Life of the bee

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THE LIFE OF THE BEE

Bjf the Same Author:

THE TREASURE OF THE HUMBLE. Trans-
lated by Alfred Sutro. i2mo. $1.75.

WISDOM AND DESTINY. Translated by
Alfred Sutro. i2mo. $1.75.

THE LIFE OF THE BEE. Translated by
Alfred Sutro. i2mo. $1.40 «^/.

SISTER BEATRICE AND ARDIANE AND
BARBE BLEUE. Translated by Bernard
Miall. i2mo. $1.20 «^/.

THE BURIED TEMPLE. Translated by Alfred
Sutro. i2mo. %\.^onet.

THOUGHTS FROM MAETERLINCK. Arranged
by E. S. S. i2mo. $1.20 net.

THE DOUBLE GARDEN. Translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. i2mo.
$1.40 net.

The Life of the Bee

BY

MAURICE MAETERLINCK""

Translated by
ALFRED SUTRO

%

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY

1909 •]

/

A6 P03

Copyright, jgoi
By Dodd, Mead and Company

All rights reserved

Published May, igoi

271851

BOSTON C0LLE<5E LIBRARY

CHESTiNUT HI;;L. MASS.

UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.

Contents

Page

I. On the Threshold of the Hive 3
II. The Swarm 37

III. The Foundation of the City . 131

IV. The Life of the Bee . . . .159
V. The Young Queens .... 233

VI. The Nuptial Flight .... 295

VII. The Massacre of the Males . 347

VIII. The Progress of the Race. . . 363

Appendix 423

I

ON THE THRESHOLD OF
THE HIVE

The Life of the Bee
I

ON THE THRESHOLD OF
THE HIVE

[i]

IT is not my intention to write a trea-
tise on apiculture, or on practical
bee-keeping. Excellent works of the
kind abound in all civilised countries,
and it were useless to attempt another.
France has those of Dadant, Georges de
Layens and Bonnier, Bertrand, Hamet,
Weber, Clement, the Abbe Collin, etc.
English-speaking countries have Langs-
troth, Bevan, Cook, Cheshire, Cowan,
Root, etc. Germany has Dzierzon, Van
Berlespoch, Pollmann, Vogel, and many
others,

3

The Life of the Bee

Nor is this book to be a scientific
monograph on Apis Mellifica, Ligustica,
Fasciata, Dorsata, etc., or a collection of
new observations and studies. I shall
say scarcely anything that those will not
know who are somewhat familiar with
bees. The notes and experiments I have
made during my twenty years of bee-
keeping I shall reserve for a more techni-
cal work; for their interest is necessarily
of a special and limited nature, and I
am anxious not to over-burden this
essay. I wish to speak of the bees very
simply, as one speaks of a subject one
knows and loves to those who know
it not. I do not intend to adorn the
truth, or merit the just reproach Reaumur
addressed to his predecessors in the study
of our honey-flies, whom he accused of
substituting for the marvellous reality
marvels that were imaginary and merely
plausible. The fact that the hive con-
4

On the Threshold of the Hive

tains so much that is wonderful does
not warrant our seeking to add to its
wonders. Besides, I myself have now for
a long time ceased to look for anything
more beautiful in this world, or more
interesting, than the truth; or at least
than the effort one is able to make
towards the truth. I shall state nothing,
therefore, that I have not verified myself,
or that is not so fully accepted in the
text-books as to render further verifica-
tion superfluous. My facts shall be as
accurate as though they appeared in a
practical manual or scientific monograph,
but I shall relate them in a somewhat
livelier fashion than such works would
allow, shall group them more harmoni-
ously together, and blend them with
freer and more mature reflections. The
reader of this book will not learn there-
from how to manage a hive ; but he will
know more or less all that can with any
5

The Life of the Bee

certainty be known of the curious, pro-
found, and intimate side of its inhabi-
tants. Nor will this be at the cost of
what still remains to be learned. I shall
pass over in silence the hoary traditions
that, in the country and many a book,
still constitute the legend of the hive.
Whenever there be doubt, disagreement,
hypothesis, when I arrive at the unknown,
I shall declare it loyally; you will find
that we often shall halt before the un-
known. Beyond the appreciable facts
of their life we know but little of the
bees. And the closer our acquaintance
becomes, the nearer is our ignorance
brought to us of the depths of their real
existence; but such ignorance is better
than the other kind, which is uncon-
scious, and satisfied.

Does an analogous work on the bee
exist ? I believe I have read almost all
that has been written on bees; but of
6

On the Threshold of the Hive

kindred matter I know only Michelet's
chapter at the end of his book " The
Insect," and Ludwig Biichner's essay in
his "Mind in Animals/' Michelet merely
hovers on the fringe of his subject ; Buch-
ner's treatise is comprehensive enough,
but contains so many hazardous state-
ments, so much long-discarded gossip
and hearsay, that I suspect him of never
having left his library, never having set
forth himself to question his heroines,
or opened one of the many hundreds of
rustling, wing-lit hives which we must
profane before our instinct can be attuned
to their secret, before we can perceive the
spirit and atmosphere, perfume and mys-
tery, of these virgin daughters of toil.
The book smells not of the bee, or its
honey ; and has the defects of many a
learned work, whose conclusions often
are preconceived, and whose scientific at-
tainment is composed of a vast array of
7

The Life of the Bee

doubtful anecdotes collected on every
side. But in this essay of mine we rarely
shall meet each other ; for our starting-
point, our aim, and our point of view
are all very different.

The bibliography of the bee (we will
begin with the books so as to get rid
of them as soon as we can and go to
the source of the books) is very exten-
sive. From the beginning this strange
little creature, that lived in a society
under complicated laws and executed
prodigious labours in the darkness, at-
tracted the notice of men. Aristotle,
Cato, Varro, Pliny, Columella, Palladius
all studied the bees ; to say nothing of
Aristomachus, who, according to Cicero,
watched them for fifty-eight years, and of
Phyliscus, whose writings are lost. But
these dealt rather with the legend of the

On the Threshold of the Hive

bee ; and all that we can gather there-
from — which indeed is exceedingly little
— we may find condensed in the fourth
book of Virgil's Georgics.

The real history of the bee begins in
the seventeenth century, with the discov-
eries of the great Dutch savant Swammer-
dam. It is well, however, to add this
detail, but little known : before Swam-
merdam a Flemish naturalist named
Clutius had arrived at certain important
truths, such as the sole maternity of the
queen and her possession of the attributes
of both sexes, but he had left these un-
proved. Swammerdam founded the true
methods of scientific investigation ; he
invented the microscope, contrived injec-
tions to ward off decay, was the first to
dissect the bees, and by the discovery of
the ovaries and the oviduct definitely fixed
the sex of the queen, hitherto looked
upon as a king, and threw the whole
9

The Life of the Bee

political scheme of the hive into most
unexpected light by basing it upon mater-
nity. Finally he produced woodcuts and
engravings so perfect that to this day they
serve to illustrate many books on apicul-
ture. He lived in the turbulent, restless
Amsterdam of those days, regretting
" Het Zoete Buiten Leve " — The Sweet
Life of the Country — and died, worn-
out with work, at the age of forty-three.
He wrote in a pious, formal style, with
beautiful, simple outbursts of a faith that,
fearful of falling away, ascribed all things
to the glory of the Creator ; and em-
bodied his observations and studies in his
great work "Bybel der Natuure," which
the doctor Boerhave, a century later,
caused to be translated from the Dutch
into Latin under the title of " Biblia
Naturae." (Leyden, 1737.)

Then came Reaumur, who, pursuing
similar methods, made a vast number of
10

On the Threshold of the Hive

curious experiments and researches in his
gardens at Charenton, and devoted to the
bees an entire volume of his " Notes to
Serve for a History of Insects." One
may read it with profit to-day, and with-
out fatigue. It is clear, direct, and sin-
cere, and possessed of a certain hard, arid
charm of its own. He sought especially
the destruction of ancient errors ; he him-
self was responsible for several new ones ;
he partially understood the formation of
swarms and the political establishment
of queens ; in a word, he discovered
many difficult truths, and paved the way
for the discovery of more. He fully
appreciated the marvellous architecture
of the hive; and what he said on the
subject has never been better said. It is
to him, too, that we owe the idea of the
glass hives, which, having since been
perfected, enable us to follow the entire
private life of these fierce insects, whose
II

The Life of the Bee

work, begun in the dazzling sunshine,
receives its crown in the darkness. To
be comprehensivej one should mention
also the somewhat subsequent works and
investigations of Charles Bonnet and
Schirach (who solved the enigma of the
royal egg) ; but I will keep to the broad
lines, and pass at once to Fran9ois Huber,
the master and classic of contemporary-
apiarian science.

Huber was born in Geneva in 1750,
and fell blind in his earliest youth. The
experiments of Reaumur interested him ;
he sought to verify them, and soon be-
coming passionately absorbed in these
researches, eventually, with the assist-
ance of an intelligent and faithful servant,
Fran9ois Burnens, devoted his entire life
to the study of the bee. In the annals
of human suffering and human triumph
there is nothing more touching, no lesson
more admirable, than the story of this
12

On the Threshold of the Hive

patient collaboration, 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
vision ; where he who, as we are assured,
had never with his own eyes beheld a
comb of honey, was yet able, notwith-
standing the veil on his dead eyes that
rendered double the veil in which nature
enwraps all things, to penetrate the pro-
found secrets of the genius that had made
this invisible comb ; as though to teach
us that no condition in life can warrant
our abandoning our desire and search for
the truth. I will not enumerate all that
apiarian science owes to Huber; to state
what it does not owe were the briefer
task. His " New Observations on Bees,"
of which the first volume was written in
1789, in the form of letters to Charles
Bonnet, the second not appearing till
twenty years later, have remained the
13

The Life of the Bee

unfailing, abundant treasure into which
every subsequent writer has dipped. And
though a few mistakes may be found
therein, a few incomplete truths ; though
since his time considerable additions have
been made to the micrography and prac-
tical culture of bees, the handling of
queens, etc., there is not a single one of
his principal statements that has been
disproved, or discovered in error; and
in our actual experience they stand
untouched, and indeed at its very
foundation.

[3]

Some years of silence followed these
revelations ; but soon a German clergy-
man, Dzierzon, discovered parthenogene-
sis, /. e, the virginal parturition of queens,
and contrived the first hive with movable
combs, thereby enabling the bee-keeper
henceforth to take his share o^ the harvest
14

On the Threshold of the Hive

of honey, without being forced to destroy
his best colonies and in one instant
annihilate the work of an entire year.
This hive, still very imperfect, received
masterly improvement at the hands of
Langstroth, who invented the movable
frame properly so called, which has been
adopted in America with extraordinary suc-
cess. Root, Quinby, Dadant, Cheshire,
De Layens, Cowan, Heddon, Howard,
etc., added still further and precious im-
provement. Then it occurred to Mehring
that if bees were supplied with combs
that had an artificial waxen foundation,
they would be spared the labour of
fashioning the wax and constructing the
cells, which costs them much honey and
the best part of their time ; he found that
the bees accepted these combs most
readily, and adapted them to their
requirements.

Major de Hruschka invented the Honey-

The Life of the Bee

Extractor, which enables the honey to be
withdrawn by centrifugal force without
breaking the combs, etc. And thus, in a
few years, the methods of apiculture
underwent a radical change. The capac-
ity and fruitfulness of the hives were
trebled. Great and productive apiaries
arose on every side. An end was put
to the useless destruction of the most
industrious cities, and to the odious selec-
tion of the least fit which was its result.
Man truly became the master of the
bees, although furtively, and without their
knowledge ; directing all things without
giving an order, receiving obedience but
not recognition. For the destiny once
imposed by the seasons he has substituted
his will. He repairs the injustice of the
year, unites hostile republics, and equal-
ises wealth. He restricts or augments
the births, regulates the fecundity of the
queen, dethrones her and instals another
i6

On the Threshold of the Hive

in her place, after dexterously obtaining
the reluctant consent of a people who
would be maddened at the mere suspicion
of an inconceivable intervention. When
he thinks fit, he will peacefully violate
the secret of the sacred chambers, and the
elaborate, tortuous policy of the palace.
He will ^VQ or six times in succession de-
prive the bees of the fruit of their labour,
without harming them, without their be-
coming discouraged or even impoverished.
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 hills. He compels
them to reduce the extravagant number
of lovers who await the birth of the royal
princesses. In a word he does with them
what he will, he obtains what he will, pro-
vided always that what he seeks be in ac-
cordance with their laws and their virtues ;
for beyond all the desires of this strange

2 ly

The Life of the Bee

god who has taken possession of them,
who is too vast to be seen and too alien
to be understood, their eyes see further
than the eyes of the god himself; and
their one thought is the accomplishment,
with untiring sacrifice, of the mysterious
duty of their race.

[4]

Let us now, having learned from books
all that they had to teach us of a very
ancient history, leave the science others
have acquired and look at the bees with
our own eyes. An hour spent in the
midst of the apiary will be less instruc-
tive, perhaps ; but the things we shall see
will be infinitely more stimulating and
more actual.

I have not yet forgotten the first apiary

I saw, where I learned to love the bees.

It was many years ago, in a large village

of Dutch Flanders, the sweet and pleasant

18

On the Threshold of the Hive

country whose love for brilliant colour
rivals that of Zealand even, the concave
mirror of Holland; a country that gladly
spreads out before us, as so many pretty,
thoughtful toys, her illuminated gables,
and waggons, and towers ; her cupboards
and clocks that gleam at the end of the
passage; her little trees marshalled in Hne
along quays and canal-banks, waiting, one
almost might think, for some quiet, benef-
icent ceremony; her boats and her barges
with sculptured poops, her flower-like
doors and windows, immaculate dams,
and elaborate, many-coloured drawbridges ;
and her little varnished houses, bright as
new pottery, from which bell-shaped
dames come forth, all a-glitter with silver
and gold, to milk the cows in the white-
hedged fields, or spread the linen on
flowery lawns, cut into patterns of oval
and lozenge, and most astoundingly
green.

19

The Life of the Bee

To this spot, where hfe would seem
more restricted than elsewhere — if it be
possible for life indeed to become re-
stricted — a sort of aged philosopher had
retired ; an old man somewhat akin to
VirgiFs —

" Man equal to kings, and approaching the gods ; "

whereto Lafontaine might have added, —
*'And, like the gods, content and at rest."

Here had he built his refuge, being a
little weary ; not disgusted, for the large
aversions are unknown to the sage ; but a
little weary of interrogating men, 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
plants. His happiness, like the Scythian
philosopher's, lay all in the beauties of
his garden ; and best-loved and visited
most often, was the apiary, composed of
20

On the Threshold of the Hive

twelve domes of straw, some of which he
had painted a bright pink, and some a
clear yellow, but most of all a tender
blue ; having noticed, long before Sir
John Lubbock's demonstrations, the bees'
fondness for this colour.

These hives stood against the wall of
the house, in the angle formed by one of
those pleasant and graceful Dutch kit-
chens whose earthenware dresser, all bright
with copper and tin, reflected itself through
the open door on to the peaceful canal.
And the water, burdened with these fami-
liar images beneath its curtain of poplars,
led one's eyes to a calm horizon of mills
and of meadows.

Here, as in all places, the hives lent a
new meaning to the flowers and the silence,
the balm of the air and the rays of the
sun. One seemed to have drawn very
near to the festival spirit of nature. One
was content to rest at this radiant cross-

21

The Life of the Bee

road, where the aerial ways converge and
divide that the busy and tuneful bearers
of all country perfumes unceasingly travel
from dawn unto dusk. One heard the
musical voice of the garden, whose love-
hest hours revealed their rejoicing soul
and sang of their gladness. One came
hither, to the school of the bees, to be
taught the preoccupations of all-powerful
nature, the harmonious concord of the
three kingdoms, the indefatigable organi-
sation of life, and the lesson of ardent and
disinterested work ; and another lesson
too, with a moral as good, that the heroic
workers taught there, and emphasised, as
it were, with the fiery darts of their
myriad wings, was to appreciate the
somewhat vague savour of leisure, to
enjoy the almost unspeakable delights
of those immaculate days that revolved
on themselves in the fields of space,
forming merely a transparent globe, as

22

On the Threshold of the Hive

void of memory as the happiness with-
out alloy.

[5]

In order to follow, as simply as possible,
the life of the bees through the year, we
will take a hive that awakes in the spring
and duly starts on its labours ; and then
we shall meet, in their natural order, all
the great episodes, viz. : the formation
and departure of the swarm, the founda-
tion of the new city, the birth, combat
and nuptial flight of the young queens, the
massacre of the males, and finally, the
return of the sleep of winter. With each
of these episodes there will go the neces-
sary explanations as to the laws, habits,
peculiarities and events that produce and
accompany it; so that, when arrived at
the end of the bee's short year, which
extends only from April to the last days
of September, we shall have gazed upon
23

The Life of the Bee

all the mysteries of the palace of honey.
Before we open it, therefore, and throw a
general glance around, we only need say
that the hive is composed of a queen, the
mother of all her people ; of thousands
of workers or neuters who are incomplete
and sterile females ; and lastly of some
hundreds of males, from whom one shall
be chosen as the sole and unfortunate
consort of the queen that the workers
will elect in the future, after the more or
less voluntary departure of the reigning
mother.

[6]

The first time that we open a hive there
comes over us an emotion akin to that we
might feel at profaning some unknown
object, charged perhaps with dreadful
surprise, as a tomb. A legend of menace
and peril still clings to the bees. There
is the distressful recollection of her sting,
24

On the Threshold of the Hive

which produces a pain so characteristic that
one knows not wherewith to compare it ;
a kind of destroying dryness, a flame of
the desert rushing over the wounded Hmb,
as though these daughters of the sun had
distilled a dazzHng poison from their
father's angry rays, in order more effec-
tively to defend the treasure they gather
from his beneficent hours.

It is true that were some one who neither
knows nor respects the customs and char-
acter of the bee suddenly to fling open
the hive, it would turn at once into a
burning bush of heroism and anger ; but
the slight amount of skill needed to
handle it with impunity can be most
readily acquired. Let but a little smoke
be deftly applied, much coolness and
gentleness be shown, and our well-armed
workers will suffer themselves to be
despoiled without dreaming of drawing
their sting. It is not the fact, as some
25

The Life of the Bee

have maintained, that the bees recognise
their master ; nor have they any fear of
man ; but at the smell of the smoke, at
the large slow gestures that traverse their
dwellings without threatening them, they
imagine that this is not the attack of an
enemy against whom defence is pos-
sible, but that it is a force or a natural
catastrophe whereto they do well to
submit.

Instead of vainly struggling, therefore,
they do what they can to safeguard the
future ; and, obeying a foresight that for
once is in error, they fly to their reserves
of honey, into which they eagerly dip in
order to possess within themselves the
wherewithal to start a new city, immedi-
ately and no matter where, should the
ancient one be destroyed or they be
compelled to forsake it.

26

On the Threshold of the Hive

[7]

The first impression of the novice
before whom an observation-hive ^ is
opened will be one of some disappoint-
ment. He had been told that this little
glass case contained an unparalleled activ-
ity, an infinite number of wise laws,
and a startling amalgam of mystery, ex-
perience, genius, calculation, science, of
various industries, of certitude and pre-
science, of intelligent habits and curious
feelings and virtues. All that he sees is
a confused mass of little reddish groups,

^ By observation-hive is meant a hive of glass,
furnished with black curtains or shutters. The best
kind have only one comb, thus permitting both, faces
to be studied. These hives can be placed in a draw-
ing-room, library, etc., without inconvenience or dan-
ger. The bees that inhabit the one I have in my
study in Paris are able even in the stony desert of that
great city, to find the wherewithal to nourish them-
selves and to prosper.

27

The Life of the Bee

somewhat resembling roasted coffee-ber-
ries, or bunches of raisins piled against
the glass. They look more dead than
alive ; their movements are slow, inco-
herent, and incomprehensible. Can these
be the wonderful drops of light he had
seen but a moment ago, unceasingly flash-
ing and sparkling, as they darted among
the pearls and the gold of a thousand
wide-open calyces ?

They appear to be shivering in the
darkness, to be numbed, suffocated, so
closely are they huddled together ; one
might fancy they were ailing captives, or
queens dethroned, who have had their
one moment of glory in the midst of
their radiant garden, and are now com-
pelled to return to the shameful squalor
of their poor overcrowded home.

It is with them as with all that is
deeply real ; they must be studied, and
one must learn how to study them. The
28

On the Threshold of the Hive

inhabitant of another planet who should
see men and women coming and going
almost imperceptibly through our streets,
crowding at certain times around certain
buildings, or waiting for one knows
not what, without apparent movement,
in the depths of their dwellings, might
conclude therefrom that they, too, were
miserable and inert. It takes time to
distinguish the manifold activity con-
tained in this inertia.

And indeed every one of the little
almost motionless groups in the hive is
incessantly working, each at a different
trade. Repose is unknown to any ; and
such, for instance, as seem the most tor-
pid, as they hang in dead clusters against
the glass, are intrusted with the most
mysterious and fatiguing task of all : it is
they who secrete and form the wax. But
the details of this universal activity will
be given in their place. For the mo-
29

The Life of the Bee

ment we need only call attention to
the essential trait in the nature of the
bee which accounts for the extraordinary-
agglomeration of the various workers.
The bee is above all, and even to a
greater extent than the ant, a creature
of the crowd. She can live only in the
midst of a multitude. When she leaves '
the hive, which is so densely packed that
she has to force her way with blows of
her head through the living walls that
enclose her, she departs from her proper
element. She will dive for an instant
into flower-filled space, as the swimmer
will dive into the sea that is filled with
pearls, but under pain of death it
behoves her at regular intervals to re-
turn and breathe the crowd as the swim-
mer must return and breathe the air.
Isolate her, and however abundant the
food or favourable the temperature, she
will expire in a few days not of hunger
30

On the Threshold of the Hive

or cold, but of loneliness. From the
crowd, from the city, she derives an
invisible aliment that is as necessary
to her as honey. This craving will
help to explain the spirit of the laws of
the hive. For in them the individual is
nothing, her existence conditional only,
and herself, for one indifferent moment,
a winged organ of the race. Her whole
life is an entire sacrifice to the manifold,
everlasting being whereof she forms part.
It is strange to note that it was not always
so. We find even to-day, among the
melliferous hymenoptera, all the stages
of progressive civilisation of our own do-
mestic bee. At the bottom of the scale
we find her working alone, in wretched-
ness, often not seeing her offspring (the
Prosopis, the Colletes, etc.) ; sometimes
living in the midst of the limited
family that she produces annually (as in
the case of the humble-bee). Then she
31

The Life of the Bee

forms temporary associations (the Pan-
urgi, the Dasypodoe, the HacUti, etc.)
and at last we arriv^e, through successive
stages, at the almost perfect but pitiless
society of our hives, where the individual
is entirely merged in the republic, and
the republic in its turn invariably sacri-
ficed to the abstract and immortal city of
the future.

[8]

Let us not too hastily deduce from
these facts conclusions that apply to man.
He possesses the power of withstanding
certain of nature's laws ; and to know
whether such resistance be right or wrong
is the gravest and obscurest point in his
morality. But it is deeply interesting
to discover what the will of nature may
be in a different world ; and this will'
is revealed with extraordinary clearness in
the evolution of the hymenoptera, which,
32

On the Threshold of the Hive

of all the inhabitants of this globe, possess
the highest degree of intellect after that
of man. The aim of nature is manifestly
the improvement of the race ; but no
less manifest is her inability, or refusal,
to obtain such improvement except at
the cost of the liberty, the rights, and
the happiness of the individual. In
proportion as a society organises itself,
and rises in the scale, so does a shrinkage
enter the private life of each one of its
members. Where there is progress, it
is the result only of a more and more
complete sacrifice of the individual to
the general interest. Each one is com-
pelled, first of all, to renounce his vices,
which are acts of independence. For
instance, at the last stage but one of
apiarian civilisation, we find the humble-
bees, which are like our cannibals. The
adult workers are incessantly hovering
around the eggs, which they seek to
3 33

The Life of the Bee

devour, and the mother has to display
the utmost stubbornness in their defence.
Then having freed himself from his most
dangerous vices, each individual has to
acquire a certain number of more and
more painful virtues. Among the humble-
bees, for instance, the workers do not
dream of renouncing love, whereas our
domestic bee lives in a state of perpetual
chastity. And indeed we soon shall show
how much more she has to abandon, in
exchange for the comfort and security of
the hive, for its architectural, economic,
and political perfection ; and we shall re-
turn to the evolution of the hymenoptera
in the chapter devoted to the progress of
the species.

34

II

THE SWARM

35

II

THE SWARM

[9]

WE will now, so as to draw more
closely to nature, consider the
different episodes of the swarm as they
come to pass in an ordinary hive, which
is ten or twenty times more populous
than an observation one, and leaves the
bees entirely free and untrammelled.

Here, then, they have shaken off the
torpor of winter. The queen started
laying again in the very first days of
February, and the workers have flocked
to the willows and nut-trees, gorse and
violets, anemones and lungworts. Then
spring invades the earth, and cellar and
stream with honey and pollen, while each
37

The Life of the Bee

day beholds the birth of thousands of
bees. The overgrown males now all sally-
forth from their cells, and disport them-
selves on the combs ; and so crowded
does the too prosperous city become that
hundreds of belated workers, coming back
from the flowers towards evening, will
vainly seek shelter within, and will be
forced to spend the night on the threshold,
where they will be decimated by the cold.
Restlessness seizes the people, and the
old queen begins to stir. She feels
that a new destiny is being prepared.
She has religiously fulfilled her duty as a
good creatress ; and from this duty done
there result only tribulation and sorrow.
An invincible power menaces her tran-
quillity ; she will soon be forced to quit
this city of hers, where she has reigned.
But this city is her work, it is she, her-
self. She is not its queen in the sense in
which men use the word. She issues no
38

The Swarm

orders ; she obeys, as meekly as the
humblest of her subjects, the masked
power, sovereignly wise, that for the
present, and till we attempt to locate it,
we will term the " spirit of the hive."
But she is the unique organ of love ; she
is the mother of the city. She founded
it amid uncertainty and poverty. She
has peopled it with her own substance ;
and all who move within its walls —
workers, males, larvae, nymphs, and the
young princesses whose approaching birth
will hasten her own departure, one of
them being already designed as her suc-
cessor by the "spirit of the hive" —
all these have issued from her flanks.

[lo]

What is this "spirit of the hive" —

where does it reside ? It is not like the

special instinct that teaches the bird to

construct its well planned nest, and then

39

The Life of the Bee

seek other skies when the day for mi-
gration returns. Nor is it a kind of
mechanical habit of the race, or blind
craving for life, that will fling the bees
upon any wild hazard the moment an
unforeseen event shall derange the accus-
tomed order of phenomena. On the
contrary, be the event never so masterful,
the " spirit of the hive " still will follow
it, step by step, like an alert and quick-
witted slave, who is able to derive ad-
vantage even from his master's most
dangerous orders.

It disposes pitilessly of the wealth and
the happiness, the liberty and life, of all
this winged people ; and yet with discre-
tion, as though governed itself by some
great duty. It regulates day by day the
number of births, and contrives that these
shall strictly accord with the number of
flowers that brighten the country-side.
It decrees the queen's deposition or warns
40

The Swarm

her that she must depart ; it compels her
to bring her own rivals into the world,
and rears them royally, protecting them
from their mother's political hatred. So,
too, in accordance with the generosity of
the flowers, the age of the spring, and
the probable dangers of the nuptial flight,
will it permit or forbid the first-born
of the virgin princesses to slay in their
cradles her younger sisters, who are sing-
ing the song of the queens. At other
times, when the season wanes, and flowery
hours grow shorter, it will command the
workers themselves to slaughter the whole
imperial brood, that the era of revolutions
may close, and work become the sole
object of all. The "spirit of the hive"
is prudent and thrifty, but by no means
parsimonious. And thus, aware, it would
seem, that nature's laws are somewhat
wild and extravagant in all that pertains
to love, it tolerates, during summer days
41

The Life of the Bee

of abundance, the embarrassing presence
in the hive of three or four hundred
males, from whose ranks the queen about
to be born shall select her lover ; three
or four hundred foolish, clumsy, useless,
noisy creatures, who are pretentious, glut-
tonous, dirty, coarse, totally and scan-
dalously idle, insatiable, and enormous.

