many times tried the experiment of sprinkling a colouring matter over one of these resigned ,cinderellas1 that are moreover easily to be distinguished in the midst of the rejoicing crowds by their serious and somewhat ponderous gait1 it is rarely indeed that ,i have found one of them in the delirious throng of the swarm4 ,and yet1 the attraction must seem irresistible4 ,it is the ecstasy of the perhaps unconscious sacrifice the god has ordained2 it is the festival of honey1 the triumph of the race1 the victory of the future3 the one day of joy1 of forgetfulness and folly2 the only ,sunday known to the bees4 ,it would appear to be also the solitary day upon which all eat their fill1 and revel1 to heart's content1 in the delights of the treasure themselves have amassed4 ,it is as though they were prisoners to whom freedom at last had been given1 who had suddenly been led to a land of refreshment and plenty4 ,they exult1 they cannot contain the joy that is in them4 ,they come and go aimlessly1--they whose every movement has always its precise and useful purpose--they depart and return1 sally forth once again to see if the queen be ready1 to excite their sisters1 to beguile the tedium of waiting4 ,they fly much higher than is their wont1 and the leaves of the mighty trees round about all quiver responsive4 ,they have left trouble behind1 and care4 ,they no longer are meddling and fierce1 aggressive1 suspicious1 untamable1 angry4 ,man--the unknown master whose sway they never acknowledge1 who can subdue them only by conforming to their every law1 to their habits of labour1 and following step by step the path that is traced in their life by an intellect nothing can thwart or turn from its purpose1 by a spirit whose aim is always the good of the morrow--on this day man can approach them1 can divide the glittering curtain they form as they fly round and round in songful circles2 he can take them up in his hand1 and gather them as he would a bunch of grapes2 for to-day1 in their gladness1 possessing nothing1 but full of faith in the future1 they will submit to everything and injure no one1 provided only they be not separated from the queen who bears that future within her4 #be ,but the veritable signal has not yet been given4 ,in the hive there is indescribable confusion2 and a disorder whose meaning escapes us4 ,at ordinary times each bee1 once returned to her home1 would appear to forget her possession of wings2 and will pursue her active labours1 making scarcely a movement1 on that particular spot in the hive that her special duties assign4 ,but to-day they all seem bewitched2 they fly in dense circles round and round the polished walls like a living jelly stirred by an invisible hand4 ,the temperature within rises rapidly1--to such a degree1 at times1 that the wax of the buildings will soften1 and twist out of shape4 ,the queen1 who ordinarily never will stir from the centre of the comb1 now rushes wildly1 in breathless excitement1 over the surface of the vehement crowd that turn and turn on themselves4 ,is she hastening their departure1 or trying to delay it8 ,does she command1 or haply implore8 ,does this prodigious emotion issue from her1 or is she its victim8 ,such knowledge as we possess of the general psychology of the bee warrants the belief that the swarming always takes place against the old sovereign's will4 ,for indeed the ascetic workers1 her daughters1 regard the queen above all as the organ of love1 indispensable1 certainly1 and sacred1 but in herself somewhat unconscious1 and often of feeble mind4 ,they treat her like a mother in her dotage4 ,their respect for her1 their tenderness1 is heroic and boundless4 ,the purest honey1 specially distilled and almost entirely assimilable1 is reserved for her use alone4 ,she has an escort that watches over her by day and by night1 that facilitates her maternal duties and gets ready the cells wherein the eggs shall be laid2 she has loving attendants who pet and caress her1 feed her and clean her1 and even absorb her excrement4 ,should the least accident befall her the news will spread quickly from group to group1 and the whole population will rush to and fro in loud lamentation4 ,seize her1 imprison her1 take her away from the hive at a time when the bees shall have no hope of filling her place1 owing1 it may be1 to her having left no predestined descendants1 or to there being no larvae less than three days old 7for a special nourishment is capable of transforming these into royal nymphs1 such being the grand democratic principle of the hive1 and a counterpoise to the prerogatives of maternal predestination71 and then1 her loss once known1 after two or three hours1 perhaps1 for the city is vast2 work will cease in almost every direction4 ,the young will no longer be cared for2 part of the inhabitants will wander in every direction1 seeking their mother1 in quest of whom others will sally forth from the hive2 the workers engaged in constructing the comb will fall asunder and scatter1 the foragers no longer will visit the flowers1 the guard at the entrance will abandon their post2 and foreign marauders1 all the parasites of honey1 forever on the watch for opportunities of plunder1 will freely enter and leave without any one giving a thought to the defence of the treasure that has been so laboriously gathered4 ,and poverty1 little by little1 will steal into the city2 the population will dwindle2 and the wretched inhabitants soon will perish of distress and despair1 though every flower of summer burst into bloom before them4 ,but let the queen be restored before her loss has become an accomplished1 irremediable fact1 before the bees have grown too profoundly demoralised1--for in this they resemble men3 a prolonged regret1 or misfortune1 will impair their intellect and degrade their character1--let her be restored but a few hours later1 and they will receive her with extraordinary1 pathetic welcome4 ,they will flock eagerly round her2 excited groups will climb over each other in their anxiety to draw near2 as she passes among them they will caress her with the long antennae that contain so many organs as yet unexplained2 they will present her with honey1 and escort her tumultuously back to the royal chamber4 ,and order at once is restored1 work resumed1 from the central comb of the brood-cells to the furthest annex where the surplus honey is stored2 the foragers go forth1 in long black files1 to return1 in less than three minutes sometimes1 laden with nectar and pollen2 streets are swept1 parasites and marauders killed or expelled2 and the hive soon resounds with the gentle1 monotonous cadence of the strange hymn of rejoicing1 which is1 it would seem1 the hymn of the royal presence4 #bf ,there are numberless instances of the absolute attachment and devotion that the workers display towards their queen4 ,should disaster befall the little republic2 should the hive or the comb collapse1 should man prove ignorant1 or brutal2 should they suffer from famine1 from cold or disease1 and perish by thousands1 it will still be almost invariably found that the queen will be safe and alive1 beneath the corpses of her faithful daughters4 ,for they will protect her1 help her to escape2 their bodies will provide both rampart and shelter2 for her will be the last drop of honey1 the wholesomest food4 ,and be the disaster never so great1 the city of virgins will not lose heart so long as the queen be alive4 ,break their comb twenty times in succession1 take twenty times from them their young and their food1 you still shall never succeed in making them doubt of the future2 and though they be starving1 and their number so small that it scarcely suffices to shield their mother from the enemy's gaze1 they will set about to reorganize the laws of the colony1 and to provide for what is most pressing2 they will distribute the work in accordance with the new necessities of this disastrous moment1 and thereupon will immediately re-assume their labours with an ardour1 a patience1 a tenacity and intelligence not often to be found existing to such a degree in nature1 true though it be that most of its creatures display more confidence and courage than man4 ,but the presence of the queen is not even essential for their discouragement to vanish and their love to endure4 ,it is enough that she should have left1 at the moment of her death or departure1 the very slenderest hope of descendants4 ,we have seen a colony1 says ,langstroth1 one of the fathers of modern apiculture1 that had not bees sufficient to cover a comb of three inches square1 and yet endeavoured to rear a queen4 ,for two whole weeks did they cherish this hope2 finally1 when their number was reduced by one-half1 their queen was born1 but her wings were imperfect1 and she was unable to fly4 ,impotent as she was1 her bees did not treat her with the less respect4 ,a week more1 and there remained hardly a dozen bees2 yet a few days1 and the queen had vanished1 leaving a few wretched1 inconsolable insects upon the combs4 ,there is another instance1 and one that reveals most palpably the ultimate gesture of filial love and devotion4 ,it arises from one of the extraordinary ordeals that our recent and tyrannical intervention inflicts on these hapless1 unflinching heroines4 ,i1 in common with all amateur bee-keepers1 have more than once had impregnated queens sent me from ,italy2 for the ,italian species is more prolific1 stronger1 more active1 and gentler than our own4 ,it is the custom to forward them in small1 perforated boxes4 ,in these some food is placed1 and the queen enclosed1 together with a certain number of workers1 selected as far as possible from among the oldest bees in the hive4 7,the age of the bee can be readily told by its body1 which gradually becomes more polished1 thinner1 and almost bald2 and more particularly by the wings1 which hard work uses and tears47 ,it is their mission to feed the queen during the journey1 to tend her and guard her4 ,i would frequently find1 when the box arrived1 that nearly every one of the workers was dead4 ,on one occasion1 indeed1 they had all perished of hunger2 but in this instance as in all others the queen was alive1 unharmed1 and full of vigour2 and the last of her companions had probably passed away in the act of presenting the last drop of honey she held in her sac to the queen1 who was symbol of a life more precious1 more vast than her own4 #bh ,this unwavering affection having come under the notice of man1 he was able to turn to his own advantage the qualities to which it gives rise1 or that it perhaps contains3 the admirable political sense1 the passion for work1 the perseverance1 magnanimity1 and devotion to the future4 ,it has allowed him1 in the course of the last few years1 to a certain extent to domesticate these intractable insects1 though without their knowledge2 for they yield to no foreign strength1 and in their unconscious servitude obey only the laws of their own adoption4 ,man may believe1 if he choose1 that1 possessing the queen1 he holds in his hand the destiny and soul of the hive4 ,in accordance with the manner in which he deals with her--as it were1 plays with her--he can increase and hasten the swarm or restrict and retard it2 he can unite or divide colonies1 and direct the emigration of kingdoms4 ,and yet it is none the less true that the queen is essentially merely a sort of living symbol1 standing1 as all symbols must1 for a vaster although less perceptible principle2 and this principle the apiarist will do well to take into account1 if he would not expose himself to more than one unexpected reverse4 ,for the bees are by no means deluded4 ,the presence of the queen does not blind them to the existence of their veritable sovereign1 immaterial and everlasting1 which is no other than their fixed idea4 ,why inquire as to whether this idea be conscious or not8 ,such speculation can have value only if our anxiety be to determine whether we should more rightly admire the bees that have the idea1 or nature that has planted it in them4 ,wherever it lodge1 in the vast unknowable body or in the tiny ones that we see1 it merits our deepest attention2 nor may it be out of place here to observe that it is the habit we have of subordinating our wonder to accidents of origin or place1 that so often causes us to lose the chance of deep admiration2 which of all things in the world is the most helpful to us4 #bi ,these conjectures may perhaps be regarded as exceedingly venturesome1 and possibly also as unduly human4 ,it may be urged that the bees1 in all probability1 have no idea of the kind2 that their care for the future1 love of the race1 and many other feelings we choose to ascribe to them1 are truly no more than forms assumed by the necessities of life1 the fear of suffering or death1 and the attraction of pleasure4 ,let it be so2 look on it all as a figure of speech2 it is a matter to which ,i attach no importance4 ,the one thing certain here1 as it is the one thing certain in all other cases1 is that1 under special circumstances1 the bees will treat their queen in a special manner4 ,the rest is all mystery1 around which we only can weave more or less ingenious and pleasant conjecture4 ,and yet1 were we speaking of man in the manner wherein it were wise perhaps to speak of the bee1 is there very much more we could say8 ,he too yields only to necessity1 the attraction of pleasure1 and the fear of suffering2 and what we call our intellect has the same origin and mission as what in animals we choose to term instinct4 ,we do certain things1 whose results we conceive to be known to us2 other things happen1 and we flatter ourselves that we are better equipped than animals can be to divine their cause2 but1 apart from the fact that this supposition rests on no very solid foundation1 events of this nature are rare and infinitesimal1 compared with the vast mass of others that elude comprehension2 and all1 the pettiest and the most sublime1 the best known and the most inexplicable1 the nearest and the most distant1 come to pass in a night so profound that our blindness may well be almost as great as that we suppose in the bee4 #cj ,all must agree1 remarks ,buffon1 who has a somewhat amusing prejudice against the bee1--all must agree that these flies1 individually considered1 possess far less genius than the dog1 the monkey1 or the majority of animals2 that they display far less docility1 attachment1 or sentiment2 that they have1 in a word1 less qualities that relate to our own2 and from that we may conclude that their apparent intelligence derives only from their assembled multitude2 nor does this union even argue intelligence1 for it is governed by no moral considerations1 it being without their consent that they find themselves gathered together4 ,this society1 therefore1 is no more than a physical assemblage ordained by nature1 and independent either of knowledge1 or reason1 or aim4 ,the mother-bee produces ten thousand individuals at a time1 and in the same place2 these ten thousand individuals1 were they a thousand times stupider than ,i suppose them to be1 would be compelled1 for the mere purpose of existence1 to contrive some form of arrangement2 and1 assuming that they had begun by injuring each other1 they would1 as each one possesses the same strength as its fellow1 soon have ended by doing each other the least possible harm1 or1 in other words1 by rendering assistance4 ,they have the appearance of understanding each other1 and of working for a common aim2 and the observer1 therefore1 is apt to endow them with reasons and intellect that they truly are far from possessing4 ,he will pretend to account for each action1 show a reason behind every movement2 and from thence the gradation is easy to proclaiming them marvels1 or monsters1 of innumerable ideas4 ,whereas the truth is that these ten thousand individuals1 that have been produced simultaneously1 that have lived together1 and undergone metamorphosis at more or less the same time1 cannot fail all to do the same thing1 and are compelled1 however slight the sentiment within them1 to adopt common habits1 to live in accord and union1 to busy themselves with their dwelling1 to return to it after their journeys1 etc41 etc4 ,and on this foundation arise the architecture1 the geometry1 the order1 the foresight1 love of country1--in a word1 the republic2 all springing1 as we have seen1 from the admiration of the observer4 ,there we have our bees explained in a very different fashion4 ,and if it seem more natural at first1 is it not for the very simple reason that it really explains almost nothing8 ,i will not allude to the material errors this chapter contains2 ,i will only ask whether the mere fact of the bees accepting a common existence1 while doing each other the least possible harm1 does not in itself argue a certain intelligence4 ,and does not this intelligence appear the more remarkable to us as we more closely examine the fashion in which these ten thousand individuals avoid hurting each other1 and end by giving assistance8 ,and further1 is this not the history of ourselves2 and does not all that the angry old naturalist says apply equally to every one of our human societies8 ,and yet once again3 if the bee is indeed to be credited with none of the feelings or ideas that we have ascribed to it1 shall we not very willingly shift the ground of our wonder8 ,if we must not admire the bee1 we will then admire nature2 the moment must always come when admiration can be no longer denied us1 nor shall there be loss to us through our having retreated1 or waited4 ,however these things may be1 and without abandoning this conjecture of ours1 that at least has the advantage of connecting in our mind certain actions that have evident connection in fact1 it is certain that the bees have far less adoration for the queen herself than for the infinite future of the race that she represents4 ,they are not sentimental2 and should one of their number return from work so severely wounded as to be held incapable of further service1 they will ruthlessly expel her from the hive4 ,and yet it cannot be said that they are altogether incapable of a kind of personal attachment towards their mother4 ,they will recognise her from among all4 ,even when she is old1 crippled1 and wretched1 the sentinels at the door will never allow another queen to enter the hive1 though she be young and fruitful4 ,it is true that this is one of the fundamental principles of their polity1 and never relaxed except at times of abundant honey1 in favour of some foreign worker who shall be well laden with food4 ,when the queen has become completely sterile1 the bees will rear a certain number of royal princesses to fill her place4 ,but what becomes of the old sovereign8 ,as to this we have no precise knowledge2 but it has happened1 at times1 that apiarists have found a magnificent queen1 in the flower of her age1 on the central comb of the hive2 and in some obscure corner1 right at the back1 the gaunt1 decrepit old mistress1 as they call her in ,normandy4 ,in such cases it would seem that the bees have to exercise the greatest care to protect her from the hatred of the vigorous rival who longs for her death2 for queen hates queen so fiercely that two who might happen to be under the same roof would immediately fly at each other4 ,it would be pleasant to believe that the bees are thus providing their ancient sovereign with a humble shelter in a remote corner of the city1 where she may end her days in peace4 ,here again we touch one of the thousand enigmas of the waxen city2 and it is once more proved to us that the habits and the policy of the bees are by no means narrow1 or rigidly predetermined2 and that their actions have motives far more complex than we are inclined to suppose4 #cb ,but we are constantly tampering with what they must regard as immovable laws of nature2 constantly placing the bees in a position that may be compared to that in which we should ourselves be placed were the laws of space and gravity1 of light and heat1 to be suddenly suppressed around us4 ,what are the bees to do when we1 by force or by fraud1 introduce a second queen into the city8 ,it is probable that1 in a state of nature1 thanks to the sentinels at the gate1 such an event has never occurred since they first came into the world4 ,but this prodigious conjuncture does not scatter their wits2 they still contrive to reconcile the two principles that they appear to regard in the light of divine commands4 ,the first is that of unique maternity1 never infringed except in the case of sterility in the reigning queen1 and even then only very exceptionally2 the second is more curious still1 and1 although never transgressed1 susceptible of what may almost be termed a ,judaic evasion4 ,it is the law that invests the person of a queen1 whoever she be1 with a sort of inviolability4 ,it would be a simple matter for the bees to pierce the intruder with their myriad envenomed stings2 she would die on the spot1 and they would merely have to remove the corpse from the hive4 ,but though this sting is always held ready to strike1 though they make constant use of it in their fights among themselves1 they will never draw it against a queen2 nor will a queen ever draw hers on a man1 an animal1 or an ordinary bee4 ,she will never unsheath her royal weapon--curved1 in scimeter fashion1 instead of being straight1 like that of the ordinary bee--save only in the case of her doing battle with an equal3 in other words1 with a sister queen4 ,no bee1 it would seem1 dare take on herself the horror of direct and bloody regicide4 ,whenever1 therefore1 the good order and prosperity of the republic appear to demand that a queen shall die1 they endeavour to give to her death some semblance of natural decease1 and by infinite subdivision of the crime1 to render it almost anonymous4 ,they will1 therefore1 to use the picturesque expression of the apiarist1 ball the queenly intruder2 in other words1 they will entirely surround her with their innumerable interlaced bodies4 ,they will thus form a sort of living prison wherein the captive is unable to move2 and in this prison they will keep her for twenty-four hours1 if need be1 till the victim die of suffocation or hunger4 ,but if1 at this moment1 the legitimate queen draw near1 and1 scenting a rival1 appear disposed to attack her1 the living walls of the prison will at once fly open2 and the bees1 forming a circle around the two enemies1 will eagerly watch the strange duel that will ensue1 though remaining strictly impartial1 and taking no share in it4 ,for it is written that against a mother the sting may be drawn by a mother alone2 only she who bears in her flanks close on two million lives appears to possess the right with one blow to inflict close on two million deaths4 ,but if the combat last too long1 without any result1 if the circular weapons glide harmlessly over the heavy cuirasses1 if one of the queens appear anxious to make her escape1 then1 be she the legitimate sovereign or be she the stranger1 she will at once be seized and lodged in the living prison until such time as she manifest once more the desire to attack her foe4 ,it is right to add1 however1 that the numerous experiments that have been made on this subject have almost invariably resulted in the victory of the reigning queen1 owing perhaps to the extra courage and ardour she derives from the knowledge that she is at home1 with her subjects around her1 or to the fact that the bees1 however impartial while the fight is in progress1 may possibly display some favouritism in their manner of imprisoning the rivals2 for their mother would seem scarcely to suffer from the confinement1 whereas the stranger almost always emerges in an appreciably bruised and enfeebled condition4 #cc ,there is one simple experiment which proves the readiness with which the bees will recognise their queen1 and the depth of the attachment they bear her4 ,remove her from the hive1 and there will soon be manifest all the phenomena of anguish and distress that ,i have described in a preceding chapter4 ,replace her1 a few hours later1 and all her daughters will hasten towards her1 offering honey4 ,one section will form a lane1 for her to pass through2 others1 with head bent low and abdomen high in the air1 will describe before her great semicircles throbbing with sound2 hymning1 doubtless1 the chant of welcome their rites dictate for moments of supreme happiness or solemn respect4 ,but let it not be imagined that a foreign queen may with impunity be substituted for the legitimate mother4 ,the bees will at once detect the imposture2 the intruder will be seized1 and immediately enclosed in the terrible1 tumultuous prison1 whose obstinate walls will be relieved1 as it were1 till she dies2 for in this particular instance it hardly ever occurs that the stranger emerges alive4 ,and here it is curious to note to what diplomacy and elaborate stratagem man is compelled to resort in order to delude these little sagacious insects1 and bend them to his will4 ,in their unswerving loyalty1 they will accept the most unexpected events with touching courage1 regarding them probably as some new and inevitable fatal caprice of nature4 ,and1 indeed1 all this diplomacy notwithstanding1 in the desperate confusion that may follow one of these hazardous expedients1 it is on the admirable good sense of the bee that man always1 and almost empirically1 relies2 on the inexhaustible treasure of their marvellous laws and customs1 on their love of peace and order1 their devotion to the public weal1 and fidelity to the future2 on the adroit strength1 the earnest disinterestedness1 of their character1 and1 above all1 on the untiring devotion with which they fulfil their duty4 ,but the enumeration of such procedures belongs rather to technical treatises on apiculture1 and would take us too far499 99,the stranger queen is usually brought into the hive enclosed in a little cage1 with iron wires1 which is hung between two combs4 ,the cage has a door made of wax and honey1 which the workers1 their anger over1 proceed to gnaw1 thus freeing the prisoner1 whom they will often receive without any ill-will4 ,mr4 ,simmins1 manager of the great apiary at ,rottingdean1 has recently discovered another method of introducing a queen1 which1 being extremely simple and almost invariably successful1 bids fair to be generally adopted by apiarists who value their art4 ,it is the behaviour of the queen that usually makes her introduction a matter of so great difficulty4 ,she is almost distracted1 flies to and fro1 hides1 and generally comports herself as an intruder1 thus arousing the suspicions of the bees1 which are soon confirmed by the workers' examination4 ,mr4 ,simmins at first completely isolates the queen he intends to introduce1 and lets her fast for half an hour4 ,he then lifts a corner of the inner cover of the orphaned hive1 and places the strange queen on the top of one of the combs4 ,her former isolation having terrified her1 she is delighted to find herself in the midst of the bees2 and being famished she eagerly accepts the food they offer her4 ,the workers1 deceived by her assurance1 do not examine her1 but probably imagine that their old queen has returned1 and welcome her joyfully4 ,it would seem1 therefore1 that1 contrary to the opinion of ,huber and all other investigators1 the bees are not capable of recognising their queen4 ,in any event1 the two explanations1 which are both equally plausible--though the truth may lurk1 perhaps1 in a third1 that is not yet known to us--only prove once again how complex and obscure is the psychology of the bee4 ,and from this1 as from all questions that deal with life1 we can draw one conclusion only3 that1 till better obtain1 curiosity still must rule in our heart4 #cd ,as regards this personal affection of which we have spoken1 there is one word more to be said4 ,that such affection exists is certain1 but it is certain also that its memory is exceedingly short-lived4 ,dare to replace in her kingdom a mother whose exile has lasted some days1 and her indignant daughters will receive her in such a fashion as to compel you hastily to snatch her from the deadly imprisonment reserved for unknown queens4 ,for the bees have had time to transform a dozen workers' habitations into royal cells1 and the future of the race is no longer in danger4 ,their affection will increase1 or dwindle1 in the degree that the queen represents the future4 ,thus we often find1 when a virgin queen is performing the perilous ceremony known as the nuptial flight1 of which ,i will speak later1 that her subjects are so fearful of losing her that they will all accompany her on this tragic and distant quest of love4 ,this they will never do1 however1 if they be provided with a fragment of comb containing brood-cells1 whence they shall be able to rear other queens4 ,indeed1 their affection even may turn into fury and hatred should their sovereign fail in her duty to that sort of abstract divinity that we should call future society1 which the bees would appear to regard far more seriously than we4 ,it happens1 for instance1 at times1 that apiarists for various reasons will prevent the queen from joining a swarm by inserting a trellis into the hive2 the nimble and slender workers will flit through it1 unperceiving1 but to the poor slave of love1 heavier and more corpulent than her daughters1 it offers an impassable barrier4 ,the bees1 when they find that the queen has not followed1 will return to the hive1 and scold the unfortunate prisoner1 hustle and ill-treat her1 accusing her of laziness1 probably1 or suspecting her of feeble mind4 ,on their second departure1 when they find that she still has not followed1 her ill-faith becomes evident to them1 and their attacks grow more serious4 ,and finally1 when they shall have gone forth once more1 and still with the same result1 they will almost always condemn her1 as being irremediably faithless to her destiny and to the future of the race1 and put her to death in the royal prison4 #ce ,it is to the future1 therefore1 that the bees subordinate all things2 and with a foresight1 a harmonious co-operation1 a skill in interpreting events and turning them to the best advantage1 that must compel our heartiest admiration1 particularly when we remember in how startling and supernatural a light our recent intervention must present itself to them4 ,it may be said1 perhaps1 that in the last instance we have given1 they place a very false construction upon the queen's inability to follow them4 ,but would our powers of discernment be so very much subtler1 if an intelligence of an order entirely different from our own1 and served by a body so colossal that its movements were almost as imperceptible as those of a natural phenomenon1 were to divert itself by laying traps of this kind for us8 ,has it not taken us thousands of years to invent a sufficiently plausible explanation for the thunderbolt8 ,there is a certain feebleness that overwhelms every intellect the moment it emerges from its own sphere1 and is brought face to face with events not of its own initiation4 ,and1 besides1 it is quite possible that if this ordeal of the trellis were to obtain more regularly and generally among the bees1 they would end by detecting the pitfall1 and by taking steps to elude it4 ,they have mastered the intricacies of the movable comb1 of the sections that compel them to store their surplus honey in little boxes symmetrically piled2 and in the case of the still more extraordinary innovation of foundation wax1 where the cells are indicated only by a slender circumference of wax1 they are able at once to grasp the advantages this new system presents2 they most carefully extend the wax1 and thus1 without loss of time or labour1 construct perfect cells4 ,so long as the event that confronts them appear not a snare devised by some cunning and malicious god1 the bees may be trusted always to discover the best1 nay1 the only human1 solution4 ,let me cite an instance2 an event1 that1 though occurring in nature1 is still in itself wholly abnormal4 ,i refer to the manner in which the bees will dispose of a mouse or a slug that may happen to have found its way into the hive4 ,the intruder killed1 they have to deal with the body1 which will very soon poison their dwelling4 ,if it be impossible for them to expel or dismember it1 they will proceed methodically and hermetically to enclose it in a veritable sepulchre of propolis and wax1 which will tower fantastically above the ordinary monuments of the city4 ,in one of my hives last year ,i discovered three such tombs side by side1 erected with party-walls1 like the cells of the comb1 so that no wax should be wasted4 ,these tombs the prudent grave-diggers had raised over the remains of three snails that a child had introduced into the hive4 ,as a rule1 when dealing with snails1 they will be content to seal up with wax the orifice of the shell4 ,but in this case the shells were more or less cracked and broken2 and they had considered it simpler1 therefore1 to bury the entire snail2 and had further contrived1 in order that circulation in the entrance-hall might not be impeded1 a number of galleries exactly proportionate1 not to their own girth1 but to that of the males1 which are almost twice as large as themselves4 ,does not this instance1 and the one that follows1 warrant our believing that they would in time discover the cause of the queen's inability to follow them through the trellis8 ,they have a very nice sense of proportion1 and of the space required for the movement of bodies4 ,in the regions where the hideous death's-head sphinx1 the acherontia atropos1 abounds1 they construct little pillars of wax at the entrance of the hive1 so restricting the dimension as to prevent the passage of the nocturnal marauder's enormous abdomen4 #cf ,but enough on this point2 were ,i to cite every instance ,i should never have done4 ,to return to the queen1 whose position in the hive1 and the part that she plays therein1 we shall most fitly describe by declaring her to be the captive heart of the city1 and the centre around which its intelligence revolves4 ,unique sovereign though she be1 she is also the royal servant1 the responsible delegate of love1 and its captive custodian4 ,her people serve her and venerate her2 but they never forget that it is not to her person that their homage is given1 but to the mission that she fulfils1 and the destiny she represents4 ,it would not be easy for us to find a human republic whose scheme comprised more of the desires of our planet2 or a democracy that offered an independence more perfect and rational1 combined with a submission more logical and more complete4 ,and nowhere1 surely1 should we discover more painful and absolute sacrifice4 ,let it not be imagined that ,i admire this sacrifice to the extent that ,i admire its results4 ,it were evidently to be desired that these results might be obtained at the cost of less renouncement and suffering4 ,but1 the principle once accepted1--and this is needful1 perhaps1 in the scheme of our globe1--its organisation compels our wonder4 ,whatever the human truth on this point may be1 life1 in the hive1 is not looked on as a series of more or less pleasant hours1 whereof it is wise that those moments only should be soured and embittered that are essential for maintaining existence4 ,the bees regard it as a great common duty1 impartially distributed amongst them all1 and tending towards a future that goes further and further back ever since the world began4 ,and1 for the sake of this future1 each one renounces more than half of her rights and her joys4 ,the queen bids farewell to freedom1 the light of day1 and the calyx of flowers2 the workers give five or six years of their life1 and shall never know