But after the queen's impregnation,
when flowers begin to close sooner, and
open later, the spirit one morning will
coldly decree the simultaneous and gen-
eral massacre of every male. It regulates
the workers' labours, with due regard to
their age ; it allots their task to the nurses
who tend the nymphs and the larvae, the
ladies of honour who wait on the queen
and never allow her out of their sight ;
the house-bees who air, refresh, or heat
the hive by fanning their wings, and
hasten the evaporation of the honey that
may be too highly charged with water;
42

The Swarm

the architects, masons, wax-workers, and
sculptors who form the chain and con-
struct the combs; the foragers who sally
forth to the flowers in search of the nectar
that turns into honey, of the pollen that
feeds the nymphs and the larvae, the pro-
polis that welds and strengthens the build-
ings of the city, or the water and salt
required by the youth of the nation. Its
orders have gone to the chemists who en-
sure the preservation of the honey by
letting a drop of formic acid fall in from
the end of their sting ; to the capsule-
makers who seal down the cells when the
treasure is ripe, to the sweepers who
maintain public places and streets most
irreproachably clean, to the bearers whose
duty it is to remove the corpses ; and
to the amazons of the guard who keep
watch on the threshold by night and by
day, question comers and goers, recognise
the novices who return from their very
43

The Life of the Bee

first flight, scare away vagabonds, ma-
rauders and loiterers, expel all intruders,
attack redoubtable foes in a body, and, if
need be, barricade the entrance.

Finally, it is the spirit of the hive that
fixes the hour of the great annual sacrifice
to the genius of the race : the hour, that
is, of the swarm ; when we find a whole
people, who have attained the topmost pin-
nacle of prosperity and power, suddenly
abandoning to the generation to come
their wealth and their palaces, their homes
and the fruits of their labour ; themselves
content to encounter the hardships and
perils of a new and distant country. This
act, be it conscious or not, undoubtedly
passes the limits of human morality.
Its result will sometimes be ruin, but
poverty always ; and the thrice-happy
city is scattered abroad in obedience to
a law superior to its own happiness.
Where has this law been decreed, which,
44

The Swarm

as we soon shall find, is by no means as
blind and inevitable as one might believe ?
Where, in what assembly, what council,
what intellectual and moral sphere, does
this spirit reside to whom all must submit,
itself being vassal to an heroic duty, to
an intelligence whose eyes are persistently
fixed on the future ?

It comes to pass with the bees as with
most of the things in this world; we
remark some few of their habits ; we
say they do this, they work in such and
such fashion, their queens are born thus,
their workers are virgin, they swarm at
a certain time. And then we imagine
we know them, and ask nothing more.
We watch them hasten from flower to
flower, we see the constant agitation within
the hive ; their life seems very simple to
us, and bounded, like every life, by the
instinctive cares of reproduction and nour-
ishment. But let the eye draw near, and
45

The Life of the Bee

endeavour to see ; and at once the least
phenomenon of all becomes overpower-
ingly complex ; we are confronted by the
enigma of intellect, of destiny, will, aim,
means, causes ; the incomprehensible or-
ganisation of the most insignificant act
of life.

[II]

Our hive, then, is preparing to swarm ;
making ready for the great immolation to
the exacting gods of the race. In obe-
dience to the order of the spirit — an order
that to us may well seem incomprehen-
sible, for it is entirely opposed to all our
own instincts and feelings — 60,000 or
70,000 bees out of the 80,000 or 90,000
that form the whole population, will aban-
don the maternal city at the prescribed
hour. They will not leave at a moment'
of despair ; or desert, with sudden and
wild resolve, a home laid waste by famine,
46

The Swarm

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

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

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

The Life of the Bee

fashion things may be reflected in the
6jOOO or 7jOOO facets of their lateral eyes
and the triple cyclopean eye on their brow,
— but as it would seem to us, were we of
their stature. From the height of a dome
more colossal than that of St. Peter's at
Rome waxen walls descend to the ground,
balanced in the void and the darkness ;
gigantic and manifold, vertical and parallel
geometric constructions, to which, for rela-
tive precision, audacity, and vastness, no
human structure is comparable. Each of
these walls, whose substance still is immac-
ulate and fragrant, of virginal, silvery fresh-
ness, contains thousands of cells, that are
stored with provisions sufficient to feed the
whole people for several weeks. Here,
lodged in transparent cells, are the pollens,
love-ferment of every flower of spring,
making brilliant splashes of red and yellow,
of black and mauve. Close by, in twenty
thousand reservoirs, sealed with a seal
48

X

The Swarm

that shall only be broken on days of su-
preme distress, the honey of April is
stored, most limpid and perfumed of all,
wrapped round with long and magnificent
embroidery of gold, whose borders hang
stiff and rigid. Still lower the honey of
May matures, in great open vats, by whose
side watchful cohorts maintain an incessant
current of air. In the centre, and far
from the light whose diamond rays steal
in through the only opening, in the
warmest part of the hive, there stands the
abode of the future ; here does it sleep,
and wake. For this is the royal domain
of the brood-cells, set apart for the queen
and her acolytes ; about 10,000 cells
wherein the eggs repose, 15,000 or 16,000
chambers tenanted by larvae, 40,000 dwel-
lings inhabited by white nymphs to whom
thousands of nurses minister.-^ And fin-

^ The figures given here are scrupulously exact.
They are those of a well-filled hive in full prosperity.

4 49

The Life of the Bee

ally, In the holy of holies of these parts,
are the three, four, six, or twelve sealed
palaces, vast in size compared with the
others, where the adolescent princesses lie
who await their hour, wrapped in a kind
of shroud, all of them motionless and
pale, and fed in the darkness.

[12]

On the day, then, that the Spirit of the
Hive has ordained, a certain part of the
population will go forth, selected in ac-
cordance with sure and immovable laws,
and make way for hopes that as yet are
formless. In the sleeping city there
remain the males, from whose ranks the
royal lover shall come, the very young
bees that tend the brood-cells, and some
thousands of workers who continue to
forage abroad, to guard the accumu*'
lated treasure, and preserve the moral
traditions of the hive. For each hive
so

The Swarm

has its own code of morals. There are
some that are very virtuous and some
that are very perverse; and a careless
bee-keeper will often corrupt his people,
destroy their respect for the property
of others, incite them to pillage, and
induce in them habits of conquest and
idleness which will render them sources
of danger to all the little republics around.
These things result from the bee's dis-
covery that work among distant flowers,
whereof many hundreds must be visited to
form one drop of honey, is not the only
or promptest method of acquiring wealth,
but that it is easier to enter ill-guarded
cities by stratagem, or force her way
into others too weak for self-defence.
Nor is it easy to restore to the paths
of duty a hive that has beccme thus
depraved.

6^

The Life of the Bee

[13]

All things go to prove that it is not
the queen, but the spirit of the hive,
that decides on the swarm. With this
queen of ours it happens as with many
a chief among men, who though he ap-
pear to give orders, is himself obliged
to obey commands far more mysterious,
far more inexplicable, than those he
issues to his subordinates. The hour
once fixed, the spirit will probably let
it be known at break of dawn, or the
previous night, if indeed not two nights
before ; for scarcely has the sun drunk
in the first drops of dew when a most
unaccustomed stir, whose meaning the
bee-keeper rarely will fail to grasp, is
to be noticed within and around the
buzzing city. At times one would al-
most appear to detect a sign of dispute,
hesitation, recoil. It will happen even
52

The Swarm

that for day after day a strange emotion,
apparently without cause, will appear and
vanish in this transparent, golden throng.
Has a cloud that we cannot see crept
across the sky that the bees are watching ;
or is their intellect battling with a new
regret ? Does a winged council debate
the necessity of the departure ? Of this
we know nothing ; as we know nothing
of the manner in which the spirit conveys
its resolution to the crowd. Certain a^
it may seem that the bees communicate
with each other, we know not whether
this be done in human fashion. It is
possible even that their own refrain may
be inaudible to them : the murmur that
comes to us heavily laden with perfume
of honey, the ecstatic whisper of fairest
summer days that the bee-keeper loves so
well, the festival song of labour that rises
and falls around the hive in the crystal
of the hour, and might almost be the
53

The Life of the Bee

chant of the eager flowers, hymn of their
gladness and echo of their soft fragrance,
the voice of the white carnations, the
marjoram, and the thyme. They have,
however, a whole gamut of sounds that
we can distinguish, ranging from pro-
found delight to menace, distress, and
anger ; they have the ode of the queen,
the song of abundance, the psalms of
grief, and, lastly, the long and mysterious
war-cries the adolescent princesses send
forth during the combats and massacres
that precede the nuptial flight. May this
be a fortuitous music that fails to attain
their inward silence ? In any event they
seem not the least disturbed at the noises
we make near the hive ; but they regard
these perhaps as not of their world, and
possessed of no interest for them. It is
possible that we on our side hear only
a fractional part of the sounds that the
bees produce, and that they have many
54

The Swarm

harmonies to which our ears are not
attuned. We soon shall see with what
starthng rapidity they are able to under-
stand each other, and adopt concerted
measures, when, for instance, the great
honey thief, the huge sphinx atropos, the
sinister butterfly that bears a death's head
on its back, penetrates into the hive,
humming its own strange note, which acts
as a kind of irresistible incantation; the
news spreads quickly from group to group,
and from the guards at the threshold to
the workers on the furthest combs, the
whole population quivers.

[h]

It was for a long time believed that
when these wise bees, generally so pru-
dent, so far-sighted and economical, aban-
doned the treasures of their kingdom and
flung themselves upon the uncertainties
of life, they were yielding to a kind of
55

The Life of the Bee

irresistible folly, a mechanical impulse, a
law of the species, a decree of nature, or
to the force that for all creatures lies hid-
den in the revolution of time. It is our
habit, in the case of the bees no less than
our own, to regard as fatality all that we
do not as yet understand. But now that
the hive has surrendered two or three of
its material secrets, we have discovered
that this exodus is neither instinctive nor
inevitable. It is not a blind emigration,
but apparently the well-considered sacrifice
of the present generation in favour of the
generation to come. The bee-keeper has
only to destroy in their cells the young
queens that still are inert, and, at the same
time, if nymphs and larvae abound, to
enlarge the store-houses and dormitories
of the nation, for this unprofitable tumult
instantaneously to subside, for work to
be at once resumed, and the flowers re-
visited ; while the old queen, who now is
56

The Swarm

essential again, with no successor to hope
for, or perhaps to fear, will renounce
for this year her desire for the light of
the sun. Reassured as to the future of
the activity that will soon spring into life,
she will tranquilly resume her maternal
labours, which consist in the laying of two
or three thousand eggs a day, as she passes,
in a methodical spiral, from cell to cell,
omitting none, and never pausing to
rest.

Where is the fatality here, save in the
love of the race of to-day for the race of
to-morrow ? This fatality exists in the
human species also, but its extent and
power seem infinitely less. Among men
it never gives rise to sacrifices as great, as
unanimous, or as complete. What far-
seeing fatality, taking the place of this one,
do we ourselves obey ^ We know not ;
as we know not the being who watches us
as we watch the bees.
57

The Life of the Bee

[IS]
But the hive that we have selected is
disturbed in its history by no interference
of man ; and as the beautiful day advances
with radiant and tranquil steps beneath
the trees, its ardour, still bathed in dew,
makes the appointed hour seem laggard.
Over the whole surface of the golden cor-
ridors that divide the parallel walls the
workers are busily making preparation
for the journey. And each one will first
of all burden herself with provision of
honey sufficient for five or six days. From
this honey that they bear within them they
will distil, by a chemical process still unex-
plained, the wax required for the immediate
construction of buildings. They will pro-
vide themselves also with a certain amount
of propolis, a kind of resin with which they
will seal all the crevices in the new dwell-
ing, strengthen weak places, varnish the
58

The Swarm

walls, and exclude the light ; for the bees
love to work in almost total obscurity,
guiding themselves with their many-faceted
eyes, or with their antennae perhaps, the
seat, it would seem, of an unknown sense
that fathoms and measures the darkness.

[i6]

They are not without prescience, there-
fore, of what is to befall them on this the
most dangerous day of all their existence.
Absorbed by the cares, the prodigious
perils of this mighty adventure, they will
have no time now to visit the gardens and
meadows ; and to-morrow, and after to-
morrow, it may happen that rain may fall,
or there may be wind ; that their wings
may be frozen or the flowers refuse to
open. Famine and death would await
them were it not for this foresight of
theirs. None would come to their help,
nor would they seek help of any. For
59

The Life of the Bee

one city knows not the other, and assist-
ance never is given. And even though
the bee-keeper deposit the hive, in which
he has gathered the old queen and her
attendant cluster of bees, by the side of
the abode they have but this moment
quitted, they would seem, be the disaster
never so great that shall now have befallen
them, to have wholly forgotten the peace
and the happy activity that once they had
known there, the abundant wealth and the
safety that had then been their portion ;
and all, one by one, and down to the last
of them, will perish of hunger and cold
around their unfortunate queen rather
than return to the home of their birth,
whose sweet odour of plenty, the fragrance,
indeed, of their own past assiduous labour,
reaches them even in their distress.

60

The Swarm

[17]

That is a thing, some will say, that
men would not do, — a proof that the
bee, notwithstanding the marvels of its
organisation, still is lacking in intellect and
veritable consciousness. Is this so certain ?
Other beings, surely, may possess an intel-
lect that differs from ours, and produces
different results, without therefore being
inferior. And besides, are we, even in
this little human parish of ours, such
infallible judges of matters that pertain to
the spirit ? 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 win-
dow, when their words do not reach us ?
Or let us suppose that an inhabitant of
Venus or Mars were to contemplate us
from the height of a mountain, and watch
the little black specks that we form in
61

The Life of the Bee

space, as we come and go in the streets
and squares of our towns. Would the
mere sight of our movements, our build-
ings, machines, and canals, convey to him
any precise idea of our morality, intellect,
our manner of thinking, and loving, and
hoping, — in a word, of our real and inti-
mate self? All he could do, like our-
selves when we gaze at the hive, would be
to take note of some facts that seem very
surprising; and from these facts to deduce
conclusions probably no less erroneous,
no less uncertain, than those that we choose
to form concerning the bee.

This much at least is certain ; our " little
black specks" would not reveal the vast
moral direction, the wonderful unity, that
are so apparent in the hive. " Whither
do they tend, and what is it they do ? " he
would ask, after years and centuries of
patient watching. " What is the aim of
their life, or its pivot ? Do they obey
62

The Swarm

some God ? I can see nothing that
governs their actions. The Httle things
that one day they appear to collect and
build up, the next they destroy and scatter.
They come and they go, they meet and
disperse, but one knows not what it is they
seek. In numberless cases the spectacle
they present is altogether inexplicable.
There are some, for instance, who, as
it were, seem scarcely to stir from their
place. They are to be distinguished
by their glossier coat, and often too by
their more considerable bulk. They
occupy buildings ten or twenty times
larger than ordinary dwellings, and richer,
and more ingeniously fashioned. Every
day they spend many hours at their meals,
which sometimes indeed are prolonged far
into the night. They appear to be held
in extraordinary honour by those who
approach them ; men come from the
neighbouring houses, bringing provisions,
63

The Life of the Bee

and even from the depths of the country,
laden with presents. One can only
assume that these persons must be indis-
pensable to the race, to which they render
essential service, although our means of
investigation have not yet enabled us to
discover what the precise nature of this
service may be. There are others, again,
who are incessantly engaged in the most
wearisome labour, whether it be in great
sheds full of wheels that forever turn round
and round, or close by the shipping, or in
obscure hovels, or on small plots of earth
that from sunrise to sunset they are con-
stantly delving and digging. We are led to
believe that this labour must be an offence,
and punishable. For the persons guilty
of it are housed in filthy, ruinous, squalid
cabins. They are clothed in some colour-
less hide. So great does their ardour
appear for this noxious, or at any rate
useless activity, that they scarcely allow
64

The Swarm

themselves time to eat or to sleep. In
numbers they are to the others as a thou-
sand to one. It is remarkable that the
species should have been able to survive
to this day under conditions so unfavour-
able to its development. It should be
mentioned, however, that apart from this
characteristic devotion to their wearisome
toil, they appear inoffensive and docile;
and satisfied with the leavings of those
who evidently are the guardians, if not
the saviours, of the race."

[18]

Is it not strange that the hive, which
we vaguely survey from the height of
another world, should provide our first
questioning glance with so sure and pro-
found a reply ? Must we not admire the
manner in which the thought or the god
that the bees obey is at once revealed by
their edifices, wrought with such striking
5 65

The Life of the Bee

conviction, by their customs and laws,
their political and economical organisation,
their virtues, and even their cruelties ?
Nor is this god, though it be perhaps the
only one to which man has as yet never
offered serious worship, by any means the
least reasonable or the least legitimate
that we can conceive. The god of the
bees is the future. When we, in our
study of human history, endeavour to
gauge the moral force or greatness of a
people or race, we have but one standard
of measurement — the dignity and perma-
nence of their ideal, and the abnegation
wherewith they pursue it. Have we often
encountered an ideal more conformable to
the desires of the universe, more widely
manifest, more disinterested or sublime;
have we often discovered an abnegation
more complete and heroic ?

66

The Swarm

[19]

Strange little republic, that, for all its
logic and gravity, its matured conviction
and prudence, still falls victim to so vast
and precarious a dream ! Who shall tell
us, O little people that are so profoundly
in earnest, that have fed on the warmth
and the light and on nature's purest, the
soul of the flowers, wherein matter foi
once seems to smile, and put forth it9
most wistful effort towards beauty and hap'
piness, — who shall tell us what prob-
lems you have resolved, but we not yet,
what certitudes you have acquired that
we still have to conquer? And if you
have truly resolved these problems, and
acquired these certitudes, by the aid of
some blind and primitive impulse and
not through the intellect, then to what
enigma, more insoluble still, are you not
urging us on ? Little city abounding
67

The Life of the Bee

in faith and mystery and hope, why
do your myriad virgins consent to a task
that no human slave has ever accepted ?
Another spring might be theirs, another
summer, were they only a little less waste-
ful of strength, a little less self-forgetful
in their ardour for toil ; but at the mag-
nificent moment when the flowers all cry
to them, they seem to be stricken with
the fatal ecstasy of work ; and in less
than five weeks they almost all perish,
their wings broken, their bodies shrivelled
and covered with wounds.
" Tantu3 amor flomm, et generandi gloria mellis ! "

cries Virgil in the fourth book of the
Georgics, wherein he devotes himself to
the bees, and hands down to us the
charming errors of the ancients, who
looked on nature with eyes still dazzled
by the presence of imaginary gods.

68

The Swarm

[20]

Why do they thus renounce sleep, the
delights of honey and love, and the ex-
quisite leisure enjoyed, for instance, by
their winged brother, the butterfly ?
Why will they not live as he lives ?
It is not hunger that urges them on.
Two or three flowers suffice for their
nourishment, and in one hour they will
visit two or three hundred, to collect a
treasure whose sweetness they never will
taste. Why all this toil and distress, and
whence comes this mighty assurance ? Is
it so certain, then, that the new generation
whereunto you ofi^er your lives will merit
the sacrifice ; will be more beautiful, hap-
pier, will do something you have not
done ? Your aim is clear to us, clearer
far than our own ; you desire to live,
as long as the world itself, in those that
come after ; but what can the aim be
69

The Life of the Bee

of this great aim ; what the mission of
this existence eternally renewed ?

And yet may it not be that these ques-
tions are idle, and we who are putting them
to you mere childish dreamers, hedged
round with error and doubt? And, in-
deed, had successive evolutions installed
you all-powerful and supremely happy ;
had you gained the last heights, whence
at length you ruled over nature's laws ;
nay, were you immortal goddesses, we
still should be asking you what your
desires might be, your ideas of prog-
ress ; still wondering where you imag-
ined that at last you would rest and
declare your wishes fulfilled. We are
so made that nothing contents us ; that
we can regard no single thing as having
its aim self-contained, as simply existing,
with no thought beyond existence. Has
there been, to this day, one god out of all
the multitude man has conceived, from
70

The Swarm

the vulgarest to the most thoughtful, of
whom it has not been required that he
shall be active and stirring, that he shall
create countless beings and things, and
have myriad aims outside himself? 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 activity ; and then, our
few hours over, to assume, without sur-
prise and without regret, that other form
which is the unconscious, the unknown,
the slumbering, and the eternal ?

But we are forgetting the hive wherein
the swarming bees have begun to lose
patience, the hive whose black and vi-
brating waves are bubbling and overflow-
ing, like a brazen cup beneath an ardent
sun. It is noon ; and the heat so great
that the assembled trees would seem al-
71

The Life of the Bee

most to hold back their leaves, as a man
holds his breath before something very-
tender but very grave. The bees give
their honey and sweet-smelling wax to
the man who attends them ; but more
precious gift still is their summoning him
to the gladness of June, to the joy of the
beautiful months ; for events in which
bees take part happen only when skies
are pure, at the winsome hours of the
year when flowers keep holiday. They
are the soul of the summer, the clock
whose dial records the moments of
plenty ; they are the untiring wing on
which delicate perfumes float ; the guide
of the quivering light-ray, the song of the
slumberous, languid air ; and their flight
is the token, the sure and melodious note,
of all the myriad fragile joys that are born
in the heat and dwell in the sunshine.
They teach us to tune our ear to the
softest, most intimate whisper of these
72

The Swarm

good, natural hours. To him who has
known them and loved them, a summer
where there are no bees becomes as sad
and as empty as one without flowers or
birds.

[22]

The man who never before has beheld
the swarm of a populous hive must re-
gard this riotous, bewildering spectacle
with some apprehension and diffidence.
He will be almost afraid to draw near;
he will wonder can these be the earnest,
the peace-loving, hard-working bees whose
movements he has hitherto followed ?
It was but a few moments before he had
seen them troop in from all parts of the
country, as pre-occupied, seemingly, as
little housewives might be, with no
thoughts beyond household cares. He
had watched them stream into the hive,
imperceptibly almost, out of breath,
73

The Life of the Bee

eager, exhausted, full of discreet agita-
tion ; and had seen the young amazons
stationed at the gate salute them, as they
passed by, with the slightest wave of
antennae. And then, the inner court
reached, they had hurriedly given their
harvest of honey to the adolescent por-
tresses always stationed within, exchang-
ing with these at most the three or
four probably indispensable words ; or
perhaps they would hasten themselves
to the vast magazines that encircle the
brood-cells, and deposit the two heavy
baskets of pollen that depend from
their thighs, thereupon at once going
forth once more, without giving a thought
to what might be passing in the royal
palace, the work-rooms, or the dormitory
where the nymphs lie asleep ; without
for one instant joining in the babel of
the public place in front of the gate,
where it is the wont of the cleaners, at
74

The Swarm

time of great heat, to congregate and to
gossip.

[23]

To-day this is all changed. A certain
number of workers, it is true, will peace-
fully go to the fields, as though nothing
were happening ; will come back, clean
the hive, attend to the brood-cells, and
hold altogether aloof from the general
ecstasy. These are the ones that will
not accompany the queen ; they will
remain to guard the old home, feed the
nine or ten thousand eggs, the eighteen
thousand larvae, the thirty-six thousand
nymphs and seven or eight royal prin-
cesses, that to-day shall all be abandoned.
Why they have been singled out for this
austere duty, by what law, or by whom,
it is not in our power to divine. To
this mission of theirs they remain in-
flexibly, tranquilly faithful ; and though
75

The Life of the Bee

I have many times tried the experiment
of sprinkling a colouring matter over one
of these resigned Cinderellas, that are
moreover easily to be distinguished in the
midst of the rejoicing crowds by their
serious and somewhat ponderous gait,
it is rarely indeed that I have found
one of them in the delirious throng
of the swarm.

[24]

And yet, the attraction must seem
irresistible. It is the ecstasy of the per-
haps unconscious sacrifice the god has
ordained ; it is the festival of honey, the
triumph of the race, the victory of the
future : the one day of joy, of forgetfulness
and folly ; the only Sunday known to
the bees. It would appear to be also the
solitary day upon which all eat their fill,
and revel, to heart's content, in the de-
lights of the treasure themselves have
76

The Swarm

amassed. It is as though they were
prisoners to whom freedom at last had
been given, who had suddenly been led
to a land of refreshment and plenty.
They exult, they cannot contain the joy
that is in them. They come and go
aimlessly, — they whose every movement
has always its precise and useful purpose
— they depart and return, sally forth once
again to see if the queen be ready, to
excite their sisters, to beguile the tedium
of waiting. They fly much higher than
is their wont, and the leaves of the
mighty trees round about all quiver
responsive. They have left trouble
behind, and care. They no longer are
meddling and fierce, aggressive, suspicious,
untamable, angry. Man — the unknown
master whose sway they never acknowl-
edge, who can subdue them only by con-
forming to their every law, to their habits
of labour, and following step by step the
77

The Life of the Bee

path that is traced in their life by an
intellect nothing can thwart or turn from
its purpose, by a spirit whose aim is
always the good of the morrow — on this
day man can approach them, can divide
the glittering curtain they form as they
fly round and round in songful circles,*
he can take them up in his hand, and
gather them as he would a bunch of
grapes; for to-day, in their gladness^
possessing nothing, but full of faith in
the future, they will submit to everything
and injure no one, provided only they be
not separated from the queen who bears
that future within her.

[25]

But the veritable signal has not yet
been given. In the hive there is in-
describable confusion ; and a disorder
whose meaning escapes us. At ordinary
times each bee, once returned to her
78

The Swarm

home, would appear to forget her posses-
sion of wings ; and will pursue her active
labours, making scarcely a movement, on
that particular spot in the hive that her
special duties assign. But to-day they all
seem bewitched ; they fly in dense circles
round and round the polished walls,
like a living jelly stirred by an invisible
hand. The temperature within rises
rapidly, — to such a degree, at times, that
the wax of the buildings will soften, and
twist out of shape. The queen, who
ordinarily never will stir from the centra
of the comb, now rushes wildly, in breath'
less excitement, over the surface of the
vehement crowd that turn and turn on
themselves. Is she hastening their de-
parture, or trying to delay it ? Does she
command, or haply Implore ? Does this
prodigious emotion issue from her, or is
she its victim ? Such knowledge as we
possess of the general psychology of the
79

The Life of the Bee

bee warrants the belief that the swarming
always takes place against the old sov-
ereign's will. For indeed the ascetic
workers, her daughters, regard the queen
above all as the organ of love, indispen-
sable, certainly, and sacred, but in herself
somewhat unconscious, and often of feeble
mind. They treat her like a mother in
her dotage. Their respect for her, their
tenderness, is heroic and boundless.
The purest honey, specially distilled and
almost entirely assimilable, is reserved
for her use alone. She has an escort that
watches over her by day and by night,
that facilitates her maternal duties and
gets ready the cells wherein the eggs
shall be laid ; she has loving attendants
who pet and caress her, feed her and clean
her, and even absorb her excrement.
Should the least accident befall her the
news will spread quickly from group to
group, and the whole population will rush
80

The Swarm

to and fro in loud lamentation. Seize
her, imprison her, take her away from
the hive at a time when the bees shall
have no hope of filling her place, owing,
it may be, to her having left no pre-
destined descendants, or to there being
no larvse less than three days old (for a
special nourishment is capable of trans-
forming these into royal nymphs, such
being the grand democratic principle of
the hive, and a counterpoise to the preroga^
tives of maternal predestination), and then,
her loss once known, after two or three
hours, perhaps, for the city is vast, work
will cease in almost every direction. The
young will no longer be cared for ; part
of the inhabitants will wander in every
direction, seeking their mother, in quest
of whom others will sally forth from the
hive ; the workers engaged in construct-
ing the comb will fall asunder and scatter,
the foragers . no longer will visit the

The Life of the Bee

flowers, the guard at the entrance will
abandon their post; and foreign marau-
ders, all the parasites of honey, forever
on the watch for opportunities of plunder,
will freely enter and leave without any
one giving a thought to the defence of
the treasure that has been so laboriously
gathered. And poverty, little by little,
will steal into the city ; the population
will dwindle ; and the wretched inhabitants
soon will perish of distress and despair,
though every flower of summer burst
into bloom before them.

But let the queen be restored before
her loss has become an accomplished,
;rremediable fact, before the bees have
grown too profoundly demoralised, — for
in this they resemble men : a prolonged
regret, or misfortune, will impair their
intellect and degrade their character, — let
her be restored but a few hours later, and
they will receive her with extraordinary,
82

The Swarm

pathetic welcome. They will flock eagerly
round her ; excited groups will climb over
each other in their anxiety to draw near;
as she passes among them they will caress
her with the long antennas that contain so
many organs as yet unexplained ; they will
present her with honey, and escort her
tumultuously back to the royal chamber.
And order at once is restored, work re-
sumed, from the central comb of the
brood-cells to the furthest annex where
the surplus honey is stored ; the foragers
go forth, in long black files, to return, in
less than three minutes sometimes, laden
with nectar and pollen ; streets are swept,
parasites and marauders killed or expelled ;
and the hive soon resounds with the gentle,
monotonous cadence of the strange hymn
of rejoicing, which is, it would seem, the
hymn of the royal presence.

83

The Life of the Bee

[26]

There are numberless instances of the
absolute attachment and devotion that
the workers display towards their queen.
Should disaster befall the little republic;
should the hive or the comb collapse,
should man prove ignorant, or brutal ;
should they suffer from famine, from cold
or disease, and perish by thousands, it
will still be almost invariably found that
the queen will be safe and alive, beneath
the corpses of her faithful daughters. For
they will protect her, help her to escape;
their bodies will provide both rampart and
shelter ; for her will be the last drop of
honey, the wholesomest food. And be
the disaster never so great, the city of
virgins will not lose heart so long as the
queen be alive. Break their comb twenty
times in succession, take twenty times
from them their young and their food,
84

The Swarm

you still shall never succeed in making
them doubt of the future ; and though
they be starving, and their number so
small that it scarcely suffices to shield their
mother from the enemy's gaze, they will
set about to reorganize the laws of the
colony, and to provide for what is most
pressing ; they will distribute the work in
accordance with the new necessities of this
disastrous moment, and thereupon will
immediately re-assume their labours with
an ardour, a patience, a tenacity and intel-
ligence not often to be found existing to
such a degree in nature, true though it be
that most of its creatures display more
confidence and courage than man.

But the presence of the queen is not
even essential for their discouragement to
vanish and their love to endure. It is
enough that she should have left, at the
moment of her death or departure, the
very slenderest hope of descendants. " We
85

The Life of the Eee

have seen a colony," says Langstroth, one
of the fathers of modern apiculture, " that
had not bees sufficient to cover a comb of
three inches square, and yet endeavoured
to rear a queen. For two whole weeks
did they cherish this hope ; finally, when
their number was reduced by one-half, their
queen was born, but her wings were imper-
fect, and she was unable to fly. Impotent
as she was, her bees did not treat her with
the less respect. A week more, and there
remained hardly a dozen bees ; yet a few
days, and the queen had vanished, leaving
a few wretched, inconsolable insects upon
the combs."

[27]

There is another instance, and one that
reveals most palpably the ultimate gesture
of filial love and devotion. It arises from
one of the extraordinary ordeals that our
recent and tyrannical intervention inflicts
86

The Swarm

on these hapless, unflinching heroines. I,
in common with all amateur bee-keepers,
have more than once had impregnated
queens sent me from Italy ; for the
Italian species is more prolificj stronger,
more active, and gentler than our own. It
is the custom to forward them in small,
perforated boxes. In these some food is
placed, and the queen enclosed, together
with a certain number of workers, selected
as far as possible from among the oldest
bees in the hive. (The age of the bee can
be readily told by its body, which gradu-
ally becomes more polished, thinner, and
almost bald ; and more particularly by
the wings, which hard work uses and
tears.) It is their mission to feed the
queen during the journey, to tend her and
guard her. I would frequently find, when
the box arrived, that nearly every one of
the workers was dead. On one occasion,
indeed, they had all perished of hunger ;
87

The Life of the Bee

but in this instance as in all others the
queen was alive, unharmed, and full of
vigour ; 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 queen, who was
symbol of a life more precious, more vast,
than her own.

[a8]

This unwavering affection having come
under the notice of man, he was able to
turn to his own advantage the qualities to
which it gives rise, or that it perhaps con-
tains : the admirable political sense, the
passion for work, the perseverance, mag-
nanimity, and devotion to the future.
It has allowed him, in the course of
the last few years, to a certain extent
to domesticate these intractable insects,
though without their knowledge; for
they yield to no foreign strength, and
88

The Swarm

in their unconscious servitude obey only
the laws of their own adoption. Man
may believe, if he choose, that, possessing
the queen, he holds in his hand the
destiny and soul of the hive. In accord-
ance with the manner in which he deals
with her — as it were, plays with her —
he can increase and hasten the swarm or
restrict and retard it ; he can unite or
divide colonies, and direct the emigration
of kingdoms. And yet it is none the less
true that the queen is essentially merely a
sort of living symbol, standing, as all
symbols must, for a vaster although less
perceptible principle ; and this principle
the apiarist will do well to take into
account, if he would not expose himself to
more than one unexpected reverse. For
the bees are by no means deluded. The
presence of the queen does not blind them
to the existence of their veritable sovereign,
immaterial and everlasting, which is no
89

The Life of the Bee

other than their fixed idea. Why inquire
as to whether this idea be conscious or
not ? Such speculation can have value
only if our anxiety be to determine whether
we should more rightly admire the bees
that have the idea, or nature that has
planted it in them. Wherever it lodge,
in the vast unknowable body or in the
tiny ones that we see, it merits our deepest
attention ; 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 place, that so often causes us
to lose the chance of deep admiration ;
which of all things in the world is the
most helpful to us.

These conjectures may perhaps be re-
garded as exceedingly venturesome, and
possibly also as unduly human. It may
be urged that the bees, in all probability,
90

The Swarm

have no idea of the kind ; that their care
for the future, love of the race, and many
other feelings we choose to ascribe to
them, are truly no more than forms as-
sumed by the necessities of life, the fear
of suffering or death, and the attraction of
pleasure. Let it be so ; look on it all as
a figure of speech ; it is a matter to which
I attach no importance. The one thing
certain here, as it is the one thing certain
in all other cases, is that, under special
circumstances, the bees will treat their
queen in a special manner. The rest is
all mystery, around which we only can
weave more or less ingenious and pleasant
conjecture. And yet, were we speaking
of man in the manner wherein it were
wise perhaps to speak of the bee, is there
very much more we could say ? He too
yields only to necessity, the attraction of
pleasure, and the fear of suffering ; and
what we call our intellect has the same
91

The Life of the Bee

origin and mission as what in animals we
choose to term instinct. We do certain
things, whose results we conceive to be
known to us ; other things happen, and
we flatter ourselves that we are better
equipped than animals can be to divine
their cause ; but, apart from the fact that
this supposition rests on no very solid
foundation, events of this nature are rare
and infinitesimal, compared with the vast
mass of others that elude comprehension ;
and all, the pettiest and the most sublime,
the best known and the most inexplicable,
the nearest and the most distant, come to
pass in a night so profound that our
blindness may well be almost as great as
that we suppose in the bee.

[30]

"All must agree," remarks BufFon,
who has a somewhat amusing prejudice
against the bee, — "all must agree that
92

The Swarm

these flies, individually considered, pos-
sess far less genius than the dog, the
monkey, or the majority of animals ; that
they display far less docility, attachment,
or sentiment ; that they have, in a word,
less qualities that relate to our own ; and
from that we may conclude that their ap-
parent intelligence derives only from their
assembled multitude ; nor does this union
even argue intelligence, for it is governed
by no moral considerations, it being with-
out their consent that they find themselves
gathered together. This society, there-
fore, is no more than a physical assem-
blage ordained by nature, and independent
either of knowledge, or reason, or aim.
The mother-bee produces ten thousand
individuals at a time, and in the same
place ; these ten thousand individuals,
were they a thousand times stupider than
I suppose them to be, would be com-
pelled, for the mere purpose of existence,
93

The Life of the Bee

to contrive some form of arrangement;
and, assuming that they had begun by in-
juring each other, they would, as each
one possesses the same strength as its
fellow, soon have ended by doing each
other the least possible harm, or, in other
words, by rendering assistance. They
have the appearance of understanding
each other, and of working for a common
aim ; and the observer, therefore, is apt to
endow them with reasons and intellect
that they truly are far from possessing.
He will pretend to account for each
action, show a reason behind every move-
ment; and from thence the gradation is
easy to proclaiming them marvels, or
monsters, of innumerable ideas. Where-
as the truth is that these ten thousand
individuals, that have been produced sim-
ultaneously, that have lived together, and
undergone metamorphosis at more or less
the same time, cannot fail all to do the
94

The Swarm

same thing, and are compelled, however
slight the sentiment within them, to adopt
common habits, to live in accord and
union, to busy themselves with their dwel-
ling, to return to it after their journeys,
etc., etc. And on this foundation arise
the architecture, the geometry, the order,
the foresight, love of country, — in a word,
the republic ; all springing, as we have
seen, from the admiration of the observer."
There we have our bees explained in a
very different fashion. And if it seem
more natural at first, is it not for the very
simple reason that it really explains al-
most nothing? I will not allude to the
material errors this chapter contains ; I
will only ask whether the mere fact of the
bees accepting a common existence, while
doing each other the least possible harm,
does not in itself argue a certain intelli-
gence. And does not this intelligence
appear the more remarkable to us as we
95

The Life of the Bee

more closely examine the fashion in which
these "ten thousand individuals" avoid
hurting each other, and end by giving as-
sistance? And further, is this not the
history of ourselves ; and does not all
that the angry old naturalist says apply
equally to every one of our human socie-
ties ? And yet once again : if the bee is
indeed to be credited with none of the
feelings or ideas that we have ascribed to
it, shall we not very willingly shift the
ground of our wonder ? If we must not
admire the bee, we will then admire
nature; the moment must always come
when admiration can be no longer denied
us, nor shall there be loss to us through
our having retreated, or waited.

[31]

However these things may be, and with-
out abandoning this conjecture of ours, that
at least has the advantage of connecting

q6

The Swarm

in our mind certain actions that have evi-
dent connection in fact, it is certain that
the bees have far less adoration for the
queen herself than for the infinite future
of the race that she represents. They are
not sentimental ; and should one of their
number return from work so severely
wounded as to be held incapable of
further service, they will ruthlessly expel
her from the hive. And yet it cannot
be said that they are altogether incapable
of a kind of personal attachment towards
their mother. They will recognise her
from among all. Even when she is old,
crippled, and wretched, the sentinels at
the door will never allow another queen
to enter the hive, though she be young
and fruitful. It is true that this is one of
the fundamental principles of their polity,
and never relaxed except at times of
abundant honey, in favour of some foreign
worker who shall be well laden with food.
7 97

The Life of the Bee

When the queen has become com-
pletely sterilej the bees will rear a certain
number of royal princesses to fill her place.
But what becomes of the old sovereign ?
As to this we have no precise knowledge ;
but it has happened, at times, that apia-
rists have found a magnificent queen, in
the flower of her age, on the central comb
of the hive ; and in some obscure corner,
right at the back, the gaunt, decrepit " old
mistress," as they call her in Normandy.
In such cases it would seem that the bees
have to exercise the greatest care to pro-
tect her from the hatred of the vigorous
rival who longs for her death; for queen
hates queen so fiercely that two who might
happen to be under the same roof would
immediately fly at each other. 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
city, where she may end her days in peace.

The Swarm

Here again we touch one of the thousand
enigmas of the waxen city ; and it is once
more proved to us that the habits and
the policy of the bees are by no means
narrow, or rigidly predetermined ; and
that their actions have motives far more
complex than we are inclined to suppose.

But we are constantly tampering with
what they must regard as immovable
laws of nature ; 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 gravity,
of light and heat, to be suddenly sup-
pressed around us. What are the bees to
do when we, by force or by fraud, intro-
duce a second queen into the city ? It is
probable that, in a state of nature, thanks
to the sentinels at the gate, such an event
has never occurred since they first came
99

The Life of the Bee

into the world. But this prodigious con-
juncture does not scatter their wits ; they
still contrive to reconcile the two princi-
ples that they appear to regard in the light
of divine commands. The first is that of
unique maternity, never infringed except
in the case of sterility in the reigning
queen, and even then only very excep-
tionally ,• the second is more curious still,
and, although never transgressed, suscepti-
ble of what may almost be termed a Judaic
evasion. It is the law that invests the
person of a queen, whoever she be, with a
sort of inviolability. It would be a simple
matter for the bees to pierce the intruder
with their myriad envenomed stings ; she
would die on the spot, and they would
merely have to remove the corpse from
the hive. But though this sting is always
held ready to strike, though they make
constant use of it in their fights among
themselves, they will jtever draw it against

lOO

The Swarm

a queen; nor will a queen ever draw hers
on a man, an animal, or an ordinary bee.
She will never unsheath her royal weapon
— curved, in scimeter fashion, instead of
being straight, like that of the ordinary
bee — save only in the case of her doing
battle with an equal : in other words,
with a sister queen.

No bee, it would seem, dare take on
herself the horror of direct and bloody
regicide. Whenever, therefore, the good
order and prosperity of the republic
appear to demand that a queen shall die,
they endeavour to give to her death some
semblance of natural decease, and by infi-
nite subdivision of the crime, to render it
almost anonymous.

They will, therefore, to use the pictur-
esque expression of the apiarist, " ball "
the queenly intruder ; in other words, they
will entirely surround her with their innu-
merable interlaced bodies. They will

lOI

The Life of the Bee

thus form a sort of living prison wherein
the captive Is unable to move ; and In
this prison they will keep her for twenty-
four hours. If need be, till the victim die
of suffocation or hunger.

But If, at this moment, the legitimate
queen draw near, and, scenting a rival,
appear disposed to attack her, the living
walls of the prison will at once fly open ;
and the bees, forming a circle around the
two enemies, will eagerly watch the strange
duel that will ensue, though remaining
strictly Impartial, and taking no share In
It. For It Is written that against a mother
the sting may be drawn by a mother
alone ; 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 deaths.

But if the combat last too long, without
any result, If the circular weapons glide
harmlessly over the heavy cuirasses, if one

102

The Swarm

of the queens appear anxious to make her
escape, then, be she the legitimate sover-
eign or be she the stranger, 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 foe. It
is right to add, however, that the numer-
ous experiments that have been made on
this subject have almost invariably resulted
in the victory of the reigning queen, owing
perhaps to the extra courage and ardour
she derives from the knowledge that she
is at home, with her subjects around her,
or to the fact that the bees, however im-
partial while the fight is in progress, may
possibly display some favouritism in their
manner of imprisoning the rivals ; for
their mother would seem scarcely to suffer
from the confinement, whereas the stranger
almost always emerges in an appreciably
bruised and enfeebled condition.

103

The Life of the Bee

\.33]

There is one simple experiment which
proves the readiness with which the bees
will recognise their queen, and the depth
of the attachment they bear her. Re-
move her from the hive, and there will
soon be manifest all the phenomena of
anguish and distress that I have described
in a preceding chapter. Replace her, a
few hours later, and all her daughters will
hasten towards her, offering honey. One
section will form a lane, for her to pass
through ; others, with head bent low and
abdomen high in the air, will describe
before her great semicircles throbbing with
sound ; hymning, doubtless, the chant of
welcome their rites dictate for moments
of supreme happiness or solemn respect.

But let it not be imagined that a foreign
queen may with impunity be substituted
for the legitimate mother. The bees will
104

The Swarm

at once detect the imposture ; the intru-
der will be seized, and immediately en-
closed in the terrible, tumultuous prison,
whose obstinate walls will be relieved, as
it were, till she dies ; for in this particular
instance it hardly ever occurs that the
stranger emerges alive.

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 insects, and
bend them to his will. In their un-
swerving loyalty, they will accept the
most unexpected events with touching
courage, regarding them probably as some
new and inevitable fatal caprice of nature.
And, indeed, all this diplomacy notwith-
standing, in the desperate confusion that
may follow one of these hazardous ex-
pedients, it is on the admirable good
sense of the bee that man always, and
almost empirically, relies ; on the inex-
105

The Life of the Bee

haustible treasure of their marvellous laws
and customs, on their love of peace and
order, their devotion to the public weal,
and fidelity to the future ; on the adroit
strength, the earnest disinterestedness, of
their character, and, above all, on the un-
tiring devotion with which they fulfil
their duty. But the enumeration of such
procedures belongs rather to technical
treatises on apiculture, and would take us
too far.-^

^ The stranger queen is usually brought into the
hive enclosed in a little cage, with iron wires, which
is hung between two combs. The cage has a door
made of wax and honey, which the workers, their
anger over, proceed to gnaw, thus freeing the prisoner,
whom they will often receive without any ill-will.
Mr. Siromins, manager of the great apiary at Rotting-
dean, has recently discovered another method of intro-
ducing a queen, which, being extremely simple and
almost invariably successful, bids fair to be generally
adopted by apiarists who value their art. It is the
behaviour of the queen that usually makes her intro-
duction a matter of so great difficulty. She is almost
1 06

The Swarm

[34]

As regards this personal affection of
which we have spoken, there is one word
more to be said. That such affection

distracted, flies to and fro, hides, and generally com-
ports herself as an intruder, thus arousing the suspicions
of the bees, which are soon confirmed by the workers'
examination. Mr. Simmins at first completely isolates
the queen he intends to introduce, and lets her fast for
half an hour. He then lifts a corner of the inner
cover of the orphaned hive, and places the strange queen
on the top of one of the combs. Her former isolation
having terrified her, she is delighted to find herself in
the midst of the bees ; and being famished she eagerly
accepts the food they offer her. The workers, de-
ceived by her assurance, do not examine her, but prob-
ably imagine that their old queen has returned, and
welcome her joyflilly. It would seem, therefore, that_,
contrary to the opinion of Huber and all other inves-
tigators, the bees are not capable of recognising their
queen. In any event, the two explanations, which are
both equally plausible — though the truth may lurk,
perhaps, in a third, that is not yet known to us —
only prove once again how complex and obscure is
the psychology of the bee. And from this, as from all
107

The Life of the Bee

exists is certain, but it is certain also that
its memory is exceedingly short-lived.
Dare to replace in her kingdom a mother
whose exile has lasted some days, 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 queens. For the
bees have had time to transform a dozen
workers' habitations into royal cells, and
the future of the race is no longer in
danger. Their affection will increase, or
dwindle, in the degree that the queen rep-
resents the future. Thus we often find,
when a virgin queen is performing the
perilous ceremony known as the " nuptial
flight,*' of which I will speak later, that
her subjects are so fearful of losing her
that they will all accompany her on this

questions that deal with life, we can draw one conclu-
sion only: that, till better obtain, curiosity still must
rule in our heart.

1 08

The Swarm

tragic and distant quest of love. This
they will never do, however, if they be
provided with a fragment of comb con-
taining brood-cellsj whence they shall be
able to rear other queens. Indeed, 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 society, which the
bees would appear to regard far more
seriously than we. It happens, for in-
stance, at times, that apiarists for various
reasons will prevent the queen from join-
ing a swarm by inserting a trellis into the
hive ; the nimble and slender workers will
flit through it, unperceiving, but to the
poor slave of love, heavier and more cor-
pulent than her daughters, it offers an im-
passable barrier. The bees, when they
find that the queen has not followed, will
return to the hive, and scold the unfortu-
nate prisoner, hustle and ill-treat her,
109

The Life of the Bee

accusing her of laziness, probably, or sus-
pecting her of feeble mind. On their
second departure, when they find that she
still has not followed, her ill-faith becomes
evident to them, and their attacks grow
more serious. And finally, when they
shall have gone forth once more, and still
with the same result, they will almost
always condemn her, as being irremediably
faithless to her destiny and to the future
of the race, and put her to death in the
royal prison.

[ 35 3
It is to the future, therefore, that the
bees subordinate all things ; and with
a foresight, a harmonious co-operation, a
skill in interpreting events and turning
them to the best advantage, that must
compel our heartiest admiration, particu-
larly when we remember in how startling
and supernatural a light our recent inter-
no

The Swarm

vention must present itself to them. It
may be said, perhaps, that in the last
instance we have given, they place a very
false construction upon the queen's ina-
bility to follow them. But would our
powers of discernment be so very much
subtler, if an intelligence of an order
entirely different from our own, and
served by a body so colossal that its
movements were almost as imperceptible
as those of a natural phenomenon, were
to divert itself by laying traps of this
kind for us ? Has it not taken us thou-
sands of years to invent a sufficiently
plausible explanation for the thunderbolt ?
There is a certain feebleness that over-
whelms every intellect the moment it
emerges from its own sphere, and is
brought face to face with events not of
its own initiation. And, besides, it is
quite possible that if this ordeal of the
trellis were to obtain more regularly and
III

The Life of the Bee

generally among the bees, they would end
by detecting the pitfall, and by taking
steps to elude it. They have mastered
the intricacies of the movable comb, of
the sections that compel them to store
their surplus honey in little boxes sym-
metrically piled ; and in the case of the
still more extraordinary innovation of
foundation wax, where the cells are indi-
cated only by a slender circumference
of wax, they are able at once to grasp
the advantages this new system presents ;
they most carefully extend the wax, and
thus, without loss of time or labour,
construct perfect cells. So long as the
event that confronts them appear not
a snare devised by some cunning and
malicious god, the bees may be trusted
always to discover the best, nay, the only
human, solution. Let me cite an in-
stance ; an event, that, though occurring
in nature, is still in itself wholly abnor-

112

The Swarm

mal. 1 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 hive. The intruder killed,
they have to deal with the body, which
will very soon poison their dwelling.
If it be impossible for them to expel or
dismember it, they will proceed methodi-
cally and hermetically to enclose it in a
veritable sepulchre of propolis and wax,
which will tower fantastically above the
ordinary monuments of the city. In one
of my hives last year I discovered three
such tombs side by side, erected with
party-walls, like the cells of the comb,
so that no wax should be wasted. These
tombs the prudent grave-diggers had
raised over the remains of three snails
that a child had introduced into the hive.
As a rule, when dealing with snails, they
will be content to seal up with wax the
orifice of the shell. But in this case
S 113

The Life of the Bee

the shells were more or less cracked
and broken ; and they had considered it
simpler, therefore, to bury the entire snail ;
and had further contrived, in order that
circulation in the entrance-hall might not
be impeded, a number of galleries exactly
proportionate, not to their own girth,
but to that of the males, which are
almost twice as large as themselves.
Does not this instance, and the .one that
follows, warrant our believing that they
would in time discover the cause of the
queen's inability to follow them through
the trellis ? They have a very nice sense
of proportion, and of the space required
for the movement of bodies. In the
regions where the hideous death's-head
sphinx, the acherontia atropos, abounds,
they construct little pillars of wax at the
entrance of the hive, so restricting the di-
mension as to prevent the passage of the
nocturnal marauder's enormous abdomen,
114

The Swarm

[36]

But enough on this point ; were I to
cite every instance I should never have
done. To return to the queen, whose
position in the hive, and the part that
she plays therein, we shall most fitly
describe by declaring her to be the cap-
tive heart of the city, and the centre
around which its intelligence revolves.
Unique sovereign though she be, she
is also the royal servant, the responsible
delegate of love, and its captive custo-
dian. Her people serve her and vener-
ate her; but they never forget that it
is not to her person that their homage
is given, but to the mission that she ful-
fils, and the destiny she represents. It
would not be easy for us to find a human
republic whose scheme comprised more
of the desires of our planet ; or a democ-
racy that offered an independence more

The Life of the Bee

perfect and rational, combined with a sub-
mission more logical and more complete.
And nowhere, surely, should we discover
more painful and absolute sacrifice. Let
it not be imagined that I admire this
sacrifice to the extent that 1 admire its
results. It were evidently to be desired
that these results might be obtained at
the cost of less renouncement and suf-
fering. But, the principle once accepted,
— and this is needful, perhaps, in the
scheme of our globe, — its organisation
compels our wonder. Whatever the
human truth on this point may be, life,
in the hive, is not looked on as a
series of more or less pleasant hours,
whereof it is wise that those moments
only should be soured and embittered
that are essential for maintaining exist-
ence. The bees regard it as a great
common duty, impartially distributed
amongst them all, and tending towards
ii6

The Swarm

a future that goes further and further
back ever since the world began. And,
for the sake of this future, each one
renounces more than half of her rights
and her joys. The queen bids farewell
to freedom, the light of day, and the
calyx of flowers ; the workers give five
or six years of their life, and shall never
know love, or the joys of maternity.
The queen^s brain turns to pulp, that the
reproductive organs may profit ; in the
workers these organs atrophy, to the bene-
fit of their intelligence. Nor would it
be fair to allege that the will plays no
part in all these renouncements. We
have seen that each worker's larva can
be transformed into a queen if lodged
and fed on the royal plan; and similarly
could each royal larva be turned into
worker if her food were changed and
her cell reduced. These mysterious elec-
tions take place every day in the golden
117

The Life of the Bee

shade of the hive. It is not chance that
controls them, but a wisdom whose deep
loyalty, gravity, and unsleeping watch-
fulness man alone can betray : a wisdom
that makes and unmakes, and keeps careful
watch over all that happens within and
without the city. If sudden flowers
abound, or the queen grow old, or less
fruitful ; if population increase, and be
pressed for room, you then shall find
that the bees will proceed to rear royal
cells. But these cells may be destroyed
if the harvest fail, or the hive be en-
larged. Often they will be retained so
long as the young queen have not ac-
complished, or succeeded in, her marriage
flight, — to be at once annihilated when
she returns, trailing behind her, trophy-
wise, the infallible sign of her impregna-
tion. Who shall say where the wisdom
resides that can thus balance present and
future, and prefer what is not yet visible
ii8

The Swarm

to that which already is seen ? Where
the anonymous prudence that selects and
abandons, raises and lowers ; that of so
many workers makes so many queens,
and of so many mothers can make a
people of virgins ? We have said else-
where that it lodged in the " Spirit of
the Hive," but where shall this spirit
of the hive be looked for if not in the
assembly of workers ? To be convinced
of its residence there, we need not per-
haps have studied so closely the habits
of this royal republic. It was enough
to place under the microscope, as Dujar-
din, Brandt, Girard, Vogel, and other
entomologists have done, the little un-
couth and careworn head of the virgin
worker side by side with the somewhat
empty skull of the queen and the male's
magnificent cranium, glistening with its
twenty-six thousand eyes. Within this
tiny head we should find the workings
119

The Life of the Bee

of the vastest and most magnificent brain
of the hive : the most beautiful and com-
plex, the most perfect, that, in another
order and with a different organisation, is
to be found in nature after that of man.
Here again, as in every quarter where
the scheme of the world is known to us,
there where the brain is, are authority
and victory, veritable strength and wis-
dom. And here again it is an almost
invisible atom of this mysterious sub-
stance that organises and subjugates
matter, and is able to create its own
little triumphant and permanent place in
the midst of the stupendous, inert forces
of nothingness and death.-^

1 The brain of the bee, according to the calcula-
tion of Dujardin, constitutes the i— 174th part of the
insect's weight, and that of the ant the i— 296th.
On the other hand the peduncular parts, whose de-
velopment usually keeps pace with the triumphs the
intellect achieves over instinct, are somewhat less
important in the bee than in the ant. It would seem
120

The Swarm

[37]

And now to return to our swarming
hive, where the bees have already given
the signal for departure, without waiting
for these reflections of ours to come to an
end. At the moment this signal is given,
it is as though one sudden mad impulse
had simultaneously flung open wide every
single gate in the city ; and the black
throng issues, or rather pours forth in
a double, or treble, or quadruple jet, as
the number of exits may be ; in a tense,
direct, vibrating, uninterrupted stream
that at once dissolves and melts into
space, where the myriad transparent, furi-
ous wings weave a tissue throbbing with
sound. And this for some moments will

to result from these estimates — which are of course
hypothetical, and deal with a matter that is exceed-
ingly obscure — that the intellectual value of the bee
and the ant must be more or less equal.
121

The Life of the Bee

quiver right over the hive, with prodigious
rustle of gossamer silks that countless
electrified hands might be ceaselessly rend-
ing and stitching ; it floats undulating, it
trembles and flutters like a veil of glad-
ness invisible fingers support in the sky,
and wave to and fro, from the flowers to
the blue, expecting sublime advent or de-
parture. And at last one angle declines
another is lifted ; the radiant mantle
unites its four sunlit corners ; and like
the wonderful carpet the fairy-tale speaks
of, that flits across space to obey its mas-
ter's command, it steers its straight course,
bending forward a little as though to hide
in its folds the sacred presence of the
future, towards the willow, the pear-tree,
or lime whereon the queen has alighted ;
and round her each rhythmical wave
comes to rest, as though on a nail of gold,
and suspends its fabric of pearls and of
luminous wings.