love1 or the joys of maternity4 ,the queen's brain turns to pulp1 that the reproductive organs may profit2 in the workers these organs atrophy1 to the benefit of their intelligence4 ,nor would it be fair to allege that the will plays no part in all these renouncements4 ,we have seen that each worker's larva can be transformed into a queen if lodged and fed on the royal plan2 and similarly could each royal larva be turned into worker if her food were changed and her cell reduced4 ,these mysterious elections take place every day in the golden shade of the hive4 ,it is not chance that controls them1 but a wisdom whose deep loyalty1 gravity1 and unsleeping watchfulness man alone can betray3 a wisdom that makes and unmakes1 and keeps careful watch over all that happens within and without the city4 ,if sudden flowers abound1 or the queen grow old1 or less fruitful2 if population increase1 and be pressed for room1 you then shall find that the bees will proceed to rear royal cells4 ,but these cells may be destroyed if the harvest fail1 or the hive be enlarged4 ,often they will be retained so long as the young queen have not accomplished1 or succeeded in1 her marriage flight1--to be at once annihilated when she returns1 trailing behind her1 trophy-wise1 the infallible sign of her impregnation4 ,who shall say where the wisdom resides that can thus balance present and future1 and prefer what is not yet visible to that which already is seen8 ,where the anonymous prudence that selects and abandons1 raises and lowers2 that of so many workers makes so many queens1 and of so many mothers can make a people of virgins8 ,we have said elsewhere that it lodged in the ,spirit of the ,hive1 but where shall this spirit of the hive be looked for if not in the assembly of workers8 ,to be convinced of its residence there1 we need not perhaps have studied so closely the habits of this royal republic4 ,it was enough to place under the microscope1 as ,dujardin1 ,brandt1 ,girard1 ,vogel1 and other entomologists have done1 the little uncouth and careworn head of the virgin worker side by side with the somewhat empty skull of the queen and the male's magnificent cranium1 glistening with its twenty-six thousand eyes4 ,within this tiny head we should find the workings of the vastest and most magnificent brain of the hive3 the most beautiful and complex1 the most perfect1 that1 in another order and with a different organisation1 is to be found in nature after that of man4 ,here again1 as in every quarter where the scheme of the world is known to us1 there where the brain is1 are authority and victory1 veritable strength and wisdom4 ,and here again it is an almost invisible atom of this mysterious substance that organises and subjugates matter1 and is able to create its own little triumphant and permanent place in the midst of the stupendous1 inert forces of nothingness and death499 99,the brain of the bee1 according to the calculation of ,dujardin1 constitutes the #a-agdth part of the insect's weight1 and that of the ant the #a-bifth4 ,on the other hand the peduncular parts1 whose development usually keeps pace with the triumphs the intellect achieves over instinct1 are somewhat less important in the bee than in the ant4 ,it would seem to result from these estimates--which are of course hypothetical1 and deal with a matter that is exceedingly obscure--that the intellectual value of the bee and the ant must be more or less equal4 #cg ,and now to return to our swarming hive1 where the bees have already given the signal for departure1 without waiting for these reflections of ours to come to an end4 ,at the moment this signal is given1 it is as though one sudden mad impulse had simultaneously flung open wide every single gate in the city2 and the black throng issues1 or rather pours forth in a double1 or treble1 or quadruple jet1 as the number of exits may be2 in a tense1 direct1 vibrating1 uninterrupted stream that at once dissolves and melts into space1 where the myriad transparent1 furious wings weave a tissue throbbing with sound4 ,and this for some moments will quiver right over the hive1 with prodigious rustle of gossamer silks that countless electrified hands might be ceaselessly rending and stitching2 it floats undulating1 it trembles and flutters like a veil of gladness invisible fingers support in the sky1 and wave to and fro1 from the flowers to the blue1 expecting sublime advent or departure4 ,and at last one angle declines another is lifted2 the radiant mantle unites its four sunlit corners2 and like the wonderful carpet the fairy-tale speaks of1 that flits across space to obey its master's command1 it steers its straight course1 bending forward a little as though to hide in its folds the sacred presence of the future1 towards the willow1 the pear-tree1 or lime whereon the queen has alighted2 and round her each rhythmical wave comes to rest1 as though on a nail of gold1 and suspends its fabric of pearls and of luminous wings4 ,and then there is silence once more2 and1 in an instant1 this mighty tumult1 this awful curtain apparently laden with unspeakable menace and anger1 this bewildering golden hail that streamed upon every object near--all these become merely a great1 inoffensive1 peaceful cluster of bees1 composed of thousands of little motionless groups1 that patiently wait1 as they hang from the branch of a tree1 for the scouts to return who have gone in search of a place of shelter4 #ch ,this is the first stage of what is known as the primary swarm at whose head the old queen is always to be found4 ,they will settle as a rule on the shrub or the tree that is nearest the hive2 for the queen1 besides being weighed down by her eggs1 has dwelt in constant darkness ever since her marriage-flight1 or the swarm of the previous year2 and is naturally reluctant to venture far into space1 having indeed almost forgotten the use of her wings4 ,the bee-keeper waits till the mass be completely gathered together2 then1 having covered his head with a large straw hat 7for the most inoffensive bee will conceive itself caught in a trap if entangled in hair1 and will infallibly use its sting71 but1 if he be experienced1 wearing neither mask nor veil2 having taken the precaution only of plunging his arms in cold water up to the elbow1 he proceeds to gather the swarm by vigorously shaking the bough from which the bees depend over an inverted hive4 ,into this hive the cluster will fall as heavily as an over-ripe fruit4 ,or1 if the branch be too stout1 he can plunge a spoon into the mass2 and deposit where he will the living spoonfuls1 as though he were ladling out corn4 ,he need have no fear of the bees that are buzzing around him1 settling on his face and hands4 ,the air resounds with their song of ecstasy1 which is different far from their chant of anger4 ,he need have no fear that the swarm will divide1 or grow fierce1 will scatter1 or try to escape4 ,this is a day1 ,i repeat1 when a spirit of holiday would seem to animate these mysterious workers1 a spirit of confidence1 that apparently nothing can trouble4 ,they have detached themselves from the wealth they had to defend1 and they no longer recognise their enemies4 ,they become inoffensive because of their happiness1 though why they are happy we know not1 except it be because they are obeying their law4 ,a moment of such blind happiness is accorded by nature at times to every living thing1 when she seeks to accomplish her end4 ,nor need we feel any surprise that here the bees are her dupes2 we ourselves1 who have studied her movements these centuries past1 and with a brain more perfect than that of the bee1 we too are her dupes1 and know not even yet whether she be benevolent or indifferent1 or only basely cruel4 ,there where the queen has alighted the swarm will remain2 and had she descended alone into the hive1 the bees would have followed1 in long black files1 as soon as intelligence had reached them of the maternal retreat4 ,the majority will hasten to her1 with utmost eagerness2 but large numbers will pause for an instant on the threshold of the unknown abode1 and there will describe the circles of solemn rejoicing with which it is their habit to celebrate happy events4 ,they are beating to arms1 say the ,french peasants4 ,and then the strange home will at once be accepted1 and its remotest corners explored2 its position in the apiary1 its form1 its colour1 are grasped and retained in these thousands of prudent and faithful little memories4 ,careful note is taken of the neighbouring landmarks1 the new city is founded1 and its place established in the mind and the heart of all its inhabitants2 the walls resound with the love-hymn of the royal presence1 and work begins4 #ci ,but if the swarm be not gathered by man1 its history will not end here4 ,it will remain suspended on the branch until the return of the workers1 who1 acting as scouts1 winged quartermasters1 as it were1 have at the very first moment of swarming sallied forth in all directions in search of a lodging4 ,they return one by one1 and render account of their mission2 and as it is manifestly impossible for us to fathom the thought of the bees1 we can only interpret in human fashion the spectacle that they present4 ,we may regard it as probable1 therefore1 that most careful attention is given to the reports of the various scouts4 ,one of them it may be1 dwells on the advantage of some hollow tree it has seen2 another is in favour of a crevice in a ruinous wall1 of a cavity in a grotto1 or an abandoned burrow4 ,the assembly often will pause and deliberate until the following morning4 ,then at last the choice is made1 and approved by all4 ,at a given moment the entire mass stirs1 disunites1 sets in motion1 and then1 in one sustained and impetuous flight1 that this time knows no obstacle1 it will steer its straight course1 over hedges and cornfields1 over haystack and lake1 over river and village1 to its determined and always distant goal4 ,it is rarely indeed that this second stage can be followed by man4 ,the swarm returns to nature2 and we lose the track of its destiny4 ,,iii -- ,,the ,,foundation ,,of ,,the ,,city #dj ,,let us rather consider the proceedings of the swarm the apiarist shall have gathered into his hive4 ,and first of all let us not be forgetful of the sacrifice these fifty thousand virgins have made1 who1 as ,ronsard sings1-- ,in a little body bear so true a heart1-- and let us1 yet once again1 admire the courage with which they begin life anew in the desert whereon they have fallen4 ,they have forgotten the splendour and wealth of their native city1 where existence had been so admirably organised and certain1 where the essence of every flower reminiscent of sunshine had enabled them to smile at the menace of winter4 ,there1 asleep in the depths of their cradles1 they have left thousands and thousands of daughters1 whom they never again will see4 ,they have abandoned1 not only the enormous treasure of pollen and propolis they had gathered together1 but also more than #abj pounds of honey2 a quantity representing more than twelve times the entire weight of the population1 and close on #fjj1jjj times that of the individual bee4 ,to man this would mean #db1jjj tons of provisions1 a vast fleet of mighty ships laden with nourishment more precious than any known to us2 for to the bee honey is a kind of liquid life1 a species of chyle that is at once assimilated1 with almost no waste whatever4 ,here1 in the new abode1 there is nothing2 not a drop of honey1 not a morsel of wax2 neither guiding-mark nor point of support4 ,there is only the dreary emptiness of an enormous monument that has nothing but sides and roof4 ,within the smooth and rounded walls there only is darkness2 and the enormous arch above rears itself over nothingness4 ,but useless regrets are unknown to the bee2 or in any event it does not allow them to hinder its action4 ,far from being cast down by an ordeal before which every other courage would succumb1 it displays greater ardour than ever4 ,scarcely has the hive been set in its place1 or the disorder allayed that ensued on the bees' tumultuous fall1 when we behold the clearest1 most unexpected division in that entangled mass4 ,the greater portion1 forming in solid columns1 like an army obeying a definite order1 will proceed to climb the vertical walls of the hive4 ,the cupola reached1 the first to arrive will cling with the claws of their anterior legs1 those that follow hang on to the first1 and so in succession1 until long chains have been formed that serve as a bridge to the crowd that rises and rises4 ,and1 by slow degrees1 these chains1 as their number increases1 supporting each other and incessantly interweaving1 become garlands which1 in their turn1 the uninterrupted and constant ascension transforms into a thick1 triangular curtain1 or rather a kind of compact and inverted cone1 whose apex attains the summit of the cupola1 while its widening base descends to a half1 or two-thirds1 of the entire height of the hive4 ,and then1 the last bee that an inward voice has impelled to form part of this group having added itself to the curtain suspended in darkness1 the ascension ceases2 all movement slowly dies away in the dome2 and1 for long hours1 this strange inverted cone will wait1 in a silence that almost seems awful1 in a stillness one might regard as religious1 for the mystery of wax to appear4 ,in the meantime the rest of the bees--those1 that is1 that remained down below in the hive--have shown not the slightest desire to join the others aloft1 and pay no heed to the formation of the marvellous curtain on whose folds a magical gift is soon to descend4 ,they are satisfied to examine the edifice and undertake the necessary labours4 ,they carefully sweep the floor1 and remove1 one by one1 twigs1 grains of sand1 and dead leaves2 for the bees are almost fanatically cleanly1 and when1 in the depths of winter1 severe frosts retard too long what apiarists term their flight of cleanliness1 rather than sully the hive they will perish by thousands of a terrible bowel-disease4 ,the males alone are incurably careless1 and will impudently bestrew the surface of the comb with their droppings1 which the workers are obliged to sweep as they hasten behind them4 ,the cleaning over1 the bees of the profane group that form no part of the cone suspended in a sort of ecstasy1 set to work minutely to survey the lower circumference of the common dwelling4 ,every crevice is passed in review1 and filled1 covered over with propolis2 and the varnishing of the walls is begun1 from top to bottom4 ,guards are appointed to take their stand at the gate2 and very soon a certain number of workers will go to the fields and return with their burden of pollen4 #da ,before raising the folds of the mysterious curtain beneath whose shelter are laid the veritable foundations of the home1 let us endeavour to form some conception of the sureness of vision1 the accurate calculation and industry our little people of emigrants will be called to display in order to adapt this new dwelling to their requirements4 ,in the void round about them they must lay the plans for their city1 and logically mark out the site of the edifices that must be erected as economically and quickly as possible1 for the queen1 eager to lay1 already is scattering her eggs on the ground4 ,and in this labyrinth of complicated buildings1 so far existing only in imagination1 laws of ventilation must be considered1 of stability1 solidity2 resistance of the wax must not be lost sight of1 or the nature of the food to be stored1 or the habits of the queen2 ready access must be contrived to all parts1 and careful attention be given to the distribution of stores and houses1 passages and streets1--this however is in some measure pre-established1 the plan already arrived at being organically the best1--and there are countless problems besides1 whose enumeration would take too long4 ,now1 the form of the hive that man offers to the bee knows infinite variety1 from the hollow tree or earthenware vessel still obtaining in ,asia and ,africa1 and the familiar bell-shaped constructions of straw which we find in our farmers' kitchen-gardens or beneath their windows1 lost beneath masses of sunflowers1 phlox1 and hollyhock1 to what may really be termed the factory of the model apiarist of today4 ,an edifice1 this1 that can contain more than three hundred pounds of honey1 in three or four stories of superposed combs enclosed in a frame which permits of their being removed and handled1 of the harvest being extracted through centrifugal force by means of a turbine1 and of their being then restored to their place like a book in a well-ordered library4 ,and one fine day the industry or caprice of man will install a docile swarm in one of these disconcerting abodes4 ,and there the little insect is expected to learn its bearings1 to find its way1 to establish its home2 to modify the seemingly unchangeable plans dictated by the nature of things4 ,in this unfamiliar place it is required to determine the site of the winter storehouses1 that must not extend beyond the zone of heat that issues from the half-numbed inhabitants2 it must divine the exact point where the brood-cells shall concentrate1 under penalty of disaster should these be too high or too low1 too near to or far from the door4 ,the swarm1 it may be1 has just left the trunk of a fallen tree1 containing one long1 narrow1 depressed1 horizontal gallery2 and it finds itself now in a tower-shaped edifice1 whose roof is lost in gloom4 ,or1 to take a case that is more usual1 perhaps1 and one that will give some idea of the surprise habitually in store for the bees3 after having lived for centuries past beneath the straw dome of our village hives1 they are suddenly transplanted to a species of mighty cupboard1 or chest1 three or four times as large as the place of their birth2 and installed in the midst of a confused scaffolding of superposed frames1 some running parallel to the entrance and some perpendicular2 the whole forming a bewildering network that obscures the surfaces of their dwelling4 ,and yet1 for all this1 there exists not a single instance of a swarm refusing its duty1 or allowing itself to be baffled or discouraged by the strangeness of its surroundings1 except only in the case of the new dwelling being absolutely uninhabitable1 or impregnated with evil odours4 ,and even then the bees will not be disheartened or bewildered2 even then they will not abandon their mission4 ,the swarm will simply forsake the inhospitable abode1 to seek better fortune some little distance away4 ,and similarly it can never be said of them that they can be induced to undertake any illogical or foolish task4 ,their common-sense has never been known to fail them2 they have never1 at a loss for definite decision1 erected at haphazard structures of a wild or heterogeneous nature4 ,though you place the swarm in a sphere1 a cube1 or a pyramid1 in an oval or polygonal basket1 you will find1 on visiting the bees a few days later1 that if this strange assembly of little independent intellects has accepted the new abode1 they will at once1 and unhesitatingly and unanimously have known how to select the most favourable1 often humanly speaking the only possible spot in this absurd habitation1 in pursuance of a method whose principles may appear inflexible1 but whose results are strikingly vivid4 ,when installed in one of the huge factories1 bristling with frames1 that we mentioned just now1 these frames will interest them only to the extent in which they provide them with a basis or point of departure for their combs2 and they very naturally pay not the slightest heed to the desires or intentions of man4 ,but if the apiarist have taken the precaution of surrounding the upper lath of some of these frames with a narrow fillet of wax1 they will be quick to perceive the advantage this tempting offer presents1 and will carefully extract the fillet1 using their own wax as solder1 and will prolong the comb in accordance with the indicated plan4 ,similarly--and the case is frequent in modern apiculture--if all the frames of the hive into which the bees have been gathered be covered from top to bottom with leaves of foundation-wax1 they will not waste time in erecting buildings across or beside these1 or in producing useless wax1 but1 finding that the work is already half finished1 they will be satisfied to deepen and lengthen each of the cells designed in the leaf1 carefully rectifying these where there is the slightest deviation from the strictest vertical4 ,proceeding in this fashion1 therefore1 they will possess in a week a city as luxurious and well-constructed as the one they have quitted2 whereas1 had they been thrown on their own resources1 it would have taken them two or three months to construct so great a profusion of dwellings and storehouses of shining wax4 #dc ,this power of appropriation may well be considered to overstep the limit of instinct2 and indeed there can be nothing more arbitrary than the distinction we draw between instinct and intelligence properly so-called4 ,sir ,john ,lubbock1 whose observations on ants1 bees1 and wasps are so interesting and so personal1 is reluctant to credit the bee1 from the moment it forsakes the routine of its habitual labour1 with any power of discernment or reasoning4 ,this attitude of his may be due in some measure to an unconscious bias in favour of the ants1 whose ways he has more specially noted2 for the entomologist is always inclined to regard that insect as the more intelligent to which he has more particularly devoted himself1 and we have to be on our guard against this little personal predilection4 ,as a proof of his theory1 ,sir ,john cites as an instance an experiment within the reach of all4 ,if you place in a bottle half a dozen bees and the same number of flies1 and lay the bottle down horizontally1 with its base to the window1 you will find that the bees will persist1 till they die of exhaustion or hunger1 in their endeavour to discover an issue through the glass2 while the flies1 in less than two minutes1 will all have sallied forth through the neck on the opposite side4 ,from this ,sir ,john ,lubbock concludes that the intelligence of the bee is exceedingly limited1 and that the fly shows far greater skill in extricating itself from a difficulty1 and finding its way4 ,this conclusion1 however1 would not seem altogether flawless4 ,turn the transparent sphere twenty times1 if you will1 holding now the base1 now the neck1 to the window1 and you will find that the bees will turn twenty times with it1 so as always to face the light4 ,it is their love of the light1 it is their very intelligence1 that is their undoing in this experiment of the ,english savant4 ,they evidently imagine that the issue from every prison must be there where the light shines clearest2 and they act in accordance1 and persist in too logical action4 ,to them glass is a supernatural mystery they never have met with in nature2 they have had no experience of this suddenly impenetrable atmosphere2 and1 the greater their intelligence1 the more inadmissible1 more incomprehensible1 will the strange obstacle appear4 ,whereas the featherbrained flies1 careless of logic as of the enigma of crystal1 disregarding the call of the light1 flutter wildly hither and thither1 and1 meeting here the good fortune that often waits on the simple1 who find salvation there where the wiser will perish1 necessarily end by discovering the friendly opening that restores their liberty to them4 ,the same naturalist cites yet another proof of the bees' lack of intelligence1 and discovers it in the following quotation from the great ,american apiarist1 the venerable and paternal ,langstroth3-- ,as the fly was not intended to banquet on blossoms1 but on substances in which it might easily be drowned1 it cautiously alights on the edge of any vessel containing liquid food1 and warily helps itself2 while the poor bee1 plunging in headlong1 speedily perishes4 ,the sad fate of their unfortunate companions does not in the least deter others who approach the tempting lure from madly alighting on the bodies of the dying and the dead1 to share the same miserable end4 ,no one can understand the extent of their infatuation until he has seen a confectioner's shop assailed by myriads of hungry bees4 ,i have seen thousands strained out from the syrups in which they had perished2 thousands more alighting even on the boiling sweets2 the floors covered and windows darkened with bees1 some crawling1 others flying1 and others still so completely besmeared as to be able neither to crawl nor to fly--not one in ten able to carry home its ill-gotten spoils1 and yet the air filled with new hosts of thoughtless comers4 ,this1 however1 seems to me no more conclusive than might be the spectacle of a battlefield1 or of the ravages of alcoholism1 to a superhuman observer bent on establishing the limits of human understanding4 ,indeed1 less so1 perhaps2 for the situation of the bee1 when compared with our own1 is strange in this world4 ,it was intended to live in the midst of an indifferent and unconscious nature1 and not by the side of an extraordinary being who is forever disturbing the most constant laws1 and producing grandiose1 inexplicable phenomena4 ,in the natural order of things1 in the monotonous life of the forest1 the madness ,langstroth describes would be possible only were some accident suddenly to destroy a hive full of honey4 ,but in this case1 even1 there would be no fatal glass1 no boiling sugar or cloying syrup2 no death or danger1 therefore1 other than that to which every animal is exposed while seeking its prey4 ,should we be more successful than they in preserving our presence of mind if some strange power were at every step to ensnare our reason8 ,let us not be too hasty in condemning the bees for the folly whereof we are the authors1 or in deriding their intellect1 which is as poorly equipped to foil our artifices as our own would be to foil those of some superior creature unknown to us to-day1 but on that account not impossible4 ,none such being known at present1 we conclude that we stand on the topmost pinnacle of life on this earth2 but this belief1 after all1 is by no means infallible4 ,i am not assuming that when our actions are unreasonable1 or contemptible1 we merely fall into the snares that such a creature has laid2 though it is not inconceivable that this should one day be proved true4 ,on the other hand1 it cannot be wise to deny intelligence to the bee because it has not yet succeeded in distinguishing us from the great ape or the bear4 ,it is certain that there are1 in us and about us1 influences and powers no less dissimilar whose distinction escapes us as readily4 ,and finally1 to end this apology1 wherein ,i seem somewhat to have fallen into the error ,i laid to ,sir ,john ,lubbock's charge1 does not the capacity for folly so great in itself argue intelligence8 ,for thus it is ever in the uncertain domain of the intellect1 apparently the most vacillating and precarious condition of matter4 ,the same light that falls on the intellect falls also on passion1 whereof none can tell whether it be the smoke of the flame or the wick4 ,in the case above it has not been mere animal desire to gorge themselves with honey that has urged on the bees4 ,they could do this at their leisure in the store-rooms at home4 ,watch them in an analogous circumstance2 follow them2 you will see that1 as soon as their sac is filled1 they will return to the hive and add their spoil to the general store2 and visit the marvellous vintage1 and leave it1 perhaps thirty times in an hour4 ,their admirable labours1 therefore1 are inspired by a single desire3 zeal to bring as much wealth as they can to the home of their sisters1 which is also the home of the future4 ,when we discover a cause as disinterested for the follies of men1 we are apt to call them by another name4 #dd ,however1 the whole truth must be told4 ,in the midst of the marvels of their industry1 their policy1 their sacrifice1 one thing exists that must always check and weaken our admiration2 and this is the indifference with which they regard the misfortunes or death of their comrades4 ,there is a strange duality in the character of the bee4 ,in the heart of the hive all help and love each other4 ,they are as united as the good thoughts that dwell in the same soul4 ,wound one of them1 and a thousand will sacrifice themselves to avenge its injury4 ,but outside the hive they no longer recognise each other4 ,mutilate them1 crush them1--or rather1 do nothing of the kind2 it would be a useless cruelty1 for the fact is established beyond any doubt1--but were you to mutilate1 or crush1 on a piece of comb placed a few steps from their dwelling1 twenty or thirty bees that have all issued from the same hive1 those you have left untouched will not even turn their heads4 ,with their tongue1 fantastic as a ,chinese weapon1 they will tranquilly continue to absorb the liquid they hold more precious than life1 heedless of the agony whose last gestures almost are touching them1 of the cries of distress that arise all around4 ,and when the comb is empty1 so great is their anxiety that nothing shall be lost1 that their eagerness to gather the honey which clings to the victims will induce them tranquilly to climb over dead and dying1 unmoved by the presence of the first and never dreaming of helping the others4 ,in this case1 therefore1 they have no notion of the danger they run1 seeing that they are wholly untroubled by the death that is scattered about them1 and they have not the slightest sense of solidarity or pity4 ,as regards the danger1 the explanation lies ready to hand2 the bees know not the meaning of fear1 and1 with the exception only of smoke1 are afraid of nothing in the world4 ,outside the hive1 they display extreme condescension and forbearance4 ,they will avoid whatever disturbs them1 and affect to ignore its existence1 so long as it come not too close2 as though aware that this universe belongs to all1 that each one has his place there1 and must needs be discreet and peaceful4 ,but beneath this indulgence is quietly hidden a heart so sure of itself that it never dreams of protesting4 ,if they are threatened1 they will alter their course1 but never attempt to escape4 ,in the hive1 however1 they will not confine themselves to this passive ignoring of peril4 ,they will spring with incredible fury on any living thing1 ant or lion or man1 that dares to profane the sacred ark4 ,this we may term anger1 ridiculous obstinacy1 or heroism1 according as our mind be disposed4 ,but of their want of solidarity outside the hive1 and even of sympathy within it1 ,i can find nothing to say4 ,are we to believe that each form of intellect possesses its own strange limitation1 and that the tiny flame which with so much difficulty at last burns its way through inert matter and issues forth from the brain1 is still so uncertain that if it illumine one point more strongly the others are forced into blacker darkness8 ,here we find that the bees 7or nature acting within them7 have organised work in common1 the love and cult of the future1 in a manner more perfect than can elsewhere be discovered4 ,is it for this reason that they have lost sight of all the rest8 ,they give their love to what lies ahead of them2 we bestow ours on what is around4 ,and we who love here1 perhaps1 have no love left for what is beyond4 ,nothing varies so much as the direction of pity or charity4 ,we ourselves should formerly have been far less shocked than we are to-day at the insensibility of the bees2 and to many an ancient people such conduct would not have seemed blameworthy4 ,and further1 can we tell how many of the things that we do would shock a being who might be watching us as we watch the bees8 ,,iv -- ,,the ,,life ,,of ,,the ,,bee #de ,,let us now1 in order to form a clearer conception of the bees' intellectual power1 proceed to consider their methods of inter-communication4 ,there can be no doubting that they understand each other2 and indeed it were surely impossible for a republic so considerable1 wherein the labours are so varied and so marvellously combined1 to subsist amid the silence and spiritual isolation of so many thousand creatures4 ,they must be able1 therefore1 to give expression to thoughts and feelings1 by means either of a phonetic vocabulary or more probably of some kind of tactile language or magnetic intuition1 corresponding perhaps to senses and properties of matter wholly unknown to ourselves4 ,and such intuition well might lodge in the mysterious antennae--containing1 in the case of the workers1 according to ,cheshire's calculation1 twelve thousand tactile hairs and five thousand smell-hollows1 wherewith they probe and fathom the darkness4 ,for the mutual understanding of the bees is not confined to their habitual labours2 the extraordinary also has a name and place in their language2 as is proved by the manner in which news1 good or bad1 normal or supernatural1 will at once spread in the hive2 the loss or return of the mother1 for instance1 the entrance of an enemy1 the intrusion of a strange queen1 the approach of a band of marauders1 the discovery of treasure1 etc4 ,and so characteristic is their attitude1 so essentially different their murmur at each of these special events1 that the experienced apiarist can without difficulty tell what is troubling the crowd that moves distractedly to and fro in the shadow4 ,if you desire a more definite proof1 you have but to watch a bee that shall just have discovered a few drops of honey on your window-sill or the corner of your table4 ,she will immediately gorge herself with it2 and so eagerly1 that you will have time1 without fear of disturbing her1 to mark her tiny belt with a touch of paint4 ,but this gluttony of hers is all on the surface2 the honey will not pass into the stomach proper1 into what we might call her personal stomach1 but remains in the sac1 the first stomach1--that of the community1 if one may so express it4 ,this reservoir full1 the bee will depart1 but not with the free and thoughtless motion of the fly or butterfly2 she1 on the contrary1 will for some moments fly backwards1 hovering eagerly about the table or window1 with her head turned toward the room4 ,she is reconnoitring1 fixing in her memory the exact position of the treasure4 ,thereupon she will go to the hive1 disgorge her plunder into one of the provision-cells1 and in three or four minutes return1 and resume operations at the providential window4 ,and thus1 while the honey lasts1 will she come and go1 at intervals of every five minutes1 till evening1 if need be2 without interruption or rest2 pursuing her regular journeys from the hive to the window1 from the window back to the hive4 #df ,many of those who have written on bees have thought fit to adorn the truth2 ,i myself have no such desire4 ,for studies of this description to possess any interest1 it is essential that they should remain absolutely sincere4 ,had the conclusion been forced upon me that bees are incapable of communicating to each other news of an event occurring outside the hive1 ,i should1 ,i imagine1 as a set-off against the slight disappointment this discovery would have entailed1 have derived some degree of satisfaction in recognising once more that man1 after all1 is the only truly intelligent being who inhabits our globe4 ,and there comes too a period of life when we have more joy in saying the thing that is true than in saying the thing that merely is wonderful4 ,here as in every case the principle holds that1 should the naked truth appear at the moment less interesting1 less great and noble than the imaginary embellishment it lies in our power to bestow1 the fault must rest with ourselves