122

The Swarm

And then there is silence once more ;
and, in an instant, this mighty tumult,
this awful curtain apparently laden with
unspeakable menace and anger, this be-
wildering golden hail that streamed upon
every object near — all these become merely
a great, inoffensive, peaceful cluster of bees,
composed of thousands of little motionless
groups, that patiently wait, as they hang
from the branch of a tree, for the scouts
to return who have gone in search of a
place of shelter.

[38]

This is the first stage of what is known
as the "primary swarm" at whose head
the old queen is always to be found.
They will settle as a rule on the shrub
or the tree that ^.s nearest the hive; for
the queen, besides being weighed down
by her eggs, has dwelt in constant dark-
ness ever since her marriage-flight, or the
123

The Life of the Bee

swarm of the previous year ; and is natu-
rally reluctant to venture far into space,
having indeed almost forgotten the use
of her wings.

The bee-keeper waits till the mass be
completely gathered together ; then, hav-
ing covered his head with a large straw
hat (for the most inoffensive bee will con-
ceive itself caught in a trap if entangled
in hair, and will infallibly use its sting),
but, if he be experienced, wearing neither
mask nor veil ; having taken the precau-
tion only of plunging his arms in cold
water up to the elbow, he proceeds to
gather the swarm by vigorously shaking
the bough from which the bees depend
over an inverted hive. Into this hive the
cluster will fall as heavily as an over-ripe
fruit. Or, if the branch be too stout, he
can plunge a spoon into the mass ; and
deposit where he will the living spoonfuls,
as though he were ladling out corn. He
124

The Swarm

need have no fear of the bees that are
buzzing around him, settling on his face
and hands. The air resounds with their
song of ecstasy, which is different far from
their chant of anger. He need have no
fear that the swarm will divide, or grow
fierce, will scatter, or try to escape. This
is a day, I repeat, when a spirit of holi-
day would seem to animate these mys-
terious workers, a spirit of confidence,
that apparently nothing can trouble.
They have detached themselves from
the wealth they had to defend, and they
no longer recognise their enemies. They
become inoffensive because of their hap-
piness, though why they are happy we
know not, except it be because they are
obeying their law. A moment of such
blind happiness is accorded by nature at
times to every living thing, when she
seeks to accomplish her end. Nor need
we feel any surprise that here the bees are
125

The Life of the Bee

her dupes ; we ourselves, who have studied
her movements these centuries past, and
with a brain more perfect than that of the
bee, we too are her dupes, and know not
even yet whether she be benevolent or
indifferent, or only basely cruel.

There where the queen has alighted the
swarm will remain ; and had she descended
alone into the hive, the bees would have
followed, in long black files, as soon as
intelligence had reached them of the ma-
ternal retreat. The majority will hasten
to her, with utmost eagerness ; but large
numbers will pause for an instant on the
threshold of the unknown abode, and
there will describe the circles of solemn
rejoicing with which it is their habit to
celebrate happy events. " They are beat-
ing to arms," say the French peasants.
And then the strange home will at once
be accepted, and its remotest corners
explored ; its position in the apiary, its
126

The Swarm

form, its colour, are grasped and retained
in these thousands of prudent and faithful
little memories. Careful note is taken of
the neighbouring landmarks, the new city-
is founded, and its place established in the
mind and the heart of all its inhabitants ;
the walls resound with the love-hymn of
the royal presence, and work begins.

[39']
But if the swarm be not gathered by
man, its history will not end here. It
will remain suspended on the branch un-
til the return of the workers, who, acting
as scouts, winged quartermasters, as it
were, have at the very first moment of
swarming sallied forth in all directions in
search of a lodging. They return one by
one, and render account of their mission ;
and as it is manifestly impossible for us to
fathom the thought of the bees, we can
only interpret in human fashion the spec-
127

The Life of the Bee

tacle that they present. We may regard
it as probable, therefore, that most careful
attention is given to the reports of the
various scouts. One of them it may be,
dwells on the advantage of some hollow
tree it has seen ; another is in favour of a
crevice in a ruinous wall, of a cavity in a
grotto, or an abandoned burrow. The
assembly often will pause and deliberate
until the following morning. Then at
last the choice is made, and approved by
all. At a given moment the entire mass
stirs, disunites, sets in motion, and then,
in one sustained and impetuous flight,
that this time knows no obstacle, it will
steer its straight course, over hedges and
cornfields, over haystack and lake, over
river and village, to its determined and
always distant goal. It is rarely indeed
that this second stage can be followed by
man. The swarm returns to nature ; and
we lose the track of its destiny.
128

Ill

THE FOUNDATION OF THE
CITY

1
129

Ill

THE FOUNDATION OF THE
CITY

[40]

LET us rather consider the proceedings
of the swarm the apiarist shall have
gathered into his hive. And first of all
let us not be forgetful of the sacrifice these
fifty thousand virgins have made, who, as
Ronsard sings, —

<' In a little body bear so true a heart, — **

and let us, yet once again, admire the
courage with which they begin life anew
in the desert whereon they have fallen.
They have forgotten the splendour and
wealth of their native city, where existence
had been so admirably organised and
J31

The Life of the Bee

certain, where the essence of every flower
reminiscent of sunshine had enabled them
to smile at the menace of winter. There,
asleep in the depths of their cradles, they
have left thousands and thousands of
daughters, whom they never again will
see. They have abandoned, not only the
enormous treasure of pollen and propolis
they had gathered together, but also more
than 1 20 pounds of honey; a quantity
representing more than twelve times the
entire weight of the population, and close
on 600,000 times that of the individual
bee. To man this would mean 42,000
tons of provisions, a vast fleet of mighty
ships laden with nourishment more pre-
cious than any known to us ; for to the
bee honey is a kind of liquid life, a species
of chyle that is at once assimilated, with
almost no waste whatever.

Here, in the new abode, there is noth-
ing ; not a drop of honey, not a morsel of
132

The Foundation of the City-
wax; neither guiding-mark nor point of
support. There is only the dreary emp-
tiness of an enormous monument that has
nothing but sides and roof Within the
smooth and rounded walls there only is
darkness ; and the enormous arch above
rears itself over nothingness. But useless
regrets are unknown to the bee; or in any
event it does not allow them to hinder its
action. Far from being cast down by an
ordeal before which every other courage
would succumb, it displays greater ardour
than ever. Scarcely has the hive been
set in its place, or the disorder allayed that
ensued on the bees* tumultuous fall, when
we behold the clearest, most unexpected
division in that entangled mass. The
greater portion, forming in solid columns,
like an army obeying a definite order, will
proceed to climb the vertical walls of the
hive. The cupola reached, the first to
arrive will cling with the claws of their

The Life of the Bee

anterior legs, those that follow hang on to
the first, and so in succession, until long
chains have been formed that serve as a
bridge to the crowd that rises and rises.
And, by slow degrees, these chains, as
their number increases, supporting each
other and incessantly interweaving, be-
come garlands which, in their turn, the
uninterrupted and constant ascension
transforms into a thick, triangular curtain,
or rather a kind of compact and inverted
cone, whose apex attains the summit of
the cupola, while its widening base de-
scends to a half, or two-thirds, of the
entire height of the hive. And then, the
last bee that an inward voice has impelled
to form part of this group having added
itself to the curtain suspended in darkness,
the ascension ceases ; all movement slowly
dies away in the dome ; and, for long
hours, this strange inverted cone will wait,
in a silence that almost seems awful, in a
134

The Foundation of the City

stillness one might regard as religious, for
the mystery of wax to appear.

In the meantime the rest of the bees —
those, that is, that remained down below
in the hive — have shown not the slightest
desire to join the others aloft, and pay no
heed to the formation of the marvellous
curtain on whose folds a magical gift is
soon to descend. They are satisfied to
examine the edifice and undertake the
necessary labours. They carefully sweep
the floor, and remove, one by one, twigs,
grains of sand, and dead leaves ; for the
bees are almost fanatically cleanly, and
when, in the depths of winter, severe
frosts retard too long what apiarists term
their " flight of cleanliness," rather than
sully the hive they will perish by thou-
sands of a terrible bowel-disease. The
males alone are incurably careless, and will
impudently bestrew the surface of the comb
with their droppings, which the workers
US

The Life of the Bee

are obliged to sweep as they hasten behind
them.

The cleaning over, the bees of the pro-
fane group that form no part of the cone
suspended in a sort of ecstasy, set to work
minutely to survey the lower circumference
of the common dwelling. Every crevice
is passed in review, and filled, covered
over with propolis ; and the varnishing of
the walls is begun, from top to bottom.
Guards are appointed to take their stand
at the gate ; and very soon a certain
number of workers will go to the fields
and return with their burden of pollen.

[41]
Before raising the folds of the mysteri-
ous curtain beneath whose shelter are laid
the veritable foundations of the home, let
us endeavour to form some conception of
the sureness of vision, the accurate cal-
culation and industry our little people
136

The Foundation of the City

of emigrants will be called to display
in order to adapt this new dwelling to
their requirements. In the void round
about them they must lay the plans for
their city, and logically mark out the site
of the edifices that must be erected as
economically and quickly as possible, for
the queen, eager to lay, already is scat-
tering her eggs on the ground. And in
this labyrinth of complicated buildings,
so far existing only in imagination, laws
of ventilation must be considered, of
stability, solidity ; resistance of the wax
must not be lost sight of, or the nature
of the food to be stored, or the habits
of the queen ; ready access must be con-
trived to all parts, and careful attention
be given to the distribution of stores and
houses, passages and streets, — this how-
ever is in some measure pre-established,
the plan already arrived at being organi-
cally the best, — and there are countless
^2>7

The Life of the Bee

problems besides, whose enumeration
would take too long.

Now, the form of the hive that man
offers to the bee knows infinite variety,
from the hollow tree or earthenware vessel
still obtaining in Asia and Africa, and the
famihar bell-shaped constructions of straw
which we find in our farmers' kitchen-
gardens or beneath their windows, lost
beneath masses of sunflowers, phlox, and
hollyhock, to what may really be termed
the factory of the model apiarist of to-
day. An edifice, this, that can contain
more than three hundred pounds of
honey, in three or four stories of super-
posed combs enclosed in a frame which
permits of their being removed and
handled, of the harvest being extracted
■^hrough centrifugal force by means of
a turbine, and of their being then re-
stored to their place like a book in a
well-ordered library.
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The Foundation of the City

And one fine day the industry or
caprice of man will install a docile swarm
in one of these disconcerting abodes. And
there the little insect is expected to learn
its bearings, to find its way, to establish
its home ; to modify the seemingly un-
changeable plans dictated by the nature
of things. In this unfamiliar place it
is required to determine the site of the
winter storehouses, that must not extend
beyond the zone of heat that issues from
the half-numbed inhabitants ; it must
divine the exact point where the brood-
cells shall concentrate, under penalty of
disaster should these be too high or too
low, too near to or far from the door.
The swarm, it may be, has just left
the trunk of a fallen tree, containing
one long, narrow, depressed, horizon-
tal gallery ; and it finds itself now
in a tower-shaped edifice, whose roof is
lost in gloom. Or, to take a case that
139

The Life of the Bee

is more usual, perhaps, and one that
will give some idea of the surprise habit-
ually in store for the bees: after having
lived for centuries past beneath the
straw dome of our village hives, they
are suddenly transplanted to a species
of mighty cupboard, or chest, three or
four times as large as the place of their
birth ; and installed in the midst of a con-
fused scaffolding of superposed frames,
some running parallel to the entrance and
some perpendicular ; the whole forming
a bewildering network that obscures the
surfaces of their dwelling.

[42]

And yet, for all this, there exists not
a single instance of a swarm refusing its
duty, or allowing itself to be baffled or
discouraged by the strangeness of its sur-
roundings, except only in the case of the
new dwelling being absolutely uninhabi-
140

The Foundation of the City

table, or impregnated with evil odours.
And even then the bees will not be dis-
heartened or bewildered ; even then they
will not abandon their mission. The
swarm will simply forsake the inhospi-
table abode, to seek better fortune some
little distance away. And similarly it can
never be said of them that they can be
induced to undertake any illogical or
foolish task. Their common-sense has
never been known to fail them ; they
have never, at a loss for definite decision,
erected at haphazard structures of a wild or
heterogeneous nature. Though you place
the swarm in a sphere, a cube, or a pyra-
mid, in an oval or polygonal basket, you
will find, on visiting the bees a few days
later, that if this strange assembly of little
independent intellects has accepted the new
abode, they will at once, and unhesitatingly
and unanimously have known how to select
the most favourable, often humanly speak-
141

The Life of the Bee
ing the only possible spot in this absurd
habitation, in pursuance of a method
whose principles may appear inflexible,
but whose results are strikingly vivid.

When installed in one of the huge fac-
tories, bristling with frames, that we men-
tioned just now, these frames will interest
them only to the extent in which they
provide them with a basis or point of
departure for their combs ; and they
very naturally pay not the slightest heed
to the desires or intentions of man. But
if the apiarist have taken the precaution
of surrounding the upper lath of some of
these frames with a narrow fillet of wax,
they will be quick to perceive the advan-
tage this tempting offer presents, and will
carefully extract the fillet, using their own
wax as solder, and will prolong the comb
in accordance with the indicated plan.
Similarly — and the case is frequent in

modern apiculture — if all the frames of

142

The Foundation of the City

the hive into which the bees have been
gathered be covered from top to bottom
with leaves of foundation-wax, they will
not waste time in erecting buildings across
or beside these, or in producing useless
wax, but, finding that the work is already
half finished, they will be satisfied to
deepen and lengthen each of the cells
designed in the leaf, carefully rectifying
these where there is the slightest devia-
tion from the strictest vertical. Proceed-
ing in this fashion, therefore, they will
possess in a week a city as luxurious and
well-constructed as the one they have
quitted ; whereas, had they been thrown
on their own resources, it would have
taken them two or three months to con-
struct so great a profusion of dwellings
and storehouses of shining wax.

143

The Life of the Bee

[43]

This power of appropriation may well
be considered to overstep the limit of
instinct ; and indeed there can be nothing
more arbitrary than the distinction we
draw between instinct and intelligence
properly so-called. Sir John Lubbock,
whose observations on ants, bees, and
wasps are so interesting and so personal,
is reluctant to credit the bee, from the
moment it forsakes the routine of its
habitual labour, with any power of discern-
ment or reasoning. This attitude of his
may be due in some measure to an uncon-
scious bias in favour of the ants, whose
ways he has more specially noted ; for the
entomologist is always inclined to regard
that insect as the more intelligent to which
he has more particularly devoted himself,
and we have to be on our guard against
this little personal predilection. As a
i44

The Foundation of the City

proof of his theory, Sir John cites as an
instance an experiment within the reach of
all. If you place in a bottle half a dozen
bees and the same number of flies, and
lay the bottle down horizontally, with its
base to the window, you will find that the
bees will, persist, till they die of exhaustion
or hunger, in their endeavour to discover
an issue through the glass ; while the
flies, in less than two minutes, will all
have sallied forth through the neck on
the opposite side. From this Sir John
Lubbock concludes that the intelligence
of the bee is exceedingly limited, and that
the fly shows far greater skill in extricat-
ing itself from a difiiculty, and finding its
way. This conclusion, however, would
not seem altogether flawless. Turn the
transparent sphere twenty times, if you
will, holding now the base, now the neck,
to the window, and you will find that the
bees will turn twenty times with it, so as
1° 145

The Life of the Bee

always to face the light. It is their love of
the light, it is their very intelligence, that
is their undoing in this experiment of the
English savant. They evidently imagine
that the issue from every prison must be
there where the light shines clearest ; and
they act in accordance, and persist in too
logical action. To them glass is a super-
natural mystery they never have met
with in nature ; they have had no ex-
perience of this suddenly impenetrable
atmosphere ; and, the greater their in-
telligence, the more inadmissible, more
incomprehensible, will the strange ob-
stacle appear. Whereas the feather-
brained flies, careless of logic as of the
enigma of crystal, disregarding the call of
the light, flutter wildly hither and thither,
and, meeting here the good fortune that
often waits on the simple, who find
salvation there where the wiser will
perish, necessarily end by discovering
146

The Foundation of the City

the friendly opening that restores their
liberty to them.

The same naturalist cites yet another
proof of the bees* lack of intelligence, and
discovers it in the following quotation
from the great American apiarist, the
venerable and paternal Langstroth ; —

" As the fly was not intended to ban-
quet on blossoms, but on substances in
which it might easily be drowned, it
cautiously alights on the edge of any
vessel containing liquid food, and warily
helps itself; while the poor bee, plunging
in headlong, speedily perishes. 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 dead,
to share the same miserable end. No one
can understand the extent of their infatua-
tion until he has seen a confectioner's
shop assailed by myriads of hungry bees.
M7

The Life of the Bee

I have seen thousands strained out from
the syrups in which they had perished ;
thousands more ahghting even on the
boiUng sweets ; the floors covered and win-
dows darkened with bees, some crawUng,
others flying, 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 spoils, and yet the
air filled with new hosts of thoughtless
comers."

This, however, seems to me no more
conclusive than might be the spectacle of
a battlefield, or of the ravages of alcohol-
ism, to a superhuman observer bent on
establishing the limits of human under-
standing. Indeed, less so, perhaps ; for
the situation of the bee, when compared
with our own, is strange in this world.
It was intended to live in the midst of an
indifferent and unconscious nature, and
not by the side of an extraordinary being
148

The Foundation of the City

who is forever disturbing the most con-
stant laws, and producing grandiose, inex-
plicable phenomena. In the natural order
of things, in the monotonous life of the
forest, the madness Langstroth describes
would be possible only were some accident
suddenly to destroy a hive full of honey.
But in this case, even, there would be no
fatal glass, no boiling sugar or cloying
syrup ; no death or danger, therefore,
other than that to which every animal is
exposed while seeking its prey.

Should we be more successful than
they in preserving our presence of mind
if some strange power were at every step
to ensnare our reason ? Let us not be
too hasty in condemning the bees for the
folly whereof we are the authors, or in de-
riding their intellect, 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-day, but on
149

The Life of the Bee

that account not impossible. None such
being known at present, we conclude that
we stand on the topmost pinnacle of life
on this earth ; but this belief, after all,
is by no means infallible. I am not
assuming that when our actions are un-
reasonable, or contemptible, we merely
fall into the snares that such a creature
has laid; though it is not inconceivable
that this should one day be proved true.
On the other hand, 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 bear. It is
certain that there are, in us and about
us, influences and powers no less dis-
similar whose distinction escapes us as
readily.

And finally, to end this apology, where-
in I seem somewhat to have fallen into
the error I laid to Sir John Lubbock's
charge, does not the capacity for folly so
150

The Foundation of the City

great in itself argue intelligence? For
thus it is ever in the uncertain domain of
the intellect, apparently the most vacillat-
ing and precarious condition of matter.
The same light that falls on the intellect
falls also on passion, whereof none can
tell whether it be the smoke of the flame
or the wick. In the case above it has not
been mere animal desire to gorge them-
selves with honey that has urged on the
bees. They could do this at their leisure
in the store-rooms at home. Watch them
in an analogous circumstance; follow them ;
you will see that, as soon as their sac is
filled, they will return to the hive and
add their spoil to the general store ; and
visit the marvellous vintage, and leave it,
perhaps thirty times in an hour. Their
admirable labours, therefore, are inspired
by a single desire : zeal to bring as much
wealth as they can to the home of their
sisters, which is also the home of the
151

The Life of the Bee

future. When we discover a cause as
disinterested for the follies of men, we are
apt to call them by another name.

[44]
However, the whole truth must be told.
In the midst of the marvels of their indus-
try, their policy, their sacrifice, one thing
exists that must always check and weaken
our admiration ; and this is the indifference
with which they regard the misfortunes or
death of their comrades. There is a
strange duality in the character of the
bee. In the heart of the hive all help
and love each other. They are as united
as the good thoughts that dwell in the
same soul. Wound one of them, and
a thousand will sacrifice themselves to
avenge its injury. But outside the hive
they no longer recognise each other.
Mutilate them, crush them, — or rather,
do nothing of the kind ; it would be a
152

The Foundation of the City

useless cruelty, for the fact is established
beyond any doubt, — but were you to
mutilate, or crush, on a piece of comb
placed a few steps from their dwelling,
twenty or thirty bees that have all issued
from the same hive, those you have left
untouched will not even turn their heads.
With their tongue, fantastic as a Chinese
weapon, they will tranquilly continue to
absorb the liquid they hold more precious
than life, heedless of the agony whose
last gestures almost are touching them,
of the cries of distress that arise all
around. And when the comb is empty,
so great is their anxiety that nothing shall
be lost, that their eagerness to gather the
honey which clings to the victims will in-
duce them tranquilly to climb over dead
and dying, unmoved by the presence of
the first and never dreaming of helping
the others. In this case, therefore, they
have no notion of the danger they run,
153

The Life of the Bee

seeing that they are wholly untroubled by
the death that is scattered about them, and
they have not the slightest sense of soli-
darity or pity. As regards the danger,
the explanation lies ready to hand ; the
bees know not the meaning of fear, and,
with the exception only of smoke, are
afraid of nothing in the world. Outside
the hive, they display extreme condescen-
sion and forbearance. They will avoid
whatever disturbs them, and affect to ig-
nore its existence, so long as it come not
too close ; as though aware that this uni-
verse belongs to all, that each one has his
place there, and must needs be discreet and
peaceful. But beneath this indulgence is
quietly hidden a heart so sure of itself that
it never dreams of protesting. If they are
threatened, they will alter their course, but
never attempt to escape. In the hive,
however, they will not confine themselves
to this passive ignoring of peril. They
154

The Foundation of the City

will spring with incredible fury on any
living thing, ant or Hon or man, that
dares to profane the sacred ark. This
we may term anger, ridiculous obsti-
nacy, or heroism, according as our mind
be disposed.

But of their want of solidarity outside
the hive, and even of sympathy within it,
I can find nothing to say. Are we to
believe that each form of intellect possesses
its own strange limitation, and that the
tiny flame which with so much difficulty
at last burns its way through inert matter
and issues forth from the brain, is still so
uncertain that if it illumine one point more
strongly the others are forced into blacker
darkness ? Here we find that the bees (or
nature acting within them) have organised
work in common, the love and cult of the
future, in a manner more perfect than can
elsewhere be discovered. Is it for this
reason that they have lost sight of all the
155

The Life of the Bee

rest? They give their love to what lies
ahead of them ; we bestow ours on what is
around. And we who love here, perhaps,
have no love left for what is beyond.
Nothing varies so much as the direction
of pity or charity. We ourselves should
formerly have been far less shocked than
we are to-day at the insensibility of the
bees ; and to many an ancient people such
conduct would not have seemed blame-
worthy. And further, can we tell how
many of the things that we do would
shock a being who might be watching
us as we watch the bees ?

156

IV

THE LIFE OF THE BEE

'57

IV
THE LIFE OF THE BEE

[45]

LET us now, in order to form a
clearer conception of the bees* in-
tellectual power, proceed to consider their
methods of inter-communication. There
can be no doubting that they understand
each other; and indeed it were surely
impossible for a republic so considerable,
wherein the labours are so varied and so
marvellously combined, to subsist amid
the silence and spiritual isolation of so
many thousand creatures. They must be
able, therefore, to give expression to
thoughts and feelings, by means either
of a phonetic vocabulary or more prob-
159

The Life of the Bee

ably of some kind of tactile language or
magnetic intuition, corresponding per-
haps to senses and properties of matter
wholly unknown to ourselves. And such
intuition well might lodge in the myste-
rious antennae — containing, in the case
of the workers, according to Cheshire's
calculation, twelve thousand tactile hairs
and five thousand " smell-hollows,*' where-
with they probe and fathom the darkness.
For the mutual understanding of the bees
is not confined to their habitual labours ;
the extraordinary also has a name and
place in their language ; as is proved by
the manner in which news, good or bad,
normal or supernatural, will at once spread
in the hive ; the loss or return of the
mother, for instance, the entrance of an
enemy, the intrusion of a strange queen,
the approach of a band of marauders, the
discovery of treasure, etc. And so char-
acteristic is their attitude, so essentially
i6o

The Life of the Bee

different their murmur at each of these
special events, that the experienced apia-
rist can without difficulty tell what is
troubling the crowd that moves dis-
tractedly to and fro in the shadow.

If you desire a more definite proof, 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
table. She will immediately gorge herself
with it ; and so eagerly, that you will
have time, without fear of disturbing her,
to mark her tiny belt with a touch of paint.
But this gluttony of hers is all on the
surface ; the honey will not pass into the
stomach proper, into what we might call
her personal stomach, but remains in the
sac, the first stomach, — that of the com-
munity, if one may so express it. This
reservoir full, the bee will depart, but not
with the free and thoughtless motion of the
fly or butterfly ; fhe, on the contrary, will
II i6i

The Life of the Bee

for some moments fly backwards, hovering
eagerly about the table or window, with
her head turned toward the room.

She is reconnoitring, fixing in her
memory the exact position of the treasure.
Thereupon she will go to the hive, dis-
gorge her plunder into one of the provi-
sion-cells, and in three or four minutes
return, and resume operations at the
providential window. And thus, while
the honey lasts, will she come and go,
at intervals of every five minutes, till
evening, if need be ; without interruption
or rest ; pursuing her regular journeys
from the hive to the window, from the
window back to the hive.

[46]

Many of those who have written on

bees have thought fit to adorn the truth;'

I myself have no such desire. For

studies of this description to possess

162

The Life of the Bee

any interest, it is essential that they
should remain absolutely sincere. Had
the conclusion been forced upon me that
bees are incapable of communicating to
each other news of an event occurring
outside the hive, I should, I imagine, as
a set-off against the slight disappoint-
ment this discovery would have entailed,
have derived some degree of satisfaction
in recognising once more that man, after
all, is the only truly intelligent being who
inhabits our globe. 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 wonder-
ful. Here as in every case the principle
holds that, should the naked truth appear
at the moment less interesting, less great
and noble than the imaginary embellish-
ment it lies in our power to bestow, the
fault must rest with ourselves who still
tire unable to perceive the astonishing

:63

The Life of the Bee

relation in which this truth always must
stand to our being, and to universal law ;
and in that case it is not the truth, but
our intellect, that needs embellishment
and ennoblement.