who still are unable to perceive the astonishing relation in which this truth always must stand to our being1 and to universal law2 and in that case it is not the truth1 but our intellect1 that needs embellishment and ennoblement4 ,i will frankly confess1 therefore1 that the marked bee often returns alone4 ,shall we believe that in bees there exists the same difference of character as in men2 that of them too some are gossips1 and others prone to silence8 ,a friend who stood by and watched my experiment1 declared that it was evidently mere selfishness or vanity that caused so many of the bees to refrain from revealing the source of their wealth1 and from sharing with others the glory of an achievement that must seem miraculous to the hive4 ,these were sad vices indeed1 which give not forth the sweet odour1 so fragrant and loyal1 that springs from the home of the many thousand sisters4 ,but1 whatever the cause1 it often will also happen that the bee whom fortune has favoured will return to the honey accompanied by two or three friends4 ,i am aware that ,sir ,john ,lubbock1 in the appendix to his book on ,ants1 ,bees1 and ,wasps1 records the results of his investigations in long and minute tables2 and from these we are led to infer that it is a matter of rarest occurrence for a single bee to follow the one who has made the discovery4 ,the learned naturalist does not name the race of bees which he selected for his experiments1 or tell us whether the conditions were especially unfavourable4 ,as for myself ,i only can say that my own tables1 compiled with great care1--and every possible precaution having been taken that the bees should not be directly attracted by the odour of the honey1--establish that on an average one bee will bring others four times out of ten4 ,i even one day came across an extraordinary little ,italian bee1 whose belt ,i had marked with a touch of blue paint4 ,in her second trip she brought two of her sisters1 whom ,i imprisoned1 without interfering with her4 ,she departed once more1 and this time returned with three friends1 whom ,i again confined1 and so till the end of the afternoon1 when1 counting my prisoners1 ,i found that she had told the news to no less than eighteen bees4 ,in fact you will find1 if you make this experiment yourself1 that communication1 if not general1 at least is frequent4 ,the possession of this faculty is so well known to ,american bee-hunters that they trade upon it when engaged in searching for nests4 ,mr4 ,josiah ,emery remarks on this head 7quoted by ,romanes in his ,intellect of ,animals73 ,going to a field or wood at a distance from tame bees with their box of honey1 they gather up from the flowers and imprison one or more bees1 and after they have become sufficiently gorged1 let them out to return to their home with their easily gotten load4 ,waiting patiently a longer or shorter time1 according to the distance of the bee-tree1 the hunter scarcely ever fails to see the bee or bees return accompanied by other bees1 which are in like manner imprisoned till they in turn are filled2 then one or more are let out at places distant from each other1 and the direction in which the bee flies noted2 and thus1 by a kind of triangulation1 the position of the bee-tree proximately ascertained4 #dg ,you will notice too in your experiments that the friends who appear to obey the behests of good fortune do not always fly together1 and that there will often be an interval of several seconds between the different arrivals4 ,as regards these communications1 therefore1 we must ask ourselves the question that ,sir ,john ,lubbock has solved as far as the ants are concerned4 ,do the comrades who flock to the treasure only follow the bee that first made the discovery1 or have they been sent on by her1 and do they find it through following her indications1 her description of the place where it lies8 ,between these two hypotheses1 that refer directly to the extent and working of the bee's intellect1 there is obviously an enormous difference4 ,the ,english savant has succeeded1 by means of an elaborate and ingenious arrangement of gangways1 corridors1 moats full of water1 and flying bridges1 in establishing that the ants in such cases do no more than follow in the track of the pioneering insect4 ,with ants1 that can be made to pass where one will1 such experiments are possible2 but for the bee1 whose wings throw every avenue open1 some other expedient must of necessity be contrived4 ,i imagined the following1 which1 though it gave no definite result1 might yet1 under more favourable conditions1 and if organised more carefully1 give rise to definite and satisfactory conclusions4 ,my study in the country is on the first floor1 above a somewhat lofty room2 sufficiently high1 therefore1 to be out of the ordinary range of the bees' flight1 except at times when the chestnuts and lime trees are in bloom4 ,and for more than a week before ,i started this experiment ,i had kept on my table an open comb of honey1 without the perfume having attracted1 or induced the visit of1 a single bee4 ,then ,i went to a glass hive that was close to the house1 took an ,italian bee1 brought her to my study1 set her on the comb1 and marked her while she was feeding4 ,when satisfied1 she flew away and returned to the hive4 ,i followed1 saw her pass over the surface of the crowd1 plunge her head into an empty cell1 disgorge her honey1 and prepare to set forth again4 ,at the door of the hive ,i had placed a glass box1 divided by a trap into two compartments4 ,the bee flew into this box2 and as she was alone1 and no other bee seemed to accompany or follow her1 ,i imprisoned her and left her there4 ,i then repeated the experiment on twenty different bees in succession4 ,when the marked bee reappeared alone1 ,i imprisoned her as ,i had imprisoned the first4 ,but eight of them came to the threshold of the hive and entered the box accompanied by two or three friends4 ,by means of the trap ,i was able to separate the marked bee from her companions1 and to keep her a prisoner in the first compartment4 ,then1 having marked her companions with a different colour1 ,i threw open the second compartment and set them at liberty1 myself returning quickly to my study to await their arrival4 ,now it is evident that if a verbal or magnetic communication had passed1 indicating the place1 describing the way1 etc41 a certain number of the bees1 having been furnished with this information1 should have found their way to my room4 ,i am compelled to admit that there came but a single one4 ,was this mere chance1 or had she followed instructions received8 ,the experiment was insufficient1 but circumstances prevented me from carrying it further4 ,i released the baited bees1 and my study soon was besieged by the buzzing crowd to whom they had taught the way to the treasure4 ,we need not concern ourselves with this incomplete attempt of mine1 for many other curious traits compel us to recognise the existence among the bees of spiritual communications that go beyond a mere yes or no1 and that are manifest in cases where mere example or gesture would not be sufficient4 ,of such1 for instance1 are the remarkable harmony of their work in the hive1 the extraordinary division of labour1 the regularity with which one worker will take the place of another1 etc4 ,i have often marked bees that went foraging in the morning1 and found that1 in the afternoon1 unless flowers were specially abundant1 they would be engaged in heating and fanning the brood-cells1 or perhaps would form part of the mysterious1 motionless curtain in whose midst the wax-makers and sculptors would be at work4 ,similarly ,i have noticed that workers whom ,i have seen gathering pollen for the whole of one day1 will bring no pollen back on the morrow1 but will concern themselves exclusively with the search for nectar1 and vice-versa4 #dh ,and further1 we might mention what ,m4 ,georges de ,layens1 the celebrated ,french apiarist1 terms the ,distribution of ,bees over ,melliferous ,plants4 ,day after day1 at the first hour of sunrise1 the explorers of the dawn return1 and the hive awakes to receive the good news of the earth4 ,the lime trees are blossoming to-day on the banks of the canal4 ,the grass by the roadside is gay with white clover4 ,the sage and the lotus are about to open4 ,the mignonette1 the lilies are overflowing with pollen4 ,whereupon the bees must organise quickly1 and arrange to divide the work4 ,five thousand of the sturdiest will sully forth to the lime trees1 while three thousand juniors go and refresh the white clover4 ,those who yesterday were absorbing nectar from the corollas will to-day repose their tongue and the glands of their sac1 and gather red pollen from the mignonette1 or yellow pollen from the tall lilies2 for never shall you see a bee collecting or mixing pollen of a different colour or species2 and indeed one of the chief pre-occupations of the hive is the methodical bestowal of these pollens in the store-rooms1 in strict accordance with their origin and colour4 ,thus does the hidden genius issue its commands4 ,the workers immediately sally forth1 in long black files1 whereof each one will fly straight to its allotted task4 ,the bees1 says ,de ,layens1 would seem to be perfectly informed as to the locality1 the relative melliferous value1 and the distance of every melliferous plant within a certain radius from the hive4 ,if we carefully note the different directions in which these foragers fly1 and observe in detail the harvest they gather from the various plants around1 we shall find that the workers distribute themselves over the flowers in proportion not only to the numbers of flowers of one species1 but also to their melliferous value4 ,nay1 more--they make daily calculations as to the means of obtaining the greatest possible wealth of saccharine liquid4 ,in the spring1 for instance1 after the willows have bloomed1 when the fields still are bare1 and the first flowers of the woods are the one resource of the bees1 we shall see them eagerly visiting gorse and violets1 lungworts and anemones4 ,but1 a few days later1 when fields of cabbage and colza begin to flower in sufficient abundance1 we shall find that the bees will almost entirely forsake the plants in the woods1 though these be still in full blossom1 and will confine their visits to the flowers of cabbage and colza alone4 ,in this fashion they regulate1 day by day1 their distribution over the plants1 so as to collect the greatest value of saccharine liquid in the least possible time4 ,it may fairly be claimed1 therefore1 for the colony of bees that1 in its harvesting labours no less than in its internal economy1 it is able to establish a rational distribution of the number of workers without ever disturbing the principle of the division of labour4 #di ,but what have we to do1 some will ask1 with the intelligence of the bees8 ,what concern is it of ours whether this be a little less or a little more8 ,why weigh1 with such infinite care1 a minute fragment of almost invisible matter1 as though it were a fluid whereon depended the destiny of man8 ,i hold1 and exaggerate nothing1 that our interest herein is of the most considerable4 ,the discovery of a sign of true intellect outside ourselves procures us something of the emotion ,robinson ,crusoe felt when he saw the imprint of a human foot on the sandy beach of his island4 ,we seem less solitary than we had believed4 ,and indeed1 in our endeavour to understand the intellect of the bees1 we are studying in them that which is most precious in our own substance3 an atom of the extraordinary matter which possesses1 wherever it attach itself1 the magnificent power of transfiguring blind necessity1 of organising1 embellishing1 and multiplying life2 and1 most striking of all1 of holding in suspense the obstinate force of death1 and the mighty1 irresponsible wave that wraps almost all that exists in an eternal unconsciousness4 ,were we sole possessors of the particle of matter that1 when maintained in a special condition of flower or incandescence1 we term the intellect1 we should to some extent be entitled to look on ourselves as privileged beings1 and to imagine that in us nature achieved some kind of aim2 but here we discover1 in the hymenoptera1 an entire category of beings in whom a more or less identical aim is achieved4 ,and this fact1 though it decide nothing perhaps1 still holds an honourable place in the mass of tiny facts that help to throw light on our position in this world4 ,it affords even1 if considered from a certain point of view1 a fresh proof of the most enigmatic part of our being2 for the superpositions of destinies that we find in the hive are surveyed by us from an eminence loftier than any we can attain for the contemplation of the destinies of man4 ,there we see before us1 in miniature1 the large and simple lines that in our own disproportionate sphere we never have the occasion to disentangle and follow to the end4 ,spirit and matter are there1 the race and the individual1 evolution and permanence1 life and death1 the past and the future2 all gathered together in a retreat that our hand can lift and one look of our eye embrace4 ,and may we not reasonably ask ourselves whether the mere size of a body1 and the room that it fills in time and space1 can modify to the extent we imagine the secret idea of nature2 the idea that we try to discover in the little history of the hive1 which in a few days already is ancient1 no less than in the great history of man1 of whom three generations overlap a long century8 #ej ,let us go on1 then1 with the story of our hive2 let us take it up where we left it2 and raise1 as high as we may1 a fold of the festooned curtain in whose midst a strange sweat1 white as snow and airier than the down of a wing1 is beginning to break over the swarm4 ,for the wax that is now being born is not like the wax that we know2 it is immaculate1 it has no weight2 seeming truly to be the soul of the honey1 that itself is the spirit of flowers4 ,and this motionless incantation has called it forth that it may serve us1 later--in memory of its origin1 doubtless1 wherein it is one with the azure sky1 and heavy with perfumes of magnificence and purity--as the fragrant light of the last of our altars4 #ea ,to follow the various phases of the secretion and employment of wax by a swarm that is beginning to build1 is a matter of very great difficulty4 ,all comes to pass in the blackest depths of the crowd1 whose agglomeration1 growing denser and denser1 produces the temperature needful for this exudation1 which is the privilege of the youngest bees4 ,huber1 who was the first to study these phenomena1 bringing incredible patience to bear and exposing himself at times to very serious danger1 devotes to them more than two hundred and fifty pages2 which1 though of considerable interest1 are necessarily somewhat confused4 ,but ,i am not treating this subject technically2 and while referring when necessary to ,huber's admirable studies1 ,i shall confine myself generally to relating what is patent to any one who may gather a swarm into a glass hive4 ,we have to admit1 first of all1 that we know not yet by what process of alchemy the honey transforms itself into wax in the enigmatic bodies of our suspended bees4 ,we can only say that they will remain thus suspended for a period extending from eighteen to twenty-four hours1 in a temperature so high that one might almost believe that a fire was burning in the hollow of the hive2 and then white and transparent scales will appear at the opening of four little pockets that every bee has underneath its abdomen4 ,when the bodies of most of those who form the inverted cone have thus been adorned with ivory tablets1 we shall see one of the bees1 as though suddenly inspired1 abruptly detach herself from the mass1 and climb over the backs of the passive crowd till she reach the inner pinnacle of the cupola4 ,to this she will fix herself solidly1 dislodging1 with repeated blows of her head1 such of her neighbours as may seem to hamper her movements4 ,then1 with her mouth and claws1 she will seize one of the eight scales that hang from her abdomen1 and at once proceed to clip it and plane it1 extend it1 knead it with her saliva1 bend it and flatten it1 roll it and straighten it1 with the skill of a carpenter handling a pliable panel4 ,when at last the substance1 thus treated1 appears to her to possess the required dimensions and consistency1 she will attach it to the highest point of the dome1 thus laying the first1 or rather the keystone of the new town2 for we have here an inverted city1 hanging down from the sky1 and not rising from the bosom of earth like a city of men4 ,to this keystone1 depending in the void1 she will add other fragments of wax that she takes in succession from beneath her rings of horn2 and finally1 with one last lick of the tongue1 one last wave of antennae1 she will go as suddenly as she came1 and disappear in the crowd4 ,another will at once take her place1 continue the work at the point where the first one has left it1 add on her own1 change and adjust whatever may seem to offend the ideal plan of the tribe1 then vanish in her turn1 to be succeeded by a third1 a fourth1 and a fifth1 all appearing unexpectedly1 suddenly1 one after the other1 none completing the work1 but each bringing her share to the task in which all combine4 #eb ,a small block of wax1 formless as yet1 hangs down from the top of the vault4 ,so soon as its thickness may be deemed sufficient1 we shall see another bee emerge from the mass1 her physical appearance differing appreciably from that of the foundresses who preceded her4 ,and her manner displays such settled conviction1 her movements are followed so eagerly by all the crowd1 that we almost might fancy that some illustrious engineer had been summoned to trace in the void the site of the first cell of all1 from which every other must mathematically depend4 ,this bee belongs to the sculptor or carver class of workers2 she produces no wax herself and is content to deal with the materials others provide4 ,she locates the first cell1 scoops into the block for an instant1 lays the wax she has removed from the cavity on the borders around it2 and then1 like the foundresses1 abruptly departs and abandons her model4 ,her place is taken at once by an impatient worker1 who continues the task that a third will finish1 while others close by are attacking the rest of the surface and the opposite side of the wall2 each one obeying the general law of interrupted and successive labour1 as though it were an inherent principle of the hive that the pride of toil should be distributed1 and every achievement be anonymous and common to all1 that it might thereby become more fraternal4 #ec ,the outline of the nascent comb may soon be divined4 ,in form it will still be lenticular1 for the little prismatic tubes that compose it are unequal in length1 and diminish in proportion as they recede from the centre to the extremities4 ,in thickness and appearance at present it more or less resembles a human tongue whose sides might be formed of hexagonal cells1 contiguous1 and placed back to back4 ,the first cells having been built1 the foundresses proceed to add a second block of wax to the roof2 and so in gradation a third and a fourth4 ,these blocks follow each other at regular intervals so nicely calculated that when1 at a much later period1 the comb shall be fully developed1 there will be ample space for the bees to move between its parallel walls4 ,their plan must therefore embrace the final thickness of every comb1 which will be from eighty-eight to ninety-two hundredths of an inch1 and at the same time the width of the avenues between1 which must be about half an inch1 or in other words twice the height of a bee1 since there must be room to pass back to back between the combs4 ,the bees1 however1 are not infallible1 nor does their certainty appear mechanical4 ,they will commit grave errors at times1 when circumstances present unusual difficulty4 ,they will often leave too much space1 or too little1 between the combs4 ,this they will remedy as best they can1 either by giving an oblique twist to the comb that too nearly approaches the other1 or by introducing an irregular comb into the gap4 ,the bees sometimes make mistakes1 ,reaumur remarks on this subject1 and herein we may find yet another fact which appears to prove that they reason4 #ed ,we know that the bees construct four kinds of cells4 ,first of all1 the royal cells1 which are exceptional1 and contrived somewhat in the shape of an acorn2 then the large cells destined for the rearing of males and storing of provisions when flowers super-abound2 and the small cells1 serving as workers' cradles and ordinary store-rooms1 which occupy normally about four-fifths of the built-over surface of the hive4 ,and lastly1 so as to connect in orderly fashion the larger cells with the small1 the bees will erect a certain number of what are known as transition cells4 ,these must of necessity be irregular in form2 but so unerringly accurate are the dimensions of the second and third types that1 at the time when the decimal system was established1 and a fixed measure sought in nature to serve as a starting-point and an incontestable standard1 it was proposed by ,reaumur to select for this purpose the cell of the bee499 99,it was as well1 perhaps1 that this standard was not adopted4 ,for although the diameter of the cells is admirably regular1 it is1 like all things produced by a living organism1 not mathematically invariable in the same hive4 ,further1 as ,m4 ,maurice ,girard has pointed out1 the apothem of the cell varies among different races of bees1 so that the standard would alter from hive to hive1 according to the species of bee that inhabited it4 ,each of the cells is an hexagonal tube placed on a pyramidal base2 and two layers of these tubes form the comb1 their bases being opposed to each other in such fashion that each of the three rhombs or lozenges which on one side constitute the pyramidal base of one cell1 composes at the same time the pyramidal base of three cells on the other4 ,it is in these prismatic tubes that the honey is stored2 and to prevent its escaping during the period of maturation1--which would infallibly happen if the tubes were as strictly horizontal as they appear to be1--the bees incline them slightly1 to an angle of #d deg or #e deg4 ,besides the economy of wax1 says ,reaumur1 when considering this marvellous construction in its entirety1 besides the economy of wax that results from the disposition of the cells1 and the fact that this arrangement allows the bees to fill the comb without leaving a single spot vacant1 there are other advantages also with respect to the solidity of the work4 ,the angle at the base of each cell1 the apex of the pyramidal cavity1 is buttressed by the ridge formed by two faces of the hexagon of another cell4 ,the two triangles1 or extensions of the hexagon faces which fill one of the convergent angles of the cavity enclosed by the three rhombs1 form by their junction a plane angle on the side they touch2 each of these angles1 concave within the cell1 supports1 on its convex side1 one of the sheets employed to form the hexagon of another cell2 the sheet1 pressing on this angle1 resists the force which is tending to push it outwards2 and in this fashion the angles are strengthened4 ,every advantage that could be desired with regard to the solidity of each cell is procured by its own formation and its position with reference to the others4 #ee ,there are only1 says ,dr4 ,reid1 three possible figures of the cells which can make them all equal and similar1 without any useless interstices4 ,these are the equilateral triangle1 the square1 and the regular hexagon4 ,mathematicians know that there is not a fourth way possible in which a plane shall be cut into little spaces that shall be equal1 similar1 and regular1 without useless spaces4 ,of the three figures1 the hexagon is the most proper for convenience and strength4 ,bees1 as if they knew this1 make their cells regular hexagons4 ,again1 it has been demonstrated that1 by making the bottoms of the cells to consist of three planes meeting in a point1 there is a saving of material and labour in no way inconsiderable4 ,the bees1 as if acquainted with these principles of solid geometry1 follow them most accurately4 ,it is a curious mathematical problem at what precise angle the three planes which compose the bottom of a cell ought to meet1 in order to make the greatest possible saving1 or the least expense of material and labour499 ,this is one of the problems which belong to the higher parts of mathematics4 ,it has accordingly been resolved by some mathematicians1 particularly by the ingenious ,maclaurin1 by a fluctionary calculation which is to be found in the ,transactions of the ,royal ,society of ,london4 ,he has determined precisely the angle required1 and he found1 by the most exact mensuration the subject would admit1 that it is the very angle in which the three planes at the bottom of the cell of a honey comb do actually meet4 99,reaumur suggested the following problem to the celebrated mathematician ,koenig3 ,of all possible hexagonal cells with pyramidal base composed of three equal and similar rhombs1 to find the one whose construction would need the least material4 ,koenig's answer was1 the cell that had for its base three rhombs whose large angle was #aji deg #bf'1 and the small #gj deg #cd'4 ,another savant1 ,maraldi1 had measured as exactly as possible the angles of the rhombs constructed by the bees1 and discovered the larger to be #aji deg #bh'1 and the other #gj deg #cb'4 ,between the two solutions there was a difference1 therefore1 of only #b'4 ,it is probable that the error1 if error there be1 should be attributed to ,maraldi rather than to the bees2 for it is impossible for any instrument to measure the angles of the cells1 which are not very clearly defined1 with infallible precision4 ,the problem suggested to ,koenig was put to another mathematician1 ,cramer1 whose solution came even closer to that of the bees1 viz41 #aji deg #bh #a_/b' for the large angle1 and #gj deg #ca #a_/b' for the small4 #ef ,i myself do not believe that the bees indulge in these abstruse calculations2 but1 on the other hand1 it seems equally impossible to me that such astounding results can be due to chance alone1 or to the mere force of circumstance4 ,the wasps1 for instance1 also build combs with hexagonal cells1 so that for them the problem was identical1 and they have solved it in a far less ingenious fashion4 ,their combs have only one layer of cells1 thus lacking the common base that serves the bees for their two opposite layers4 ,the wasps' comb1 therefore1 is not only less regular1 but also less substantial2 and so wastefully constructed that1 besides loss of material1 they must sacrifice about a third of the available space and a quarter of the energy they put forth4 ,again1 we find that the trigonae and meliponae1 which are veritable and domesticated bees1 though of less advanced civilisation1 erect only one row of rearing-cells1 and support their horizontal1 superposed combs on shapeless and costly columns of wax4 ,their provision-cells are merely great pots1 gathered together without any order2 and1 at the point between the spheres where these might have intersected and induced a profitable economy of space and material1 the meliponae clumsily insert a section of cells with flat walls4 ,indeed1 to compare one of their nests with the mathematical cities of our own honey-flies1 is like imagining a hamlet composed of primitive huts side by side with a modern town2 whose ruthless regularity is the logical1 though perhaps somewhat charmless1 result of the genius of man1 that to-day1 more fiercely than ever before1 seeks to conquer space1 matter1 and time4 #eg ,there is a theory1 originally propounded by ,buffon and now revived1 which assumes that the bees have not the least intention of constructing hexagons with a pyramidal base1 but that their desire is merely to contrive round cells in the wax2 only1 that as their neighbours1 and those at work on the opposite side of the comb1 are digging at the same moment and with the same intentions1 the points where the cells meet must of necessity become hexagonal4 ,besides1 it is said1 this is precisely what happens to crystals1 the scales of certain kinds of fish1 soap-bubbles1 etc41 as it happens in the following experiment that ,buffon suggested4 ,if1 he said1 you fill a dish with peas or any other cylindrical bean1 pour as much water into it as the space between the beans will allow1 close it carefully and then boil the water1 you will find that all these cylinders have become six-sided columns4 ,and the reason is evident1 being indeed purely mechanical2 each of the cylindrical beans tends1 as it swells1 to occupy the utmost possible space within a given space2 wherefore it follows that the reciprocal compression compels them all to become hexagonal4 ,similarly each bee seeks to occupy the utmost possible space within a given space1 with the necessary result that1 its body being cylindrical1 the cells become hexagonal for the same reason as before1 viz41 the working of reciprocal obstacles4 #eh ,these reciprocal obstacles1 it would seem1 are capable of marvellous achievement2 on the same principle1 doubtless1 that the vices of man produce a general virtue1 whereby the human race1 hateful often in its individuals1 ceases to be so in the mass4 ,we might reply1 first of all1 with ,brougham1 ,kirby and ,spence1 and others1 that experiments with peas and soap-bubbles prove nothing2 for the reason that in both cases the pressure produces only irregular forms1 and in no wise explains the existence of the prismatic base of the cells4 ,but above all we might answer that there are more ways than one of dealing with rigid necessity2 that the wasp1 the humble-bee1 the trigonae and meliponae of ,mexico and ,brazil achieve very different and manifestly inferior results1 although the circumstances1 and their own intentions1 are absolutely identical with those of the bees4 ,it might further be urged that if the bee's cell does indeed follow the law that governs crystals1 snow1 soap-bubbles1 as well as ,buffon's boiled peas1 it also1 through its general symmetry1 disposition in opposite layers1 and angle of inclination1 obeys many other laws that are not to be found in matter4 ,may we not say1 too1 of man that all his genius is comprised in his fashion of handling kindred necessities8 ,and if it appear to us that his manner of treating these is the best there can possibly be1 the reason only can lie in the absence of a judge superior to ourselves4 ,but it is well that argument should make way for fact2 and indeed1 to the objection based on an experiment1 the best reply of all must be a counter-experiment4 ,in order to satisfy myself that hexagonal architecture truly was written in the spirit of the bee1 ,i cut off and removed one day a disc of the size of a five-franc piece from the centre of a comb1 at a spot where there were both brood-cells and cells full of honey4 ,i cut into the circumference of this disc1 at the intersecting point of the pyramidal cells2 inserted a piece of tin on the base of one of these sections1 shaped exactly to its dimensions1 and possessed of resistance sufficient to prevent the bees from bending or twisting it4 ,then ,i replaced the slice of comb1 duly furnished with its slab of tin1 on the spot whence ,i had removed it2 so that1 while one side of the comb presented no abnormal feature1 the damage having been repaired1 the other displayed a sort of deep cavity1 covering the space of about thirty cells1 with the piece of tin as its base4 ,the bees were disconcerted at first2 they flocked in numbers to inspect and examine this curious chasm2 day after day they wandered agitatedly to and fro1 apparently unable to form a decision4 ,but1 as ,i fed them copiously every evening1 there came a moment when they had no more cells available for the storage of provisions4 ,thereupon they probably summoned their great engineers1 distinguished sculptors1 and wax-workers1 and invited them to turn this useless cavity to profitable account4 ,the wax-makers having gathered around and formed themselves into a dense festoon1 so that the necessary heat might be maintained1 other bees descended into the hole and proceeded solidly to attach the metal1 and connect it with the walls of adjacent cells1 by means of little waxen hooks which they distributed regularly over its surface4 ,in the upper semicircle of the disc they then began to construct three or four cells1 uniting these to the hooks4 ,each of these transition1 or accommodation1 cells was more or less deformed at the top1 to allow of its being soldered to the adjoining cell on the comb2 but its lower portion already designed on the tin three very clear angles1 whence there ran three little straight lines that correctly indicated the first half of the following cell4 ,after forty-eight hours1 and notwithstanding the fact that only three bees at a time were able to work in the cavity1 the entire surface of the tin was covered with outlined cells4 ,these were less regular1 certainly1 than those of an ordinary comb2 wherefore the queen1 having inspected them1 wisely declined to lay any eggs there1 for the generation that would have arisen therefrom would necessarily have been deformed4 ,each cell1 however1 was a perfect hexagon2 nor did it contain a single crooked line1 a single curved figure or angle4 ,and yet the ordinary conditions had all been changed2 the cells had neither been scooped out of a block1 according to ,huber's description1 nor had they been designed within a waxen hood1 and1 from being circular at first1 been subsequently converted into hexagons by the pressure of adjoining cells1 as explained by ,darwin4 ,neither could there be question here of reciprocal obstacles1 the cells having been formed one by one1 and their first lines traced on what practically was a bare table4 ,it would seem incontestable1 therefore1 that the hexagon is not merely the result of mechanical necessities1 but that it has its true place in the plans1 the experience1 the intellect and will of the bee4 ,i may relate here another curious instance of the workers' sagacity3 the cells they built on the tin had no other base than the metal itself4 ,the engineers of the corps had evidently decided that the tin could adequately retain the honey2 and had considered that1 the substance being impermeable1 they need not waste the material they value so highly by covering the metal with a layer of wax4 ,but1 a short time after1 some drops of honey having been placed in two of these cells1 the bees discovered1 in tasting it1 that the contact of the metal had a deteriorating effect4 ,thereupon they reconsidered the matter1 and covered over with wax the entire surface of the tin4 #ei ,were it our desire to throw light upon all the secrets of this geometric architecture1 we should have more than one curious question still to consider2 as for instance the shape of the first cells1 which1 being attached to the roof1 are modified in such a manner as to touch the roof at the greatest possible number of points4 ,the design of the principal thoroughfares is determined by the parallelism of the combs2 but we must admire the ingenious construction of alleys and gangways through and around the comb1 so skilfully contrived as to provide short cuts in every direction and prevent congestion of traffic1 while ensuring free circulation of air4 ,and finally we should have to study the construction of transition cells1 wherein we see a unanimous instinct at work that impels the bees at a given moment to increase the size of their dwellings4 ,three reasons may dictate this step3 an extraordinary harvest may call for larger receptacles1 the workers may consider the population to be sufficiently numerous1 or it may have become necessary that males should be born4 ,nor can we in such cases refrain from wondering at the ingenious economy1 the unerring1 harmonious conviction1 with which the bees will pass from the small to the large1 from the large to the small2 from perfect symmetry to1 where unavoidable1 its very reverse1 returning to ideal regularity so soon as the laws of a live geometry will allow2 and all the time not losing a cell1 not suffering a single one of their numerous structures to be sacrificed1 to be ridiculous1 uncertain1 or barbarous1 or any section thereof to become unfit for use4 ,but ,i fear that ,i have already wandered into many details that will have but slender interest for the reader1 whose eyes perhaps may never have followed a flight of bees2 or who may have regarded them only with the passing interest with which we are all of us apt to regard the flower1 the bird or the precious stone1 asking of these no more than a slight superficial assurance1 and forgetting that the most trivial secret of the non-human object we behold in nature connects more closely perhaps with the profound enigma of our origin and our end1 than the secret of those of our passions that we study the most eagerly and the most passionately4 #fj ,and ,i will pass over too--in my desire that this essay shall not become too didactic--the remarkable instinct that induces the bees at times to thin and demolish the extremity of their combs1 when these are to be enlarged or lengthened2 though it must be admitted that in this case the blind building instinct fails signally to account for their demolishing in order that they may rebuild1 or undoing what has been done that it may be done afresh1 and with more regularity4 ,i will content myself also with a mere reference to the remarkable experiment that enables us1 with the aid of a piece of glass1 to compel the bees to start their combs at a right angle2 when they most ingeniously contrive that the enlarged cells on the convex side shall coincide with the reduced cells on the concave side of the comb4 ,but before finally quitting this subject let us pause1 though it be but for an instant1 and consider the mysterious fashion in which they manage to act in concert and combine their labour1 when simultaneously carving two opposite sides of a comb1 and unable therefore to see each other4 ,take a finished comb to the light1 fix your eyes on the diaphanous wax2 you will see1 most clearly designed1 an entire network of sharply cut prisms1 a whole system of concordances so infallible that one might almost believe them to be stamped on steel4 ,i wonder whether those who never have seen the interior of a hive can form an adequate conception of the arrangement and aspect of the combs4 ,let them imagine--we will take a peasant's hive1 where the bee is left entirely to its own resources--let them imagine a dome of straw or osier1 divided from top to bottom by five1 six1 eight1 sometimes ten1 strips of wax1 resembling somewhat great slices of bread1 that run in strictly parallel lines from the top of the dome to the floor1 espousing closely the shape of the ovoid walls4 ,between these strips is contrived a space of about half an inch1 to enable the bees to stand and to pass each other4 ,at the moment when they begin to construct one of these strips at the top of the hive1 the waxen wall 7which is its rough model1 and will later be thinned and extended7 is still very thick1 and completely excludes the fifty or sixty bees at work on its inner face from the fifty or sixty simultaneously engaged in carving the outer1 so that it is wholly impossible for one group to see the other1 unless indeed their sight be able to penetrate opaque matter4 ,and yet there is not a hole that is scooped on the inner surface1 not a fragment of wax that is added1 but corresponds with mathematical precision to a protuberance or cavity on the outer surface1 and vice versa4 ,how does this happen8 ,how is it that one does not dig too deep1 another not deep enough8 ,whence the invariable magical coincidence between the angles of the lozenges8 ,what is it tells the bees that at this point they must begin1 and at that point stop8 ,once again we must content ourselves with the reply1 that is no reply3 ,it is a mystery of the hive4 ,huber has sought to explain this mystery by suggesting that the pressure of the bees' hooks and teeth may possibly produce slight projections1 at regular intervals1 on the opposite side of the comb2 or that they may be able to estimate the thickness of the block by the flexibility1 elasticity1 or some other physical quality of the wax2 or again1 that their antennae1 which seem so well adapted for the questioning of the finer1 less evident side of things1 may serve as a compass in the invisible2 or1 lastly1 that the position of every cell may derive mathematically from the arrangement and dimensions of the cells on the first row1 and thus dispense with the need for further measurement4 ,but these explanations are evidently insufficient2 the first are mere hypotheses that cannot be verified1 the others do no more than transplant the mystery4 ,and useful as it may be to transplant mystery as often as we possibly can1 it were not wise to imagine that a mystery has ceased to be because we have shifted its home4 #fa ,now let us leave these dreary building grounds1 this geometrical desert of cells4 ,the combs have been started1 and are becoming habitable4 ,though it be here the infinitely little that1 without apparent hope1 adds itself to the infinitely little2 though our eye with its limited vision look and see nothing1 the work of wax1 halting neither by day nor by night1 will advance with incredible quickness4 ,the impatient queen already has more than once paced the stockades that gleam white in the darkness2 and no sooner is the first row of dwellings complete than she takes possession with her escort of counsellors1 guardians1 or servants--for we know not whether she lead or be led1 be venerated or supervised4 ,when the spot has been reached that she1 or her urgent advisers1 may regard as favourable1 she arches her back1 bends forward1 and introduces the extremity of her long spindle-shaped abdomen into one of the cells2 the-little eager heads of her escort meanwhile forming a passionate circle around her1 watching her with their enormous black eyes1 supporting her1 caressing her wings1 and waving their feverish antennae as though to encourage1 incite1 or congratulate4 ,you may easily discover the spot where the queen shall be found by the sort of starry cockade1 or oval brooch perhaps of the imposing kind our grandmothers used to wear1 of which she forms the central stone4 ,and one may mention here the curious fact that the workers always avoid turning their back on the queen4 ,no sooner has she approached a group than they will invariably arrange themselves so as to face her with eyes and antennae1 and to walk backwards before her4 ,it is a token of respect1 or of solicitude1 that1 unlikely as it may seem1 is nevertheless constant and general4 ,but to return to the queen4 ,during the slight spasm that visibly accompanies the emission of an egg1 one of her daughters will often throw her arms round her and appear to be whispering to her1 brow pressed to brow and mouth to mouth4 ,but the queen1 in no wise disturbed by this somewhat bold demonstration1 takes her time1 tranquilly1 calmly1 wholly absorbed by the mission that would seem amorous delight to her rather than labour4 ,and after some seconds she will rise1 very quietly1 take a step back1 execute a slight turn on herself1 and proceed to the next cell1 into which she will first1 before introducing her abdomen1 dip her head to make sure that all is in order and that she is not laying twice in the same cell2 and in the meanwhile two or three of her escort will have plunged into the cell she has quitted to see whether the work be duly accomplished1 and to care for1 and tenderly house1 the little bluish egg she has laid4 ,from this moment1 up to the first frosts of autumn1 she does not cease laying2 she lays while she is being fed1 and even in her sleep1 if indeed she sleeps at all1 she still lays4 ,she represents henceforth the devouring force of the future1 which invades every corner of the kingdom4 ,step by step she pursues the unfortunate workers who are exhaustedly1 feverishly erecting the cradles her fecundity demands4 ,we have here the union of two mighty instincts2 and their workings throw into light1 though they leave unresolved1 many an enigma of the hive4 ,it will happen1 for instance1 that the workers will distance her1 and acquire a certain start2 whereupon1 mindful of their duties as careful housewives to provide for the bad days ahead1 they hasten to fill with honey the cells they have wrested from the avidity of the species4 ,but the queen approaches2 material wealth must give way to the scheme of nature2 and the distracted workers are compelled with all speed to remove the importunate treasure4 ,but assume them to be a whole comb ahead1 and to have no longer before them her who stands for the tyranny of days they shall none of them see2 we find then that they eagerly1 hurriedly1 build a zone of large cells1 cells for males2 whose construction is very much easier1 and far more rapid4 ,when the queen in her turn attains this unthankful zone1 she will regretfully lay a few eggs there1 then cease1 pass beyond1 and clamour for more workers' cells4 ,her daughters obey2 little by little they reduce the cells2 and then the pursuit starts afresh1 till at last the insatiable mother shall have traversed the whole circumference of the hive1 and have returned to the first cells4 ,these1 by this time1 will be empty2 for the first generation will have sprung into life1 soon to go forth1 from their shadowy corner of birth1 disperse over the neighbouring blossoms1 people the rays of the sun and quicken the smiling hours2 and then sacrifice themselves in their turn to the new generations that are already filling their place in the cradles4 #fb ,and whom does the queen-bee obey8 ,she is ruled by nourishment given her2 for she does not take her own food1 but is fed like a child by the very workers whom her fecundity harasses4 ,and the food these workers deal out is nicely proportioned to the abundance of flowers1 to the spoil brought back by those who visit the calyces4 ,here1 then1 as everywhere else in the world1 one part of the circle is wrapped in darkness2 here1 as everywhere1 it is from without1 from an unknown power1 that the supreme order issues2 and the bees1 like ourselves1 obey the nameless lord of the wheel that incessantly turns on itself1 and crushes the wills that have set it in motion4 ,some little time back1 ,i conducted a friend to one of my hives of glass1 and showed him the movements of this wheel1 which was as readily perceptible as the great wheel of a clock2 showed him1 in all its bareness1 the universal agitation on every comb1 the perpetual1 frantic1 bewildered haste of the nurses around the brood-cells2 the living gangways and ladders formed by the makers of wax1 the abounding1 unceasing activity of the entire population1 and their pitiless1 useless effort2 the ardent1 feverish coming and going of all1 the general absence of sleep save in the cradles alone1 around which continuous labour kept watch2 the denial of even the repose of death in a home which permits no illness and accords no grave2 and my friend1 his astonishment over1 soon turned his eyes away1 and in them ,i could read the signs of ,i know not what saddened fear4 ,and truly1 underlying the gladness that we note first of all in the hive1 underlying the dazzling memories of beautiful days that render it the storehouse of summer's most precious jewels1 underlying the blissful journeys that knit it so close to the flowers and to running water1 to the sky1 to the peaceful abundance of all that makes for beauty and happiness--underlying all these exterior joys1 there reposes a sadness as deep as the eye of man can behold4 ,and we1 who dimly gaze on these things with our own blind eyes1 we know full well that it is not they alone that we are striving to see1 not they alone that we cannot understand1 but that before us there lies a pitiable form of the great power that quickens us also4 ,sad let it be1 as all things in nature are sad1 when our eyes rest too closely upon them4 ,and thus it ever shall be so long as we know not her secret1 know not even whether secret truly there be4 ,and should we discover some day that there is no secret1 or that the secret is monstrous1 other duties will then arise that1 as yet1 perhaps1 have no name4 ,let our heart1 if it will1 in the meanwhile repeat1 ,it is sad2 but let our reason be content to add1 ,thus it is4 ,at the present hour the duty before us is to seek out that which perhaps may be hiding behind these sorrows2 and1 urged on by this endeavour1 we must not turn our eyes away1 but steadily1 fixedly1 watch these sorrows and study them1 with a courage and interest as keen as though they were joys4 ,it is right that before we judge nature1 before we complain1 we should at least ask every question that we can possibly ask4 #fc ,we have seen that the workers1 when free for the moment from the threatening fecundity of the queen1 hasten to erect cells for provisions1 whose construction is more economical and capacity greater4 ,we have seen1 too1 that the queen prefers to lay in the smaller cells1 for which she is incessantly clamouring4 ,when these are wanting1 however1 or till they be provided1 she resigns herself to laying her eggs in the large cells she finds on her road4 ,these eggs1 though absolutely identical with those from which workers are hatched1 will give birth to males1 or drones4 ,now1 conversely to what takes place when a worker is turned into queen1 it is here neither the form nor the capacity of the cell that produces this change2 for from an egg laid in a large cell and afterwards transferred to that of a worker 7a most difficult operation1 because of the microscopic minuteness and extreme fragility of the egg1 but one that ,i have four or five times successfully accomplished7 there will issue an undeniable male1 though more or less atrophied4 ,it follows1 therefore1 that the queen must possess the power1 while laying1 of knowing or determining the sex of the egg1 and of adapting it to the cell over which she is bending4 ,she will rarely make a mistake4 ,how does she contrive1 from among the myriad eggs her ovaries contain1 to separate male from female1 and lower them1 at will1 into the unique oviduct8 ,here1 yet again1 there confronts us an enigma of the hive2 and in this case one of the most unfathomable4 ,we know that the virgin queen is not sterile2 but the eggs that she lays will produce only males4 ,it is not till after the impregnation of the nuptial flight that she can produce workers or drones at will4 ,the nuptial flight places her permanently in possession1 till death1 of the spermatozoa torn from her unfortunate lover4 ,these spermatozoa1 whose number ,dr4 ,leuckart estimates at twenty-five millions1 are preserved alive in a special gland known as the spermatheca1 that is situate under the ovaries1 at the entrance to the common oviduct4 ,it is imagined that the narrow aperture of the smaller cells1 and the manner in which the form of this aperture compels the queen to bend forward1 exercise a certain pressure upon the spermatheca1 in consequence of which the spermatozoa spring forth and fecundate the egg as it passes4 ,in the large cells this pressure would not take place1 and the spermatheca would therefore not open4 ,others1 again1 believe that the queen has perfect control over the muscles that open and close the spermatheca on the vagina2 and these muscles are certainly very numerous1 complex1 and powerful4 ,for myself1 ,i incline to the second of these hypotheses1 though ,i do not for a moment pretend to decide which is the more correct2 for indeed1 the further we go and the more closely we study1 the more plainly is it brought home to us that we merely are waifs shipwrecked on the ocean of nature2 and ever and anon1 from a sudden wave that shall be more transparent than others1 there leaps forth a fact that in an instant confounds all we imagined we knew4 ,but the reason of my preferring the second theory is that1 for one thing1 the experiments of a ,bordeaux bee-keeper1 ,m4 ,drory1 have shown that in cases where all the large cells have been removed from the hive1 the mother will not hesitate1 when the moment for laying male eggs has come1 to deposit these in workers' cells2 and that1 inversely1 she will lay workers' eggs in cells provided for males1 if she have no others at her disposal4 ,and1 further1 we learn from the interesting observations of ,m4 ,fabre on the ,osmiae1 which are wild and olitary bees of the ,gastrilegidae family1 that not only does the ,osmia know in advance the sex of the egg she will lay1 but that this sex is optional for the mother1 who decides it in accordance with the space of which she disposes2 this space being often governed by chance and not to be modified2 and she will deposit a male egg here and a female there4 ,i shall not enter into the details of the great ,french entomologist's experiments1 for they are exceedingly minute1 and would take us too far4 ,but whichever be the hypothesis we prefer to accept1 either will serve to explain the queen's inclination to lay her eggs in workers' cells1 without it being necessary to credit her with the least concern for the future4 ,it is not impossible that this slave-mother1 whom we are inclined to pity1 may be indeed a great amorist1 a great voluptuary1 deriving a certain enjoyment1 an after-taste1 as it were1 of her one marriage-flight1 from the union of the male and female principle that thus comes to pass in her being4 ,here again nature1 never so ingenious1 so cunningly prudent and diverse1 as when contriving her snares of love1 will not have failed to provide a certain pleasure as a bait in the interest of the species4 ,and yet let us pause for a moment1 and not become the dupes of our own explanation4 ,for indeed1 to attribute an idea of this kind to nature1 and regard that as sufficient1 is like flinging a stone into an unfathomable gulf we may find in the depths of a grotto1 and imagining that the sounds it creates as it falls shall answer our every question1 or reveal to us aught beside the immensity of the abyss4 ,when we say to ourselves1 ,this thing is of nature's devising2 she has ordained this marvel2 those are her desires that we see before us6 the fact is merely that our special attention has been drawn to some tiny manifestation of life upon the boundless surface of matter that we deem inactive1 and choose to describe1 with evident inaccuracy1 as nothingness and death4 ,a purely fortuitous chain of events has allowed this special manifestation to attract our attention2 but a thousand others1 no less interesting1 perhaps1 and informed with no less intelligence1 have vanished1 not meeting with a like good-fortune1 and have lost for ever the chance of exciting our wonder4 ,it were rash to affirm aught beside2 and all that remains1 our reflections1 our obstinate search for the final cause1 our admiration and hopes--all these in truth are no more than our feeble cry as1 in the depths of the unknown1 we clash against what is more unknowable still2 and this feeble cry declares the highest degree of individual existence attainable for us on this mute and impenetrable surface1 even as the flight of the condor1 the song of the nightingale1 reveal to them the highest degree of existence their species allows4 ,but the evocation of this feeble cry1 whenever opportunity offers1 is none the less one of our most unmistakable duties2 nor should we let ourselves be discouraged by its apparent futility4 ,v -- ,,the ,,young ,,queens #fd ,,here let us close our hive1 where we find that life is reassuming its circular movement1 is extending and multiplying1 to be again divided as soon as it shall attain the fulness of its happiness and strength2 and let us for the last time reopen the mother-city1 and see what is happening there after the departure of the swarm4 ,the tumult having subsided1 the hapless city1 that two thirds of her children have abandoned for ever1 becomes feeble1 empty1 moribund2 like a body from which the blood has been drained4 ,some thousands of bees have remained1 however2 and these1 though a trifle languid perhaps1 are still immovably faithful to the duty a precise destiny has laid upon them1 still conscious of the part that they have themselves to play2 they resume their labours1 therefore1 fill as best they can the place of those who have gone1 remove all trace of the orgy1 carefully house the provisions that have escaped pillage1 sally forth to the flowers again1 and keep scrupulous guard over the hostages of the future4 ,and for all that the moment may appear gloomy1 hope abounds wherever the eye may turn4 ,we might be in one of the castles of ,german legend1 whose walls are composed of myriad phials containing the souls of men about to be born4 ,for we are in the abode of life that goes before life4 ,on all sides1 asleep in their closely sealed cradles1 in this infinite superposition of marvellous six-sided cells1 lie thousands of nymphs1 whiter than milk1 who with folded arms and head bent forward await the hour of awakening4 ,in their uniform tombs1 that1 isolated1 become nearly transparent1 they seem almost like hoary gnomes1 lost in deep thought1 or legions of virgins whom the folds of the shroud have contorted1 who are buried in hexagonal prisms that some inflexible geometrician has multiplied to the verge of delirium4 ,over the entire area that the vertical walls enclose1 and in the midst of this growing world that so soon shall transform itself1 that shall four or five times in succession assume fresh vestments1 and then spin its own winding-sheet in the shadow1 hundreds of workers are dancing and flapping their wings4 ,they appear thus to generate the necessary heat1 and accomplish some other object besides that is still more obscure2 for this dance of theirs contains some extraordinary movements1 so methodically conceived that they must infallibly answer some purpose which no observer has as yet1 ,i believe1 been able to divine4 ,a few days more1 and the lids of these myriad urns--whereof a considerable hive will contain from sixty to eighty thousand--will break1 and two large and earnest black eyes will appear1 surmounted by antennae that already are groping at life1 while active jaws are busily engaged in enlarging the opening from within4 ,the nurses at once come running2 they help the young bee to emerge from her prison1 they clean her and brush her1 and at the tip of their tongue present the first honey of the new life4 ,but the bee1 that has come from another world1 is bewildered still1 trembling and pale2 she wears the feeble look of a little old man who might have escaped from his tomb1 or perhaps of a traveller strewn with the powdery dust of the ways that lead unto life4 ,she is perfect1 however1 from head to foot2 she knows at once all that has to be known2 and1 like the children of the people1 who learn1 as it were1 at their birth1 that for them there shall never be time to play or to laugh1 she instantly makes her way to the cells that are closed1 and proceeds to beat her wings and to dance in cadence1 so that she in her turn may quicken her buried sisters2 nor does she for one instant pause to decipher the astounding enigma of her destiny1 or her race4 #fe ,the most arduous labours will1 however1 at first be spared her4 ,a week must elapse from the day of her birth before she will quit the hive2 she will then perform her first cleansing flight1 and absorb the air into her tracheae1 which1 filling1 expand her body1 and proclaim her the bride of space4 ,thereupon she returns to the hive1 and waits yet one week more2 and then1 with her sisters born the same day as herself1 she will for the first time set forth to visit the flowers4 ,a special emotion now will lay hold of her2 one that ,french apiarists term the soleil d'artifice1 but which might more rightly perhaps be called the sun of disquiet4 ,for it is evident that the bees are afraid1 that these daughters of the crowd1 of secluded darkness1 shrink from the vault of blue1 from the infinite loneliness of the light2 and their joy is halting1 and woven of terror4 ,they cross the threshold and pause2 they depart1 they return1 twenty times4 ,they hover aloft in the air1 their head persistently turned to the home2 they describe great soaring circles that suddenly sink beneath the weight of regret2 and their thirteen thousand eyes will question1 reflect1 and retain the trees and the fountain1 the gate and the walls1 the neighbouring windows and houses1 till at last the aerial course whereon their return shall glide have become as indelibly stamped in their memory as though it were marked in space by two lines of steel4 #ff ,a new mystery confronts us here1 which we shall do well to challenge2 for though it reply not1 its silence still will extend the field of our conscious ignorance1 which is the most fertile of all that our activity knows4 ,how do the bees contrive to find their way back to the hive that they cannot possibly see1 that is hidden1 perhaps1 by the trees1 that in any event must form an imperceptible point in space8 ,how is it that if taken in a box to a spot two or three miles from their home1 they will almost invariably succeed in finding their way back8 ,do obstacles offer no barrier to their sight2 do they guide themselves by certain indications and landmarks2 or do they possess that peculiar1 imperfectly understood sense that we ascribe to the swallows and pigeons1 for instance1 and term the sense of direction8 ,the experiments of ,j4 ,h4 ,fabre1 of ,lubbock1 and1 above all1 of ,romanes 7,nature1 #bi ,oct4 #ahhf7 seem to establish that it is not this strange instinct that guides them4 ,i have1 on the other hand1 more than once noticed that they appear to pay no attention to the colour or form of the hive4 ,they are attracted rather by the ordinary appearance of the platform on which their home reposes1 by the position of the entrance1 and of the alighting-board4 ,but this even is merely subsidiary2 were the front of the hive to be altered from top to bottom1 during the workers' absence1 they would still unhesitatingly direct their course to it from out the far depths of the horizon2 and only when confronted by the unrecognisable threshold would they seem for one instant to pause4 ,such experiments as lie in our power point rather to their guiding themselves by an extraordinarily minute and precise appreciation of landmarks4 ,it is not the hive that they seem to remember1 but its position1 calculated to the minutest fraction1 in its relation to neighbouring objects4 ,and so marvellous is this appreciation1 so mathematically certain1 so profoundly inscribed in their memory1 that if1 after five months' hibernation in some obscure cellar1 the hive1 when replaced on the platform1 should be set a little to right or to left of its former position1 all the workers1 on their return from the earliest flowers1 will infallibly steer their direct and unwavering course to the precise spot that it filled the previous year2 and only after some hesitation and groping will they discover the door which stands not now where it once had stood4 ,it is as though space had preciously preserved1 the whole winter through1 the indelible track of their flight3 as though the print of their tiny1 laborious footsteps1 still lay graven in the sky4 ,if the hive be displaced1 therefore1 many bees will lose their way2 except in the case of their having been carried far from their former home1 and finding the country completely transformed that they had grown to know perfectly within a radius of two or three miles2 for then1 if care be taken to warn them1 by means of a little gangway connecting with the alighting-board1 at the entrance to the hive1 that some change has occurred1 they will at once proceed to seek new bearings and create fresh landmarks4 #fg ,and now let us return to the city that is being repeopled1 where myriad cradles are incessantly opening1 and the solid walls even appear to be moving4 ,but this city still lacks a queen4 ,seven or eight curious structures arise from the centre of one of the combs1 and remind us1 scattered as they are over the surface of the ordinary cells1 of the circles and protuberances that appear so strange on the photographs of the moon4 ,they are a species of capsule1 contrived of wrinkled wax or of inclined glands1 hermetically sealed1 which fills the place of three or four workers' cells4 ,as a rule1 they are grouped around the same point2 and a numerous guard keep watch1 with singular vigilance and restlessness1 over this region that seems instinct with an indescribable prestige4 ,it is here that the mothers are formed4 ,in each one of these capsules1 before the swarm departs1 an egg will be placed by the mother1 or more probably--though as to this we have no certain knowledge--by one of the workers2 an egg that she will have taken from some neighbouring cell1 and that is absolutely identical with those from which workers are hatched4 ,from this egg1 after three days1 a small larva will issue1 and receive a special and very abundant nourishment2 and henceforth we are able to follow1 step by step1 the movements of one of those magnificently vulgar methods of nature on which1 were we dealing with men1 we should bestow the august name of fatality4 ,the little larva1 thanks to this regimen1 assumes an exceptional development2 and in its ideas1 no less than in its body1 there ensues so considerable a change that the bee to which it will give birth might almost belong to an entirely different race of insects4 ,four or five years will be the period of her life1 instead of the six or seven weeks of the ordinary worker4 ,her abdomen will be twice as long1 her colour more golden1 and clearer2 her sting will be curved1 and her eyes have seven or eight thousand facets instead of twelve or thirteen thousand4 ,her brain will be smaller1 but she will possess enormous ovaries1 and a special organ besides1 the spermatheca1 that will render her almost an hermaphrodite4 ,none of the instincts will be hers that belong to a life of toil2 she will have no brushes1 no pockets wherein to secrete the wax1 no baskets to gather the pollen4 ,the habits1 the passions1 that we regard as inherent in the bee1 will all be lacking in her4 ,she will not crave for air1 or the light of the sun2 she will die without even once having tasted a flower4 ,her existence will pass in the shadow1 in the midst of a restless throng2 her sole occupation the indefatigable search for cradles that she must fill4 ,on the other hand she alone will know the disquiet of love4 ,not even twice1 it may be1 in her life shall she look on the light--for the departure of the swarm is by no means inevitable2 on one occasion only1 perhaps1 will she make use of her wings1 but then it will be to fly to her lover4 ,it is strange to see so many things--organs1 ideas1 desires1 habits1 an entire destiny--depending1 not on a germ1 which were the ordinary miracle of the plant1 the animal1 and man1 but on a curious inert substance3 a drop of honey499 99,it is generally admitted to-day that workers and queens1 after the hatching of the egg1 receive the same nourishment1--a kind of milk1 very rich in nitrogen1 that a special gland in the nurses' head secretes4 ,but after a few days the worker larvae are weaned1 and put on a coarser diet of honey and pollen2 whereas the future queen1 until she be fully developed1 is copiously fed on the precious milk known as royal jelly4 #fh ,about a week has passed since the departure of the old queen4 ,the royal nymphs asleep in the capsules are not all of the same age1 for it is to the interest of the bees that the births should be nicely gradationed1 and take place at regular intervals1 in accordance with their possible desire for a second swarm1 a third1 or even a fourth4 ,the workers have for some hours now been actively thinning the walls of the ripest cell1 while the young queen1 from within1 has been simultaneously gnawing the rounded lid of her prison4 ,and at last her head appears2 she thrusts herself forward2 and1 with the help of the guardians who hasten eagerly to her1 who brush her1 caress her1 and clean her1 she extricates herself altogether and takes her first steps on the comb4 ,at the moment of birth she too1 like the workers1 is trembling and pale1 but after ten minutes or so her legs become stronger1 and a strange restlessness seizes her2 she feels that she is not alone1 that her kingdom has yet to be conquered1 that close by pretenders are hiding2 and she eagerly paces the waxen walls in search of her rivals4 ,but there intervene here the mysterious decisions and wisdom of instinct1 of the spirit of the hive1 or of the assembly of workers4 ,the most surprising feature of all1 as we watch these things happening before us in a hive of glass1 is the entire absence of hesitation1 of the slightest division of opinion4 ,there is not a trace of discussion or discord4 ,the atmosphere of the city is one of absolute unanimity1 preordained1 which reigns over all2 and every one of the bees would appear to know in advance the thought of her sisters4 ,and yet this moment is the gravest1 the most vital1 in their entire history4 ,they have to choose between three or four courses whose results1 in the distant future1 will be totally different2 which1 too1 the slightest accident may render disastrous4 ,they have to reconcile the multiplication of species--which is their passion1 or innate duty--with the preservation of the hive and its people4 ,they will err at times2 they will successively send forth three or four swarms1 thereby completely denuding the mother-city2 and these swarms1 too feeble to organise1 will succumb1 it may be1 at the approach of winter1 caught unawares by this climate of ours1 which is different far from their original climate1 that the bees1 notwithstanding all1 have never forgotten4 ,in such cases they suffer from what is known as swarming fever2 a condition wherein life1 as in ordinary fever1 reacting too ardently on itself1 passes its aim1 completes the circle1 and discovers only death4 #fi ,of all the decisions before them there is none that would seem imperative2 nor can man1 if content to play the part of spectator only1 foretell in the slightest degree which one the bees will adopt4 ,but that the most careful deliberation governs their choice is proved by the fact that we are able to influence1 or even determine it1 by for instance reducing or enlarging the space we accord them2 or by removing combs full of honey1 and setting up1 in their stead1 empty combs which are well supplied with workers' cells4 ,the question they have to consider is not whether a second or third swarm shall be immediately launched1--for in arriving at such a decision they would merely be blindly and thoughtlessly yielding to the caprice or temptation of a favourable moment1--but the instantaneous1 unanimous adoption of measures that shall enable them to issue a second swarm or cast three or four days after the birth of the first queen1 and a third swarm three days after the departure of the second1 with this first queen at their head4 ,it must be admitted1 therefore1 that we discover here a perfectly reasoned system1 and a mature combination of plans extending over a period