I will frankly confess, therefore, that
the marked bee often returns alone.
Shall we believe that in bees there exists
the same difference of character as in
men ; that of them too some are gossips,
and others prone to silence P A friend
who stood by and watched my experi-
ment, declared that it was evidently mere
selfishness or vanity that caused so many
of the bees to refrain from revealing the
source of their wealth, and from sharing
with others the glory of an achievement
that must seem miraculous to the hive.
These were sad vices indeed, which give
not forth the sweet odour, so fragrant'
and loyal, that springs from the home of
the many thousand sisters. But, what-
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The Life of the Bee

ever the cause, it often will also happen
that the bee whom fortune has favoured
will return to the honey accompanied by
two or three friends. I am aware that
Sir John Lubbock, in the appendix to
his book on " Ants, Bees, and Wasps,"
records the results of his investigations
in long and minute tables : 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 dis-
covery. The learned naturalist does not
name the race of bees which he selected
for his experiments, or tell us whether
the conditions were especially unfavour-
able. As for myself I only can say that
my own tables, compiled with great care,
— and every possible precaution having
been taken that the bees should not be
directly attracted by the odour of the
honey, — establish that on an average one
bee will bring others four times out often.

165

The Life of the Bee

I even one day came across an extraor-
dinary little Italian bee, whose belt I had
marked with a touch of blue paint. In
her second trip she brought two of her
sisters, whom I imprisoned, without in-
terfering with her. She departed once
more, and this time returned with three
friends, whom I again confined, and so
till the end of the afternoon, when, count-
ing my prisoners, I found that she had
told the news to no less than eighteen
bees.

In fact you will find, if you make this
experiment yourself, that communication,
if not general, at least is frequent. The
possession of this faculty is so well
known to American bee-hunters that they
trade upon it when engaged In searching
for nests. Mr. Josiah Emery remarks
on this head (quoted by Romanes In
his " Intellect of Animals ") : " Going
to a field or wood at a distance from
i66

The Life of the Bee

tame bees with their box of honey, they
gather up from the flowers and imprison
one or more bees, and after they have
become sufficiently gorged, let them out
to return to their home with their easily
gotten load. Waiting patiently a longer
or shorter time, according to the distance
of the bee-tree, the hunter scarcely ever
fails to see the bee or bees return accom-
panied by other bees, which are in like
manner imprisoned till they in turn are
filled ; then one or more are let out at
places distant from each other, and the
direction in which the bee flies noted ;
and thus, by a kind of triangulation, the
position of the bee-tree proximately
ascertained."

[47]

You will notice too in your experi-
ments that the friends who appear to
obey the behests of good fortune do not
167

The Life of the Bee

always fly together, and that there will
often be an interval of several seconds be-
tween the different arrivals. As regards
these communications, therefore, we must
ask ourselves the question that Sir John
Lubbock has solved as far as the ants are
concerned.

Do the comrades who flock to the treas-
ure only follow the bee that first made the
discovery, or have they been sent on by
her, and do they find it through following
her indications, her description of the
place where it lies ? Between these two
hypotheses, that refer directly to the extent
and working of the bee's intellect, there is
obviously an enormous diiference. The
English savant has succeeded, by means
of an elaborate and ingenious arrangement
of gangways, corridors, moats full of
water, and flying bridges, in establishing
that the ants in such cases do no more
than follow in the track of the pioneering
168

The Life of the Bee

insect. With ants, that can be made to
pass where one will, such experiments are
possible; but for the bee, whose wings
throw every avenue open, some other ex-
pedient must of necessity be contrived.
I imagined the following, which, though
it gave no definite result, might yet,
under more favourable conditions, and if
organised more carefully, give rise to defi-
nite and satisfactory conclusions.

My study in the country is on the first
floor, above a somewhat lofty room ; suf-
ficiently high, therefore, to be out of the
ordinary range of the bees' flight, except
at times when the chestnuts and lime
trees are in bloom. And for more than
a week before I started this experiment
I had kept on my table an open comb of
honey, v/ithout the perfume having at-
tracted, or induced the visit of, a single
bee. Then I went to a glass hive that
was close to the house, took an Italian
169

The Life of the Bee

bee, brought her to my study, set her on
the comb, and marked her while she was
feeding.

When satisfied, she flew away and re-
turned to the hive. I followed, saw her
pass over the surface of the crowd, plunge
her head into an empty cell, disgorge her
honey, and prepare to set forth again. At
the door of the hive I had placed a glass
box, divided by a trap into two compart-
ments. The bee flew into this box; and
as she was alone, and no other bee seemed
to accompany or follow her, I imprisoned
her and left her there. I then repeated
the experiment on twenty different bees
in succession. When the marked bee
reappeared alone, I imprisoned her as I
had imprisoned the first. But eight of
them came to the threshold of the hive
and entered the box accompanied by two
or three friends. By means of the trap
I was able to separate the marked bee
170

The Life of the Bee

from her companions, and to keep her
a prisoner in the first compartment. Then,
having marked her companions with a
different colour, I threw open the second
compartment and set them at liberty,
myself returning quickly to my study
to await their arrival. Now it is evi-
dent that if a verbal or magnetic commu-
nication had passed, indicating the place,
describing the way, etc., a certain num-
ber of the bees, having been furnished
with this information, should have found
their way to my room. I am compelled
to admit that there came but a single one.
Was this mere chance, or had she followed
instructions received ? The experiment
was insufHcient, but circumstances pre-
vented me from carrying it further. I
released the " baited " bees, and my study
soon was besieged by the buzzing crowd
to whom they had taught the way to the
treasure.

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The Life of the Bee

We need not concern ourselves with
this incomplete attempt of mine, for many-
other curious traits compel us to recognise
the existence among the bees of spiritual
communications that go beyond a mere
"yes** or "no," and that are manifest in
cases where mere example or gesture
would not be sufficient. Of such, for
instance, are the remarkable harmony of
their work in the hive, the extraordinary
division of labour, the regularity with
which one worker will take the place of
another, etc, I have often marked bees
that went foraging in the morning, and
found that, in the afternoon, unless flowers
were specially abundant, they would be
engaged in heating and fanning the brood-
cells, or perhaps would form part of the
mysterious, motionless curtain in whose
midst the wax-makers and sculptors would
be at work. Similarly I have noticed
that workers whom I have seen gather-

The Life of the Bee

ing pollen for the whole of one day, will
bring no pollen back on the morrow,
but will concern themselves exclusively
with the search for nectar, and vice-
versa.

[48]

And further, we might mention what
M. Georges de Layens, the celebrated
French apiarist, terms the " Distribution
of Bees over Melliferous Plants/' Day
after day, at the first hour of sunrise, the
explorers of the dawn return, and the hive
awakes to receive the good news of the
earth. " The lime trees are blossoming
to-day on the banks of the canal." " The
grass by the roadside is gay with white
clover." " The sage and the lotus are
about to open." " The mignonette, the
lilies are overflowing with pollen." Where-
upon the bees must organise quickly, and
arrange to divide the work. Five thou-
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The Life of the Bee

sand of the sturdiest will sally forth to the
lime trees, while three thousand juniors go
and refresh the white clover. Those who
yesterday were absorbing nectar from the
corollas will to-day repose their tongue
and the glands of their sac, and gather red
pollen from the mignonette, or yellow
pollen from the tall lilies ; for never shall
you see a bee collecting or mixing pollen
of a different colour or species ; and indeed
one of the chief pre-occupations of the
hive is the methodical bestowal of these
pollens in the store-rooms, in strict accord-
ance with their origin and colour. Thus
does the hidden genius issue its commands.
The workers immediately sally forth, in
long black files, whereof each one will
fly straight to its allotted task. " The
bees,'' says De Layens, "would seem
to be perfectly informed as to the lo-
cality, the relative melliferous value,
and the distance of every melliferous
174

The Life of the Bee

plant within a certain radius from the
hive.

" If we carefully note the different direc-
tions in which these foragers fly, and
observe in detail the harvest they gather
from the various plants around, we shall
find that the workers distribute themselves
over the flowers in proportion not only to
the numbers of flowers of one species, but
also to their melliferous value. Nay,
more — they make daily calculations as to
the means of obtaining the greatest possi-
ble wealth of saccharine liquid. In the
spring, for instance, after the willows have
bloomed, when the fields still are bare,
and the first flowers of the woods are the
one resource of the bees, we shall see
them eagerly visiting gorse and violets,
lungworts and anemones. But, a few days
later, when fields of cabbage and colza
begin to flower in sufficient abundance, we
shall find that the bees will almost entirely
175

The Life of the Bee

forsake the plants in the woods, though
these be still in full blossom, and will con-
fine their visits to the flowers of cabbage
and colza alone. In this fashion they
regulate, day by day, their distribution
over the plants, so as to collect the great-
est value of saccharine liquid in the least
possible time.

"It may fairly be claimed, therefore, for
the colony of bees that, in its harvesting
labours no less than in its internal economy,
it is able to establish a rational distribution
of the number of workers without ever
disturbing the principle of the division of
labour."

[49]
But what have we to do, some will ask,
with the intelligence of the bees ? What
concern is it of ours whether this be a little
less or a little more? Why weigh, with
such infinite care, a minute fragment of
176

The Life of the Bee

almost invisible matter, as though it were
a fluid whereon depended the destiny of
man ? I hold, and exaggerate nothing,
that our interest herein is of the most con-
siderable= 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
island. We seem less solitary than we
had believed. And indeed, in our en-
deavour to understand the intellect of
the bees, we are studying in them that
which is most precious in our own sub-
stance : an atom of the extraordinary
matter which possesses, wherever it at-
tach itself, the magnificent power of
transfiguring blind necessity, of organ-
ising, embellishing, and multiplying life ;
and, most striking of all, of holding in
suspense the obstinate force of death,
and the mighty, irresponsible wave that

12 177

The Life of the Bee

wraps almost all that exists in an eternal
unconsciousness.

Were we sole possessors of the particle
of matter that, when maintained in a
special condition of flower or incandes-
cence, we term the intellect, we should to
some extent be entitled to look on our-
selves as privileged beings, and to imagine
that in us nature achieved some kind of
aim ; but here we discover, in the hymen-
optera, an entire category of beings in
whom a more or less identical aim is
achieved. And this fact, though it decide
nothing perhaps, still holds an honour-
able place in the mass of tiny facts that
help to throw light on our position in
this world. It affords even, if considered
from a certain point of view, a fresh proof
of the most enigmatic part of our being ;
for the superpositions of destinies that we
find in the hive are surveyed by us from
an eminence loftier than any we can attain
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The Life of the Bee

for the contemplation of the descinies
of man. There we see before us, in
miniature, the large and simple lines that
in our own disproportionate sphere we
never have the occasion to disentangle
and follow to the end. Spirit and matter
are there, the race and the individual, evo-
lution and permanence, life and death, the
past and the future ; all gathered together
in a retreat that our hand can lift and one
look of our eye embrace. And may we
not reasonably ask ourselves whether the
mere size of a body, and the room that it
fills in time and space, can modify to the
extent we imagine the secret idea of na-
ture ; the idea that we try to discover in
the little history of the hive, which in a
few days already is ancient, no less than
in the great history of man, of whom three
generations overlap a long century ?

179

The Life of the Bee

[50]

Let us go on, then, with the story of
our hive ; let us take it up where we left
it ; and raise, as high as we may, a fold of
the festooned curtain in whose midst a
strange sweat, white as snow and airier
than the down of a wing, is beginning to
break over the swarm. For the wax that
is now being born is not like the wax that
we know ; it is immaculate, it has no
weight; seeming truly to be the soul of
the honey, that itself is the spirit of flowers.
And this motionless incantation has called
it forth that it may serve us, later — in
memory of its origin, doubtless, wherein
it is one with the azure sky, and heavy
with perfumes of magnificence and purity
— as the fragrant light of the last of
our altars.

iSo

The Life of the Bee

[51]
To follow the various phases of the
secretion and employment of wax by a
swarm that is beginning to build, is a
matter of very great difficulty. All comes
to pass in the blackest depths of the
crowd, whose agglomeration, growing
denser and denser, produces the tem-
perature needful for this exudation, which
is the privilege of the youngest bees.
Huber, who was the first to study these
phenomena, bringing incredible patience
to bear and exposing himself at times to
very serious danger, devotes to them
more than two hundred and fifty pages ;
which, though of considerable interest,
are necessarily somewhat confused. But
I am not treating this subject technically ;
and while referring when necessary to
Huberts admirable studies, I shall con-
fine myself generally to relating what is
181

The Life of the Bee

patent to any one who may gather a
swarm into a glass hive.

We have to admit, first of all, that we
know not yet by what process of alchemy
the honey transforms itself into wax in
the enigmatic bodies of our suspended
bees. We can only say that they will
remain thus suspended for a period ex-
tending from eighteen to twenty-four
hours, in a temperature so high that one
might almost believe that a fire was burn-
ing in the hollow of the hive ; and then
white and transparent scales will appear
at the opening of four little pockets that
every bee has underneath its abdomen.

When the bodies of most of those
who form the inverted cone have thus
been adorned with ivory tablets, we shall
see one of the bees, as though suddenly
inspired, abruptly detach herself from the
mass, and climb over the backs of the
passive crowd till she reach the inner
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The Life of the Bee

pinnacle of the cupola. To this she will
fix herself solidly, dislodging, with re-
peated blows of her head, such of her
neighbours as may seem to hamper her
movements. Then, with her mouth and
claws, she will seize one of the eight
scales that hang from her abdomen, and
at once proceed to clip it and plane it,
extend it, knead it with her saliva,
bend it and flatten it, roll it and straighten
it, with the skill of a carpenter handling
a pliable panel. When at last the sub-
stance, thus treated, appears to her to
possess the required dimensions and con-
sistency, she will attach it to the highest
point of the dome, thus laying the first,
or rather the keystone of the new town ;
for we have here an inverted city, hang-
ing down from the sky, and not rising
from the bosom of earth like a city of
men.

To this keystone, depending in the
183

The Life of the Bee

void, she will add other fragments of wax
that she takes in succession from beneath
her rings of horn; and finally, with one
last lick of the tongue, one last wave of
antennae, she will go as suddenly as she
came, and disappear in the crowd. An-
other will at once take her place, continue
the work at the point where the first one
has left it, add on her own, change and
adjust whatever may seem to offend the
ideal plan of the tribe, then vanish in her
turn, to be succeeded by a third, a fourth,
and a fifth, all appearing unexpectedly,
suddenly, one after the other, none com-
pleting the work, but each bringing her
share to the task in which all combine.

A small block of wax, formless as yet,

hangs down from the top of the vault.

So soon as its thickness may be deemed

sufficient, we shall see another bee emerge

184

The Life of the Bee

from the mass, her physical appearance
differing appreciably from that of the
foundresses who preceded her. And her
manner displays such settled conviction,
her movements are followed so eagerly by
all the crowd, that we almost might fancy
that some illustrious engineer had been
summoned to trace in the void the site of
the first cell of all, from which every other
must mathematically depend. This bee
belongs to the sculptor or carver class
of workers ; she produces no wax her-
self and is content to deal with the
materials others provide. She locates the
first cell, scoops into the block for an in-
stant, lays the wax she has removed from
the cavity on the borders around it ; and
then, like the foundresses, abruptly de-
parts and abandons her model. Her
place is taken at once by an impatient
worker, who continues the task that a
third will finish, while others close by are
185

The Life of the Bee

attacking the rest of the surface and the
opposite side of the wall ; each one obey-
ing the general law of interrupted and
successive labour, as though it were an
inherent principle of the hive that the
pride of toil should be distributed, and
every achievement be anonymous and
common to all, that it might thereby
become more fraternal.

The outline of the nascent comb may
soon be divined. In form it will still be
lenticular, for the little prismatic tubes
that compose it are unequal in length, and
diminish in proportion as they recede from
the centre to the extremities. In thick-
ness and appearance at present it more or
less resembles a human tongue whose
sides might be formed of hexagonal cells,
contiguous, and placed back to back.

The first cells having been built, the
i86

The Life of the Bee

foundresses proceed to add a second block
of wax to the roof; and so in gradation a
third and a fourth. These blocks follow
each other at regular intervals so nicely-
calculated that when, at a much later
period, the comb shall be fully developed,
there will be ample space for the bees to
move between its parallel walls.

Their plan must therefore embrace the
final thickness of every comb, which will
be from eighty-eight to ninety-two hun-
dredths of an inch, and at the same time
the width of the avenues between, which
must be about half an inch, or in other
words twice the height of a bee, since
there must be room to pass back to back
between the combs.

The bees, however, are not infallible,
nor does their certainty appear mechanical.
They will commit grave errors at times,
when circumstances present unusual diffi-
culty. They will often leave too much
187

The Life of the Bee

space, or too little, between the combs.
This they will remedy as best they can,
either by giving an oblique twist to the
comb that too nearly approaches the other,
or by introducing an irregular comb into
the gap. " The bees sometimes make
mistakes," Reaumur remarks on this sub-
ject, " and herein we may find yet another
fact which appears to prove that they
reason."

[54]

We know that the bees construct four
kinds of cells. First of all, the royal
cells, which are exceptional, and contrived
somewhat in the shape of an acorn ; then
the large cells destined for the rearing
of males and storing of provisions when
flowers super-abound ; and the small cells,
serving as workers' cradles and ordinary
store-rooms, which occupy normally about
four-fifths of the built-over surface of the

The Life of the Bee

hive. And lastly, so as to connect in
orderly fashion the larger cells with the
small, the bees will erect a certain number
of what are known as transition cells.
These must of necessity be irregular in
form ; but so unerringly accurate are the
dimensions of the second and third types
that, at the time when the decimal system
was established, and a fixed measure sought
in nature to serve as a starting-point and
an incontestable standard, it was proposed
by Reaumur to select fDr this purpose the
cell of the bee.^

Each of the cells is an hexagonal tube

^ It was as well, perhaps, that this standard was not
adopted. For although tlie diameter of the cells is
admirably regular, it is, like all things produced by a
living organism, not mathematically invariable in the
same hive. Further, as M. Maurice Girard has
pointed out, the apothem of the cell varies among
different races of bees, so that the standard would alter
from hive to hive, according to the species of bee that
inhabited it.

189

The Life of the Bee

placed on a pyramidal base ; and two
layers of these tubes form the comb, 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 cell, composes at
the same time the pyramidal base of three
cells on the other. It is in these pris-
matic tubes that the honey is stored ; and
to prevent its escaping during the period
of maturation, — which would infallibly
happen if the tubes were as strictly hori-
zontal as they appear to be, — the bees
incline them slightly, to an angle of

o o

4 or 5.

" Besides the economy of wax," says
Reaumur, when considering this marvellous
construction in its entirety, " besides the
economy of wax that results from the dis-
position of the cells, and the fact that this
arrangement allows the bees to fill the
comb without leaving a single spot vacant,
190

The Life of the Bee

there are other advantages also with respect
to the solidity of the work. The angle
at the base of each cell, the apex of
the pyramidal cavity, is buttressed by
the ridge formed by two faces of the
hexagon of another cell. The two tri-
angles, or extensions of the hexagon faces
which fill one of the convergent angles of
the cavity enclosed by the three rhombs,
form by their junction a plane angle on
the side they touch ; each of these angles,
concave within the cell, supports, on its
convex side, one of the sheets employed
to form the hexagon of another cell ; the
sheet, pressing on this angle, resists the
force which is tending to push it out-
wards ; and in this fashion the angles are
strengthened. 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
others."

191

The Life of the Bee

" There are only," says Dr. Reid, " three
possible figures of the cells which can
make them all equal and similar, without
any useless interstices. These are the
equilateral triangle, the square, and the
regular hexagon. Mathematicians know
that there is not a fourth way possible in
which a plane shall be cut into little spaces
that shall be equal, similar, and regular,
without useless spaces. Of the three
figures, the hexagon is the most proper
for convenience and strength. Bees, as
if they knew this, make their cells regular
hexagons.

" Again, it has been demonstrated that,
by making the bottoms of the cells to
consist of three planes meeting in a point,
there is a saving of material and labour in
no way inconsiderable. The bees, as if
acquainted with these principles of solid
192

The Life of the Bee

geometry, follow them most accurately.
It is a curious mathematical problem at
what precise angle the three planes which
compose the bottom of a cell ought to
meet, in order to make the greatest pos-
sible savmg, or the least expense of mate-
rial and labour.^ This is one of the

* Reaumur suggested the following problem to the
celebrated mathematician Koenig : **Of all possible
hexagonal cells with pyramidal base composed of three
equal and similar rhombs, to find the one whose con-
struction would need the least material." Koenig's
answer was, the cell that had for its base three rhombs
whose large angle was 109° 26'', and the small 70^
34''. Another savant, Maraldi, had measured as
exactly as possible the angles of the rhombs constructed
by the bees, and discovered the larger to be 109° 28",
and the other 70° 32''. Between the two solutions
there was a difference, therefore, of only 2". It is
probable that the error, if error there be, should be
attributed to Maraldi rather than to the bees ; for it is
impossible for any instrument to measure the angles of
the cells, which are not very clearly defined, with
infallible precision.

The problem suggested to Koenig was put to
13 193

The Life of the Bee

problems which belong to the higher parts
of mathematics. It has accordingly been
resolved by some mathematicians, par-
ticularly by the ingenious Maclaurin, by
a fluctionary calculation which is to be
found in the Transactions of the Royal
Society of London. He has determined
precisely the angle required, and he found,
by the most exact mensuration the subject
would admit, that it is the very angle in
which the three planes at the bottom of
the cell of a honey comb do actually
meet."

I myself do not believe that the bees
indulge in these abstruse calculations ;
but, on the other hand, it seems equally
impossible to me that such astounding re-

another mathematician, Cramer, whose solution came
even closer to that of the bees, viz., 109° 281^" for
the large angle, and 70° 31^" for the small.
194

The Life of the Bee

suits can be due to chance alone, or to the
mere force of circumstance. The wasps,
for instance, also build combs with hex-
agonal cells, so that for them the problem
was identical, and they have solved it in a
far less ingenious fashion. Their comba
have only one layer of cells, thus lacking
the common base that serves the bees for
their two opposite layers. The wasps'
comb, therefore, is not only less regular,
but also less substantial ; and so waste-
fully constructed that, besides loss of ma-
terial, they must sacrifice about a third of
the available space and a quarter of the
energy they put forth. Again, we find that
the trigonae and meliponae, which are veri-
table and domesticated bees, though of less
advanced civilisation, erect only one row
of rearing-cells, and support their horizon-
tal, superposed combs on shapeless and
costly columns of wax. Their provision-
cells are merely great pots, gathered to-
195

The Life of the Bee

gether without any order ; and, at the
point between the spheres where these
might have intersected and induced a
profitable economy of space and material,
the meliponae clumsily insert a section of
cells with flat walls. Indeed, to compare
one of their nests with the mathematical
cities of our own honey-flies, is like
imagining a hamlet composed of primitive
huts side by side with a modern town ;
whose ruthless regularity is the logical,
though perhaps somewhat charmless, re-
sult of the genius of man, that to-day,
more fiercely than ever before, seeks to
conquer space, matter, and time.

[57]

There is a theory, originally pro-
pounded by Buffon and now revived,
which assumes that the bees have not the
least intention of constructing hexagons
with a pyramidal base, but that their
196

The Life of the Bee

desire is merely to contrive round cells
in the wax; only, that as their neighbours,
and those at work on the opposite side of
the comb, are digging at the same mo-
ment and with the same intentions, the
points where the cells meet must of neces-
sity become hexagonal. Besides, it is
said, this is precisely what happens to
crystals, the scales of certain kinds of fish,
soap-bubbles, etc., as it happens in the
following experiment that BufFon sug-
gested. " If," he said, " you fill a dish
with peas or any other cylindrical bean,
pour as much water into it as the space
between the beans will allow, close it care-
fully and then boil the water, you will
find that all these cylinders have become
six-sided columns. And the reason is
evident, being indeed purely mechanical ;
each of the cylindrical beans tends, as it
swells, to occupy the utmost possible
space within a given space ; wherefore it
197

The Life of the Bee

follows that the reciprocal compression
compels them all to become hexagonal.
Similarly each bee seeks to occupy the
utmost possible space within a given
space, with the necessary result that, its
body being cylindrical, the cells become
hexagonal for the same reason as before,
viz., the working of reciprocal obstacles."

[58]

These reciprocal obstacles, it would
seem, are capable of marvellous achieve-
ment ; on the same principle, doubtless,
that the vices of man produce a general
virtue, whereby the human race, hateful
often in its individuals, ceases to be so in
the mass. We might reply, first of all,
with Brougham, Kirby and Spence, and
others, that experiments with peas and
soap-bubbles prove nothing ; for the rea-
son that in both cases the pressure pro-
duces only irregular forms, and in no
198

The Life of the Bee

wise explains the existence of the pns«
matic base of the cells. But above all
we might ansv/er that there are more
ways than one of dealing with rigid neces-
sity ; that the wasp, the humble-bee, the
trigonse and meliponae of Mexico and
Brazil achieve very different and mani-
festly inferior results, although the cir-
cumstances, and their own intentions, are
absolutely identical with those of the
bees. It might further be urged that if
the bee's cell does indeed follow the law
that governs crystals, snow, soap-bubbles,
as well as Buffon's boiled peas, it also,
through its general symmetry, disposition
in opposite layers, and angle of inclina-
tion, obeys many other laws that are not
to be found in matter. May we not say,
too, of man that all his genius is com-
prised in his fashion of handling kindred
necessities ? And if it appear to us that
his manner of treating these is the best
199

The Life of the Bee

there can possibly be, the reason only
can lie in the absence of a judge superior
to ourselves. But it is well that argu-
ment should make way for fact ; and
indeed, to the objection based on an
experiment, the best reply of all must
be a counter-experiment.

In order to satisfy myself that hexag-
onal architecture truly was written in the
spirit of the bee, I cut off and removed
one day a disc of the size of a five-
franc piece from the centre of a comb,
at a spot where there were ^ both brood-
cells and cells full of honey. I cut into
the circumference of this disc, at the
intersecting point of the pyramidal cells ;
inserted a piece of tin on the base of one
of these sections, shaped exactly to its
dimensions, and possessed of resistance
sufficient to prevent the bees from bend-
ing or twisting it. Then I replaced the
slice of comb, duly furnished with its
200

The Life of the Bee

slab of tin, on the spot whence I had
removed it ; so that, while one side of
the comb presented no abnormal feature,
the damage having been repaired, the
other displayed a sort of deep cavity,
covering the space of about thirty cells,
with the piece of tin as its base. The
bees were disconcerted at first; they
flocked in numbers to inspect and ex-
amine this curious chasm ; day after day
they wandered agitatedly to and fro, ap-
parently unable to form a decision. But,
as I fed them copiously every evening,
there came a moment when they had no
more cells available for the storage of
provisions. Thereupon they probably
summoned their great engineers, distin-
guished sculptors, and wax-workers, and
invited them to turn this useless cavity
to profitable account.

The wax-makers having gathered around
and formed themselves into a dense fes-

20I

The Life of the Bee

toon, so that the necessary heat might be
maintained, other bees descended into the
hole and proceeded soHdly to attach the
metal, and connect it with the walls of ad-
jacent cells, by means of little waxen hooks
which they distributed regularly over its
surface. In the upper semicircle of the
disc they then began to construct three
or four cells, uniting these to the hooks.
Each of these transition, or accommo-
dation, cells was more or less deformed
at the top, to allow of its being soldered
to the adjoining cell on the comb ; but
its lower portion already designed on the
tin three very clear angles, whence there
ran three little straight Hnes that correctly
indicated the first half of the following
cell.