considerable indeed when compared with the brevity of the bee's existence4 ,these measures concern the care of the youthful queens who still lie immured in their waxen prisons4 ,let us assume that the spirit of the hive has pronounced against the despatch of a second swarm4 ,two courses still remain open4 ,the bees may permit the first-born of the royal virgins1 the one whose birth we have witnessed1 to destroy her sister-enemies2 or they may elect to wait till she have performed the perilous ceremony known as the nuptial flight1 whereon the nation's future depends4 ,the immediate massacre will be authorised often1 and often denied2 but in the latter case it is of course not easy for us to pronounce whether the bees' decision be due to a desire for a second swarm1 or to their recognition of the dangers attending the nuptial flight2 for it will happen at times that1 on account of the weather unexpectedly becoming less favourable1 or for some other reason we cannot divine1 they will suddenly change their mind1 renounce the cast that they had decreed1 and destroy the royal progeny they had so carefully preserved4 ,but at present we will suppose that they have determined to dispense with a second swarm1 and that they accept the risks of the nuptial flight4 ,our young queen hastens towards the large cradles1 urged on by her great desire1 and the guard make way before her4 ,listening only to her furious jealousy1 she will fling herself on to the first cell she comes across1 madly strip off the wax with her teeth and claws1 tear away the cocoon that carpets the cell1 and divest the sleeping princess of every covering4 ,if her rival should be already recognisable1 the queen will turn so that her sting may enter the capsule1 and will frantically stab it with her venomous weapon until the victim perish4 ,she then becomes calmer1 appeased by the death that puts a term to the hatred of every creature2 she withdraws her sting1 hurries to the adjoining cell1 attacks it and opens it1 passing it by should she find in it only an imperfect larva or nymph2 nor does she pause till1 at last1 exhausted and breathless1 her claws and teeth glide harmless over the waxen walls4 ,the bees that surround her have calmly watched her fury1 have stood by1 inactive1 moving only to leave her path clear2 but no sooner has a cell been pierced and laid waste than they eagerly flock to it1 drag out the corpse of the ravished nymph1 or the still living larva1 and thrust it forth from the hive1 thereupon gorging themselves with the precious royal jelly that adheres to the sides of the cell4 ,and finally1 when the queen has become too weak to persist in her passion1 they will themselves complete the massacre of the innocents2 and the sovereign race1 and their dwellings1 will all disappear4 ,this is the terrible hour of the hive2 the only occasion1 with that of the more justifiable execution of the drones1 when the workers suffer discord and death to be busy amongst them2 and here1 as often in nature1 it is the favoured of love who attract to themselves the most extraordinary shafts of violent death4 ,it will happen at times that two queens will be hatched simultaneously1 the occurrence being rare1 however1 for the bees take special care to prevent it4 ,but whenever this does take place1 the deadly combat will begin the moment they emerge from their cradles2 and of this combat ,huber was the first to remark an extraordinary feature4 ,each time1 it would seem that the queens1 in their passes1 present their chitrinous cuirasses to each other in such a fashion that the drawing of the sting would prove mutually fatal2 one might almost believe that1 even as a god or goddess was wont to interpose in the combats of the ,iliad1 so a god or a goddess1 the divinity of the race1 perhaps1 interposes here2 and the two warriors1 stricken with simultaneous terror1 divide and fly1 to meet shortly after and separate again should the double disaster once more menace the future of their people2 till at last one of them shall succeed in surprising her clumsier or less wary rival1 and in killing her without risk to herself4 ,for the law of the race has called for one sacrifice only4 ,the cradles having thus been destroyed and the rivals all slain1 the young queen is accepted by her people2 but she will not truly reign over them1 or be treated as was her mother before her1 until the nuptial flight be accomplished2 for until she be impregnated the bees will hold her but lightly1 and render most passing homage4 ,her history1 however1 will rarely be as uneventful as this1 for the bees will not often renounce their desire for a second swarm4 ,in that case1 as before1 quick with the same desires1 the queen will approach the royal cells2 but instead of meeting with docile servants who second her efforts1 she will find her path blocked by a numerous and hostile guard4 ,in her fury1 and urged on by her fixed idea1 she will endeavour to force her way through1 or to outflank them2 but everywhere sentinels are posted to protect the sleeping princesses4 ,she persists1 she returns to the charge1 to be repulsed with ever increasing severity1 to be somewhat roughly handled even1 until at last she begins vaguely to understand that these little inflexible workers stand for a law before which that law must bend whereby she is inspired4 ,and at last she goes1 and wanders from comb to comb1 her unsatisfied wrath finding vent in a war-song1 or angry complaint1 that every bee-keeper knows2 resembling somewhat the note of a distant trumpet of silver2 so intense1 in its passionate feebleness1 as to be clearly audible1 in the evening especially1 two or three yards from the double walls of the most carefully enclosed hive4 ,upon the workers this royal cry has a magical effect4 ,it terrifies them1 it induces a kind of respectful stupor2 and when the queen sends it forth1 as she halts in front of the cells whose approach is denied her1 the guardians who have but this moment been hustling her1 pushing her back1 will at once desist1 and wait1 with bent head1 till the cry shall have ceased to resound4 ,indeed1 some believe that it is thanks to the prestige of this cry1 which the ,sphinx ,atropos imitates1 that the latter is able to enter the hive1 and gorge itself with honey1 without the least molestation on the part of the bees4 ,for two or three days1 sometimes even for five1 this indignant lament will be heard1 this challenge that the queen addresses to her well protected rivals4 ,and as these in their turn develop1 in their turn grow anxious to see the light1 they too set to work to gnaw the lids of their cells4 ,a mighty disorder would now appear to threaten the republic4 ,but the genius of the hive1 at the time that it formed its decision1 was able to foretell every consequence that might ensue2 and the guardians have had their instructions3 they know exactly what must be done1 hour by hour1 to meet the attacks of a foiled instinct1 and conduct two opposite forces to a successful issue4 ,they are fully aware that if the young queens should escape who now clamour for birth1 they would fall into the hands of their elder sister1 by this time irresistible1 who would destroy them one by one4 ,the workers1 therefore1 will pile on fresh layers of wax in proportion as the prisoner reduces1 from within1 the walls of her tower2 and the impatient princess will ardently persist in her labour1 little suspecting that she has to deal with an enchanted obstacle1 that rises ever afresh from its ruin4 ,she hears the war-cry of her rival2 and already aware of her royal duty and destiny1 although she has not yet looked upon life1 nor knows what a hive may be1 she answers the challenge from within the depths of her prison4 ,but her cry is different2 it is stifled and hollow1 for it has to traverse the walls of a tomb2 and1 when night is falling1 and noises are hushed1 and high over all there reigns the silence of the stars1 the apiarist who nears these marvellous cities and stands1 questioning1 at their entrance1 recognises and understands the dialogue that is passing between the wandering queen and the virgins in prison4 #gb ,to the young princesses1 however1 this prolonged reclusion is of material benefit2 for when they at last are freed they have grown mature and vigorous1 and are able to fly4 ,but during this period of waiting the strength of the first queen has also increased1 and is sufficient now to enable her to face the perils of the voyage4 ,the time has arrived1 therefore1 for the departure of the second swarm1 or cast1 with the first-born of the queens at its head4 ,no sooner has she gone than the workers left in the hive will set one of the prisoners free2 and she will evince the same murderous desires1 send forth the same cries of anger1 until1 at last1 after three or four days1 she will leave the hive in her turn1 at the head of the tertiary swarm2 and so in succession1 in the case of swarming fever1 till the mother-city shall be completely exhausted4 ,swammerdam cites a hive that1 through its swarms and the swarms of its swarms1 was able in a single season to found no less than thirty colonies4 ,such extraordinary multiplication is above all noticeable after disastrous winters2 and one might almost believe that the bees1 forever in touch with the secret desires of nature1 are conscious of the dangers that menace their race4 ,but at ordinary times this fever will rarely occur in a strong and well-governed hive4 ,there are many that swarm only once2 and some1 indeed1 not at all4 ,after the second swarm the bees1 as a rule1 will renounce further division1 owing either to their having observed the excessive feebleness of their own stock1 or to the prudence urged upon them by threatening skies4 ,in that case they will allow the third queen to slaughter the captives2 ordinary life will at once be resumed1 and pursued with the more ardour for the reason that the workers are all very young1 that the hive is depopulated and impoverished1 and that there are great voids to fill before the arrival of winter4 #gc ,the departure of the second and third swarms resembles that of the first1 and the conditions are identical1 with the exception that the bees are fewer in number1 less circumspect1 and lacking in scouts2 and also that the young and virgin queen1 being unencumbered and ardent1 will fly much further1 and in the first stage lead the swarm to a considerable distance from the hive4 ,the conduct of these second and third migrations will be far more rash1 and their future more problematical4 ,the queen at their head1 the representative of the future1 has not yet been impregnated4 ,their entire destiny depends on the ensuing nuptial flight4 ,a passing bird1 a few drops of rain1 a mistake1 a cold wind--any one of these may give rise to irremediable disaster4 ,of this the bees are so well aware that when the young queen sallies forth in quest of her lover1 they often will abandon the labours they have begun1 will forsake the home of a day that already is dear to them1 and accompany her in a body1 dreading to let her pass out of their sight1 eager1 as they form closely around her1 and shelter her beneath their myriad devoted wings1 to lose themselves with her1 should love cause her to stray so far from the hive that the as yet unfamiliar road of return shall grow blurred and hesitating in every memory4 #gd ,but so potent is the law of the future that none of these uncertainties1 these perils of death1 will cause a single bee to waver4 ,the enthusiasm displayed by the second and third swarms is not less than that of the first4 ,no sooner has the mother-city pronounced its decision than a battalion of workers will flock around each dangerous young queen1 eager to follow her fortunes1 to accompany her on the voyage where there is so much to lose1 and so little to gain beyond the desire of a satisfied instinct4 ,whence do they derive the energy we ourselves never possess1 whereby they break with the past as though with an enemy8 ,who is it selects from the crowd those who shall go forth1 and declares who shall remain8 ,no special class divides those who stay from those who wander abroad2 it will be the younger here and the elder there2 around each queen who shall never return veteran foragers jostle tiny workers1 who for the first time shall face the dizziness of the blue4 ,nor is the proportionate strength of a swarm controlled by chance or accident1 by the momentary dejection or transport of an instinct1 thought1 or feeling4 ,i have more than once tried to establish a relation between the number of bees composing a swarm and the number of those that remain2 and although the difficulties of this calculation are such as to preclude anything approaching mathematical precision1 ,i have at least been able to gather that this relation--if we take into account the brood-cells1 or in other words the forthcoming births--is sufficiently constant to point to an actual and mysterious reckoning on the part of the genius of the hive4 #ge ,we will not follow these swarms on their numerous1 and often most complicated1 adventures4 ,two swarms1 at times1 will join forces2 at others1 two or three of the imprisoned queens will profit by the confusion attending the moment of departure to elude the watchfulness of their guardians and join the groups that are forming4 ,occasionally1 too1 one of the young queens1 finding herself surrounded by males1 will cause herself to be impregnated in the swarming flight1 and will then drag all her people to an extraordinary height and distance4 ,in the practice of apiculture these secondary and tertiary swarms are always returned to the mother-hive4 ,the queens will meet on the comb2 the workers will gather around and watch their combat2 and1 when the stronger has overcome the weaker they will then1 in their ardour for work and hatred of disorder1 expel the corpses1 close the door on the violence of the future1 forget the past1 return to their cells1 and resume their peaceful path to the flowers that await them4 #gf ,we will now1 in order to simplify matters1 return to the queen whom the bees have permitted to slaughter her sisters1 and resume the account of her adventures4 ,as ,i have already stated1 this massacre will be often prevented1 and often sanctioned1 at times even when the bees apparently do not intend to issue a second swarm2 for we notice the same diversity of political spirit in the different hives of an apiary as in the different human nations of a continent4 ,but it is clear that the bees will act imprudently in giving their consent2 for if the queen should die1 or stray in the nuptial flight1 it will be impossible to fill her place1 the workers' larvae having passed the age when they are susceptible of royal transformation4 ,let us assume1 however1 that the imprudence has been committed2 and behold our first-born1 therefore1 unique sovereign1 and recognised as such in the spirit of her people4 ,but she is still a virgin4 ,to become as was the mother before her1 it is essential that she should meet the male within the first twenty days of her life4 ,should the event for some reason be delayed beyond this period1 her virginity becomes irrevocable4 ,and yet we have seen that she is not sterile1 virgin though she be4 ,there confronts us here the great mystery--or precaution--of ,nature1 that is known as parthenogenesis1 and is common to a certain number of insects1 such as the aphides1 the lepidoptera of the ,psyche genus1 the hymenoptera of the ,cynipede family1 etc4 ,the virgin queen is able to lay2 but from all the eggs that she will deposit in the cells1 be these large or small1 there will issue males alone2 and as these never work1 as they live at the expense of the females1 as they never go foraging except on their own account1 and are generally incapable of providing for their subsistence1 the result will be1 at the end of some weeks1 that the last exhausted worker will perish1 and the colony be ruined and totally annihilated4 ,the queen1 we have said1 will produce thousands of drones2 and each of these will possess millions of the spermatozoa whereof it is impossible that a single one can have penetrated into the organism of the mother4 ,that may not be more astounding1 perhaps1 than a thousand other and analogous phenomena2 and1 indeed1 when we consider these problems1 and more especially those of generation1 the marvellous and the unexpected confront us so constantly--occurring far more frequently1 and above all in far less human fashion1 than in the most miraculous fairy stories--that after a time astonishment becomes so habitual with us that we almost cease to wonder4 ,the fact1 however1 is sufficiently curious to be worthy of notice4 ,but1 on the other hand1 how shall we explain to ourselves the aim that nature can have in thus favouring the valueless drones at the cost of the workers who are so essential8 ,is she afraid lest the females might perhaps be induced by their intellect unduly to limit the number of their parasites1 which1 destructive though they be1 are still necessary for the preservation of the race8 ,or is it merely an exaggerated reaction against the misfortune of the unfruitful queen8 ,can we have here one of those blind and extreme precautions which1 ignoring the cause of the evil1 overstep the remedy2 and1 in the endeavour to prevent an unfortunate accident1 bring about a catastrophe8 ,in reality--though we must not forget that the natural1 primitive reality is different3 from that of the present1 for in the original forest the colonies might well be far more scattered than they are to-day--in reality the queen's unfruitfulness will rarely be due to the want of males1 for these are very numerous always1 and will flock from afar2 but rather to the rain1 or the cold1 that will have kept her too long in the hive1 and more frequently still to the imperfect state of her wings1 whereby she will be prevented from describing the high flight in the air that the organ of the male demands4 ,nature1 however1 heedless of these more intrinsic causes1 is so deeply concerned with the multiplication of males1 that we sometimes find1 in motherless hives1 two or three workers possessed of so great a desire to preserve the race that1 their atrophied ovaries notwithstanding1 they will still endeavour to lay2 and1 their organs expanding somewhat beneath the empire of this exasperated sentiment1 they will succeed in depositing a few eggs in the cells2 but from these eggs1 as from those of the virgin mother1 there will1 issue only males4 #gg ,here we behold the active intervention of a superior though perhaps imprudent will1 which offers irresistible obstruction to the intelligent will of a life4 ,in the insect world such interventions are comparatively frequent1 and much can be gained from their study2 for this world being more densely peopled and more complex than others1 certain special desires of nature are often more palpably revealed to us there2 and she may even at times be detected in the midst of experiments we might almost be warranted in regarding as incomplete4 ,she has one great and general desire1 for instance1 that she displays on all sides2 the amelioration of each species through the triumph of the stronger4 ,this struggle1 as a rule1 is most carefully organised4 ,the hecatomb of the weak is enormous1 but that matters little so long as the victors' reward be effectual and certain4 ,but there are cases when one might almost imagine that nature had not had time enough to disentangle her combinations2 cases where reward is impossible1 and the fate of the victor no less disastrous than that of the vanquished4 ,and of such1 selecting an instance that will not take us too far from our bees1 ,i know of no instance more striking than that of the triongulins of the ,sitaris colletes4 ,and it will be seen that1 in many details1 this story is less foreign to the history of man than might perhaps be imagined4 ,these triongulins are the primary larvae of a parasite proper to a wild1 obtuse-tongued1 solitary bee1 the ,colletes1 which builds its nest in subterranean galleries4 ,it is their habit to lie in wait for the bee at the approach to these galleries2 and then1 to the number of three1 four1 five1 or often of more1 they will leap on her back1 and bury themselves in her hair4 ,were the struggle of the weak against the strong to take place at this moment there would be no more to be said1 and all would pass in accordance with universal law4 ,but1 for a reason we know not1 their instinct requires1 and nature has consequently ordained1 that they should hold themselves tranquil so long as they remain on the back of the bee4 ,they patiently bide their time while she visits the flowers1 and constructs and provisions her cells4 ,but no sooner has an egg been laid than they all spring upon it2 and the innocent colletes carefully seals down her cell1 which she has duly supplied with food1 never suspecting that she has at the same time ensured the death of her offspring4 ,the cell has scarcely been closed when the triongulins grouped round the egg engage in the inevitable and salutary combat of natural selection4 ,the stronger1 more agile1 will seize its adversary beneath the cuirass1 and1 raising it aloft1 will maintain it for hours in its mandibles until the victim expire4 ,but1 while this fight is in progress1 another of the triongulins1 that had either no rival to meet1 or already has conquered1 takes possession of the egg and bursts it open4 ,the ultimate victor has therefore this fresh enemy to subdue2 but the conquest is easy1 for the triongulin1 deep in the satisfaction of its pre-natal hunger1 clings obstinately to the egg1 and does not even attempt to defend itself4 ,it is quickly despatched2 and the other is at last alone1 and possessor of the precious egg it has won so well4 ,it eagerly plunges its head into the opening its predecessor had made2 and begins the lengthy repast that shall transform it into a perfect insect4 ,but nature1 that has decreed this ordeal of battle1 has1 on the other hand1 established the prize of victory with such miserly precision that nothing short of an entire egg will suffice for the nourishment of a single triongulin4 ,so that1 as we are informed by ,m4 ,mayet1 to whom we owe the account of these disconcerting adventures1 there is lacking to our conqueror the food its last victim consumed before death2 and incapable therefore of achieving the first stage of its transformation1 it dies in its turn1 adhering to the skin of the egg1 or adding itself1 in the sugary liquid1 to the number of the drowned4 #gh ,this case1 though rarely to be followed so closely1 is not unique in natural history4 ,we have here1 laid bare before us1 the struggle between the conscious will of the triongulin1 that seeks to live1 and the obscure and general will of nature1 that not only desires that the triongulin should live1 but is anxious even that its life should be improved1 and fortified1 to a degree beyond that to which its own will impels it4 ,but1 through some strange inadvertence1 the amelioration nature imposes suppresses the life of even the fittest1 and the ,sitaris ,colletes would have long since disappeared had not chance1 acting in opposition to the desires of nature1 permitted isolated individuals to escape from the excellent and far-seeing law that ordains on all sides the triumph of the stronger4 ,can this mighty power err1 then1 that seems unconscious to us1 but necessarily wise1 seeing that the life she organises and maintains is forever proving her to be right8 ,can feebleness at times overcome that supreme reason1 which we are apt to invoke when we have attained the limits of our own8 ,and if that be so1 by whom shall this feebleness be set right8 ,but let us return to that special form of her resistless intervention that we find in parthenogenesis4 ,and we shall do well to remember that1 remote as the world may seem in which these problems confront us1 they do indeed yet concern ourselves very nearly4 ,who would dare to affirm that no interventions take place in the sphere of man--interventions that may be more hidden1 but not the less fraught with danger8 ,and in the case before us1 which is right1 in the end1--the insect1 or nature8 ,what would happen if the bees1 more docile perhaps1 or endowed with a higher intelligence1 were too clearly to understand the desires of nature1 and to follow them to the extreme2 to multiply males to infinity1 seeing that nature is imperiously calling for males8 ,would they not risk the destruction of their species8 ,are we to believe that there are intentions in nature that it is dangerous to understand too clearly1 fatal to follow with too much ardour2 and that it is one of her desires that we should not divine1 and follow1 all her desires8 ,is it not possible that herein there may lie one of the perils of the human race8 ,we too are aware of unconscious forces within us1 that would appear to demand the reverse of what our intellect urges4 ,and this intellect of ours1 that1 as a rule1 its own boundary reached1 knows not whither to go--can it be well that it should join itself to these forces1 and add to them its unexpected weight8 #gi ,have we the right to conclude1 from the dangers of parthenogenesis1 that nature is not always able to proportion the means to the end2 and that what she intends to preserve is preserved at times by means of precautions she has to contrive against her own precautions1 and often through foreign circumstances she has not herself foreseen8 ,but is there anything she does foresee1 anything she does intend to preserve8 ,nature1 some may say1 is a word wherewith we clothe the unknowable2 and few things authorise our crediting it with intelligence1 or with aim4 ,that is true4 ,we touch here the hermetically sealed vases that furnish our conception of the universe4 ,reluctant1 over and over again1 to label these with the inscription ,,unknown1 that disheartens us and compels us to silence1 we engrave upon them1 in the degree of their size and grandeur1 the words ,nature1 life1 death1 infinite1 selection1 spirit of the race1 and many others1 even as those who went before us affixed the words ,god1 ,providence1 destiny1 reward1 etc4 ,let it be so1 if one will1 and no more4 ,but1 though the contents of the vases remain obscure1 there is gain at least in the fact that the inscriptions to-day convey less menace to us1 that we are able therefore to approach them and touch them1 and lay our ears close to them and listen1 with wholesome curiosity4 ,but whatever the name we attach to these vases1 it is certain that one of them1 at least1 and the greatest--that which bears on its flank the name ,nature--encloses a very real force1 the most real of all1 and one that is able to preserve an enormous and marvellous quantity and quality of life on our globe1 by means so skilful that they surpass all that the genius of man could contrive4 ,could this quantity and quality be maintained by other means8 ,is it we who deceive ourselves when we imagine that we see precautions where perhaps there is truly no more than a fortunate chance1 that has survived a million unfortunate chances8 #hj ,that may be2 but these fortunate chances teach us a lesson in admiration as valuable as those we might learn in regions superior to chance4 ,if we let our gaze travel beyond the creatures that are possessed of a glimmer of intellect and consciousness1 beyond the protozoa even1 which are the first nebulous representatives of the dawning animal kingdom1 we find1 as has been abundantly proved by the experiments of ,mr4 ,h4 ,j4 ,carter1 the celebrated microscopist1 that the very lowest embryos1 such as the myxomycetes1 manifest a will and desires and preferences2 and that infusoria1 which apparently have no organism whatever1 give evidence of a certain cunning4 ,the ,amoebae1 for instance1 will patiently lie in wait for the new-born ,acinetes1 as they leave the maternal ovary2 being aware that these must as yet be lacking their poisonous tentacles4 ,now1 the ,amoebae have neither a nervous system nor distinguishable organs of any kind4 ,or if we turn to the plants1 which1 being motionless1 would seem exposed to every fatality1--without pausing to consider carnivorous species like the ,drusera1 which really act as animals1--we are struck by the genius that some of our humblest flowers display in contriving that the visit of the bee shall infallibly procure them the crossed fertilisation they need4 ,see the marvellous fashion in which the ,orchis ,moris1 our humble country orchid1 combines the play of its rostellum and retinacula2 observe the mathematical and automatic inclination and adhesion of its pollinia2 as also the unerring double seesaw of the anthers of the wild sage1 which touch the body of the visiting insect at a particular spot in order that the insect may1 in its turn1 touch the stigma of the neighbouring flower at another particular spot2 watch1 too1 in the case of the ,pedicularis ,sylvatica1 the successive1 calculated movements of its stigma2 and indeed the entrance of the bee into any one of these three flowers sets every organ vibrating1 just as the skilful marksman who hits the black spot on the target will cause all the figures to move in the elaborate mechanisms we see in our village fairs4 ,we might go lower still1 and show1 as ,ruskin has shown in his ,ethics of the ,dust1 the character1 habits1 and artifices of crystals2 their quarrels1 and mode of procedure1 when a foreign body attempts to oppose their plans1 which are more ancient by far than our imagination can conceive2 the manner in which they admit or repel an enemy1 the possible victory of the weaker over the stronger1 as1 for instance1 when the all-powerful quartz submits to the humble and wily epidote1 and allows this last to conquer it2 the struggle1 terrible sometimes and sometimes magnificent1 between the rock-crystal and iron2 the regular1 immaculate expansion and uncompromising purity of one hyaline block1 which rejects whatever is foul1 and the sickly growth1 the evident immorality1 of its brother1 which admits corruption1 and writhes miserably in the void2 as we might quote also the strange phenomena of crystalline cicatrisation and reintegration mentioned by ,claude ,bernard1 etc4 ,but the mystery here becomes too foreign to us4 ,let us keep to our flowers1 which are the last expression of a life that has yet some kinship with our own4 ,we are not dealing now with animals or insects1 to which we attribute a special1 intelligent will1 thanks to which they survive4 ,we believe1 rightly or wrongly1 that the flowers possess no such will2 at least we cannot discover in them the slightest trace of the organs wherein will1 intellect1 and initiative of action1 are usually born and reside4 ,it follows1 therefore1 that all that acts in them in so admirable a fashion must directly proceed from what we elsewhere call nature4 ,we are no longer concerned with the intellect of the individual2 here we find the un conscious1 undivided force in the act of ensnaring other forms of itself4 ,shall we on that account refuse to believe that these snares are pure accidents1 occurring in accordance with a routine that is also incidental8 ,we are not yet entitled to such a deduction4 ,it might be urged that these flowers1 had these miraculous combinations not been1 would not have survived1 but would have had their place filled by others that stood in no need of crossed fertilisation2 and the non-existence of the first would have been perceived by none1 nor would the life that vibrates on the earth have seemed less incomprehensible to us1 less diverse1 or less astounding4 ,and yet it would be difficult not to admit that acts which bear all the appearance of acts of intelligence and prudence produce and support these fortunate chances4 ,whence do they issue1--from the being itself1 or from the force whence that being draws life8 ,i will not say it matters but little1 for1 on the contrary1 to know the answer were of supreme importance to us4 ,but1 in the meantime1 and till we shall learn whether it be the flower that endeavours to maintain and perfect the life that nature has placed within it1 or whether it be nature that puts forth an effort to maintain and improve the degree of existence the flower has assumed1 or finally whether it be chance that ultimately governs chance1 a multitude of semblances invite us to believe that something equal to our loftiest thoughts issues at times from a common source1 that we are compelled to admire without knowing where it resides4 ,there are moments when what seems error to us comes forth from this common source4 ,but1 although we know very few things1 proofs abound that the seeming error was in reality an act of prudence that we at first could not grasp4 ,in the little circle1 even1 that our eyes embrace we are constantly shown that what we regarded as nature's blunder close by was due to her deeming it well to adjust the presumed inadvertence out yonder4 ,she has placed the three flowers we mentioned under conditions of such difficulty that they are unable to fertilise themselves2 she considers it beneficial1 therefore1 for reasons beyond our powers of perception1 that they should cause themselves to be fertilised by their neighbours2 and1 inasmuch as she enhances the intelligence of her victims1 she displays on our right the genius she failed to display on our left4 ,the byways of this genius of hers remain incomprehensible to us1 but its level is always the same4 ,it will appear to fall into error--assuming that error be possible--thereupon rising again at once in the organ charged to repair this error4 ,turn where we may1 it towers high over our heads4 ,it is the circular ocean1 the tideless water1 whereon our boldest and most independent thoughts will never be more than mere abject bubbles4 ,we call it ,nature to-day2 to-morrow1 perhaps1 we shall give it another name1 softer or more alarming4 ,in the meanwhile it holds simultaneous1 impartial sway over life and death2 furnishing the two irreconcilable sisters with the magnificent and familiar weapons that adorn and distract its bosom4 #ha ,does this force take measures to maintain what may be struggling on its surface1 or must we say1 arguing in the strangest of circles1 that what floats on its surface must guard itself against the genius that has given it life8 ,that question must be left open4 ,we have no means of ascertaining whether it be notwithstanding the efforts of the superior will1 or independently of these1 or lastly because of these1 that a species has been able to survive4 ,all we can say is that such a species exists1 and that1 on this point1 therefore1 nature would seem to be right4 ,but who shall tell us how many others that we have not known have fallen victim to her restless and forgetful intellect8 ,beyond this1 we can recognise only the surprising and occasionally hostile forms that the extraordinary fluid we call life assumes1 in utter unconsciousness sometimes1 at others with a kind of consciousness3 the fluid which animates us equally with all the rest1 which produces the very thoughts that judge it1 and the feeble voice that attempts to tell its story4 ,,vi -- ,,the ,,nuptial ,,flight ,,we will now consider the manner in which the impregnation of the queen-bee comes to pass4 ,here again nature has taken extraordinary measures to favour the union of males with females of a different stock2 a strange law1 whereto nothing would seem to compel her2 a caprice1 or initial inadvertence1 perhaps1 whose reparation calls for the most marvellous forces her activity knows4 ,if she had devoted half the genius she lavishes on crossed fertilisation and other arbitrary desires to making life more certain1 to alleviating pain1 to softening death and warding off horrible accidents1 the universe would probably