After forty-eight hours, and notwith-
standing the fact that only three bees at
a time were able to work in the cavity,
the entire surface of the tin was covered

202

The Life of the Bee

with outlined cells. These were less reg-
ular, certainly, than those of an ordinary
comb ; wherefore the queen, having in-
spected them, wisely declined to lay any
eggs there, for the generation that would
have arisen therefrom would necessarily
have been deformed. Each cell, how-
ever, was a perfect hexagon ; nor did it
contain a single crooked line, a single
curved figure or angle. And yet the
ordinary conditions had all been changed ;
the cells had neither been scooped out of
a block, according to Ruber's descrip-
tion, nor had they been designed within a
waxen hood, and, from being circular at
first, been subsequently converted into
hexagons by the pressure of adjoining
cells, as explained by Darwin. Neither
could there be question here of reciprocal
obstacles, the cells having been formed
one by one, and their first lines traced on
what practically was a bare table. It would

20'

The Life of the Bee

seem incontestable, therefore, that the hex-
agon is not merely the result of mechani-
cal necessities, but that it has its true
place in the plans, the experience, the
intellect and will of the bee. I may
relate here another curious instance of
the workers' sagacity : the cells they built
on the tin had no other base than the
metal itself. The engineers of the corps
had evidently decided that the tin could
adequately retain the honey; and had
considered that, the substance being im-
permeable, they need not waste the mate-
rial they value so highly by covering the
metal with a layer of wax. But, a short
time after, some drops of honey having
been placed in two of these cells, the bees
discovered, in tasting It, that the contact
of the metal had a deteriorating effect.
Thereupon they reconsidered the matter,
and covered over with wax the en^^re sur-
face of the tin.

204

The Life of the Bee

[59]

Were it our desire to throw light upon
all the secrets of this geometric architect-
ure, we should have more than one curi-
ous question still to consider; as for
instance the shape of the first cells,
which, being attached to the roof, are
modified in such a manner as to touch
the roof at the greatest possible number
of points.

The design of the principal thorough-
fares is determined by the parallelism of
the combs ; but we must admire the in-
genious construction of alleys and gang-
ways through and around the comb, so
skilfully contrived as to provide short cuts
in every direction and prevent conges-
tion of traffic, while ensuring free circula-
tion of air. And finally we should have
to study the construction of transition
cells, wherein we see a unanimous instinct
205

The Life of the Bee

at work that impels the bees at a given
moment to increase the size of their
dweUings. Three reasons may dictate
this step : an extraordinary harvest may
call for larger receptacles, the workers
may consider the population to be suffi-
ciently numerous, or it may have become
necessary that males should be born. Nor
can we in such cases refrain from wonder-
ing at the ingenious economy, the unerr-
ing, harmonious conviction, with which the
bees will pass from the small to the large,
from the large to the small ; from perfect
symmetry to, where unavoidable, its very
reverse, returning to ideal regularity so
soon as the laws of a live geometry will
allow; and all the time not losing a cell,
not suffering a single one of their numer-
ous structures to be sacrificed, to be ridic-
ulous, uncertain, or barbarous, or any
section thereof to become unfit for use.
But I fear that I have already wandered
206

The Life of the Bee

into many details that will have but slen^
der interest for the reader, whose eyes
perhaps may never have followed a flight
of bees ; or who may have regarded them
only with the passing interest with which
we are all of us apt to regard the flower,
the bird or the precious stone, asking of
these no more than a slight superficial
assurance, 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 end, than the secret of
those of our passions that we study the
most eagerly and the most passionately.

[60]

And I will pass over too — in my de-
sire that this essay shall not become too
didactic — the remarkable instinct that in-
duces the bees at times to thin and demol-
ish the extremity of their combs, when
207

The Life of the Bee

these are to be enlarged or lengthened;
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 rebuild, or undoing
what has been done that it may be done
afresh, and with more regularity. I will
content myself also with a mere reference
to the remarkable experiment that enables
us, with the aid of a piece of glass, to
compel the bees to start their combs at a
right angle ; 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 comb.

But before finally quitting this subject
let us pause, though it be but for an in-
stant, and consider the mysterious fashion
in which they manage to act in concert
and combine their labour, when simul-
taneously carving two opposite sides of a
comb, and unable therefore to see each
208

The Life of the Bee

other. Take a finished comb to the light,
fix your eyes on the diaphanous wax ; you
will see, most clearly designed, an entire
network of sharply cut prisms, a whole
system of concordances so infallible that
one might almost believe them to be
stamped on steel.

I wonder whether those who never have
seen the interior of a hive can form an ade-
quate conception of the arrangement and
aspect of the combs. Let them imagine —
we will take a peasant's hive, where the bee
is left entirely to its own resources — let
them imagine a dome of straw or osier,
divided from top to bottom by five, six,
eight, sometimes ten, strips of wax, resemb-
ling somewhat great slices of bread, that run
in strictly parallel lines from the top of
the dome to the floor, espousing closely
the shape of the ovoid walls. Between
these strips is contrived a space of about
half an inch, to enable the bees to stand
14 209

The Life of the Bee

and to pass each other. At the moment
when they begin to construct one of
these strips at the top of the hive, the
waxen wall (which is its rough model, and
will later be thinned and extended) is still
very thick, and completely excludes the
fifty or sixty bees at work on its inner
face from the fifty or sixty simultaneously
engaged in carving the outer, so that it is
wholly impossible for one group to see the
other, unless indeed their sight be able to
penetrate opaque matter. And yet there
is not a hole that is scooped on the inner
surface, not a fragment of wax that is
added, but corresponds with mathematical
precision to a protuberance or cavity on
the outer surface, and vice versa. How
does this happen? How is it that one
does not dig too deep, another not deep
enough ? Whence the invariable magical
coincidence between the angles of the
lozenges ? What is it tells the bees that
210

The Life of the Bee

at this point they must begin, and at that
point stop? Once again we must con-
tent ourselves with the reply, that is no
reply : " It is a mystery of the hive/*
Huber has sought to explain this mys-
tery by suggesting that the pressure of
the bees' hooks and teeth may possibly
produce slight projections, at regular in-
tervals, on the opposite side of the comb ;
or that they may be able to estimate the
thickness of the block by the flexibility,
elasticity, or some other physical quality of
the wax ; or again, that their antennas,
which seem so well adapted for the ques-
tioning of the finer, less evident side of
things, may serve as a compass in the in-
visible; or, lastly, that the position of
every cell may derive mathematically from
the arrangement and dimensions of the
cells on the first row, and thus dispense
with the need for further measurement.
But these explanations are evidently in-

211

The Life of the Bee

sufficient ; the first are mere hypotheses
that cannot be verified, the others do no
more than transplant the mystery. And
useful as it may be to transplant mystery
as often as we possibly can, it were not
wise to imagine that a mystery has
ceased to be because we have shifted its
home.

[61]

Now let us leave these dreary building
grounds, this geometrical desert of cells.
The combs have been started, and are
becoming habitable. Though it be here
the infinitely little that, without apparent
hope, adds itself to the infinitely little ;
though our eye with its limited vision
look and see nothing, the work of wax,
halting neither by day nor by night, will
advance with incredible quickness. The
impatient queen already has more than
once paced the stockades that gleam white

212

The Life of the Bee

in the darkness ; and no sooner is the
first row of dwelHngs complete than she
takes possession with her escort of coun-
sellors, guardians, or servants — for we
know not whether she lead or be led, be
venerated or supervised. When the spot
has been reached that she, or her urgent
advisers, may regard as favourable, she
arches her back, bends forward, and intro-
duces the extremity of her long spindle-
shaped abdomen into one of the cells ; the
little eager heads of her escort meanwhile
forming a passionate circle around her,
watching her with their enormous black
eyes, supporting her, caressing her wings,
and waving their feverish antennae as
though to encourage, incite, or congratulate.
You may easily discover the spot where
the queen shall be found by the sort of
starry cockade, or oval brooch perhaps
of the imposing kind our grandmothers
used to wear, of which she forms the

213

The Life of the Bee

central stone. And one may mention
here the curious fact that the workers
always avoid turning their back on the
queen. No sooner has she approached
a group than they will invariably arrange
themselves so as to face her with eyes and
antennae, and to walk backwards before
her. It is a token of respect, or of
solicitude, that, unlikely as it may seem,
is nevertheless constant and general. But
to return to the queen. During the
slight spasm that visibly accompanies the
emission of an egg, one of her daughters
will often throw her arms round her and
appear to be whispering to her, brow
pressed to brow and mouth to mouth.
But the queen, in no wise disturbed by
this somewhat bold demonstration, takes
her time, tranquilly, calmly, wholly ab-
sorbed by the mission that would seem
amorous delight to her rather than labour.
And after some seconds she will rise, very
214

The Life of the Bee

quietly, take a step back, execute a slight
turn on herself, and proceed to the next
cell, into which she will first, before intro-
ducing her abdomen, dip her head to make
sure that all is in order and that she is
not laying twice in the same cell ; 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
accomplished, and to care for, and ten-
derly house, the little bluish egg she has
laid.

From this moment, up to the iirst frosts
of autumn, she does not cease laying ;
she lays while she is being fed, and even
in her sleep, if indeed she sleeps at all,
she still lays. She represents henceforth
the devouring force of the future, which
invades every corner of the kingdom.
Step by step she pursues the unfortunate
workers who are exhaustedly, feverishly
erecting the cradles her fecundity de-
215

The Life of the Bee

mands. We have here the union of
two mighty instincts; and their workings
throw into Hght, though they leave unre-
solved, many an enigma of the hive.

It will happen, for instance, that the
workers will distance her, and acquire a
certain start ; whereupon, mindful of
their duties as careful housewives to pro-
vide for the bad days ahead, they hasten
to fill with honey the cells they have
wrested from the avidity of the species.
But the queen approaches ; material wealth
must give way to the scheme of nature ;
and the distracted workers are compelled
with all speed to remove the importunate
treasure.

But assume them to be a whole comb
ahead, and to have no longer before them
her who stands for the tyranny of days
they shall none of them see ; we find
then that they eagerly, hurriedly, build
a zone of large cells, cells for males ;

2lG

The Life of the Bee

whose construction is very much easier,
and far more rapid. When the queen
in her turn attains this unthankful zone,
she will regretfully lay a few eggs there,
then cease, pass beyond, and clamour
for more workers* cells. Her daughters
obey ; little by Httle they reduce the
cells ; and then the pursuit starts afresh,
till at last the insatiable mother shall have
traversed the whole circumference of the
hive, and have returned to the first cells.
These, by this time, will be empty ; for
the first generation will have sprung into
life, soon to go forth, from their shadowy
corner of birth, disperse over the neigh-
bouring blossoms, people the rays of the
sun and quicken the smiling hours; and
then sacrifice themselves in their turn
to the new generations that are already
filling their place in the cradles.

217

The Life of the Bee

[62]

And whom does the queen-bee obey ?
She is ruled by nourishment given her ;
for she does not take her own food, but
is fed like a child by the very workers
whom her fecundity harasses. And the
food these workers deal out is nicely pro-
portioned to the abundance of flowers, to
the spoil brought back by those who
visit the calyces. Here, then, as every-
where else in the world, one part of the
circle is wrapped in darkness ; here, as
everywhere, it is from without, from an
unknown power, that the supreme order
issues ; and the bees, like ourselves, obey
the nameless lord of the wheel that inces-
santly turns on itself, and crushes the
wills that have set it in motion.

Some little time back, I conducted a
friend to one of my hives of glass, and
showed him the movements of this wheel,
218

The Life of the Bee

which was as readily perceptible as the
great wheel of a clock ; showed him, in
all its bareness, the universal agitation
on every comb, the perpetual, frantic,
bewildered haste of the nurses around
the brood-cells ; the living gangways and
ladders formed by the makers of wax, the
abounding, unceasing activity of the entire
population, and their pitiless, useless ef-
fort ; the ardent, feverish coming and
going of all, the general absence of sleep
save in the cradles alone, around which
continuous labour kept watch ; the denial
of even the repose of death in a home
which permits no illness and accords no
grave; and my friend, his astonishment
over, soon turned his eyes away, and in
them I could read the signs of I know
not what saddened fear.

And truly, underlying the gladness that
we note first of all in the hive, underly-
ing the dazzling memories of beautiful

2T9

The Life of the Bee

days that render it the storehouse of
summer*s most precious jewels, underly-
ing the blissful journeys that knit it so
close to the flowers and to running water,
to the sky, to the peaceful abundance ^^
all that makes for beauty and happiness
— underlying all these exterior joys, there
reposes a sadness as deep as the eye of
man can behold. And we, who dimly
gaze on these things with our own blind
eyes, we know full well that it is not they
alone that we are striving to see, not
they alone that we cannot understand,
but that before us there lies a pitiable
form of the great power that quickens
us also.

Sad let It be, as all things in nature are
sad, when our eyes rest too closely upon
them. And thus it ever shall be so long
as we know not her secret, know not even
whether secret truly there be. And should
we discover some day that there is no secret,

The Life of the Bee

or that the secret is monstrous, other duties
will then arise that, as yet, perhaps, have
no name. Let our heart, if it will, in the
meanwhile repeat, " It is sad ; " but let
our reason be content to add, " Thus it is."
At the present hour the duty before us is
to seek out that which perhaps may be hid-
ing behind these sorrows ; and, urged on
by this endeavour, we must not turn our
eyes away, but steadily, fixedly, watch these
sorrows and study them, with a courage and
interest as keen as though they were joys.
It is right that before we judge nature,
before we complain, we should at least
ask every question that we can possibly
ask.

We have seen that the workers^ when
free for the moment from the threatening
fecundity of the queen, hasten to erect
cells for provisions, whose construction is

221

The Life of the Bee

more economical and capacity greater.
We have seen, too, that the queen prefers
to lay in the smaller cells, for which she is
incessantly clamouring. When these are
wanting, however, or till they be provided,
she resigns herself to laying her eggs in
the large cells she finds on her road.

These eggs, though absolutely identical
with those from which workers are
hatched, will give birth to males, or
drones. Now, conversely to what takes
place when a worker is turned into queen,
it is here neither the form nor the capac-
ity of the cell that produces this change ;
for from an egg laid in a large cell and
afterwards transferred to that of a worker
(a most difficult operation, because of
the microscopic minuteness and extreme
fragility of the egg, but one that I have
four or five times successfully accom-
plished) there will issue an undeniable
male, though more or less atrophied. Jt

222

The Life of the Bee

follows, therefore, that the queen must
possess the power, while laying, of know-
ing or determining the sex of the egg,
and of adapting it to the cell over which
she is bending. She will rarely make a
mistake. How does she contrive, from
among the myriad eggs her ovaries con-
tain, to separate male from female, and
lower them, at will, into the unique
oviduct ?

Here, yet again, there confronts us an
enigma of the hive ; and in this case one
of the most unfathomable. We know
that the virgin queen is not sterile ; but
the eggs that she lays will produce only
males. It is not till after the impregnation
of the nuptial flight that she can produce
workers or drones at will. The nuptial
flight places her permanently in posses-
sion, till death, of the spermatozoa torn
from her unfortunate lover. These sper-
matozoa, whose number Dr. Leuckart
223

The Lite of the Bee

estimates at twenty-five millions, are
preserved alive in a special gland known
as the spermatheca, that is situate under
the ovarieSj at the entrance to the common
oviduct. It is imagined that the narrow
aperture of the smaller cells, and the
manner in which the form of this aperture
compels the queen to bend forward, ex-
ercise a certain pressure upon the sper-
matheca, in consequence of which the
spermatozoa spring forth and fecundate
the egg as it passes. In the large cells
this pressure would not take place, and
the spermatheca would therefore not open.
Others, again, believe that the queen has
perfect control over the muscles that open
and close the spermatheca on the vagina ;
and these muscles are certainly very
numerous, complex, and powerful. For
m^yself, I incline to the second of these
hypotheses, though I do not for a mo-
ment pretend to decide which is the more
224

The Life of the Bee

correct; for indeed, the further we go
and the more closeljr we study, the more
plainly is it brought home to us that we
merely are waifs shipwrecked on the
ocean of nature ; and ever and anon,
from a sudden wave that shall be more
transparent than others, there leaps forth
a fact that in an instant confounds all we
imagined we knew. But the reason of
my preferring the second theory is that,
for one thing, the experiments of a Bor-
deaux bee-keeper, M. Drory, have shown
that in cases where all the large cells have
been removed from the hive, the mother
will not hesitate, when the moment for
laying male eggs has come, to deposit
these in workers' cells ; and that, in-
versely, she will lay workers' eggs in cells
provided for males, if she have no others
at her disposal. And, further, we learn
from the interesting observations of M.
Fabre on the Osmiae, which are wild and
15 225

The Life of the Bee

solitary bees of the Gastrilegidse family,
that not only does the Osmia know in
advance the sex of the egg she will lay,
but that this sex is " optional for the
mother, who decides it in accordance with
the space of which she disposes ; this space
being often governed by chance and not
to be modified ; and she will deposit a
male egg here and a female there." I
shall not enter into the details of the
great French entomologist's experiments,
for they are exceedingly minute, and
would take us too far. But whichever
be the hypothesis we prefer to accept,
either will serve to explain the queen's
inclination to lay her eggs in workers'
cells, without it being necessary to credit
her with the least concern for the future.

It is not impossible that this slave-
mother, whom we are inclined to pity, may
be indeed a great amorist, a great volup-
tuary, deriving a certain enjoyment, an
226

The Life of the Bee

after-taste, as it were, of her one mar-
riage-flight, from the union of the male
and female principle that thus comes to
pass in her being. Here again nature,
never so ingenious, so cunningly pru-
dent and diverse, as when contriving her
snares of love, will not have failed to
provide a certain pleasure as a bait in
the interest of the species. And yet let
us pause for a moment, and not become
the dupes of our own explanation. For
indeed, to attribute an idea of this kind to
nature, and regard that as sufficient, is
like flinging a stone into an unfathomable
gulf we may find in the depths of a grotto,
and imagining that the sounds it creates
as it falls shall answer our every question,
or reveal to us aught beside the immensity
of the abyss.

When we say to ourselves, " This thing
is of nature's devising ; it is she has or-
dained this marvel ; those are her desires
227

The Life of the Bee

^hat we see before us ! " 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 inactive, and choose to describe, with
evident inaccuracy, as nothingness and
death. A purely fortuitous chain 'of
events has allowed this special manifesta-
tion to attract our attention ; but a thou-
sand others, no less interesting, perhaps,
and informed with no less intelligence,
have vanished, not meeting with a like
good-fortune, and have lost for ever the
chance of exciting our wonder. It were
rash to affirm aught beside ; and all that
remains, our reflections, our obstinate
search for the final cause, our admiration
and hopes — all these in truth are no
more than our feeble cry as, in the depths
of the unknown, we clash against what is
more unknowable still ; and this feeble
cry declares the highest degree of indi-
228

The Life of the Bee

vidual existence attainable for us on this
mute and impenetrable surface, even as
the flight of the condor, the song of the
nightingale, reveal to them the highest
degree of existence their species allows.
But the evocation of this feeble cry, when-
ever opportunity offers, is none the less
one of our most unmistakable duties ; nor
should we let ourselves be discouraged by
its apparent futility.

229

V

THE YOUNG QUEENS

231

H

V

THE YOUNG QUEENS

[64]
ERE let us close our hive, where we
find that life is reassuming its cir-
cular movement, is extending and multi-
plying, to be again divided as soon as it
shall attain the fulness of its happiness
and strength ; and let us for the last time
reopen the mother-city, and see what is
happening there after the departure of the
swarm.

The tumult having subsided, the hap-
less city, that two thirds of her children
have abandoned for ever, becomes feeble,
empty, moribund ; like a body from which
the blood has been drained. Some thou-
sands of bees have remained, however ; and
233

The Life of the Bee

these, though a trifle languid perhaps, arc
still immovably faithful to the duty a
precise destiny has laid upon them, still
conscious of the part that they have them-
selves to play ; they resume their labours,
therefore, fill as best they can the place
of those who have gone, remove all trace
of the orgy, carefully house the provisions
that have escaped pillage, sally forth to
the flowers again, and keep scrupulous
guard over the hostages of the future.

And for all that the moment may
appear gloomy, hope abounds wherever
the eye may turn. We might be in one
of the castles of German legend, whose
walls are composed of myriad phials con-
taining the souls of men about to be born.
For we are in the abode of life that goes
before life. On all sides, asleep in their
closely sealed cradles, in this infinite
superposition of marvellous six-sided cells,
lie thousands of nymphs, whiter than
234

The Young Queens

milk, who with folded arms and head
bent forward await the hour of awakening.
In their uniform tombs, that, isolated,
become nearly transparent, they seem
almost like hoary gnomes, lost in deep
thought, or legions of virgins whom the
folds of the shroud have contorted, who
are buried in hexagonal prisms that some
inflexible geometrician has multiplied to
the verge of delirium.

Over the entire area that the vertical
walls enclose, and in the midst of this
growing world that so soon shall trans-
form itself, that shall four or five times in
succession assume fresh vestments, and
then spin its own winding-sheet in the
shadow, hundreds of workers are dancing
and flapping their wings. They appear
thus to generate the necessary heat, and
accomplish some other object besides that
is still more obscure; for this dance of
theirs contains some extraordinary move-
235

The Life of the Bee

mentSj so methodically conceived that they
must infallibly answer some purpose which
no observer has as yet, I believe, been
able to divine.

A few days more, and the lids of these
myriad urns — whereof a considerable hive
will contain from sixty to eighty thousand
— will break, and two large and earnest
black eyes will appear, surmounted by
antennae that already are groping at life,
while active jaws are busily engaged in
enlarging the opening from within. The
nurses at once come running; they help
the young bee to emerge from her
prison, they clean her and brush her, and
at the tip of their tongue present the
first honey of the new life. But the bee,
that has come from another world, is be-
wildered still, trembling and pale ; she
wears the feeble look of a little old man
who might have escaped from his tomb,
or perhaps of a traveller strewn with the
236

The Young Queens

powdery dust of the ways that lead unto
life. She is perfect, however, from head
to foot ; she knows at once all that has to
be known ; and, like the children of the
people, who learn, as it were, at their birth,
that for them there shall never be time
to play or to laugh, she instantly makes
her way to the cells that are closed, and
proceeds to beat her wings and to dance
in cadence, so that she in her turn may
quicken her buried sisters ; nor does she
for one instant pause to decipher the
astounding enigma of her destiny, or her
race.

The most arduous labours will, how-
ever, at first be spared her. A week
must elapse from the day of her birth
before she will quit the hive ; she will
then perform her first " cleansing flight,"
and absorb the air into her tracheas, which,
237

The Life of the Bee

filling, expand her body, and proclaim her
the bride of space. Thereupon she re-
turns to the hive, and waits yet one week
more ; and then, with her sisters born
the same day as herself, she will for the
first time set forth to visit the flowers.
A special emotion now will lay hold of
her; one that French apiarists term the
"soleil d*artifice," but which might more
rightly perhaps be called the " sun of dis-
quiet." For it is evident that the bees
are afraid, that these daughters of the
crowd, of secluded darkness, shrink from
the vault of blue, from the infinite loneli-
ness of the light; and their joy is halting,
and woven of terror. They cross the
threshold and pause ; they depart, they
return, twenty times. They hover aloft
in the air, their head persistently turned
to the home ; they describe great soaring
circles that suddenly sink beneath the
weight of regret ; and their thirteen thou-
238

The Youns: Queens

£>

sand eyes will question, reflect, and retain
the trees and the fountain, the gate and
the walls, the neighbouring windows and
houses, till at last the aerial course where-
on their return shall glide have become
as indelibly stamped in their memory as
though it were marked in space by two
lines of steel.

166}

A new mystery confronts us here, which
we shall do well to challenge ; for though
it reply not, its silence still will extend the
field of our conscious ignorance, which
is the most fertile of all that our activity
knows. How do the bees contrive to
find their way back to the hive that they
cannot possibly see, that is hidden, per-
haps, by the trees, that in any event must
form an imperceptible point in space ?
How is it that if taken in a box to a spot
two or three miles from their home, they
239

The Life of the Bee

will almost invariably succeed in finding
their way back ?

Do obstacles offer no barrier to their
sight ; do they guide themselves by cer-
tain indications and landmarks; or do they
possess that peculiar, imperfectly under-
stood sense that we ascribe to the swal-
lows and pigeons, for instance, and term
the " sense of direction " ? The experi-
ments of J. H. Fabre, of Lubbock, and,
above all, of Romanes (Nature, 29 Oct.
1886) seem to establish that it is not this
strange instinct that guides them. I have,
on the other hand, more than once no-
ticed that they appear to pay no attention
to the colour or form of the hive. They
are attracted rather by the ordinary ap-
pearance of the platform on which their
home reposes, by the position of the
entrance, and of the alighting-board. But
this even is merely subsidiary ; were the
front of the hive to be altered from top
240

The Young Queens

to bottom, during the workers' absence,
they would still unhesitatingly direct their
course to it from out the far depths of the
horizon ; and only when confronted by
the unrecognisable threshold would they
seem for one instant to pause. Such ex-
periments as lie in our power point rather
to their guiding themselves by an extraor-
dinarily minute and precise appreciation
of landmarks. It is not the hive that
they seem to remember, but its position,
calculated to the minutest fraction, in its
relation to neighbouring objects. And so
marvellous is this appreciation, so mathe-
matically certain, so profoundly inscribed
in their memory, that if, after five months'
hibernation in some obscure cellar, the
hive, when replaced on the platform,
should be set a little to right or to left of
its former position, all the workers, on
their return from the earliest flowers, will
infallibly steer their direct and unwavering

i6 241

The Life of the Bee

course to the precise spot that it filled
the previous year ; and only after some
hesitation and groping will they discover
the door which stands not now where it
once had stood. It is as though space
had preciously preserved, the whole
winter through, the indelible track of
their flight : as though the print of their
tiny, laborious footsteps, still lay graven
in the sky.

If the hive be displaced, therefore,
many bees will lose their way ; except
in the case of their having been carried
far from their former home, and finding
the country completely transformed that
they had grown to know perfectly within
a radius of two or three miles; for
then, if care be taken to warn them,
by means of a little gangway connecting
with the alighting-board, at the entrance
to the hive, that some change has
occurred, they will at once proceed to
242

The Young Queens

seek new bearings and create fresh land-
marks.

[67]

And now let us return to the city that
is being repeopled, where myriad cradles
are incessantly opening, and the solid walls
even appear to be moving. But this city
still lacks a queen. Seven or eight curi-
ous structures arise from the centre of one
of the combs, and remind us, scattered as
they are over the surface of the ordinary
cells, of the circles and protuberances that
appear so strange on the photographs of
the moon. They are a species of capsule,
contrived of wrinkled wax or of inclined
glands, hermetically sealed, which fills the
place of three or four workers' cells. As
a rule, they are grouped around the same
point ; and a numerous guard keep watch,
with singular vigilance and restlessness,
over this region that seems instinct with
243

The Life of the Bee

an indescribable prestige. It is here that
the mothers are formed. In each one of
these capsules, before the swarm departs,
an egg will be placed by the mother, or
more probably — though as to this we
have no certain knowledge — by one of
the workers ; an egg that she will have
taken from some neighbouring cell, and
that is absolutely identical with those from
which workers are hatched.

From this egg, after three days, a small
larva will issue, and receive a special and
very abundant nourishment ; and hence-
forth we are able to follow, step by step,
the movements of one of those magnifi-
cently vulgar methods of nature on which,
were we dealing with men, we should
bestow the august name of fatality. The
little larva, thanks to this regimen, as-
sumes an exceptional development ; and
in its ideas, no less than in its body, there
ensues so considerable a change that the
244

The Young Queens

bee to which it will give birth might
almost belong to an entirely different race
of insects.