have presented an enigma less incomprehensible1 less pitiable1 than the one we are striving to solve4 ,but our consciousness1 and the interest we take in existence1 must grapple1 not with what might have been1 but with what is4 ,around the virgin queen1 and dwelling with her in the hive1 are hundreds of exuberant males1 forever drunk on honey2 the sole reason for their existence being one act of love4 ,but1 notwithstanding the incessant contact of two desires that elsewhere invariably triumph over every obstacle1 the union never takes place in the hive1 nor has it been possible to bring about the impregnation of a captive queen499 99,professor ,mc,lain has recently succeeded in causing a few queens to be artificially impregnated2 but this has been the result of a veritable surgical operation1 of the most delicate and complicated nature4 ,moreover1 the fertility of the queens was restricted and ephemeral4 ,while she lives in their midst the lovers about her know not what she is4 ,they seek her in space1 in the remote depths of the horizon1 never suspecting that they have but this moment quitted her1 have shared the same comb with her1 have brushed against her1 perhaps1 in the eagerness of their departure4 ,one might almost believe that those wonderful eyes of theirs1 that cover their head as though with a glittering helmet1 do not recognise or desire her save when she soars in the blue4 ,each day1 from noon till three1 when the sun shines resplendent1 this plumed horde sallies forth in search of the bride1 who is indeed more royal1 more difficult of conquest1 than the most inaccessible princess of fairy legend2 for twenty or thirty tribes will hasten from all the neighbouring cities1 her court thus consisting of more than ten thousand suitors2 and from these ten thousand one alone will be chosen for the unique kiss of an instant that shall wed him to death no less than to happiness2 while the others will fly helplessly round the intertwined pair1 and soon will perish without ever again beholding this prodigious and fatal apparition4 #hc ,i am not exaggerating this wild and amazing prodigality of nature4 ,the best-conducted hives will1 as a rule1 contain four to five hundred males4 ,weaker or degenerate ones will often have as many as four or five thousand2 for the more a hive inclines to its ruin1 the more males will it produce4 ,it may be said that1 on an average1 an apiary composed of ten colonies will at a given moment send an army of ten thousand males into the air1 of whom ten or fifteen at most will have the occasion of performing the one act for which they were born4 ,in the meanwhile they exhaust the supplies of the city2 each one of the parasites requiring the unceasing labour of five or six workers to maintain it in its abounding and voracious idleness1 its activity being indeed solely confined to its jaws4 ,but nature is always magnificent when dealing with the privileges and prerogatives of love4 ,she becomes miserly only when doling out the organs and instruments of labour4 ,she is especially severe on what men have termed virtue1 whereas she strews the path of the most uninteresting lovers with innumerable jewels and favours4 ,unite and multiply2 there is no other law1 or aim1 than love1 would seem to be her constant cry on all sides1 while she mutters to herself1 perhaps3 and exist afterwards if you can2 that is no concern of mine4 ,do or desire what else we may1 we find1 everywhere on our road1 this morality that differs so much from our own4 ,and note1 too1 in these same little creatures1 her unjust avarice and insensate waste4 ,from her birth to her death1 the austere forager has to travel abroad in search of the myriad flowers that hide in the depths of the thickets4 ,she has to discover the honey and pollen that lurk in the labyrinths of the nectaries and in the most secret recesses of the anthers4 ,and yet her eyes and olfactory organs are like the eyes and organs of the infirm1 compared with those of the male4 ,were the drones almost blind1 had they only the most rudimentary sense of smell1 they scarcely would suffer4 ,they have nothing to do1 no prey to hunt down2 their food is brought to them ready prepared1 and their existence is spent in the obscurity of the hive1 lapping honey from the comb4 ,but they are the agents of love2 and the most enormous1 most useless gifts are flung with both hands into the abyss of the future4 ,out of a thousand of them1 one only1 once in his life1 will have to seek1 in the depths of the azure1 the presence of the royal virgin4 ,out of a thousand one only will have1 for one instant1 to follow in space the female who desires not to escape4 ,that suffices4 ,the partial power flings open her treasury1 wildly1 even deliriously4 ,to every one of these unlikely lovers1 of whom nine hundred and ninety-nine will be put to death a few days after the fatal nuptials of the thousandth1 she has given thirteen thousand eyes on each side of their head1 while the worker has only six thousand4 ,according to ,cheshire's calculations1 she has provided each of their antennae with thirty-seven thousand eight hundred olfactory cavities1 while the worker has only five thousand in both4 ,there we have an instance of the almost universal disproportion that exists between the gifts she rains upon love and her niggardly doles to labour2 between the favours she accords to what shall1 in an ecstasy1 create new life1 and the indifference wherewith she regards what will patiently have to maintain itself by toil4 ,whoever would seek faithfully to depict the character of nature1 in accordance with the traits we discover here1 would design an extraordinary figure1 very foreign to our ideal1 which nevertheless can only emanate from her4 ,but too many things are unknown to man for him to essay such a portrait1 wherein all would be deep shadow save one or two points of flickering light4 #hd ,very few1 ,i imagine1 have profaned the secret of the queen-bee's wedding1 which comes to pass in the infinite1 radiant circles of a beautiful sky4 ,but we are able to witness the hesitating departure of the bride-elect and the murderous return of the bride4 ,however great her impatience1 she will yet choose her day and her hour1 and linger in the shadow of the portal till a marvellous morning fling open wide the nuptial spaces in the depths of the great azure vault4 ,she loves the moment when drops of dew still moisten the leaves and the flowers1 when the last fragrance of dying dawn still wrestles with burning day1 like a maiden caught in the arms of a heavy warrior2 when through the silence of approaching noon is heard1 once and again1 a transparent cry that has lingered from sunrise4 ,then she appears on the threshold--in the midst of indifferent foragers1 if she have left sisters in the hive2 or surrounded by a delirious throng of workers1 should it be impossible to fill her place4 ,she starts her flight backwards2 returns twice or thrice to the alighting-board2 and then1 having definitely fixed in her mind the exact situation and aspect of the kingdom she has never yet seen from without1 she departs like an arrow to the zenith of the blue4 ,she soars to a height1 a luminous zone1 that other bees attain at no period of their life4 ,far away1 caressing their idleness in the midst of the flowers1 the males have beheld the apparition1 have breathed the magnetic perfume that spreads from group to group till every apiary near is instinct with it4 ,immediately crowds collect1 and follow her into the sea of gladness1 whose limpid boundaries ever recede4 ,she1 drunk with her wings1 obeying the magnificent law of the race that chooses her lover1 and enacts that the strongest alone shall attain her in the solitude of the ether1 she rises still2 and1 for the first time in her life1 the blue morning air rushes into her stigmata1 singing its song1 like the blood of heaven1 in the myriad tubes of the tracheal sacs1 nourished on space1 that fill the centre of her body4 ,she rises still4 ,a region must be found unhaunted by birds1 that else might profane the mystery4 ,she rises still2 and already the ill-assorted troop below are dwindling and falling asunder4 ,the feeble1 infirm1 the aged1 unwelcome1 ill-fed1 who have flown from inactive or impoverished cities1 these renounce the pursuit and disappear in the void4 ,only a small1 indefatigable cluster remain1 suspended in infinite opal4 ,she summons her wings for one final effort2 and now the chosen of incomprehensible forces has reached her1 has seized her1 and bounding aloft with united impetus1 the ascending spiral of their intertwined flight whirls for one second in the hostile madness of love4 #he ,most creatures have a vague belief that a very precarious hazard1 a kind of transparent membrane1 divides death from love2 and that the profound idea of nature demands that the giver of life should die at the moment of giving4 ,here this idea1 whose memory lingers still over the kisses of man1 is realised in its primal simplicity4 ,no sooner has the union been accomplished than the male's abdomen opens1 the organ detaches itself1 dragging with it the mass of the entrails2 the wings relax1 and1 as though struck by lightning1 the emptied body turns and turns on itself and sinks down into the abyss4 ,the same idea that1 before1 in parthenogenesis1 sacrificed the future of the hive to the unwonted multiplication of males1 now sacrifices the male to the future of the hive4 ,this idea is always astounding2 and the further we penetrate into it1 the fewer do our certitudes become4 ,darwin1 for instance1 to take the man of all men who studied it the most methodically and most passionately1 ,darwin1 though scarcely confessing it to himself1 loses confidence at every step1 and retreats before the unexpected and the irreconcilable4 ,would you have before you the nobly humiliating spectacle of human genius battling with infinite power1 you have but to follow ,darwin's endeavours to unravel the strange1 incoherent1 inconceivably mysterious laws of the sterility and fecundity of hybrids1 or of the variations of specific and generic characters4 ,scarcely has he formulated a principle when numberless exceptions assail him2 and this very principle1 soon completely overwhelmed1 is glad to find refuge in some corner1 and preserve a shred of existence there under the title of an exception4 ,for the fact is that in hybridity1 in variability 7notably in the simultaneous variations known as correlations of growth71 in instinct1 in the processes of vital competition1 in geologic succession and the geographic distribution of organised beings1 in mutual affinities1 as indeed in every other direction1 the idea of nature reveals itself1 in one and the same phenomenon and at the very same time1 as circumspect and shiftless1 niggard and prodigal1 prudent and careless1 fickle and stable1 agitated and immovable1 one and innumerable1 magnificent and squalid4 ,there lay open before her the immense and virgin fields of simplicity2 she chose to people them with trivial errors1 with petty contradictory laws that stray through existence like a flock of blind sheep4 ,it is true that our eye1 before which these things happen1 can only reflect a reality proportionate to our needs and our stature2 nor have we any warrant for believing that nature ever loses sight of her wandering results and causes4 ,in any event she will rarely permit them to stray too far1 or approach illogical or dangerous regions4 ,she disposes of two forces that never can err2 and when the phenomenon shall have trespassed beyond certain limits1 she will beckon to life or to death--which arrives1 re-establishes order1 and unconcernedly marks out the path afresh4 #hf ,she eludes us on every side2 she repudiates most of our rules and breaks our standards to pieces4 ,on our right she sinks far beneath the level of our thoughts1 on our left she towers mountain-high above them4 ,she appears to be constantly blundering1 no less in the world of her first experiments than in that of her last1 of man4 ,there she invests with her sanction the instincts of the obscure mass1 the unconscious injustice of the multitude1 the defeat of intelligence and virtue1 the uninspired morality which urges on the great wave of the race1 though manifestly inferior to the morality that could be conceived or desired by the minds composing the small and the clearer wave that ascends the other4 ,and yet1 can such a mind be wrong if it ask itself whether the whole truth--moral truths1 therefore1 as well as non-moral--had not better be sought in this chaos than in itself1 where these truths would seem comparatively clear and precise8 ,the man who feels thus will never attempt to deny the reason or virtue of his ideal1 hallowed by so many heroes and sages2 but there are times when he will whisper to himself that this ideal has perhaps been formed at too great a distance from the enormous mass whose diverse beauty it would fain represent4 ,he has1 hitherto1 legitimately feared that the attempt to adapt his morality to that of nature would risk the destruction of what was her masterpiece4 ,but to-day he understands her a little better2 and from some of her replies1 which1 though still vague1 reveal an unexpected breadth1 he has been enabled to seize a glimpse of a plan and an intellect vaster than could be conceived by his unaided imagination2 wherefore he has grown less afraid1 nor feels any longer the same imperious need of the refuge his own special virtue and reason afford him4 ,he concludes that what is so great could surely teach nothing that would tend to lessen itself4 ,he wonders whether the moment may not have arrived for submitting to a more judicious examination his convictions1 his principles1 and his dreams4 ,once more1 he has not the slightest desire to abandon his human ideal4 ,that even which at first diverts him from this ideal teaches him to return to it4 ,it were impossible for nature to give ill advice to a man who declines to include in the great scheme he is endeavouring to grasp1 who declines to regard as sufficiently lofty to be definitive1 any truth that is not at least as lofty as the truth he himself desires4 ,nothing shifts its place in his life save only to rise with him2 and he knows he is rising when he finds himself drawing near to his ancient image of good4 ,but all things transform themselves more freely in his thoughts2 and he can descend with impunity1 for he has the presentiment that numbers of successive valleys will lead him to the plateau that he expects4 ,and1 while he thus seeks for conviction1 while his researches even conduct him to the very reverse of that which he loves1 he directs his conduct by the most humanly beautiful truth1 and clings to the one that provisionally seems to be highest4 ,all that may add to beneficent virtue enters his heart at once2 all that would tend to lessen it remaining there in suspense1 like insoluble salts that change not till the hour for decisive experiment4 ,he may accept an inferior truth1 but before he will act in accordance therewith he will wait1 if need be for centuries1 until he perceive the connection this truth must possess with truths so infinite as to include and surpass all others4 ,in a word1 he divides the moral from the intellectual order1 admitting in the former that only which is greater and more beautiful than was there before4 ,and blameworthy as it may be to separate the two orders in cases1 only too frequent in life1 where we suffer our conduct to be inferior to our thoughts1 where1 seeing the good1 we follow the worse--to see the worse and follow the better1 to raise our actions high over our idea1 must ever be reasonable and salutary2 for human experience renders it daily more clear that the highest thought we can attain will long be inferior still to the mysterious truth we seek4 ,moreover1 should nothing of what goes before be true1 a reason more simple and more familiar would counsel him not yet to abandon his human ideal4 ,for the more strength he accords to the laws which would seem to set egoism1 injustice1 and cruelty as examples for men to follow1 the more strength does be at the same time confer on the others that ordain generosity1 justice1 and pity2 and these last laws are found to contain something as profoundly natural as the first1 the moment he begins to equalise1 or allot more methodically1 the share he attributes to the universe and to himself4 #hg ,let us return to the tragic nuptials of the queen4 ,here it is evidently nature's wish1 in the interests of crossed fertilisation1 that the union of the drone and the queen-bee should be possible only in the open sky4 ,but her desires blend network-fashion1 and her most valued laws have to pass through the meshes of other laws1 which1 in their turn1 the moment after1 are compelled to pass through the first4 ,in the sky she has planted so many dangers--cold winds1 storm-currents1 birds1 insects1 drops of water1 all of which also obey invincible laws--that she must of necessity arrange for this union to be as brief as possible4 ,it is so1 thanks to the startlingly sudden death of the male4 ,one embrace suffices2 the rest all enacts itself in the very flanks of the bride4 ,she descends from the azure heights and returns to the hive1 trailing behind her1 like an oriflamme1 the unfolded entrails of her lover4 ,some writers pretend that the bees manifest great joy at this return so big with promise--,buchner1 among others1 giving a detailed account of it4 ,i have many a time lain in wait for the queen-bee's return1 and ,i confess that ,i have never noticed any unusual emotion except in the case of a young queen who had gone forth at the head of a swarm1 and represented the unique hope of a newly founded and still empty city4 ,in that instance the workers were all wildly excited1 and rushed to meet her4 ,but as a rule they appear to forget her1 even though the future of their city will often be no less imperilled4 ,they act with consistent prudence in all things1 till the moment when they authorise the massacre of the rival queens4 ,that point reached1 their instinct halts2 and there is1 as it were1 a gap in their foresight4--,they appear to be wholly indifferent4 ,they raise their heads2 recognise1 probably1 the murderous tokens of impregnation2 but1 still mistrustful1 manifest none of the gladness our expectation had pictured4 ,being positive in their ways1 and slow at illusion1 they probably need further proofs before permitting themselves to rejoice4 ,why endeavour to render too logical1 or too human1 the feelings of little creatures so different from ourselves8 ,neither among the bees nor among any other animals that have a ray of our intellect1 do things happen with the precision our books record4 ,too many circumstances remain unknown to us4 ,why try to depict the bees as more perfect than they are1 by saying that which is not8 ,those who would deem them more interesting did they resemble ourselves1 have not yet truly realised what it is that should awaken the interest of a sincere mind4 ,the aim of the observer is not to surprise1 but to comprehend2 and to point out the gaps existing in an intellect1 and the signs of a cerebral organisation different from our own1 is more curious by far than the relating of mere marvels concerning it4 ,but this indifference is not shared by all2 and when the breathless queen has reached the alighting-board1 some groups will form and accompany her into the hive2 where the sun1 hero of every festivity in which the bees take part1 is entering with little timid steps1 and bathing in azure and shadow the waxen walls and curtains of honey4 ,nor does the new bride1 indeed1 show more concern than her people1 there being not room for many emotions in her narrow1 barbarous1 practical brain4 ,she has but one thought1 which is to rid herself as quickly as possible of the embarrassing souvenirs her consort has left her1 whereby her movements are hampered4 ,she seats herself on the threshold1 and carefully strips off the useless organs1 that are borne far away by the workers2 for the male has given her all he possessed1 and much more than she requires4 ,she retains only1 in her spermatheca1 the seminal liquid where millions of germs are floating1 which1 until her last day1 will issue one by one1 as the eggs pass by1 and in the obscurity of her body accomplish the mysterious union of the male and female element1 whence the worker-bees are born4 ,through a curious inversion1 it is she who furnishes the male principle1 and the drone who provides the female4 ,two days after the union she lays her first eggs1 and her people immediately surround her with the most particular care4 ,from that moment1 possessed of a dual sex1 having within her an inexhaustible male1 she begins her veritable life2 she will never again leave the hive1 unless to accompany a swarm2 and her fecundity will cease only at the approach of death4 #hh ,prodigious nuptials these1 the most fairylike that can be conceived1 azure and tragic1 raised high above life by the impetus of desire2 imperishable and terrible1 unique and bewildering1 solitary and infinite4 ,an admirable ecstasy1 wherein death supervening in all that our sphere has of most limpid and loveliest1 in virginal1 limitless space1 stamps the instant of happiness in the sublime transparence of the great sky2 purifying in that immaculate light the something of wretchedness that always hovers around love1 rendering the kiss one that can never be forgotten2 and1 content this time with moderate tithe1 proceeding herself1 with hands that are almost maternal1 to introduce and unite1 in one body1 for a long and inseparable future1 two little fragile lives4 ,profound truth has not this poetry1 but possesses another that we are less apt to grasp1 which1 however1 we should end1 perhaps1 by understanding and loving4 ,nature has not gone out of her way to provide these two abbreviated atoms1 as ,pascal would call them1 with a resplendent marriage1 or an ideal moment of love4 ,her concern1 as we have said1 was merely to improve the race by means of crossed fertilisation4 ,to ensure this she has contrived the organ of the male in such a fashion that he can make use of it only in space4 ,a prolonged flight must first expand his two great tracheal sacs2 these enormous receptacles being gorged on air will throw back the lower part of the abdomen1 and permit the exsertion of the organ4 ,there we have the whole physiological secret--which will seem ordinary enough to some1 and almost vulgar to others--of this dazzling pursuit and these magnificent nuptials4 #hi ,but must we always1 then1 the poet will wonder1 rejoice in regions that are loftier than the truth8 ,yes1 in all things1 at all times1 let us rejoice1 not in regions loftier than the truth1 for that were impossible1 but in regions higher than the little truths that our eye can seize4 ,should a chance1 a recollection1 an illusion1 a passion1--in a word1 should any motive whatever cause an object to reveal itself to us in a more beautiful light than to others1 let that motive be first of all dear to us4 ,it may only be error1 perhaps2 but this error will not prevent the moment wherein this object appears the most admirable to us from being the moment wherein we are likeliest to perceive its real beauty4 ,the beauty we lend it directs our attention to its veritable beauty and grandeur1 which1 derived as they are from the relation wherein every object must of necessity stand to general1 eternal1 forces and laws1 might otherwise escape observation4 ,the faculty of admiring which an illusion may have created within us will serve for the truth that must come1 be it sooner or later4 ,it is with the words1 the feelings1 and ardour created by ancient and imaginary beauties1 that humanity welcomes today truths which perhaps would have never been born1 which might not have been able to find so propitious a home1 had these sacrificed illusions not first of all dwelt in1 and kindled1 the heart and the reason whereinto these truths should descend4 ,happy the eyes that need no illusion to see that the spectacle is great6 ,it is illusion that teaches the others to look1 to admire1 and rejoice4 ,and look as high as they will1 they never can look too high4 ,truth rises as they draw nearer2 they draw nearer when they admire4 ,and whatever the heights may be whereon they rejoice1 this rejoicing can never take place in the void1 or above the unknown and eternal truth that rests over all things like beauty in suspense4 #ij ,does this mean that we should attach ourselves to falsehood1 to an unreal and factitious poetry1 and find our gladness therein for want of anything better8 ,or that in the example before us--in itself nothing1 but we dwell on it because it stands for a thousand others1 as also for our entire attitude in face of divers orders of truths--that here we should ignore the physiological explanation1 and retain and taste only the emotions of this nuptial flight1 which is yet1 and whatever the cause1 one of the most lyrical1 most beautiful acts of that suddenly disinterested1 irresistible force which all living creatures obey and are wont to call love8 ,that were too childish2 nor is it possible1 thanks to the excellent habits every loyal mind has today acquired4 ,the fact being incontestable1 we must evidently admit that the exsertion of the organ is rendered possible only by the expansion of the tracheal vesicles4 ,but if we1 content with this fact1 did not let our eyes roam beyond it2 if we deduced therefrom that every thought that rises too high or wanders too far must be of necessity wrong1 and that truth must be looked for only in the material details2 if we did not seek1 no matter where1 in uncertainties often far greater than the one this little explanation has solved1 in the strange mystery of crossed fertilisation for instance1 or in the perpetuity of the race and life1 or in the scheme of nature2 if we did not seek in these for something beyond the current explanation1 something that should prolong it1 and conduct us to the beauty and grandeur that repose in the unknown1 ,i would almost venture to assert that we should pass our existence further away from the truth than those1 even1 who in this case wilfully shut their eyes to all save the poetic and wholly imaginary interpretation of these marvellous nuptials4 ,they evidently misjudge the form and colour of the truth1 but they live in its atmosphere and its influence far more than the others1 who complacently believe that the entire truth lies captive within their two hands4 ,for the first have made ample preparations to receive the truth1 have provided most hospitable lodging within them2 and even though their eyes may not see it1 they are eagerly looking towards the beauty and grandeur where its residence surely must be4 ,we know nothing of nature's aim1 which for us is the truth that dominates every other4 ,but for the very love of this truth1 and to preserve in our soul the ardour we need for its search1 it behoves us to deem it great4 ,and if we should find one day that we have been on a wrong road1 that this aim is incoherent and petty1 we shall have discovered its pettiness by means of the very zeal its presumed grandeur had created within us2 and this pettiness once established1 it will teach us what we have to do4 ,in the meanwhile it cannot be unwise to devote to its search the most strenuous1 daring efforts of our heart and our reason4 ,and should the last word of all this be wretched1 it will be no little achievement to have laid bare the inanity and the pettiness of the aim of nature4 ,there is no truth for us yet1 a great physiologist of our day remarked to me once1 as ,i walked with him in the country2 there is no truth yet1 but there are everywhere three very good semblances of truth4 ,each man makes his own choice1 or rather1 perhaps1 has it thrust upon him2 and this choice1 whether it be thrust upon him1 or whether1 as is often the case1 he have made it without due reflection1 this choice1 to which he clings1 will determine the form and the conduct of all that enters within him4 ,the friend whom we meet1 the woman who approaches and smiles1 the love that unlocks our heart1 the death or sorrow that seals it1 the ,september sky above us1 this superb and delightful garden1 wherein we see1 as in ,corneille's ',psyche1' bowers of greenery resting on gilded statues1 and the flocks grazing yonder1 with their shepherd asleep1 and the last houses of the village1 and the sea between the trees1--all these are raised or degraded before they enter within us1 are adorned or despoiled1 in accordance with the little signal this choice of ours makes to them4 ,we must learn to select from among these semblances of truth4 ,i have spent my own life in eager search for the smaller truths1 the physical causes2 and now1 at the end of my days1 ,i begin to cherish1 not what would lead me from these1 but what would precede them1 and1 above all1 what would somewhat surpass them4 ,we had attained the summit of a plateau in the pays de ,caux1 in ,normandy1 which is supple as an ,english park1 but natural and limitless4 ,it is one of the rare spots on the globe where nature reveals herself to us unfailingly wholesome and green4 ,a little further to the north the country is threatened with barrenness1 a little further to the south1 it is fatigued and scorched by the sun4 ,at the end of a plain that ran down to the edge of the sea1 some peasants were erecting a stack of corn4 ,look1 he said1 seen from here1 they are beautiful4 ,they are constructing that simple and yet so important thing1 which is above all else the happy and almost unvarying monument of human life taking root--a stack of corn4 ,the distance1 the air of the evening1 weave their joyous cries into a kind of song without words1 which replies to the noble song of the leaves as they whisper over our heads4 ,above them the sky is magnificent2 and one almost might fancy that beneficent spirits1 waving palm-trees of fire1 had swept all the light towards the stack1 to give the workers more time4 ,and the track of the palms still remains in the sky4 ,see the humble church by their side1 overlooking and watching them1 in the midst of the rounded lime trees and the grass of the homely graveyard1 that faces its native ocean4 ,they are fitly erecting their monument of life underneath the monuments of their dead1 who made the same gestures and still are with them4 ,take in the whole picture4 ,there are no special1 characteristic features1 such as we find in ,england1 ,provence1 or ,holland4 ,it is the presentment1 large and ordinary enough to be symbolic1 of a natural and happy life4 ,observe how rhythmic human existence becomes in its useful moments4 ,look at the man who is leading the horses1 at that other who throws up the sheaves on his fork1 at the women bending over the corn1 and the children at play4 444 ,they have not displaced a stone1 or removed a spadeful of earth1 to add to the beauty of the scenery2 nor do they take one step1 plant a tree or a flower1 that is not necessary4 ,all that we see is merely the involuntary result of the effort that man puts forth to subsist for a moment in nature2 and yet those among us whose desire is only to create or imagine spectacles of peace1 deep thoughtfulness1 or beatitude1 have been able to find no scene more perfect than this1 which indeed they paint or describe whenever they seek to present us with a picture of beauty or happiness4 ,here we have the first semblance1 which some will call the truth4 #ib ,let us draw nearer4 ,can you distinguish the song that blended so well with the whispering of the leaves8 ,it is made up of abuse and insult2 and when laughter bursts forth1 it is due to an obscene remark some man or woman has made1 to a jest at the expense of the weaker1--of the hunchback unable to lift his load1 the cripple they have knocked over1 or the idiot whom they make their butt4 ,i have studied these people for many years4 ,we are in ,normandy2 the soil is rich and easily tilled4 ,around this stack of corn there is rather more comfort than one would usually associate with a scene of this kind4 ,the result is that most of the men1 and many of the women1 are alcoholic4 ,another poison also1 which ,i need not name1 corrodes the race4 ,to that1 to the alcohol1 are due the children whom you see there3 the dwarf1 the one with the hare-lip1 the others who are knock-kneed1 scrofulous1 imbecile4 ,all of them1 men and women1 young and old1 have the ordinary vices of the peasant4 ,they are brutal1 suspicious1 grasping1 and envious2 hypocrites1 liars1 and slanderers2 inclined to petty1 illicit profits1 mean interpretations1 and coarse flattery of the stronger4 ,necessity brings them together1 and compels them to help each other2 but the secret wish of every individual is to harm his neighbour as soon as this can be done without danger to himself4 ,the one substantial pleasure of the village is procured by the sorrows of others4 ,should a great disaster befall one of them1 it will long be the subject of secret1 delighted comment among the rest4 ,every man watches his fellow1 is jealous of him1 detests and despises him4 ,while they are poor1 they hate their masters with a boiling and pent-up hatred because of the harshness and avarice these last display2 should they in their turn have servants1 they profit by their own experience of servitude to reveal a harshness and avarice greater even than that from which they have suffered4 ,i could give you minutest details of the meanness1 deceit1 injustice1 tyranny1 and malice that underlie this picture of ethereal1 peaceful toil4 ,do not imagine that the sight of this marvellous sky1 of the sea which spreads out yonder behind the church and presents another1 more sensitive sky1 flowing over the earth like a great mirror of wisdom and consciousness--do not imagine that either sea or sky is capable of lifting their thoughts or widening their minds4 ,they have never looked at them4 ,nothing has power to influence or move them save three or four circumscribed fears1 that of hunger1 of force1 of opinion and law1 and the terror of hell when they die4 ,to show what they are1 we should have to consider them one by one4 ,see that tall fellow there on the right1 who flings up such mighty sheaves4 ,last summer his friends broke his right arm in some tavern row4 ,i reduced the fracture1 which was a bad and compound one4 ,i tended him for a long time1 and gave him the wherewithal to live till he should be able to get back to work4 ,he came to me every day4 ,he profited by this to spread the report in the village that he had discovered me in the arms of my sister-in-law1 and that my mother drank4 ,he is not vicious1 he bears me no ill-will2 on the contrary1 see what a broad1 open smile spreads over his face as he sees me4 ,it was not social animosity that induced him to slander me4 ,the peasant values wealth far too much to hate the rich man4 ,but ,i fancy my good corn-thrower there could not understand my tending him without any profit to myself4 ,he was satisfied that there must be some underhand scheme1 and he declined to be my dupe4 ,more than one before him1 richer or poorer1 has acted in similar fashion1 if not worse4 ,it did not occur to him that he was lying when he spread those inventions abroad2 he merely obeyed a confused command of the morality he saw about him4 ,he yielded unconsciously1 against his will1 as it were1 to the all-powerful desire of the general malevolence4444 ,but why complete a picture with which all are familiar who have spent some years in the country8 ,here we have the second semblance that some will call the real truth4 ,it is the truth of practical life4 ,it undoubtedly is based on the most precise1 the only1 facts that one can observe and test4 #ic ,let us sit on these