Four or five years will be the period of
her life, instead of the six or seven weeks
of the ordinary worker. Her abdomen
will be twice as long, her colour more
golden, and clearer ; her sting will be
curved, and her eyes have seven or eight
thousand facets instead of twelve or thir-
teen thousand. Her brain will be smaller,
but she will possess enormous ovaries,
and a special organ besides, the sperma-
theca, that will render her almost an
hermaphrodite. None of the instincts
will be hers that belong to a life of toil ;
she will have no brushes, no pockets
wherein to secrete the wax, no baskets to
gather the pollen. The habits, the pas-
sions, that we regard as inherent in the
bee, will all be lacking in her. She will
not crave for air, or the light of the sun ;
245

The Life of the Bee

she will die without even once having
tasted a flower. Her existence will pass
in the shadow, in the midst of a restless
throng ; her sole occupation the indefat-
igable search for cradles that she must
fill. On the other hand she alone will
know the disquiet of love. Not even
twice, it may be, in her life shall she look
on the light — for the departure of the
swarm is by no means inevitable ; on one
occasion only, perhaps, will she make use
of her wings, but then it will be to fly to
her lover. It is strange to see so many
things ■ — organs, ideas, desires, habits, an
entire destiny — depending, not on a
germ, which were the ordinary miracle of
the plant, the animal, and man, but on
a curious inert substance : a drop of
honey.^

^ It is generally admitted to-day that workers and
queens, after the hatching of the egg, receive the same
nourishment, — a kind of milk, very rich in nitrogen,
246

The Young Queens

[68]

About a week has passed since the
departure of the old queen. The royal
nymphs asleep in the capsules are not all
of the same age, for it is to the interest
of the bees that the births should be
nicely gradationed, and take place at
regular intervals, in accordance with their
possible desire for a second swarm, a
third, or even a fourth. The workers
have for some hours now been actively
thinning the walls of the ripest cell, while
the young queen, from within, has been
simultaneously gnawing the rounded lid
of her prison. And at last her head
appears ; she thrusts herself forward ;

that a special gland in the nurses' head secretes. But
after a few days the worker larvs are weaned, and put
on a coarser diet of honey and pollen ; whereas the
future queen, until she be fully developed, is copiously
fed on the precious milk known as " royal jelly."
247

The Life of the Bee

and, with the help of the guardians who
hasten eagerly to her, who brush her,
caress her, and clean her, she extricates
herself altogether and takes her first steps
on the comb. At the moment of birth
she too, like the workers, is trembling
and pale, but after ten minutes or so her
legs become stronger, and a strange rest-
lessness seizes her ; she feels that she is
not alone, that her kingdom has yet to
be conquered, that close by pretenders
are hiding; and she eagerly paces the
waxen walls in search of her rivals. But
there intervene here the mysterious deci'
sions and wisdom of instinct, of the spirit
of the hive, or of the assembly of work-
ers. The most surprising feature of all,
as we watch these things happening be-
fore us in a hive of glass, is the entire
absence of hesitation, of the slightest
division of opinion. There is not a trace
of discussion or discord. The atmosphere
248

The Young Queens

of the city is one of absolute unanimity^
preordained, which reigns over all ; and
every one of the bees would appear to
know in advance the thought of her
sisters. And yet this moment is the
gravest, the most vital, in their entire
history. They have to choose between
three or four courses whose results, in the
distant future, will be totally different;
which, too, the slightest accident may
render disastrous. They have to rec-
oncile the multiplication of species —
which is their passion, or innate duty —
with the preservation of the hive and
its people. They will err at times ;
they will successively send forth three or
four swarms, thereby completely denuding
the mother-city ; and these swarms, too
feeble to organise, will succumb, it may
be, at the approach of winter, caught un-
awares by this climate of ours, which is
different far from their original climate, that
249

The Life of the Bee

the bees J notwithstanding all, have never
forgotten. In such cases they suffer from
what is known as " swarming fever ; "
a condition wherein life, as in ordinary-
fever, reacting too ardently on itself,
passes its aim, completes the circle, and
discovers only death.

[69]

Of all the decisions before them there
is none that would seem imperative ; nor
can man, if content to play the part of
spectator only, foretell in the slightest
degree which one the bees will adopt.
But that the most careful deliberation
governs their choice is proved by the
fact that we are able to influence, or even
determine it, by for instance reducing or
enlarging the space we accord them ; or
by removing combs full of honey, and
setting up, in their stead, empty combs
which are well supplied with workers' cells,
250

The Young Queens

The question they have to consider is
not whether a second or third swarm
shall be immediately launched, — for in
arriving at such a decision they would
merely be blindly and thoughtlessly
yielding to the caprice or temptation of a
favourable moment, — but the instanta-
neous, 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 queen, and a third
swarm three days after the departure of
the second, with this first queen at their
head. It must be admitted, therefore,
that we discover here a perfectly reasoned
system, and a mature combination of plans
extending over a period considerable in-
deed when compared with the brevity of
the bee*s existence.

^s-^

The Life of the Bee

[70]

These measures concern the care of the
youthful queens who still lie immured in
their waxen prisons. Let us assume that
the " spirit of the hive " has pronounced
against the despatch of a second swarm.
Two courses still remain open. The
bees may permit the first-born of the
royal virgins, the one whose birth we have
witnessed, to destroy her sister-enemies ;
or they may elect to wait till she have
performed the perilous ceremony known
as the " nuptial flight," whereon the
nation's future depends. The immediate
massacre will be authorised often, and
often denied ; but in the latter case it is
of course not easy for us to pronounce
whether the bees* decision be due to a de-
sire for a second swarm, or to their recog-
nition of the dangers attending the nuptial
flight ; for it will happen at times that, on
252

The Young Queens

account of the weather unexpectedly be-
coming less favourable, or for some other
reason we cannot divine, they will suddenly
change their mind, renounce the cast that
they had decreed, and destroy the royal
progeny they had so carefully preserved.
But at present we will suppose that they
have determined to dispense with a second
swarm, and that they accept the risks
of the nuptial flight. Our young queen
hastens towards the large cradles, urged
on by her great desire, and the guard
make way before her. Listening only to
her furious jealousy, she will fling herself
on to the first cell she comes across,
madly strip off the wax with her teeth
and claws, tear away the cocoon that car-
pets the cell, and divest the sleeping
princess of every covering. If her rival
should be already recognisable, the queen
will turn so that her sting may enter the
capsule, and will frantically stab it with
253

The Life of the Bee

her venomous weapon until the victim
perish. She then becomes calmer, ap-
peased by the death that puts a term to
the hatred of every creature ; she with-
draws her sting, hurries to the adjoining
cell, attacks it and opens it, passing it
by should she find in it only an im-
perfect larva or nymph ; nor does she
pause till, at last, exhausted and breath-
less, her claws and teeth glide harmless
over the waxen walls.

The bees that surround her have calmly
watched her fury, have stood by, inac-
tive, moving only to leave her path clear;
but no sooner has a cell been pierced
and laid waste than they eagerly flock
to it, drag out the corpse of the rav-
ished nymph, or the still living larva,
and thrust it forth from the hive, there-
upon gorging themselves with the pre-
cious royal jelly that adheres to the sides
of the cell. And finally, when the queen
254

The Young Queens

has become too weak to persist in he?
passion, they will themselves complete the
massacre of the innocents ; and the sover-
eign race, and their dwellings, will all
disappear.

This is the terrible hour of the hive ;
the only occasion, with that of the more
justifiable execution of the drones, when
the workers suffer discord and death to be
busy amongst them ; and here, as often in
nature, it is the favoured of love who
attract to themselves the most extraor-
dinary shafts of violent death.

It will happen at times that two queens
will be hatched simultaneously, the occur-
rence being rare, however, for the bees
take special care to prevent it. But when-
ever this does take place, the deadly com-
bat will begin the moment they emerge
from their cradles ; and of this combat
Huber was the first to remark an extraor-
dinary feature. Each time, it would seem
255

The Life of the Bee

that the queens, in their passes, present
their chitrinous cuirasses to each other in
such a fashion that the drawing of the
sting would prove mutually fatal ; one
might almost believe that, even as a god
or goddess was wont to interpose in the
combats of the Iliad, so a god or a god-
dess, the divinity of the race, perhaps,
interposes here ; and the two warriors,
stricken with simultaneous terror, divide
and fly, to meet shortly after and separate
again should the double disaster once more
menace the future of their people ; till at
last one of them shall succeed in surprising
her clumsier or less wary rival, and in
killing her without risk to herself. For
the law of the race has called for one
sacrifice only.

[71]

The cradles having thus been destroyed
and the rivals all slain, the young queen is
256

The Young Queens

accepted by her people ; but she will net
truly reign over them, or be treated as was
her mother before her, until the nuptial
flight be accomplished ; for until she be
impregnated the bees will hold her but
lightly, and render most passing homage.
Her history, however, will rarely be as un-
eventful as this, for the bees will not often
renounce their desire for a second swarm.
In that case, as before, quick with the
same desires, the queen will approach the
royal cells ; but instead of meeting with
docile servants who second her efforts,
she will find her path blocked by a
numerous and hostile guard. In her fury,
and urged on by her fixed idea, she will
endeavour to force her way through, or to
outflank them ; but everywhere sentinels
are posted to protect the sleeping prin-
cesses. She persists, she returns to the
charge, to be repulsed with ever increasing
severity, to be somewhat roughly handled
17 257

The Life of the Bee

even, 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 inspired.

And at last she goes, and wanders from
comb to comb, her unsatisfied wrath find-
ing vent in a war-song, or angry complaint,
that every bee-keeper knows ; resembling
somewhat the note of a distant trumpet
of silver; so intense, in its passionate
feebleness, as to be clearly audible, in the
evening especially, two or three yards
from the double walls of the most carefully
enclosed hive.

Upon the workers this royal cry has a
magical effect. It terrifies them, it in-
duces a kind of respectful stupor; and
when the queen sends it forth, as she
halts in front of the cells whose approach
is denied her, the guardians who have but
this moment been hustling her, pushing
her back, will at once desist, and wait,
258

The Young Queens

with bent head, till the cry shall have
ceased to resound. Indeed, some believe
that it is thanks to the prestige of this
cry, which the Sphinx Atropos imitates,
that the latter is able to enter the hive,
and gorge itself with honey, without the
least molestation on the part of the bees.

For two or three days, sometimes even
for five, this indignant lament will be
heard, this challenge that the queen ad-
dresses to her well protected rivals. And
as these in their turn develop, in their turn
grow anxious to see the light, they too set
to work to gnaw the lids of their cells.
A mighty disorder would now appear to
threaten the repubhc. But the genius of
the hive, at the time that it formed its
decision, was able to foretell every conse-
quence that might ensue; and the guar-
dians have had their instructions : they
know exactly what must be done, hour by
hour, to meet the attacks of a foiled in-
259

The Life of the Bee

stinct, and conduct two opposite forces to
a successful issue. They are fully aware
that if the young queens should escape who
now clamour for birth, they would fall into
the hands of their elder sister, by this time
irresistible, who would destroy them one by
one. The workers, therefore, will pile on
fresh layers of wax in proportion as the
prisoner reduces, from within, the walls of
her tower ; and the impatient princess will
ardently persist in her labour, little sus-
pecting that she has to deal with an en-
chanted obstacle, that rises ever afresh
from its ruin. She hears the war-cry of
her rival ; and already aware of her royal
duty and destiny, although she has not
yet looked upon life, nor knows what a
hive may be, she answers the challenge
from within the depths of her prison.
But her cry is different ; it is stifled and
hollow, for it has to traverse the walls of
a tomb ; and, when night is falling, and
260

The Young Queens

noises are hushed, and high over all there
reigns the silence of the stars, the apiarist
who nears these marvellous cities and
stands, questioning, at their entrance,
recognises and understands the dialogue
that is passing between the wandering
queen and the virgins in prison.

[72]

To the young princesses, however, this
prolonged reclusion is of material benefit ;
for when they at last are freed they have
grown mature and vigorous, and are able
to fly. But during this period of waiting
the strength of the first queen has also
increased, and is sufficient now to enable
her to face the perils of the voyage. The
time has arrived, therefore, for the depar-
ture of the second swarm, or " cast," with
the first-born of the queens at its head.
No sooner has she gone than the workers
left in the hive will set one of the prisoners
261

The Life of the Bee

free ; and she will evince the same murder-
ous desires, send forth the same cries ot
anger, until, at last, after three or four
days, she will leave the hive in her turn,
at the head of the tertiary swarm ; and so
in succession, in the case of " swarming
fever," till the mother-city shall be com-
pletely exhausted.

Swammerdam cites a hive that, through
its swarms and the swarms of its swarms,
was able in a single season to found no
less than thirty colonies.

Such extraordinary multiplication is
above all noticeable after disastrous win-
ters ; and one might almost believe that
the bees, forever in touch with the secret
desires of nature, are conscious of the
dangers that menace their race. But at
ordinary times this fever will rarely occur
in a strong and well-governed hive.
There are many that swarm only once;
and some, indeed, not at all.
262

The Young Queens

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

[ 73 ]

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

The Life of the Bee

much further, and in the first stage lead
the swarm to a considerable distance from
the hive. The conduct of these second
and third migrations will be far more rash,
and their future more problematical. The
queen at their head, the representative of
the future, has not yet been impregnated.
Their entire destiny depends on the ensu-
ing nuptial flight. A passing bird, a few
drops of rain, a mistake, a cold wind —
any one of these may give rise to irreme-
diable disaster. Of this the bees are so
well aware that when the young queen
sallies forth in quest of her lover, they
often will abandon the labours they have
begun, will forsake the home of a day that
already is dear to them, and accompany
her in a body, dreading to let her pass
out of their sight, eager, as they form
closely around her, and shelter her be-
neath their myriad devoted wings, to lose
themselves with her, should love cause
264

The Young Queens

her to stray so far from the hive that the
as yet unfamiHar road of return shall grow
blurred and hesitating in every memory.

[74]

But so potent is the law of the future
that none of these uncertainties, these
perils of death, will cause a single bee
to waver. The enthusiasm displayed by
the second and third swarms is not less
than that of the first. No sooner has
the mother-city pronounced its decision
than a battalion of workers will flock
around each dangerous young queen,
eager to follow her fortunes, to accom-
pany her on the voyage where there is
so much to lose, and so little to gain
beyond the desire of a satisfied instinct.
Whence do they derive the energy we
ourselves never possess, whereby they
break with the past as though with an
enemy ? Who is it selects from the
265

The Life of the Bee

crowd those who shall go forth, and de-
clares who shall remain ? No special
class divides those who stay from those
who wander abroad ; it will be the
younger here and the elder there ; around
each queen who shall never return vete-
ran foragers jostle tiny workers, who
for the first time shall face the dizziness
of the blue. Nor is the proportionate
strength of a swarm controlled by chance
or accident, by the momentary dejection
or transport of an instinct, thought, or
feeling. I have more than once tried
to establish a relation between the num-
ber of bees composing a swarm and the
number of those that remain ; and al-
though the difficulties of this calculation
are such as to preclude anything ap-
proaching mathematical precision, I have
at least been able to gather that this
relation — if we take into account the
brood-cells, or in other words the forth-
266

The Young Queens

coming births — is sufficiently constant
to point to an actual and mysterious
reckoning on the part of the genius of
the hive.

[75]

We will not follow these swarms on
their numerous, and often most compli-
cated, adventures. Two swarms, at times,
will join forces ; at others, 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 forming. Occasionally, too, one of
the young queens, finding herself sur-
rounded by males, will cause herself to
be impregnated in the swarming flight,
and will then drag all her people to an
extraordinary height and distance. In
the practice of apiculture these secondary
and tertiary swarms are always returned
267

The Life of the Bee

to the mother-hive. The queens will
meet on the comb ; the workers will
gather around and watch their combat ;
and, when the stronger has overcome
the weaker they will then, in their ardour
for work and hatred of disorder, expel
the corpses, close the door on the vio-
lence of the future, forget the past, return
to their cells, and resume their peaceful
path to the flowers that await them.

[76]

We will now, in order to simplify
matters, return to the queen whom the
bees have permitted to slaughter her
sisters, and resume the account of her
adventures. As I have already stated,
this massacre will be often prevented, and
often sanctioned, at times even when the
bees apparently do not intend to issue a
second swarm ; for we notice the same
diversity of political spirit in the differ-
268

The Young Queens

ent hives of an apiary as in the different
human nations of a continent. But it is
clear that the bees will act imprudently
in giving their consent ; for if the queen
should die, or stray in the nuptial flight,
it will be impossible to fill her place,
the workers' larvae having passed the
age when they are susceptible of royal
transformation. Let us assume, how-
ever, that the imprudence has been
committed ; and behold our first-born,
therefore, unique sovereign, and recog-
nised as such in the spirit of her people.
But she is still a virgin. To become as
was the mother before her, it is essential
that she should meet the male within the
first twenty days of her life. Should the
event for some reason be delayed beyond
this period, her virginity becomes irrevo-
cable. And yet we have seen that she is
not sterile, virgin though she be. There
confronts us here the great mystery — or
269

The Life of the Bee

precaution — of Nature, that is known
as parthenogenesis, and is common to a
certain number of insects, such as the
aphides, the lepidoptera of the Psyche
genus, the hymenoptera of the Cynipede
family, etc. The virgin queen is able to
lay ; but from all the eggs that she will
deposit in the ceils, be these large or
small, there will issue males alone ; and
as these never work, as they live at the
expense of the females, as they never go
foraging except on their own account,
and are generally incapable of providing
for their subsistence, the result will be,
at the end of some w^eeks, that the last
exhausted worker will perish, and the
colony be ruined and totally annihilated.
The queen, we have said, will produce
thousands of drones ; 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
270

The Young Queens

the mother. That may not be more as-
tounding, perhaps, than a thousand other
and analogous phenomena; and, indeed,
when we consider these problems, and
more especially those of generation, the
marvellous and the unexpected confront
us so constantly — occurring far more fre-
quently, and above all in far less human
fashion, than in the most miraculous fairy
stories — that after a time astonishment
becomes so habitual with us that we almost
cease to wonder. The fact, however, is
sufficiently curious to be worthy of notice.
But, on the other hand, 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 essential ? Is she afraid lest the fe-
males might perhaps be induced by their
intellect unduly to limit the number of
their parasites, which, destructive though
they be, are still necessary for the preser-
271

The Life of the Bee

vation of the race? Or is it merely an
exaggerated reaction against the misfor-
tune of the unfruitful queen ? Can we
have here one of those blind and extreme
precautions which, ignoring the cause of
the evil, overstep the remedy ; and, in
the endeavour to prevent an unfortunate
accident, bring about a catastrophe? In
reality — though we must not forget that
the natural, primitive reality is different
from that of the present, for in the origi-
nal forest the colonies might well be far
more scattered than they are to-day —
in reality the queen's unfruitful ness will
rarely be due to the want of males, for
these are very numerous always, and will
flock from afar ; but rather to the rain, or
the cold, that will have kept her too long
in the hive, and more frequently still to the
imperfect state of her wings, whereby she
will be prevented from describing the high
flight in the air that the organ of the male
272

The Young Queens

demands. Nature, however, heedless of
these more intrinsic causes, is so deeply
concerned with the multiplication of
males, that we sometimes find, in mother-
less hives, two or three workers possessed
of so great a desire to preserve the race
that, their atrophied ovaries notwithstand-
ing, they will still endeavour to lay ; and,
their organs expanding somewhat beneath
the empire of this exasperated sentiment,
they will succeed in depositing a few eggs
in the cells ; but from these eggs, as from
those of the virgin mother, there will
issue only males.

[77]
Here we behold the active intervention
of a superior though perhaps imprudent
will, which offers irresistible obstruction
to the intelligent will of a life. In the
insect world such interventions are com-
paratively frequent, and much can be
i8 273

The Life of the Bee

gained from their study ; for this world
being more densely peopled and more
complex than others, certain special desires
of nature are often more palpably revealed
to us there ; and she may even at times
be detected in the midst of experiments
we might almost be warranted in regard-
ing as incomplete. She has one great and
general desire, for instance, that she dis-
plays on all sides ; the amelioration of
each species through the triumph of the
stronger. This struggle, as a rule, is
most carefully organised. The hecatomb
of the weak is enormous, but that matters
little so long as the victors' reward be
effectual and certain. But there are cases
when one might almost imagine that na-
ture had not had time enough to disen-
tangle her combinations ; cases where
reward is impossible, and the fate of the
victor no less disastrous than that of the
vanquished. And of such, selecting an
274

The Young Queens

instance that will not take us too far from
our bees, I know of no instance more
striking than that of the triongulins of the
Sitaris colletes. And it will be seen that,
in many details, this story is less foreign
to the history of man than might perhaps
be imagined.

These triongulins are the primary larvae
of a parasite proper to a wild, obtuse-
tongued, solitary bee, the Colletes, which
builds its nest in subterranean galleries.
It is their habit to lie in wait for the bee
at the approach to these galleries ; and
then, to the number of three, four, five,
or often of more, they will leap on her
back, and bury themselves in her hair.
Were the struggle of the weak against the
strong to take place at this moment there
would be no more to be said, and all would
pass in accordance with universal law.
But, for a reason we know not, their in-
stinct requires, and nature has consequently
275

The Life of the Bee

ordained, that they should hold them-
selves tranquil so long as they remain on
the back of the bee. They patiently bide
their time while she visits the flowers, and
constructs and provisions her cells. But
no sooner has an egg been laid than they
all spring upon it ; and the innocent col-
letes carefully seals down her cell, which
she has duly supplied with food, never
suspecting that she has at the same time
ensured the death of her offspring.

The cell has scarcely been closed when
the triongulins grouped round the egg
engage in the inevitable and salutary com-
bat of natural selection. The stronger,
more agile, will seize its adversary be-
neath the cuirass, and, raising it aloft, will
maintain it for hours in its mandibles until
the victim expire. But, while this fight
is in progress, another of the triongulins,
that had either no rival to meet, or already
has conquered, takes possession of the
276

The Young Queens

egg and bursts it open. The ultimate
victor has therefore this fresh enemy to
subdue ; but the conquest is easy, for the
trionguhn, deep in the satisfaction of its
pre-natal hunger, clings obstinately to the
egg, and does not even attempt to defend
itself. It is quickly despatched ; and the
other is at last alone, and possessor of
the precious egg it has won so well. It
eagerly plunges its head into the opening
its predecessor had made ; and begins the
lengthy repast that shall transform it into
a perfect insect. But nature, that has
decreed this ordeal of battle, has, on the
other hand, established the prize of vic-
tory with such miserly precision that
nothing short of an entire egg will suffice
for the nourishment of a single triongulin.
So that, as we are informed by M. Mayet,
to whom we owe the account of these dis-
concerting adventures, there is lacking to
our conqueror the food its last victim con-
277

The Life of the Bee

sumed before death ; and incapable there-
fore of achieving the first stage of its
transformation, it dies in its turn, adher-
ing to the skin of the egg, or adding itself,
in the sugary liquid, to the number of
the drowned.

[78]

This case, though rarely to be followed
so closely, is not unique in natural history.
We have here, laid bare before us, the
struggle between the conscious will of the
triongulin, that seeks to live, and the
obscure and general will of nature, that
not only desires that the triongulin should
live, but is anxious even that its life should
be improved, and fortified, to a degree
beyond that to which its own will impels
it. But, through some strange inadver-
tence, the amelioration nature imposes sup-
presses the life of even the fittest, and the
Sitaris Colletes would have long since dis-
278

The Young Queens

appeared had not chance, acting in oppo-
sition to the desires of nature, permitted
isolated individuals to escape from the
excellent and far-seeing law that ordains
on all sides the triumph of the stronger.

Can this mighty power err, then, that
seems unconscious to us, but necessarily-
wise, seeing that the life she organises and
maintains is forever proving her to be
right ? Can feebleness at times overcome
that supreme reason, which we are apt to
invoke when we have attained the limits
of our own ? And if that be so, by whom
shall this feebleness be set right ?

But let us return to that special form
of her resistless intervention that we find
in parthenogenesis. And we shall do
well to remember that, remote as the
world may seem in which these problem.?
confront us, they do indeed yet concern,
ourselves very nearly. Who would dare
to affirm that no interventions take place
279

The Life of the Bee

in the sphere of man — interventions that
may be more hidden, but not the less
fraught with danger? And in the case
before us, which is right, in the end, — the
insect, or nature? What would happen
if the bees, more docile perhaps, or
endowed with a higher intelligence, were
too clearly to understand the desires of
nature, and to follow them to the extreme ;
to multiply males to infinity, seeing that
nature is imperiously calling for males ?
Would they not risk the destruction of
their species ? Are we to believe that
there are intentions in nature that it is
dangerous to understand too clearly, fatal
to follow with too much ardour ; and that
it is one of her desires that we should not
divine, and follow, all her desires ? Is it
not possible that herein there may lie one
of the perils of the human race ? We too
are aware of unconscious forces within us,
that would appear to demand the reverse
280

The Young Queens

of what our intellect urges. And this
intellect of ours, that, as a rule, its own
boundary reached, knows not whither to
go — can it be well that it should join
itself to these forces, and add to them its
unexpected weight?

[79]

Have we the right to conclude, from
the dangers of parthenogenesis, that nature
is not always able to proportion the means
to the end ; and that what she intends to
preserve is preserved at times by means of
precautions she has to contrive against her
own precautions, and often through foreign
circumstances she has not herself foreseen ?
But is there anything she does foresee,
anything she does intend to preserve?
Nature, some may say, is a word where-
with we clothe the unknowable ; and few
things authorise our crediting it with
intelligence, or with aim. That is true.
281

The Life of the Bee

We touch here the hermetically sealed
vases that furnish our conception of the
universe. Reluctant, over and over
again, to label these with the inscription
" UNKNOWN," that disheartens us and
compels us to silence, we engrave upon
them, in the degree of their size and
grandeur, the words " Nature, life, death,
infinite, selection, spirit of the race," and
many others, even as those who went
before us affixed the words " God, Provi-
dence, destiny, reward," etc. Let it be
so, if one will, and no more. But, though
the contents of the vases remain obscure,
there is gain at least in the fact that the
inscriptions to-day convey less menace to
us, that we are able therefore to approach
them and touch them, and lay our ears
close to them and listen, with wholesome
curiosity.

But whatever the name we attach to
these vases, it is certain that one of them,
282

The Young Queens

at least, and the greatest — that which
bears on its flank the name " Nature " —
encloses a very real force, the most real
of all, and one that is able to preserve an
enormous and marvellous quantity and
quality of life on our globe, by means so
skilful that they surpass all that the genius
of man could contrive. Could this quan-
tity and quality be maintained by other
means ? Is it we who deceive ourselves
when we imagine that we see precautions
where perhaps there is truly no more than
a fortunate chance, that has survived a
million unfortunate chances ?

[80]

That may be ; but these fortunate
chances teach us a lesson in admiration
as valuable as those we might learn in re-
gions superior to chance. If we let our
gaze travel beyond the creatures that are
possessed of a glimmer of intellect and
283

The Life of the Bee

consciousness, beyond the protozoa even,
which are the first nebulous representatives
of the dawning animal kingdom, we find,
as has been abundantly proved by the ex-
periments of Mr. H. J. Carter, the cele-
brated microscopist, that the very lowest
embryos, such as the myxomycetes, mani-
fest a will and desires and preferences ;
and that infusoria, which apparently have
no organism whatever, give evidence of a
certain cunning. The Amoebae, for in-
stance, will patiently lie in wait for the
new-born Acinetes, as they leave the ma-
ternal ovary ; being aware that these must
as yet be lacking their poisonous tentacles.
Now, the Amoebae have neither a nervous
system nor distinguishable organs of any
kind. Or if we turn to the plants, which,
being motionless, would seem exposed to
every fatality, — without pausing to con-
sider carnivorous species like the Drusera,
which really act as animals, — we are struck
284

The Young Queens

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 need. See
the marvellous fashion in which the Or-
chis Moris, our humble country orchid,
combines the play of its rostellum and
retinacula ; observe the mathematical and
automatic inclination and adhesion of its
pollinia ; as also the unerring double see-
saw of the anthers of the wild sage, which
touch the body of the visiting insect at a
particular spot in order that the insect
may, in its turn, touch the stigma of the
neighbouring flower at another particular
spot; watch, too, in the case of the Pedi-
cularis Sylvatica, the successive, calculated
movements of its stigma; and indeed the
entrance of the bee into any one of these
three flowers sets every organ vibrating,
just as the skilful marksman who hits the
black spot on the target will cause all the
285

The Life of the Bee

figures to move in the elaborate mechan-
isms we see in our village fairs.