sheaves1 he continued1 and look again4 ,let us reject not a single one of the little facts that build up the reality of which ,i have spoken4 ,let us permit them to depart of their own accord into space4 ,they cumber the foreground1 and yet we cannot but be aware of the existence behind them of a great and very curious force that sustains the whole4 ,does it only sustain and not raise8 ,these men whom we see before us are at least no longer the ferocious animals of whom ,la ,bruyere speaks1 the wretches who talked in a kind of inarticulate voice1 and withdrew at night to their dens1 where they lived on black bread1 water1 and roots4 ,the race1 you will tell me1 is neither as strong nor as healthy4 ,that may be2 alcohol and the other scourge are accidents that humanity has to surmount2 ordeals1 it may be1 by which certain of our organs1 those of the nerves1 for instance1 may benefit2 for we invariably find that life profits by the ills that it overcomes4 ,besides1 a mere trifle that we may discover to-morrow may render these poisons innocuous4 ,these men have thoughts and feelings that those of whom ,la ,bruyere speaks had not4 ,i prefer the simple1 naked animal to the odious half-animal1 ,i murmured4 ,you are thinking of the first semblance now1 he replied1 the semblance dear to the poet1 that we saw before2 let us not confuse it with the one we are now considering4 ,these thoughts and feelings are petty1 if you will1 and vile2 but what is petty and vile is still better than that which is not at all4 ,of these thoughts and feelings they avail themselves only to hurt each other1 and to persist in their present mediocrity2 but thus does it often happen in nature4 ,the gifts she accords are employed for evil at first1 for the rendering worse what she had apparently sought to improve2 but1 from this evil1 a certain good will always result in the end4 ,besides1 ,i am by no means anxious to prove that there has been progress1 which may be a very small thing or a very great thing1 according to the place whence we regard it4 ,it is a vast achievement1 the surest ideal1 perhaps1 to render the condition of men a little less servile1 a little less painful2 but let the mind detach itself for an instant from material results1 and the difference between the man who marches in the van of progress and the other who is blindly dragged at its tail ceases to be very considerable4 ,among these young rustics1 whose mind is haunted only by formless ideas1 there are many who have in themselves the possibility of attaining1 in a short space of time1 the degree of consciousness that we both enjoy4 ,one is often struck by the narrowness of the dividing line between what we regard as the unconsciousness of these people and the consciousness that to us is the highest of all4 ,besides1 of what is this consciousness composed1 whereof we are so proud8 ,of far more shadow than light1 of far more acquired ignorance than knowledge2 of far more things whose comprehension1 we are well aware1 must ever elude us1 than of things that we actually know4 ,and yet in this consciousness lies all our dignity1 our most veritable greatness2 it is probably the most surprising phenomenon this world contains4 ,it is this which permits us to raise our head before the unknown principle1 and say to it3 ',what you are ,i know not2 but there is something within me that already enfolds you4 ,you will destroy me1 perhaps1 but if your object be not to construct from my ruins an organism better than mine1 you will prove yourself inferior to what ,i am2 and the silence that will follow the death of the race to which ,i belong will declare to you that you have been judged4 ,and if you are not capable even of caring whether you be justly judged or not1 of what value can your secret be8 ,it must be stupid or hideous4 ,chance has enabled you to produce a creature that you yourself lacked the quality to produce4 ,it is fortunate for him that a contrary chance should have permitted you to suppress him before he had fathomed the depths of your unconsciousness2 more fortunate still that he does not survive the infinite series of your awful experiments4 ,he had nothing to do in a world where his intellect corresponded to no eternal intellect1 where his desire for the better could attain no actual good4' ,once more1 for the spectacle to absorb us1 there is no need of progress4 ,the enigma suffices2 and that enigma is as great1 and shines as mysteriously1 in the peasants as in ourselves4 ,as we trace life back to its all-powerful principle1 it confronts us on every side4 ,to this principle each succeeding century has given a new name4 ,some of these names were clear and consoling4 ,it was found1 however1 that consolation and clearness were alike illusory4 ,but whether we call it ,god1 ,providence1 ,nature1 chance1 life1 fatality1 spirit1 or matter1 the mystery remains unaltered2 and from the experience of thousands of years we have learned nothing more than to give it a vaster name1 one nearer to ourselves1 more congruous with our expectation1 with the unforeseen4 ,that is the name it bears to-day1 wherefore it has never seemed greater4 ,here we have one of the numberless aspects of the third semblance1 which also is truth4 ,,vii -- ,,the ,,massacre ,,of ,,the ,,males #id ,,if skies remain clear1 the air warm1 and pollen and nectar abound in the flowers1 the workers1 through a kind of forgetful indulgence1 or over-scrupulous prudence perhaps1 will for a short time longer endure the importunate1 disastrous presence of the males4 ,these comport themselves in the hive as did ,penelope's suitors in the house of ,ulysses4 ,indelicate and wasteful1 sleek and corpulent1 fully content with their idle existence as honorary lovers1 they feast and carouse1 throng the alleys1 obstruct the passages1 and hinder the work2 jostling and jostled1 fatuously pompous1 swelled with foolish1 good-natured contempt2 harbouring never a suspicion of the deep and calculating scorn wherewith the workers regard them1 of the constantly growing hatred to which they give rise1 or of the destiny that awaits them4 ,for their pleasant slumbers they select the snuggest corners of the hive2 then1 rising carelessly1 they flock to the open cells where the honey smells sweetest1 and soil with their excrements the combs they frequent4 ,the patient workers1 their eyes steadily fixed on the future1 will silently set things right4 ,from noon till three1 when the purple country trembles in blissful lassitude beneath the invincible gaze of a ,july or ,august sun1 the drones will appear on the threshold4 ,they have a helmet made of enormous black pearls1 two lofty1 quivering plumes1 a doublet of iridescent1 yellowish velvet1 an heroic tuft1 and a fourfold mantle1 translucent and rigid4 ,they create a prodigious stir1 brush the sentry aside1 overturn the cleaners1 and collide with the foragers as these return laden with their humble spoil4 ,they have the busy air1 the extravagant1 contemptuous gait1 of indispensable gods who should be simultaneously venturing towards some destiny unknown to the vulgar4 ,one by one they sail off into space1 irresistible1 glorious1 and tranquilly make for the nearest flowers1 where they sleep till the afternoon freshness awake them4 ,then1 with the same majestic pomp1 and still overflowing with magnificent schemes1 they return to the hive1 go straight to the cells1 plunge their head to the neck in the vats of honey1 and fill themselves tight as a drum to repair their exhausted strength2 whereupon1 with heavy steps1 they go forth to meet the good1 dreamless and careless slumber that shall fold them in its embrace till the time for the next repast4 #ie ,but the patience of the bees is not equal to that of men4 ,one morning the long-expected word of command goes through the hive2 and the peaceful workers turn into judges and executioners4 ,whence this word issues1 we know not2 it would seem to emanate suddenly from the cold1 deliberate indignation of the workers2 and no sooner has it been uttered than every heart throbs with it1 inspired with the genius of the unanimous republic4 ,one part of the people renounce their foraging duties to devote themselves to the work of justice4 ,the great idle drones1 asleep in unconscious groups on the melliferous walls1 are rudely torn from their slumbers by an army of wrathful virgins4 ,they wake1 in pious wonder2 they cannot believe their eyes2 and their astonishment struggles through their sloth as a moonbeam through marshy water4 ,they stare amazedly round them1 convinced that they must be victims of some mistake2 and the mother-idea of their life being first to assert itself in their dull brain1 they take a step towards the vats of honey to seek comfort there4 ,but ended for them are the days of ,may honey1 the wine-flower of lime trees and fragrant ambrosia of thyme and sage1 of marjoram and white clover4 ,where the path once lay open to the kindly1 abundant reservoirs1 that so invitingly offered their waxen and sugary mouths1 there stands now a burning-bush all alive with poisonous1 bristling stings4 ,the atmosphere of the city is changed2 in lieu of the friendly perfume of honey1 the acrid odour of poison prevails2 thousands of tiny drops glisten at the end of the stings1 and diffuse rancour and hatred4 ,before the bewildered parasites are able to realise that the happy laws of the city have crumbled1 dragging down in most inconceivable fashion their own plentiful destiny1 each one is assailed by three or four envoys of justice2 and these vigorously proceed to cut off his wings1 saw through the petiole that connects the abdomen with the thorax1 amputate the feverish antennae1 and seek an opening between the rings of his cuirass through which to pass their sword4 ,no defence is attempted by the enormous1 but unarmed1 creatures2 they try to escape1 or oppose their mere bulk to the blows that rain down upon them4 ,forced on to their back1 with their relentless enemies clinging doggedly to them1 they will use their powerful claws to shift them from side to side2 or1 turning on themselves1 they will drag the whole group round and round in wild circles1 which exhaustion soon brings to an end4 ,and1 in a very brief space1 their appearance becomes so deplorable that pity1 never far from justice in the depths of our heart1 quickly returns1 and would seek forgiveness1 though vainly1 of the stern workers who recognise only nature's harsh and profound laws4 ,the wings of the wretched creatures are torn1 their antennae bitten1 the segments of their legs wrenched off2 and their magnificent eyes1 mirrors once of the exuberant flowers1 flashing back the blue light and the innocent pride of summer1 now1 softened by suffering1 reflect only the anguish and distress of their end4 ,some succumb to their wounds1 and are at once borne away to distant cemeteries by two or three of their executioners4 ,others1 whose injuries are less1 succeed in sheltering themselves in some corner1 where they lie1 all huddled together1 surrounded by an inexorable guard1 until they perish of want4 ,many will reach the door1 and escape into space dragging their adversaries with them2 but1 towards evening1 impelled by hunger and cold1 they return in crowds to the entrance of the hive to beg for shelter4 ,but there they encounter another pitiless guard4 ,the next morning1 before setting forth on their journey1 the workers will clear the threshold1 strewn with the corpses of the useless giants2 and all recollection of the idle race disappear till the following spring4 #if ,in very many colonies of the apiary this massacre will often take place on the same day4 ,the richest1 best-governed hive will give the signal2 to be followed1 some days after1 by the little and less prosperous republics4 ,only the poorest1 weakest colonies--those whose mother is very old and almost sterile--will preserve their males till the approach of winter1 so as not to abandon the hope of procuring the impregnation of the virgin queen they await1 and who may yet be born4 ,inevitable misery follows2 and all the tribe--mother1 parasites1 workers--collect in a hungry and closely intertwined group1 who perish in silence before the first snows arrive1 in the obscurity of the hive4 ,in the wealthy and populous cities work is resumed after the execution of the drones1--although with diminishing zeal1 for flowers are becoming scarce4 ,the great festivals1 the great dramas1 are over4 ,the autumn honey1 however1 that shall complete the indispensable provisions1 is accumulating within the hospitable walls2 and the last reservoirs are sealed with the seal of white1 incorruptible wax4 ,building ceases1 births diminish1 deaths multiply2 the nights lengthen1 and days grow shorter4 ,rain and inclement winds1 the mists of the morning1 the ambushes laid by a hastening twilight1 carry off hundreds of workers who never return2 and soon1 over the whole little people1 that are as eager for sunshine as the grasshoppers of ,attica1 there hangs the cold menace of winter4 ,man has already taken his share of the harvest4 ,every good hive has presented him with eighty or a hundred pounds of honey2 the most remarkable will sometimes even give two hundred1 which represent an enormous expanse of liquefied light1 immense fields of flowers that have been visited daily one or two thousand times4 ,he throws a last glance over the colonies1 which are becoming torpid4 ,from the richest he takes their superfluous wealth to distribute it among those whom misfortune1 unmerited always in this laborious world1 may have rendered necessitous4 ,he covers the dwellings1 half closes the doors1 removes the useless frames1 and leaves the bees to their long winter sleep4 ,they gather in the centre of the hive1 contract themselves1 and cling to the combs that contain the faithful urns2 whence there shall issue1 during days of frost1 the transmuted substance of summer4 ,the queen is in the midst of them1 surrounded by her guard4 ,the first row of the workers attach themselves to the sealed cells2 a second row cover the first1 a third the second1 and so in succession to the last row of all1 which form the envelope4 ,when the bees of this envelope feel the cold stealing over them1 they re-enter the mass1 and others take their place4 ,the suspended cluster is like a sombre sphere that the walls of the comb divide2 it rises imperceptibly and falls1 it advances or retires1 in proportion as the cells grow empty to which it clings4 ,for1 contrary to what is generally believed1 the winter life of the bee is not arrested1 although it be slackened4 ,by the concerted beating of their wings--little sisters that have survived the flames of the sun--which go quickly or slowly in accordance as the temperature without may vary1 they maintain in their sphere an unvarying warmth1 equal to that of a day in spring4 ,this secret spring comes from the beautiful honey1 itself but a ray of heat transformed1 that returns now to its first condition4 ,it circulates in the hive like generous blood4 ,the bees at the full cells present it to their neighbours1 who pass it on in their turn4 ,thus it goes from hand to hand and from mouth to mouth1 till it attain the extremity of the group in whose thousands of hearts one destiny1 one thought1 is scattered and united4 ,it stands in lieu of the sun and the flowers1 till its elder brother1 the veritable sun of the real1 great spring1 peering through the half-open door1 glides in his first softened glances1 wherein anemones and violets are coming to life again2 and gently awakens the workers1 showing them that the sky once more is blue in the world1 and that the uninterrupted circle that joins death to life has turned and begun afresh4 ,,viii -- ,,the ,,progress ,,of ,,the ,,race #ig ,,before closing this book--as we have closed the hive on the torpid silence of winter--,i am anxious to meet the objection invariably urged by those to whom we reveal the astounding industry and policy of the bees4 ,yes1 they will say1 that is all very wonderful2 but then1 it has never been otherwise4 ,the bees have for thousands of years dwelt under remarkable laws1 but during those thousands of years the laws have not varied4 ,for thousands of years they have constructed their marvellous combs1 whereto we can add nothing1 wherefrom we can take nothing1--combs that unite in equal perfection the science of the chemist1 the geometrician1 the architect1 and the engineer2 but on the sarcophagi1 on ,egyptian stones and papyri1 we find drawings of combs that are identical in every particular4 ,name a single fact that will show the least progress1 a single instance of their having contrived some new feature or modified their habitual routine1 and we will cheerfully yield1 and admit that they not only possess an admirable instinct1 but have also an intellect worthy to approach that of man1 worthy to share in one knows not what higher destiny than awaits unconscious and submissive matter4 ,this language is not even confined to the profane2 it is made use of by entomologists of the rank of ,kirby and ,spence1 in order to deny the bees the possession of intellect other than may vaguely stir within the narrow prison of an extraordinary but unchanging instinct4 ,show us1 they say1 a single case where the pressure of events has inspired them with the idea1 for instance1 of substituting clay or mortar for wax or propolis2 show us this1 and we will admit their capacity for reasoning4 ,this argument1 that ,romanes refers to as the question-begging argument1 and that might also be termed the insatiable argument1 is exceedingly dangerous1 and1 if applied to man1 would take us very far4 ,examine it closely1 and you find that it emanates from the mere common-sense1 which is often so harmful2 the common-sense that replied to ,galileo3 ,the earth does not turn1 for ,i can see the sun move in the sky1 rise in the morning and sink in the evening2 and nothing can prevail over the testimony of my eyes4 ,common-sense makes an admirable1 and necessary1 background for the mind2 but unless it be watched by a lofty disquiet ever ready to remind it1 when occasion demand1 of the infinity of its ignorance1 it dwindles into the mere routine of the baser side of our intellect4 ,but the bees have themselves answered the objection ,messrs4 ,kirby and ,spence advanced4 ,scarcely had it been formulated when another naturalist1 ,andrew ,knight1 having covered the bark of some diseased trees with a kind of cement made of turpentine and wax1 discovered that his bees were entirely renouncing the collection of propolis1 and exclusively using this unknown matter1 which they had quickly tested and adopted1 and found in abundant quantities1 ready prepared1 in the vicinity of their dwelling4 ,and indeed1 one-half of the science and practice of apiculture consists in giving free rein to the spirit of initiative possessed by the bees1 and in providing their enterprising intellect with opportunities for veritable discoveries and veritable inventions4 ,thus1 for instance1 to aid in the rearing of the larvae and nymphs1 the bee-keeper will scatter a certain quantity of flour close to the hive when the pollen is scarce of which these consume an enormous quantity4 ,in a state of nature1 in the heart of their native forests in the ,asiatic valleys1 where they existed probably long before the tertiary epoch1 the bees can evidently never have met with a substance of this kind4 ,and yet1 if care be taken to bait some of them with it1 by placing them on the flour1 they will touch it and test it1 they will perceive that its properties more or less resemble those possessed by the dust of the anthers2 they will spread the news among their sisters1 and we shall soon find every forager hastening to this unexpected1 incomprehensible food1 which1 in their hereditary memory1 must be inseparable from the calyx of flowers where their flight1 for so many centuries past1 has been sumptuously and voluptuously welcomed4 #ih ,it is a little more than a hundred years ago that ,huber's researches gave the first serious impetus to our study of the bees1 and revealed the elementary important truths that allowed us to observe them with fruitful result4 ,barely fifty years have passed since the foundation of rational1 practical apiculture was rendered possible by means of the movable combs and frames devised by ,dzierzon and ,langstroth1 and the hive ceased to be the inviolable abode wherein all came to pass in a mystery from which death alone stripped the veil4 ,and lastly1 less than fifty years have elapsed since the improvements of the microscope1 of the entomologist's laboratory1 revealed the precise secret of the principal organs of the workers1 of the mother1 and the males4 ,need we wonder if our knowledge be as scanty as our experience8 ,the bees have existed many thousands of years2 we have watched them for ten or twelve lustres4 ,and if it could even be proved that no change has occurred in the hive since we first opened it1 should we have the right to conclude that nothing had changed before our first questioning glance8 ,do we not know that in the evolution of species a century is but as a drop of rain that is caught in the whirl of the river1 and that millenaries glide as swiftly over the life of universal matter as single years over the history of a people8 #ii ,but there is no warrant for the statement that the habits of the bees are unchanged4 ,if we examine them with an unbiassed eye1 and without emerging from the small area lit by our actual experience1 we shall1 on the contrary1 discover marked variations4 ,and who shall tell how many escape us8 ,were an observer of a hundred and fifty times our height and about seven hundred and fifty thousand times our importance 7these being the relations of stature and weight in which we stand to the humble honey-fly71 one who knew not our language1 and was endowed with senses totally different from our own2 were such an one to have been studying us1 he would recognise certain curious material transformations in the course of the last two thirds of the century1 but would be totally unable to form any conception of our moral1 social1 political1 economic or religious evolution4 ,the most likely of all the scientific hypotheses will presently permit us to connect our domestic bee with the great tribe of the ,apiens1 which embraces all wild bees1 and where its ancestors are probably to be found4 ,we shall then perceive physiological1 social1 economic1 industrial1 and architectural transformations more extraordinary than those of our human evolution4 ,but for the moment we will limit ourselves to our domestic bee properly so called4 ,of these sixteen fairly distinct species are known2 but1 essentially1 whether we consider the ,apis ,dorsata1 the largest known to us1 or the ,apis ,florea1 which is the smallest1 the insect is always exactly the same1 except for the slight modifications induced by the climate and by the conditions whereto it has had to conform499 99,the scientific classification of the domestic bee is as follows3 ,class4444444 ,insecta ,order4444444 ,hymenoptera ,family444444 ,apidae ,genus4444444 ,apis ,species44444 ,mellifica ,the term ,mellifica is that of the ,linnaean classification4 ,it is not of the happiest1 for all the ,apidae1 with the exception of certain parasites perhaps1 are producers of honey4 ,scopoli uses the term ,cerifera 2 ,reaumur ,domestica 2 ,geoffroy ,gregaria4 ,the ,apis ,ligustica1 the ,italian bee1 is another variety of the ,mellifica4 ,the difference between these various species is scarcely greater than that between an ,englishman and a ,russian1 a ,japanese and a ,european4 ,in these preliminary remarks1 therefore1 we will confine ourselves to what actually lies within the range of our eyes1 refusing the aid of hypothesis1 be this never so probable or so imperious4 ,we shall mention no facts that are not susceptible of immediate proof2 and of such facts we will only rapidly refer to some of the more significant4 #ajj ,let us consider first of all the most important and most radical improvement1 one that in the case of man would have called for prodigious labour3 the external protection of the community4 ,the bees do not1 like ourselves1 dwell in towns free to the sky1 and exposed to the caprice of rain and storm1 but in cities entirely covered with a protecting envelope4 ,in a state of nature1 however1 in an ideal climate1 this is not the case4 ,if they listened only to their essential instinct1 they would construct their combs in the open air4 ,in the ,indies1 the ,apis ,dorsata will not eagerly seek hollow trees1 or a hole in the rocks4 ,the swarm will hang from the crook of a branch2 and the comb will be lengthened1 the queen lay her eggs1 provisions be stored1 with no shelter other than that which the workers' own bodies provide4 ,our ,northern bees have at times been known to revert to this instinct1 under the deceptive influence of a too gentle sky2 and swarms have been found living in the heart of a bush4 ,but even in the ,indies1 the result of this habit1 which would seem innate1 is by no means favourable4 ,so considerable a number of the workers are compelled to remain on one spot1 occupied solely with the maintenance of the heat required by those who are moulding the wax and rearing the brood1 that the ,apis ,dorsata1 hanging thus from the branches1 will construct but a single comb2 whereas if she have the least shelter she will erect four or five1 or more1 and will proportionately increase the prosperity and the population of the colony4 ,and indeed we find that all species of bees existing in cold and temperate regions have abandoned this primitive method4 ,the intelligent initiative of the insect has evidently received the sanction of natural selection1 which has allowed only the most numerous and best protected tribes to survive our winters4 ,what had been merely an idea1 therefore1 and opposed to instinct1 has thus by slow degrees become an instinctive habit4 ,but it is none the less true that in forsaking the vast light of nature that was so dear to them and seeking shelter in the obscure hollow of a tree or a cavern1 the bees have followed what at first was an audacious idea1 based on observation1 probably1 on experience and reasoning4 ,and this idea might be almost declared to have been as important to the destinies of the domestic bee as was the invention of fire to the destinies of man4 #aja ,this great progress1 not the less actual for being hereditary and ancient1 was followed by an infinite variety of details which prove that the industry1 and even the policy1 of the hive have not crystallised into infrangible formulae4 ,we have already mentioned the intelligent substitution of flour for pollen1 and of an artificial cement for propolis4 ,we have seen with what skill the bees are able to adapt to their needs the occasionally disconcerting dwellings into which they are introduced1 and the surprising adroitness wherewith they turn combs of foundation-wax to good account4 ,they display extraordinary ingenuity in their manner of handling these marvellous combs1 which are so strangely useful1 and yet incomplete4 ,in point of fact1 they meet man half-way4 ,let us imagine that we had for centuries past been erecting cities1 not with stones1 bricks1 and lime1 but with some pliable substance painfully secreted by special organs of our body4 ,one day an all-powerful being places us in the midst of a fabulous city4 ,we recognise that it is made of a substance similar to the one that we secrete1 but1 as regards the rest1 it is a dream1 whereof what is logical is so distorted1 so reduced1 and as it were concentrated1 as to be more disconcerting almost than had it been incoherent4 ,our habitual plan is there2 in fact1 we find everything that we had expected2 but all has been put together by some antecedent force that would seem to have crushed it1 arrested it in the mould1 and to have hindered its completion4 ,the houses whose height must attain some four or five yards are the merest protuberances1 that our two hands can cover4 ,thousands of walls are indicated by signs that hint at once of their plan and material4 ,elsewhere there are marked deviations1 which must be corrected2 gaps to be filled and harmoniously joined to the rest1 vast surfaces that are unstable and will need support4 ,the enterprise is hopeful1 but full of hardship and danger4 ,it would seem to have been conceived by some sovereign intelligence1 that was able to divine most of our desires1 but has executed them clumsily1 being hampered by its very vastness4 ,we must disentangle1 therefore1 what now is obscure1 we must develop the least intentions of the supernatural donor2 we must build in a few days what would ordinarily take us years2 we must renounce organic habits1 and fundamentally alter our methods of labour4 ,it is certain that all the attention man could devote would not be excessive for the solution of the problems that would arise1 or for the turning to fullest account the help thus offered by a magnificent providence4 ,yet that is1 more or less1 what the bees are doing in our modern hives499 99,as we are now concerned with the construction of the bee1 we may note1 in passing1 a strange peculiarity of the ,apis ,florea4 ,certain walls of its cells for males are cylindrical instead of hexagonal4 ,apparently she has not yet succeeded in passing from one form to the other1 and indefinitely adopting the better4 #ajb ,i have said that even the policy of the bees is probably subject to change4 ,this point is the obscurest of all1 and the most difficult to verify4 ,i shall not dwell on their various methods of treating the queens1 or the laws as to swarming that are peculiar to the inhabitants of every hive1 and apparently transmitted from generation to generation1 etc42 but by the side of these facts which are not sufficiently established are others so precise and unvarying as to prove that the same degree of political civilisation has not been attained by all races of the domestic bee1 and that1 among some of them1 the public spirit still is groping its way1 seeking perhaps another solution of the royal problem4 ,the ,syrian bee1 for instance1 habitually rears #abj queens and often more1 whereas our ,apis ,mellifica will rear ten or twelve at most4 ,cheshire tells of a ,syrian hive1 in no way abnormal1 where #abj dead queen-mothers were found1 and #ij living1 unmolested queens4 ,this may be the point of departure1 or the point of arrival1 of a strange social evolution1 which it would be interesting to study more thoroughly4 ,we may add that as far as the rearing of queens is concerned1 the ,cyprian bee approximates to the ,syrian4 ,and finally1 there is yet another fact which establishes still more clearly that the customs and prudent organisation of the hive are not the results of a primitive impulse1 mechanically followed through different ages and climates1 but that the spirit which governs the little republic is fully as capable of taking note of new conditions and turning these to the best advantage1 as in times long past it was capable of meeting the dangers that hemmed it around4 ,transport our black bee to ,california or ,australia1 and her habits will completely alter4 ,finding that summer is perpetual and flowers forever abundant1 she will after one or two years be content to live from day to day1 and gather sufficient honey and pollen for the day's consumption2 and1 her thoughtful observation of these new features triumphing over hereditary experience1 she will cease to make provision for the winter499 ,in fact it becomes necessary1 in order to stimulate her activity1 to deprive her systematically of the fruits of her labour4 99,buchner cites an analogous fact4 ,in the ,barbadoes1 the bees whose hives are in the midst of the refineries1 where they find sugar in abundance during the whole year1 will entirely abandon their visits to the flowers4 #ajc ,so much for what our own eyes can see4 ,it will be admitted that we have mentioned some curious facts1 which by no means support the theory that every intelligence is arrested1 every future clearly defined1 save only the intelligence and future of man4 ,but if we choose to accept for one moment the hypothesis of evolution1 the spectacle widens1 and its uncertain1 grandiose light soon attains our own destinies4 ,whoever brings careful attention to bear will scarcely deny1 even though it be not evident1 the presence in nature of a will that tends to raise a portion of matter to a subtler and perhaps better condition1 and to penetrate its substance little by little with a mystery-laden fluid that we at first term life1 then instinct1 and finally intelligence2 a will that1 for an end we know not1 organises1 strengthens1 and facilitates the existence of all that is4 ,there can be no certainty1 and yet many instances invite us to believe that1 were an actual estimate possible1 the quantity of matter that has raised itself from its beginnings would be found to be ever increasing4 ,a fragile remark1 ,i admit1 but the only one we can make on the hidden force that leads us2 and it stands for much in a world where confidence in life1 until certitude to the contrary reach us1 must remain the first of all our duties1 at times even when life itself conveys no encouraging clearness to us4 ,i know all that may be urged against the theory of evolution4 ,in its favour are numerous proofs and most powerful arguments1 which yet do not carry irresistible conviction4 ,we must beware of abandoning ourselves unreservedly to the prevailing truths of our time4 ,a hundred years hence1 many chapters of a book instinct to-day with this truth1 will appear as ancient as the philosophical writings of the eighteenth century seem to us now1 full as they are of a too perfect and non-existing man1 or as so many works of the seventeenth century1 whose value is lessened by their conception of a harsh and narrow god4 ,nevertheless1 when it is impossible to know what the truth of a thing may be1 it is well to accept the hypothesis that appeals the most urgently to the reason of men at the period when we happen to have come into the world4 ,the chances are that it will be false2 but so long as we believe it to be true it will serve a useful purpose by restoring our courage and stimulating research in a new direction4 ,it might at the first glance seem wiser1 perhaps1 instead of advancing these ingenious suppositions1 simply to say the profound truth1 which is that we do not know4 ,but this truth could only be helpful were it written that we never shall know4 ,in the meanwhile it would induce a state of stagnation within us more pernicious than the most vexatious illusions4 ,we are so constituted that nothing takes us further or leads us higher than the leaps made by our errors4 ,in point of fact we owe the little we have learned to hypotheses that were always hazardous and often absurd1 and1 as a general rule1 less discreet than they are to-day4 ,they were unwise1 perhaps1 but they kept alive the ardour for research4 ,to the traveller1 shivering with cold1 who reaches the human ,hostelry1 it matters little whether he by whose side he seats himself1 he who has guarded the hearth1 be blind or very old4 ,so long as the fire still burn that he has been watching1 he has done as much as the best could have done4 ,well for us if we can transmit this ardour1 not as we received it1 but added to by ourselves2 and nothing will add to it more than this hypothesis of evolution1 which goads us to question with an ever severer method and ever increasing zeal all that exists on the earth's surface and in its entrails1 in the depths of the sea and expanse of the sky4 ,reject it1 and what can we set up against it1 what can we put in its place8 ,there is but the grand confession of scientific ignorance1 aware of its knowing nothing--but this is habitually sluggish1 and calculated to discourage the curiosity more needful to man than wisdom--or the hypothesis of the fixity of the species and of divine creation1 which is less demonstrable than the other1 banishes for all time the living elements of the problem1 and explains nothing4 #ajd ,of wild bees approximately #dejj varieties are known4 ,it need scarcely be said that we shall not go through the list4 ,some day1 perhaps1 a profound study1 and searching experiments and observations of a kind hitherto unknown1 that would demand more than one lifetime1 will throw a decisive light upon the history of the bee's evolution4 ,all that we can do now is to enter this veiled region of supposition1 and1 discarding all positive statement1 attempt to follow a tribe of hymenoptera in their progress towards a more intelligent existence1 towards a little more security and comfort1 lightly indicating the salient features of this ascension that is spread over many thousands of years4 ,the tribe in question is already known to us2 it is that of the ,apiens1 whose essential characteristics are so distinct and well-marked that one is inclined to credit all its members with one common ancestor499 99,it is important that the terms we shall successively employ1 adopting the classification of ,m4 ,emile ,blanchard1-- ,,apiens1 ,,apidae and ,,apitae1--should not be confounded4 ,the tribe of the ,apiens comprises all families of bees4 ,the ,apidae constitute the first of these families1 and are subdivided into three groups3 the ,meliponae1 the ,apitae1 and the ,bombi 7humble-bees74 ,and1 finally1 the ,apitae include all the different varieties of our domestic bees4 ,the disciples of ,darwin1 ,hermann ,muller among others1 consider a little wild bee1 the ,prosopis1 which is to be found all over the universe1 as the actual representative of the primitive bee whence all have issued that are known to us to-day4 ,the unfortunate ,prosopis stands more or less in the same relation to the inhabitants of our hives as the cave-dwellers to the fortunate who live in our great cities4 ,you will probably more than once have seen her fluttering about the bushes1 in a deserted corner of your garden1 without realising that you were carelessly watching the venerable ancestor to whom we probably owe most of our flowers and fruits 7for it is actually estimated that more than a hundred thousand varieties of plants would disappear if the bees did not visit them7 and possibly even our civilisation1 for in these mysteries all things intertwine4 ,she is nimble and attractive1 the variety most common in ,france being elegantly marked with white on a black background4 ,but this elegance hides an inconceivable poverty4 ,she leads a life of starvation4 ,she is almost naked1 whereas her sisters are dad in a warm and sumptuous fleece4 ,she has not1 like the ,apidae1 baskets to gather the pollen1 nor1 in their default1 the tuft of the ,andrenae1 nor the ventral brush of the ,gastrilegidae4 ,her tiny claws must laboriously gather the powder from the calices1 which powder she needs must swallow in order to take it back to her lair4 ,she has no implements other than her tongue1 her mouth and her claws2 but her tongue is too short1 her legs are feeble1 and her mandibles without strength4 ,unable to produce wax1 bore holes through wood1 or dig in the earth1 she contrives clumsy galleries in the tender pith of dry berries2 erects a few awkward cells1 stores these with a little food for the offspring she never will see2 and then1 having accomplished this poor task of hers1 that tends she knows not whither and of whose aim we are no less ignorant1 she goes off and dies in a corner1 as solitarily as she had lived4 ,we shall pass over many intermediary species1 wherein we may see the gradual lengthening of the tongue1 enabling more nectar to be extracted from the cups of corollas1 and the dawning formation and subsequent development of the apparatus for collecting pollen1--hairs1 tufts1 brushes on the tibia1 on the tarsus1 and abdomen1--as also claws and mandibles becoming stronger1 useful secretions being formed1 and the genius that presides over the construction of dwellings seeking and finding extraordinary improvement in every direction4 ,such a study would need a whole volume4 ,i will merely outline a chapter of it1 less than a chapter1 a page1 which shall show how the hesitating endeavours of the will to live and be happier result in the birth1 development1 and affirmation of social intelligence4 ,we have seen the unfortunate ,prosopis silently bearing her solitary little destiny in the midst of this vast universe charged with terrible forces4 ,a certain number of her sisters1 belonging to species already more skilful and better supplied with utensils1 such as the well-clad ,colletes1 or the marvellous cutter of rose-leaves1 the ,megachile ,centuncularis1 live in an isolation no less profound2 and if by chance some creature attach itself to them1 and share their dwelling1 it will either be an enemy1 or1 more often1 a parasite4 ,for the world of bees is peopled with phantoms stranger than our own2 and many a species will thus have a kind of mysterious and inactive double1 exactly similar to the victim it has selected1 save only that its immemorial idleness has caused it to lose one by one its implements of labour1 and that it exists solely at the expense of the working type of its race499 99,the humble-bees1 for instance1 have the ,psithyri as parasites1 while the ,stelites live on the ,anthidia4 ,as regards the frequent identity of the parasite with its victim1 ,m4 ,j4 ,perez very justly remarks in his book ,the ,bees1 one must necessarily admit that the two genera are only different forms of the same type1 and are united to each other by the closest affinity4 ,and to naturalists who believe in the theory of evolution this relationship is not purely ideal1 but real4 ,the parasitic genus must be regarded as merely a branch of the foraging genus1 having lost its foraging organs because of its adaptation to parasitic life4 ,among the bees1 however1 which are somewhat too arbitrarily termed the solitary ,apidae1 the social instinct already is smouldering1 like a flame crushed beneath the overwhelming weight of matter that stifles all primitive life4 ,and here and there1 in unexpected directions1 as though reconnoitring1 with timid and sometimes fantastic outbursts1 it will succeed in piercing the mass that oppresses it1 the pyre that some day shall feed its triumph4 ,if in this world all things be matter1 this is surely its most immaterial movement4 ,transition is called for from a precarious1 egotistic and incomplete life to a life that shall be fraternal1 a little more certain1 a little more happy4 ,the spirit must ideally unite that which in the body is actually separate2 the individual must sacrifice himself for the race1 and substitute for visible things the things that cannot be seen4 ,need we wonder that the bees do not at the first glance realise what we have not yet disentangled1 we who find ourselves at the privileged spot whence instinct radiates from all sides into our consciousness8 ,and it is curious too1 almost touching1 to see how the new idea gropes its way1 at first1 in the darkness that enfolds all things that come to life on this earth4 ,it emerges from matter1 it is still quite material4 ,it is cold1 hunger1 fear1 transformed into something that as yet has no shape4 ,it crawls vaguely around great dangers1 around the long nights1 the approach of winter1 of an equivocal sleep which almost is death4444 #ajf ,the ,xylocopae are powerful bees which worm their nest in dry wood4 ,their life is solitary always4 ,towards the end of summer1 however1 some individuals of a particular species1 the ,xylocopa ,cyanescens1 may be found huddled together in a shivering group1 on a stalk of asphodel1 to spend the winter in common4 ,among the ,xylocopae this tardy fraternity is exceptional1 but among the ,ceratinae1 which are of their nearest kindred1 it has become a constant habit4 ,the idea is germinating4 ,it halts immediately2 and hitherto has not succeeded1 among the ,xylocopae1 in passing beyond this first obscure line of love4 ,among other ,apiens1 this groping idea assumes other forms4 ,the ,chalicodomae of the out-houses1 which are building-bees1 the ,dasypodae and ,halicti1 which dig holes in the earth1 unite in large colonies to construct their nests4 ,but it is an illusory crowd composed of solitary units1 that possess no mutual understanding1 and do not act in common4 ,each one is profoundly isolated in the midst of the multitude1 and builds a dwelling for itself alone1 heedless of its neighbour4 ,they are1 ,m4 ,perez remarks1 a mere congregation of individuals1 brought together by similar tastes and habits1 but observing scrupulously the maxim of each one for itself2 in fact1 a mere mob of workers1 resembling the swarm of a hive only as regards their number and zeal4 ,such assemblies merely result from a great number of individuals inhabiting the same locality4 ,but when we come to the ,panurgi1 which are cousins of the ,dasypodae1 a little ray of light suddenly reveals the birth of a new sentiment in this fortuitous crowd4 ,they collect in the same way as the others1 and each one digs its own subterranean chambers2 but the entrance is common to all1 as also the gallery which leads from the surface of the ground to the different cells4 ,and thus1 ,m4 ,perez adds1 as far as the work of the cells is concerned1 each bee acts as though she were alone2 but all make equal use of the gallery that conducts to the cells1 so that the multitude profit by the labours of an individual1 and are spared the time and trouble required for the construction of separate galleries4 ,it would be interesting to discover whether this preliminary work be not executed in common1 by relays of females1 relieving each other in turn4 ,however this may be1 the fraternal idea has pierced the wall that divided two worlds4 ,it is no longer wild and unrecognisable1 wrested from instinct by cold and hunger1 or by the fear of death2 it is prompted by active life4 ,but it halts once more2 and in this instance arrives no further4 ,no matter1 it does not lose courage2 it will seek other channels4 ,it enters the humble-bee1 and1 maturing there1 becomes embodied in a different atmosphere1 and works its first decisive miracles4 ,the humble-bees1 the great hairy1 noisy creatures that all of us know so well1 so harmless for all their apparent fierceness1 lead a solitary life at first4 ,at the beginning of ,march the impregnated female who has survived the winter starts to construct her nest1 either underground or in a bush1 according to the species to which she belongs4 ,she is alone in the world1 in the midst of awakening spring4 ,she chooses a spot1 clears it1 digs it and carpets it4 ,then she erects her somewhat shapeless waxen cells1 stores these with honey and pollen1 lays and hatches the eggs1 tends and nourishes the larvae that spring to life1 and soon is surrounded by a troop of daughters who aid her in all her labours1 within the nest and without1 while some of them soon begin to lay in their turn4 ,the construction of the cells improves2 the colony grows1 the comfort increases4 ,the foundress is still its soul1 its principal mother1 and finds herself now at the head of a kingdom which might be the model of that of our honeybee4 ,but the model is still in the rough4 ,the prosperity of the humble-bees never exceeds a certain limit1 their laws are ill-defined and ill-obeyed1 primitive cannibalism and infanticide reappear at intervals1 the architecture is shapeless and entails much waste of material2 but the cardinal difference between the two cities is that the one is permanent1 and the other ephemeral4 ,for1 indeed1 that of the humble-bee will perish in the autumn2 its three or four hundred inhabitants will die1 leaving no trace of their passage or their endeavours2 and but a single female will survive1 who1 the next spring1 in the same solitude and poverty as her mother before her1 will recommence the same useless work4 ,the idea1 however1 has now grown aware of its strength4 ,among the humble-bees it goes no further than we have stated1 but1 faithful to its habits and pursuing its usual routine1 it will immediately undergo a sort of unwearying metempsychosis1 and re-incarnate itself1 trembling with its last triumph1 rendered all-powerful now and nearly perfect1 in another group1 the last but one of the race1 that which immediately precedes our domestic bee wherein it attains its crown2 the group of the ,meliponitae1 which comprises the tropical ,meliponae and ,trigonae4 #ajh ,here the organisation is as complete as in our hives4 ,there is an unique mother1 there are sterile workers and males4 ,certain details even seem better devised4 ,the males1 for instance1 are not wholly idle2 they secrete wax4 ,the entrance to the hive is more carefully guarded2 it has a door that can be closed when nights are cold1 and when these are warm a kind of curtain will admit the air4 ,but the republic is less strong1 general life less assured1 prosperity more limited1 than with our bees2 and wherever these are introduced1 the ,meliponitae tend to disappear before them4 ,in both races the fraternal idea has undergone equal and magnificent development1 save in one point alone1 wherein it achieves no further advance among the ,meliponitae than among the limited offspring of the humble-bees4 ,in the mechanical organisation of distributed labour1 in the precise economy of effort2 briefly1 in the architecture of the city1 they display manifest inferiority4 ,as to this ,i need only refer to what ,i said in section #db of this book1 while adding that1 whereas in the hives of our ,apitae all the cells are equally available for the rearing of the brood and the storage of provisions1 and endure as long as the city itself1 they serve only one of these purposes among the ,meliponitae1 and the cells employed as cradles for the nymphs are destroyed after these have been hatched499 99,it is not certain that the principle of unique royalty1 or maternity1 is strictly observed among the ,meliponitae4 ,blanchard remarks very justly1 that as they possess no sting and are consequently less readily able than the mothers of our own bees to kill each other1 several queens will probably live together in the same hive4 ,but certainty on this point has hitherto been unattainable owing to the great resemblance that exists between queens and workers1 as also to the impossibility of rearing the ,meliponitae in our climate4 ,it is in our domestic bees1 therefore1 that the idea1 of whose movements we have given a cursory and incomplete picture1 attains its most perfect form4 ,are these movements definitely1 and for all time1 arrested in each one of these species1 and does the connecting-line exist in our imagination alone8 ,let us not be too eager to establish a system in this ill-explored region4 ,let our conclusions be only provisional1 and preferentially such as convey the utmost hope1 for1 were a choice forced upon us1 occasional gleams would appear to declare that the inferences we are most desirous to draw will prove to be truest4 ,besides1 let us not forget that our ignorance still is profound4 ,we are only learning to open our eyes4 ,a thousand experiments that could be made have as yet not even been tried4 ,if the ,prosopes1 for instance1 were imprisoned1 and forced to cohabit with their kind1 would they1 in course of time1 overstep the iron barrier of total solitude1 and be satisfied to live the common life of the ,dasypodae1 or to put forth the fraternal effort of the ,panurgi8 ,and if we imposed abnormal conditions upon the ,panurgi1 would these1 in their turn1 progress from a general corridor to general cells8 ,if the mothers of the humble-bees were compelled to hibernate together1 would they arrive at a mutual understanding1 a mutual division of labour8 ,have combs of foundation-wax been offered to the ,meliponitae8 ,would they accept them1 would they make use of them1 would they conform their habits to this unwonted architecture8 ,questions1 these1 that we put to ,very tiny creatures2 and yet they contain the great word of our greatest secrets4 ,we cannot answer them1 for our experience dates but from yesterday4 ,starting with ,reaumur1 about a hundred and fifty years have elapsed since the habits of wild bees first received attention4 ,reaumur was acquainted with only a few of them2 we have since then observed a few more2 but hundreds1 thousands perhaps1 have hitherto been noticed only by hasty and ignorant travellers4 ,the habits of those that are known to us have undergone no change since the author of the ,memoirs published his valuable work2 and the humble-bees1 all powdered with gold1 and vibrant as the sun's delectable murmur1 that in the year #agcj gorged themselves with honey in the gardens of ,charenton1 were absolutely identical with those that to-morrow1 when ,april returns1 will be humming in the woods of ,vincennes1 but a few yards away4 ,from ,reaumur's day to our own1 however1 is but as the twinkling of an eye2 and many lives of men1 placed end to end1 form but a second in the history of ,nature's thought4 #aji ,although the idea that our eyes have followed attains its supreme expression in our domestic bees1 it must not be inferred therefrom that the hive reveals no faults4 ,there is one masterpiece1 the hexagonal cell1 that touches absolute perfection1--a perfection that all the geniuses in the world1 were they to meet in conclave1 could in no way enhance4 ,no living creature1 not even man1 has achieved1 in the centre of his sphere1 what the bee has achieved in her own2 and were some one from another world to descend and ask of the earth the most perfect creation of the logic of life1 we should needs have to offer the humble comb of honey4 ,but the level of this perfection is not maintained throughout4 ,we have already dealt with a few faults and shortcomings1 evident sometimes and sometimes mysterious1 such as the ruinous superabundance and idleness of the males1 parthenogenesis1 the perils of the nuptial flight1 excessive swarming1 the absence of pity1 and the almost monstrous sacrifice of the individual to society4 ,to these must be added a strange inclination to store enormous masses of pollen1 far in excess of their needs2 for the pollen1 soon turning rancid1 and hardening1 encumbers the surface of the comb2 and further1 the long sterile interregnum between the date of the first swarm and the impregnation of the second queen1 etc41 etc4 ,of these faults the gravest1 the only one which in our climates is invariably fatal1 is the repeated swarming4 ,but here we must bear in mind that the natural selection of the domestic bee has for thousands of years been thwarted by man4 ,from the ,egyptian of the time of ,pharaoh to the peasant of our own day1 the bee-keeper has always acted in opposition to the desires and advantages of the race4 ,the most prosperous hives are those which throw only one swarm after the beginning of summer4 ,they have fulfilled their maternal duties1 assured the maintenance of the stock and the necessary renewal of queens2 they have guaranteed the future of the swarm1 which1 being precocious and ample in numbers1 has time to erect solid and well-stored dwellings before the arrival of autumn4 ,if left to themselves1 it is clear that these hives and their offshoots would have been the only ones to survive the rigours of winter1 which would almost invariably have destroyed colonies animated by different instincts2 and the law of restricted swarming would therefore by slow degrees have established itself in our northern races4 ,but it is precisely these prudent1 opulent1 acclimatised hives that man has always destroyed in order to possess himself of their treasure4 ,he has permitted only--he does so to this day in ordinary practice--the feeblest colonies to survive2 degenerate stock1 secondary or tertiary swarms1 which have just barely sufficient food to subsist through the winter1 or whose miserable store he will supplement perhaps with a few droppings of honey4 ,the result is1 probably1 that the race has grown feebler1 that the tendency to excessive swarming has been hereditarily developed1 and that to-day almost all our bees1 particularly the black ones1 swarm too often4 ,for some years now the new methods of movable apiculture have gone some way towards correcting this dangerous habit2 and when we reflect how rapidly artificial selection acts on most of our domestic animals1 such as oxen1 dogs1 pigeons1 sheep and horses1 it is permissible to believe that we shall before long have a race of bees that will entirely renounce natural swarming and devote all their activity to the collection of honey and pollen4 #aaj ,but for the other faults3 might not an intelligence that possessed a clearer consciousness of the aim of common life emancipate itself from them8 ,much might be said concerning these faults1 which emanate now from what is unknown to us in the hive1 now from swarming and its resultant errors1 for which we are partly to blame4 ,but let every man judge for himself1 and1 having seen what has gone before1 let him grant or deny intelligence to the bees1 as he may think proper4 ,i am not eager to defend them4 ,it seems to me that in many circumstances they give proof of understanding1 but my curiosity would not be less were all that they do done blindly4 ,it is interesting to watch a brain possessed of extraordinary resources within itself wherewith it may combat cold and hunger1 death1 time1 space1 and solitude1 all the enemies of matter that is springing to life2 but should a creature succeed in maintaining its little profound and complicated existence without overstepping the boundaries of instinct1 without doing anything but what is ordinary1 that would be very interesting too1 and very extraordinary4 ,restore the ordinary and the marvellous to their veritable place in the bosom of nature1 and their values shift2 one equals the other4 ,we find that their names are usurped2 and that it is not they1 but the things we cannot understand or explain that should arrest our attention1 refresh our activity1 and give a new and juster form to our thoughts and feelings and words4 ,there is wisdom in attaching oneself to nought beside4 #aaa ,and further1 our intellect is not the proper tribunal before which to summon the bees1 and pass their faults in review4 ,do we not find1 among ourselves1 that consciousness and intellect long will dwell in the midst of errors and faults without perceiving them1 longer still without effecting a remedy8 ,if a being exist whom his destiny calls upon most specially1 almost organically1 to live and to organise common life in accordance with pure reason1 that being is man4 ,and yet see what he makes of it1 compare the mistakes of the hive with those of our own society4 ,how should we marvel1 for instance1 were we bees observing men1 as we noted the unjust1 illogical distribution of work among a race of creatures that in other directions appear to manifest eminent reason6 ,we should find the earth's surface1 unique source of all common life1 insufficiently1 painfully cultivated by two or three tenths of the whole population2 we should find another tenth absolutely idle1 usurping the larger share of the products of this first labour2 and the remaining seven-tenths condemned to a life of perpetual half-hunger1 ceaselessly exhausting themselves in strange and sterile efforts whereby they never shall profit1 but only shall render more complex and more inexplicable still the life of the idle4 ,we should conclude that the reason and moral sense of these beings must belong to a world entirely different from our own1 and that they must obey principles hopelessly beyond our comprehension4 ,but let us carry this review of our faults no further4 ,they are always present in our thoughts1 though their presence achieves but little4 ,from century to century only will one of them for a moment shake off its slumber1 and send forth a bewildered cry2 stretch the aching arm that supported its head1 shift its position1 and then lie down and fall asleep once more1 until a new pain1 born of the dreary fatigue of repose1 awaken it afresh4 #aab ,the evolution of the ,apiens1 or at least of the ,apitae1 being admitted1 or regarded as more probable than that they should have remained stationary1 let us now consider the general1 constant direction that this evolution takes4 ,it seems to follow the same roads as with ourselves4 ,it tends palpably to lessen the struggle1 insecurity1 and wretchedness of the race1 to augment authority and comfort1 and stimulate favourable chances4 ,to this end it will unhesitatingly sacrifice the individual1 bestowing general strength and happiness in exchange for the illusory and mournful independence of solitude4 ,it is as though ,nature were of the opinion with which ,thucydides credits ,pericles3 viz41 that individuals are happier in the bosom of a prosperous city1 even though they suffer themselves1 than when individually prospering in the midst of a languishing state4 ,it protects the hardworking slave in the powerful city1 while those who have no duties1 whose association is only precarious1 are abandoned to the nameless1 formless enemies who dwell in the minutes of time1 in the movements of the universe1 and in the recesses of space4 ,this is not the moment to discuss the scheme of nature1 or to ask ourselves whether it would be well for man to follow it2 but it is certain that wherever the infinite mass allows us to seize the appearance of an idea1 the appearance takes this road whereof we know not the end4 ,let it be enough that we note the persistent care with which nature preserves1 and fixes in the evolving race1 all that has been won from the hostile inertia of matter4 ,she records each happy effort1 and contrives we know not what special and benevolent laws to counteract the inevitable recoil4 ,this progress1 whose existence among the most intelligent species can scarcely be denied1 has perhaps no aim beyond its initial impetus1 and knows not whither it goes4 ,but at least1 in a world where nothing save a few facts of this kind indicates a precise will1 it is significant enough that we should see certain creatures rising thus1 slowly and continuously2 and should the bees have revealed to us only this mysterious spiral of light in the overpowering darkness1 that were enough to induce us not to regret the time we have given to their little gestures and humble habits1 which seem so far away and are yet so nearly akin to our grand passions and arrogant destinies4 #aac ,it may be that these things are all vain2 and that our own spiral of light1 no less than that of the bees1 has been kindled for no other purpose save that of amusing the darkness4 ,so1 too1 is it possible that some stupendous incident may suddenly surge from without1 from another world1 from a new phenomenon1 and either inform this effort with definitive meaning1 or definitively destroy it4 ,but we must proceed on our way as though nothing abnormal could ever befall us4 ,did we know that to-morrow some revelation1 a message1 for instance1 from a more ancient1 more luminous planet than ours1 were to root up our nature1 to suppress the laws1 the passions1 and radical truths of our being1 our wisest plan still would be to devote the whole of to-day to the study of these passions1 these laws1 and these truths1 which must blend and accord in our mind2 and to remain faithful to the destiny imposed on us1 which is to subdue1 and to some extent raise within and around us the obscure forces of life4 ,none of these1 perhaps1 will survive the new revelation2 but the soul of those who shall up to the end have fulfilled the mission that is pre-eminently the mission of man1 must inevitably be in the front rank of all to welcome this revelation2 and should they learn therefrom that indifference1 or resignation to the unknown1 is the veritable duty1 they will be better equipped than the others for the comprehension of this final resignation and indifference1 better able to turn these to account4 #aad ,but such speculations may well be avoided4 ,let not the possibility of general annihilation blur our perception of the task before us2 above all1 let us not count on the miraculous aid of chance4 ,hitherto1 the promises of our imagination notwithstanding1 we have always been left to ourselves1 to our own resources4 ,it is to our humblest efforts that every useful1 enduring achievement of this earth is due4 ,it is open to us1 if we choose1 to await the better or worse that may follow some alien accident1 but on condition that such expectation shall not hinder our human task4 ,here again do the bees1 as ,nature always1 provide a most excellent lesson4 ,in the hive there has truly been prodigious intervention4 ,the bees are in the hands of a power capable of annihilating or modifying their race1 of transforming their destinies2 the bees' thraldom is far more definite than our own4 ,therefore none the less do they perform their profound and primitive duty4 ,and1 among them1 it is precisely those whose obedience to duty is most complete who are able most fully to profit by the supernatural intervention that to-day has raised the destiny of their species4 ,and indeed1 to discover the unconquerable duty of a being is less difficult than one imagines4 ,it is ever to be read in the distinguishing organs1 whereto the others are all subordinate4 ,and just as it is written in the tongue1 the stomach1 and mouth of the bee that it must make honey1 so is it written in our eyes1 our ears1 our nerves1 our marrow1 in every lobe of our head1 that we must make cerebral substance2 nor is there need that we should divine the purpose this substance shall serve4 ,the bees know not whether they will eat the honey they harvest1 as we know not who it is shall reap the profit of the cerebral substance we shall have formed1 or of the intelligent fluid that issues therefrom and spreads over the universe1 perishing when our life ceases or persisting after our death4 ,as they go from flower to flower collecting more honey than themselves and their offspring can need1 let us go from reality to reality seeking food for the incomprehensible flame1 and thus1 certain of having fulfilled our organic duty1 preparing ourselves for whatever befall4 ,let us nourish this flame on our feelings and passions1 on all that we see and think1 that we hear and touch1 on its own essence1 which is the idea it derives from the discoveries1 experience and observation that result from its every movement4 ,a time then will come when all things will turn so naturally to good in a spirit that has given itself to the loyal desire of this simple human duty1 that the very suspicion of the possible aimlessness of its exhausting effort will only render the duty the clearer1 will only add more purity1 power1 disinterestedness1 and freedom to the ardour wherewith it still seeks4 ,,appendix ,,to give a complete bibliography of the bee were outside the scope of this book2 we shall be satisfied1 therefore1 merely to indicate the more interesting works3-- #a4 ,the ,historical ,development of ,apiarian ,science3 7a7 ,the ancient writers3 ,aristotle1 ,history of ,animals 7,trans4 ,bart4 ,st4 ,hilaire72 ,t4 ,varro1 ,de ,agricultura1 ,l4 ,,iii4 xvi42 ,pliny1 ,hist4 ,nat41 ,l4 xi42 ,columella1 ,de ,re ,rustica2 ,palladius1 ,de ,re ,rustica1 ,l4 ,i4 xxxvii41 etc4 7b7 ,the moderns3 ,swammerdam1 ,biblia ,naturae1 #agcg2 ,maraldi1 ,observations sur les ,abeilles1 #agab2 ,reaumur1 ,memoires pour servir a l',histoire des ,insectes1 #agdj2 ,ch4 ,bonnet1 ,o,euvres d',histoire ,naturelle1 #aggi-aghc2 ,a4 ,g4 ,schirach1 ,physikalische ,untersuchung der bisher unbekannten aber nachher entdeckten ,erzeugung der ,bienen-mutter1 #agfg2 ,j4 ,hunter1 ,on ,bees 7,philosophical ,transactions1 #agcb72 ,j4 ,a4 ,janscha1 ,hinterlassene ,vollstandige ,lehre von der ,bienenzucht1 #aggc2 ,francois ,huber1 ,nouvelles ,observations sur les ,abeilles1 #agid1 etc4 #b4 ,practical ,apiculture3 ,dzierzon1 ,theorie und ,praxis des neuen ,bienenfreundes2 ,langstroth1 ,the ,honeybee7translated into ,french by ,ch4 ,dadant3 ,l',abeille et la ,ruche1 which corrects and completes the original72 ,georges de ,layens and ,bonnier1 ,cours ,complet d',apiculture2 ,frank ,cheshire1 ,bees and ,bee-keeping 7vol4 ii4--,practical72 ,dr4 ,e4 ,bevan1 ,the ,honey-bee2 ,t4 ,w4 ,cowan1 ,the ,british ,bee-keeper's ,guidebook2 ,a4 ,root1 ,the ,a ,b ,c of ,bee-,culture2 ,henry ,alien1 ,the ,bee-keeper's ,handy-book2 ,l',abbe ,collin1 ,guide du ,proprietaire des ,abeilles2 ,ch4 ,dadant1 ,petit ,cours d',apiculture ,pratique2 ,ed4 ,bertrand1 ,conduite du ,rucher2 ,weber1 ,manuel pratique d',apiulture2 ,hamet1 ,cours ,complet d',api-culture2 ,de ,bauvoys1 ,guide de l',apiculteur2 ,pollmann1 ,die ,biene und ihre ,zucht2 ,jeker1 ,kramer1 and ,theiler1 ,der ,schweizerische ,bienenvater2 ,s4 ,simmins1 ,a ,modern ,bee ,farm2 ,f4 ,w4 ,vogel1 ,die ,honigbiene und die ,vermehrung der ,bienvolker2 ,baron ,a4 ,von ,berlepsch1 ,die ,biene und ihre ,frucht1 etc4 #c4 ,general ,monographs3 ,f4 ,cheshire1 ,bees and ,bee-keeping 7vol4 i4--,scientific72 ,t4 ,w4 ,cowan1 ,the ,honey-bee2 ,j4 ,perez1 ,les ,abeilles2 ,girard1 ,manuel d',apiculture 7,les ,abeilles1 ,organes et ,fonctions72 ,schuckard1 ,british ,bees2 ,kirby and ,spence1 ,introduction to ,entomology2 ,girdwoyn1 ,anatomie et ,physiologic de l',abeille2 ,f4 ,cheshire1 ,diagrams on the ,anatomy of the ,honeybee2 ,gunderach1 ,die ,naturgeschichte der ,honigbiene2 ,l4 ,buchner1 ,geistes-leben der ,thiere2 ,o4 ,butschli1 ,zur ,entwicklungsgeschichte der ,biene2 ,j4 ,d4 ,haviland1 ,the ,social ,instincts of ,bees1 their ,origin and ,natural ,selection4 #d4 ,special ,monographs 7,organs1 ,functions1 ,undertakings1 etc473 ,f4 ,dujardin1 ,memoires sur le ,systeme nerveux des ,insectes2 ,dumas and ,milne ,edwards1 ,sur la ,production de la ,cire des ,abeilles2 ,e4 ,blanchard1 ,recherches anatomiques sur le ,systeme nerveux des ,insectes2 ,l4 ,r4 ,d4 ,brougham1 ,observations1 ,demonstrations1 and ,experiences upon the ,structure of the ,cells of ,bees2 ,p4 ,cameron1 ,on ,parthenogenesis in the ,hymenoptera 7,transactions ,natural ,society of ,glasgow1 #ahhh72 ,erichson1 ,de ,fabrica et ,usu ,antennarum in ,insectis2 ,b4 ,t4 ,lowne1 ,on the ,simple and ,compound ,eyes of ,insects 7,philosophical ,transactions1 #ahgi72 ,g4 ,k4 ,waterhouse1 ,on the ,formation of the ,cells of ,bees and ,wasps2 ,dr4 ,c4 ,t4 ,e4 von ,siebold1 ,on a ,true ,parthenogenesis in ,moths and ,bees2 ,f4 ,leydig1 ,das ,auge der ,gliederthiere2 ,pastor ,schonfeld1 ,bienen-,zeitung1 #ahed--ahhc2 ,illustrierte ,bienen-,zeitung1 #ahhe-ahij2 ,assmuss1 ,die ,parasiten der ,honig-biene4 #e4 ,notes on ,melliferous ,hymenoptera3 ,e4 ,blanchard1 ,metamorphoses1 ,moeurs et ,instincts des ,insectes2 ,vid3 ,histoire des ,insectes2 ,darwin1 ,origin of ,species2 ,fabre1 ,souvenirs ,entomologiques 7#c;d series72 ,romanes1 ,mental ,evolution in ,animals2 id41 ,animal ,intelligence2 ,lepeletier et ,fargeau1 ,histoire ,naturelle des ,hymenopteres2 ,v4 ,mayet1 ,memoire sur les ,moeurs et sur les ,metamorphoses d'une ,nouvelle ,espece de la ,famille des ,vesicants 7,ann4 ,soc4 ,entom4 de ,france1 #ahge72 ,h4 ,muller1 ,ein ,beitrag zur ,lebensgeschichte der ,dasypoda ,hirtipes2 ,e4 ,hoffer1 ,biologische ,beobachtungen an ,hummeln und ,schmarotzerhummeln2 ,jesse1 ,gleanings in ,natural ,history2 ,sir ,john ,lubbock1 ,ants1 ,bees1 and ,wasps2 id41 ,the ,senses1 ,instincts1 and ,intelligence of ,animals2 ,walkenaer1 ,les ,haclites2 ,westwood1 ,introduction to the ,study of ,insects2 ,v4 ,rendu1 ,de l',intelligence des ,betes2 ,espinas1 ,animal ,communities1 etc4