We might go lower still, and show, as
Ruskin has shown in his " Ethics of the
Dust,*' the character, habits, and artifices
of crystals ; their quarrels, and mode of
procedure, when a foreign body attempts
to oppose their plans, which are more
ancient by far than our imagination can
conceive ; the manner in which they ad-
mit or repel an enemy, the possible vic-
tory of the weaker over the stronger, as,
for instance, when the all-powerful quartz
submits to the humble and wily epidote,
and allows this last to conquer it; the
struggle, terrible sometimes and some-
times magnificent, between the rock-crystal
and iron ; the regular, immaculate expan-
sion and uncompromising purity of one
hyaline block, which rejects whatever is
foul, and the sickly growth, the evident
immorality, of its brother, which admits
286

The Young Queens

corruption, and writhes miserably in the
void ; as we might quote also the strange
phenomena of crystalline cicatrisation and
reintegration mentioned by Claude Ber-
nard, etc. But the mystery here becomes
too foreign to us. Let us keep to our
flowers, which are the last expression of a
life that has yet some kinship with our
own. We are not dealing now with ani-
mals or insects, to which we attribute a
special, intelligent will, thanks to which
they survive. We believe, rightly or
wrongly, that the flowers possess no such
will ; at least we cannot discover in them
the slightest trace of the organs wherein
will, intellect, and initiative of action, are
usually born and reside. It follows,
therefore, that all that acts in them in so
admirable a fashion must directly proceed
from what we elsewhere call nature. We
are no longer concerned with the intellect
of the individual ; here we find the un-
287

The Life of the Bee

conscious, undivided force in the act of
ensnaring other forms of itself. Shall we
on that account refuse to believe that
these snares are pure accidents, occurring
in accordance with a routine that is also
incidental ? We are not yet entitled to
such a deduction. It might be urged
that these flowers, had these miraculous
combinations not been, would not have
survived, but would have had their place
filled by others that stood in no need of
crossed fertilisation ; and the non-exist-
ence of the first would have been per-
ceived by none, nor would the life that
vibrates on the earth have seemed less in-
comprehensible to us, less diverse, or less
astounding.

And yet it w^ould be difficult not to ad-
mit that acts which bear all the appearance
of acts of intelligence and prudence pro-
duce and support these fortunate chances.
"Whence do they issue, — from the being
288

The Young Queens

itself, or from the force whence that being
draws life ? I will not say " it matters but
little," for, on the contrary, to know the
answer were of supreme importance to us.
But, in the meantime, and till we shall learn
whether it be the flower that endeavours
to maintain and perfect the life that nature
has placed within it, or whether it be na-
ture that puts forth an effort to maintain
and improve the degree of existence the
flower has assumed, or finally whether it
be chance that ultimately governs chance,
a multitude of semblances invite us to
believe that something equal to our lof-
tiest thoughts issues at times from a com-
mon source, that we are compelled to
admire without knowing where it resides.
There are moments when what seems
error to us comes forth from this com-
mon source. But, although we know
very few things, proofs abound that the
seeming error was in reality an act of
19 289

The Life of the Bee

prudence that we at first could not grasp.
In the little circle, even, 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 yonder. She has placed the three
flowers we mentioned under conditions
of such difficulty that they are unable to
fertilise themselves ; she considers it ben-
eficial, therefore, for reasons beyond our
powers of perception, that they should
cause themselves to be fertilised by their
neighbours ; and, inasmuch as she en-
hances the intelligence of her victims, she
displays on our right the genius she failed
to display on our left. The byways of
this genius of hers remain incomprehen-
sible to us, but its level is always the
same. It will appear to fall into error —
assuming that error be possible — there-
upon rising again at once in the organ
290

The Young Queens

charged to repair this error. Turn where
we may, it towers high over our heads.
It is the circular ocean, the tideless water,
whereon our boldest and most independ-
ent thoughts will never be more than
mere abject bubbles. We call it Nature
to-day ; to-morrow, perhaps, we shall give
it another name, softer or more alarming.
In the meanwhile it holds simultaneous,
impartial sway over life and death ; fur-
nishing the two irreconcilable sisters with
the magnificent and familiar weapons that
adorn and distract its bosom.

[8i]

Does this force take measures to main-
tain what may be struggling on its sur-
face, or must we say, arguing in the
strangest of circles, that what floats on
its surface must guard itself against the
genius that has given it life ? That ques-
tion must be left open. We have no
291

The Life of the Bee

means of ascertaining whether it be not-
withstanding the efforts of the superior
will, or independently of these, or lastly
because of these, that a species has been
able to survive.

All we can say is that such a species
exists, and that, on this point, therefore,
nature would seem to be right. But who
shall tell us how many others that we
have not known have fallen victim to her
restless and forgetful intellect ? Beyond
this, we can recognise only the surprising
and occasionally hostile forms that the
extraordinary fluid we call life assumes,
in utter unconsciousness sometimes, at
others with a kind of consciousness : the
fluid which animates us equally with all
the rest, which produces the very thoughts
that judge it, and the feeble voice that
attempts to tell its story.

292

VI

THE NUPTIAL FLIGHT

293

VI

THE NUPTIAL FLIGHT

[82]

WE will now consider the manner in
which the impregnation of the
queen-bee comes to pass. Here again na-
ture has taken extraordinary measures to
favour the union of males with females
of a different stock ; a strange law, whereto
nothing would seem to compel her ; a
caprice, or initial inadvertence, perhaps,
whose reparation calls for the most mar-
vellous forces her activity knows.

If she had devoted half the genius she
lavishes on crossed fertilisation and other
arbitrary desires to making life more cer-
tain, to alleviating pain, to softening death
and warding off horrible accidents, the
295

The Life of the Bee

universe would probably have presented
an enigma less incomprehensible, less
pitiable, than the one we are striving to
solve. But our consciousness, and the
interest we take in existence, must grap-
ple, not with what might have been, but
with what is.

Around the virgin queen, and dwelling
with her in the hive, are hundreds of ex-
uberant males, forever drunk on honey ;
the sole reason for their existence being
one act of love. But, notwithstanding
the incessant contact of two desires that
elsewhere invariably triumph over every
obstacle, the union never takes place in
the hive, nor has it been possible to bring
about the impregnation of a captive queen.-^

^ Professor McLain has recently succeeded in caus-
ing a few queens to be artificially impregnated ; but
this has been the result of a veritable surgical opera-
tion, of the most delicate and complicated nature.
Moreover, the fertility of the queens was restricted
and ephemeral.

296

The Nuptial Flight

While she lives in their midst the lovers
about her know not what she is. They
seek her in space, in the remote depths of
the horizon, never suspecting that they have
but this moment quitted her, have shared
the same comb with her, have brushed
against her, perhaps, in the eagerness of
their departure. One might almost be-
lieve that those wonderful eyes of theirs,
that cover their head as though with a
glittering helmet, do not recognise or de-
sire her save when she soars in the blue.
Each day, from noon till three, when the
sun shines resplendent, this plumed horde
sallies forth in search of the bride, who is
indeed more royal, more difficult of con-
quest, than the most inaccessible princess
of fairy legend ; for twenty or thirty tribes
will hasten from all the neighbouring cities,
her court thus consisting of more than
ten thousand suitors ; and from these ten
thousand one alone will be chosen for the
297

The Life of the Bee

unique kiss of an instant that shall wed
him to death no less than to happiness ;
while the others will fly helplessly round
the intertwined pair, and soon will perish
without ever again beholding this prodi-
gious and fatal apparition.

[ 83 ]

I am not exaggerating this wild and
amazing prodigality of nature. The best-
conducted hives will, as a rule, contain
four to five hundred males. Weaker or
degenerate ones will often have as many
as four or five thousand; for the more a
hive inclines to its ruin, the more males
will it produce. It may be said that, on
an average, an apiary composed of ten
colonies will at a given moment send an
army of ten thousand males into the air,
of whom ten or fifteen at most will have
the occasion of performing the one act
for which they were born.
298

The Nuptial Flight

In the meanwhile they exhaust the sup-
plies of the city ; each one of the parasites
requiring the unceasing labour of fivQ or
six workers to maintain it in its abound-
ing and voracious idleness, its activity
being indeed solely confined to its jaws.
But nature is always magnificent when
dealing with the privileges and preroga-
tives of love. She becomes miserly only
when doling out the organs and instru-
ments of labour. She is especially severe
on what men have termed virtue, whereas
she strews the path of the most unin-
teresting lovers with innumerable jewels
and favours. " Unite and multiply ;
there is no other law, or aim, than love,"
would seem to be her constant cry on
all sides, while she mutters to herself,
perhaps : " and exist afterwards if you
can ; that is no concern of mine." Do
or desire what else we may, we find,
everywhere on our road, this morality
299

The Life of the Bee

that differs so much from our own.
And note, too, in these same little crea-
tures, her unjust avarice and insensate
waste. From her birth to her death,
the austere forager has to travel abroad
in search of the myriad flowers that
hide in the depths of the thickets. She
has to discover the honey and pollen
that lurk in the labyrinths of the nectaries
and in the most secret recesses of the
anthers. And yet her eyes and olfactory
organs are like the eyes and organs of
the infirm, compared with those of the
male. Were the drones almost blind, had
they only the most rudimentary sense of
smell, they scarcely would suffer. They
have nothing to do, no prey to hunt
down ; their food is brought to them
ready prepared, and their existence is spent
in the obscurity of the hive, lapping honey
from the comb. But they are the agents
of love ; and the most enormous, most use-
300

The Nuptial Flight

less gifts are flung with both hands into the
abyss of the future. Out of a thousand
of them, one only, once in his life, will
have to seek, in the depths of the azure,
the presence of the royal virgin. Out of
a thousand one only will have, for one in-
stant, to follow in space the female who
desires not to escape. That suffices. The
partial power flings open her treasury,
wildly, even deliriously. To every one
of these unlikely lovers, of whom nine
hundred and ninety-nine will be put to
death a few days after the fatal nuptials
of the thousandth, she has given thirteen
thousand eyes on each side of their head,
while the worker has only six thousand.
According to Cheshire's calculations, she
has provided each of their antennae with
thirty-seven thousand eight hundred olfac-
tory cavities, while the worker has only
five thousand in both. There we have
an instance of the almost universal dis-
301

The Life of the Bee

proportion that exists between the gifts
she rains upon love and her niggardly
doles to labour; between the favours she
accords to what shall, in an ecstasy, create
new life, and the indifference wherewith
she regards what will patiently have "to
maintain itself by toil. Whoever would
seek faithfully to depict the character of
nature, in accordance with the traits we
discover here, would design an extraor-
dinary figure, very foreign to our ideal,
which nevertheless can only emanate from
her. But too many things are unknown
to man for him to essay such a portrait,
wherein all would be deep shadow save
one or two points of flickering light.

[84]

Very few, I imagine, have profaned the

secret of the queen-bee's wedding, which

comes to pass in the infinite, radiant

circles of a beautiful sky. But we are

302

The Nuptial Flight

able to witness the hesitating departure
of the bride-elect and the murderous re-
turn of the bride.

However great her impatience, she will
yet choose her day and her hour, 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 vault. She loves the moment when
drops of dew still moisten the leaves
and the flowers, when the last fragrance
of dying dawn still wrestles with burning
day, like a maiden caught in the arms
of a heavy warrior; when through the
silence of approaching noon is heard, once
and again, a transparent cry that has lin-
gered from sunrise.

Then she appears on the threshold —
in the midst of indifferent foragers, if she
have left sisters in the hive ; or sur-
rounded by a delirious throng of workers,
should it be impossible to fill her place.
303

The Life of the Bee

She starts her flight backwards ; returns
twice or thrice to the alighting-board ; and
then, having definitely fixed in her mind
the exact situation and aspect of the king-
dom she has never yet seen from without,
she departs like an arrow to the zenith of
the blue. She soars to a height, a lumi-
nous zone, that other bees attain at no
period of their life. Far away, caressing
their idleness in the midst of the flowers,
the males have beheld the apparition,
have breathed the magnetic perfume that
spreads from group to group till every
apiary near is instinct with it. Immedi-
ately crowds collect, and follow her into
the sea of gladness, whose limpid bounda-
ries ever recede. She, drunk with her
wings, obeying the magnificent law of the
race that chooses her lover, and enacts
that the strongest alone shall attain her in
the solitude of the ether, she rises still ;
and, for the first time in her life, the blue
304

The Nuptial Flight

morning air rushes into her stigmata,
singing its song, like the blood of heaven,
in the myriad tubes of the tracheal sacs,
nourished on space, that fill the centre of
her body. She rises still. A region
must be found unhaunted by birds, that
else might profane the mystery. She
rises still ; and already the ill-assorted
troop below are dwindling and falling
asunder. The feeble, infirm, the aged,
unwelcome, ill-fed, who have flown from
inactive or impoverished cities, these re-
nounce the pursuit and disappear in the
void. Only a small, indefatigable cluster
remain, suspended in infinite opal. She
summons her wings for one final effort ;
and now the chosen of incomprehensible
forces has reached her, has seized her, and
bounding aloft with united impetus, the
ascending spiral of their intertwined flight
whirls for one second in the hostile mad-
ness of love.

20 305

The Life of the Bee

[85]

Most creatures have a vague belief that
a very precarious hazard, a kind of trans-
parent membrane, divides death from
love; and that the profound idea of
nature demands that the giver of life
should die at the moment of giving.
Here this idea, whose memory lingers still
over the kisses of man, is reaHsed in its
primal simplicity. No sooner has the
union been accomplished than the male's
abdomen opens, the organ detaches itself,
dragging with it the mass of the entrails ;
the wings relax, and, as though struck by
lightning, the emptied body turns and
turns on itself and sinks down into the
abyss.

The same idea that, before, in partheno-
genesis, sacrificed the future of the hive to
the unwonted multiplication of males, now
sacrifices the male to the future of the hive.
306

The Nuptial Flight

This idea is always astounding; and
the further we penetrate into it, the fewer
do our certitudes become. Darwin, for
instance, to take the man of all men
who studied it the most methodically
and most passionately, Darwin, though
scarcely confessing it to himself, loses
confidence at every step, and retreats be-
fore the unexpected and the irreconcilable.
Would you have before you the nobly
humiliating spectacle of human genius
battling with infinite power, you have but
to follow Darwin's endeavours to unravel
the strange, incoherent, inconceivably
mysterious laws of the sterility and
fecundity of hybrids, or of the varia-
tions of specific and generic characters.
Scarcely has he formulated a principle
when numberless exceptions assail him ;
and this very principle, soon completely
overwhelmed, is glad to find refuge in
some corner, and preserve a shred of
307

The Life of the Bee

existence there under the title of an
exception.

For the fact is that in hybridity, in
variability (notably in the simultaneous
variations known as correlations of growth),
in instinct, in the processes of vital com-
petition, in geologic succession and the
geographic distribution of organised be-
ings, in mutual affinities, as indeed in
every other direction, the idea of nature
reveals itself, in one and the same phe-
nomenon and at the very same time, as
circumspect and shiftless, niggard and
prodigal, prudent and careless, fickle and
stable, agitated and immovable, one
and innumerable, magnificent and squalid.
There lay open before her the immense
and virgin fields of simplicity ; she chose
to people them with trivial errors, with
petty contradictory laws that stray through
existence like a flock of blind sheep. It
is true that our eye, before which these
308

The Nuptial Flight

things happen, can only reflect a reality
proportionate to our needs and our stat-
ure; nor have we any warrant for believ-
ing that nature ever loses sight of her
wandering results and causes.

In any event she will rarely permit
them to stray too far, or approach illogi-
cal or dangerous regions. She disposes
of two forces that never can err; and
when the phenomenon shall have tres-
passed beyond certain limits, she will
beckon to Hfe or to death — which ar-
rives, re-establishes order, and unconcern-
edly marks out the path afresh.

[86]

She eludes us on every side ; she re-
pudiates most of our rules and breaks
our standards to pieces. On our right
she sinks far beneath the level of our
thoughts, on our left she towers moun-
tain-high above them. She appears to
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The Life of the Bee

be constantly blundering, no less In the
world of her first experiments than in that
of her last, of man. There she invests
with her sanction the instincts of the ob-
scure mass, the unconscious injustice of
the multitude, the defeat of intelligence
and virtue, the uninspired morality which
urges on the great wave of the race,
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 other. And
yet, can such a mind be wrong if it ask
itself whether the whole truth — moral
truths, therefore, as well as non-moral —
had not better be sought in this chaos
than in itself, where these truths would
seem comparatively clear and precise ?

The man who feels thus will never

attempt to deny the reason or virtue of

his ideal, hallowed by so many heroes

and sages ; but there are times when he

310

The Nuptial Flight

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 represent.
He has, hitherto, legitimately feared that
the attempt to adapt his morality to that
of nature would risk the destruction of
what was her masterpiece. But to-day
he understands her a little better ; and
from some of her replies, which, though
still vague, reveal an unexpected breadth,
he has been enabled to seize a glimpse of
a plan and an intellect vaster than could
be conceived by his unaided imagination ;
wherefore he has grown less afraid, nor
feels any longer the same imperious need
of the refuge his own special virtue and
reason afford him. He concludes that
what is so great could surely teach noth-
ing that would tend to lessen itself. He
wonders whether the moment may not
have arrived for submitting to a more

The Life of the Bee

judicious examination his convictions, his
principles, and his dreams.

Once more, he has not the slightest de-
sire to abandon his human ideal. That
even which at first diverts him from this
ideal teaches him to return to it. It
were impossible for nature to give ill
advice to a man who declines to include
in the great scheme he is endeavouring
to grasp, who declines to regard as suffi-
ciently lofty to be definitive, any truth
that is not at least as lofty as the truth he
himself desires. Nothing shifts its place
in his life save only to rise with him ;
and he knows he is rising when he finds
himself drawing near to his ancient image
of good. But all things transform them-
selves more freely in his thoughts; and
he can descend with impunity, for he has
the presentiment that numbers of succes-
sive valleys will lead him to the plateau
that he expects. And, while he thus
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The Nuptial Flight

seeks for conviction, while his researches
even conduct him to the very reverse of
that which he loves, he directs his conduct
by the most humanly beautiful truth, and
clings to the one that provisionally seems
to be highest. All that may add to
beneficent virtue enters his heart at once ;
all that would tend to lessen it remaining
there in suspense, like insoluble salts that
change not till the hour for decisive ex-
periment. He may accept an inferior
truth, but before he will act in accord-
ance therewith he will wait, if need be for
centuries, until he perceive the connection
this truth must possess with truths so
infinite as to include and surpass all
others.

In a word, he divides the moral from
the intellectual order, admitting in the for-
mer that only which is greater and more
beautiful than was there before. And
blameworthy as it may be to separate the
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The Life of the Bee

two orders in cases, only too frequent in
life, where we suifer our conduct to be in-
ferior to our thoughts, where, seeing the
good, we follow the worse — to see the
worse and follow the better, to raise our
actions high over our idea, must ever be
reasonable and salutary ; , for human ex-
perience renders it daily more clear that
the highest thought we can attain will long
be inferior still to the mysterious truth we
seek. Moreover, should nothing of what
goes before be true, a reason more simple
and more familiar would counsel him not
yet to abandon his human ideal. For the
more strength he accords to the laws which
would seem to set egoism, injustice, and
cruelty as examples for men to follow, the
more strength does he at the same time
confer on the others that ordain generosity,
justice, and pity ; and these last laws are
found to contain something as profoundly
natural as the first, the moment he begins
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The Nuptial Flight

to equalise, or allot more methodically,
the share he attributes to the universe
and to himself.

[87]

Let us return to the tragic nuptials of
the queen. Here it is evidently nature's
wish, in the interests of crossed fertilisa-
tion, that the union of the drone and the
queen-bee should be possible only in the
open sky. But her desires blend network-
fashion, and her most valued laws have to
pass through the meshes of other laws,
which, in their turn, the moment after, are
compelled to pass through the first.

In the sky she has planted so many
dangers — cold winds, storm-currents,
birds, insects, drops of water, all of which
also obey invincible laws — that she must
of necessity arrange for this union to be
as brief as possible. It is so, thanks to
the startlingly sudden death of the male.
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The Life of the Bee

One embrace suffices ; the rest all enacts
itself in the very flanks of the bride.

She descends from the azure heights
and returns to the hive, traihng behind
her, like an oriflamme, the unfolded entrails
of her lover. Some writers pretend that
the bees manifest great joy at this return
so big with promise — Biichner, among
others, giving a detailed account of it. I
have many a time lain in wait for the
queen-bee's return, 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 swarm,
and represented the unique hope of a
newly founded and still empty city. In
that instance the workers were all wildly
excited, and rushed to meet her. But as
a rule they appear to forget her, even
though the future of their city will often be
no less imperilled. They act with con-
sistent prudence in all things, till the
316

The Nuptial Flight

moment when they authorise the massacre
of the rival queens. That point reached,
their instinct halts ; and there is, as it
were, a gap in their foresight. — They
appear to be wholly indifferent. They
raise their heads ; recognise, probably, the
murderous tokens of impregnation ; but,
still mistrustful, manifest none of the glad-
ness our expectation had pictured. Being
positive in their ways, and slow at illusion,
they probably need further proofs before
permitting themselves to rejoice. Why
endeavour to render too logical, or too
human, the feelings of little creatures so
different from ourselves ? Neither among
the bees nor among any other animals
that have a ray of our intellect, do things
happen with the precision our books re-
cord. Too many circumstances remain
unknown to us. Why try to depict the
bees as more perfect than they are, by
saying that which is not ^ Those who
317

The Life of the Bee

would deem them more interesting did
they resemble ourselves, have not yet
truly realised what it is that should awaken
the interest of a sincere mind. The aim
of the observer is not to surprise, but to
comprehend; and to point out the gaps
existing in an intellect, and the signs of a
cerebral organisation different from our
own, is more curious by far than the re-
lating of mere marvels concerning it.

But this indifference is not shared by
all ; and when the breathless queen has
reached the alighting-board, some groups
will form and accompany her into the
hive ; where the sun, hero of every fes-
tivity in which the bees take part, is enter-
ing with little timid steps, and bathing in
azure and shadow the waxen walls and
curtains of honey. Nor does the new
bride, indeed, show more concern than
her people, there being not room for many
emotions in her narrow, barbarous, prac-
318

The Nuptial Flight

tical brain. She has but one thought,
which is to rid herself as quickly as pos-
sible of the embarrassing souvenirs her
consort has left her, whereby her move-
ments are hampered. She seats herself
on the threshold, and carefully strips off
the useless organs, that are borne far away
by the workers ; for the male has given
her all he possessed, and much more than
she requires. She retains only, in her
spermatheca, the seminal liquid where
millions of germs are floating, which, un-
til her last day, will issue one by one, as
the eggs pass by, and in the obscurity of
her body accomplish the mysterious union
of the male and female element, whence
the worker-bees are born. Through a
curious inversion, it is she who furnishes
the male principle, and the drone who
provides the female. Two days after the
union she lays her first eggs, and her
people immediately surround her with the
3^9

The Life of the Bee

most particular care. From that moment,
possessed of a dual sex, having within her
an inexhaustible male, she begins her veri-
table life ; she will never again leave the
hive, unless to accompany a swarm ; and
her fecundity will cease only at the ap-
proach of death.

[88]

Prodigious nuptials these, the most
fairylike that can be conceived, azure and
tragic, raised high above life by the im-
petus of desire ; imperishable and terrible,
unique and bewildering, solitary and infi-
nite. An admirable ecstasy, wherein
death supervening in all that our sphere
has of most limpid and loveliest, in vir-
ginal, limitless space, stamps the instant
of happiness in the sublime transparence
of the great sky ; purifying in that im-
maculate light the something of wretched-
ness that always hovers around love,
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The Nuptial Flight

rendering the kiss one that can never be
forgotten ; and, content this time with
moderate tithe, proceeding herself, with
hands that are almost maternal, to intro-
duce and unite, in one body, for a long
and inseparable future, two little fragile
lives.

Profound truth has not this poetry, but
possesses another that we are less apt to
grasp, which, however, we should end,
perhaps, by understanding and loving.
Nature has not gone' out of her way to
provide these two " abbreviated atoms,"
as Pascal would call them, with a resplen-
dent marriage, or an ideal moment of love.
Her concern, as we have said, was merely
to improve the race by means of crossed
fertilisation. To ensure this she has con-
trived the organ of the male in such a
fashion that he can make use of it only
in space. A prolonged flight must first
expand his two great tracheal sacs ; these
21 321

The Life of the Bee

enormous receptacles being gorged on air
will throw back the lower part of the
abdomen, and permit the exsertion of the
organ. There we have the whole physio-
logical secret — which will seem ordinary
enough to some, and almost vulgar to
others — of this dazzling pursuit and these
magnificent nuptials.

[ 89 ]

" But must we always, then," the poet
will wonder, "rejoice in regions that are
loftier than the truth ? "

Yes, in all things, at all times, let
us rejoice, not in regions loftier than the
truth, for that were impossible, but in
regions higher than the little truths that
our eye can seize. Should a chance, a
recollection, an illusion, a passion, — in a
word, should any motive whatever cause
an object to reveal itself to us in a more
beautiful light than to others, let that
322

The Nuptial Flight

motive be first of all dear to us. It may
only be error, perhaps ; 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 beauty. The
beauty we lend it directs our attention to
its veritable beauty and grandeur, which,
derived as they are from the relation
wherein every object must of necessity
stand to general, eternal, forces and laws,
might otherwise escape observation. The
faculty of admiring which an illusion may
have created within us will serve for the
truth that must come, be it sooner or
later. It is with the words, the feelings,
and ardour created by ancient and imagi-
nary beauties, that humanity welcomes to-
day truths which perhaps would have never
been born, which might not have been
able to find so propitious a home, had
these sacrificed illusions not first of all
323

The Life of the Bee

dwelt in, and kindled, the heart and the
reason whereinto these truths should
descend. Happy the eyes that need no
illusion to see that the spectacle is great!
It is illusion that teaches the others to
look, to admire, and rejoice. And look
as high as they will, they never can look
too high. Truth rises as they draw
nearer ; they draw nearer when they ad-
mire. And whatever the heights may be
whereon they rejoice, this rejoicing can
never take place in the void, or above
the unknown and eternal truth that rests
over all things like beauty in suspense.

[90]

Does this mean that we should attach
ourselves to falsehood, to an unreal and
factitious poetry, and find our gladness
therein for want' of anything better? Or
that in the example before us — in itself
nothing, but we dwell on it because it
324

The Nuptial Flight

stands for a thousand others, as also for
our entire attitude in face of divers orders
of truths — that here we should ignore
the physiological explanation, and retain
and taste only the emotions of this nuptial
flight, which is yet, and whatever the cause,
one of the most lyrical, most beautiful acts
of that suddenly disinterested, irresistible
force which all living creatures obey and
are wont to call love? That were too
childish ; nor is it possible, thanks to the
excellent habits every loyal mind has to-
day acquired.

The fact being incontestable, we must
evidently admit that the exsertion of the
organ is rendered possible only by the
expansion of the tracheal vesicles. But
if we, content with this fact, did not let
our eyes roam beyond it ; if we deduced
therefrom that every thought that rises
too high or wanders too far must be of
necessity wrong, and that truth must be
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The Life of the Bee

looked for only in the material details ;
if we did not seek, no matter where, in
uncertainties often far greater than the
one this little explanation has solved, in
the strange mystery of crossed fertilisa-
tion for instance, or in the perpetuity of
the race and life, or in the scheme of
nature; if we did not seek in these for
something beyond the current explana-
tion, something that should prolong it,
and conduct us to the beauty and gran-
deur that repose in the unknown, I would
almost venture to assert that we should
pass our existence further away from the
truth than those, even, who in this case
wilfully shut their eyes to all save the
poetic and wholly imaginary interpreta-
tion of these marvellous nuptials. They
evidently misjudge the form and colour
of the truth, but they live in its atmo-
sphere and its influence far more than
the others, who complacently believe that
326

The Nuptial Flight

the entire truth lies captive within their
two hands. For the first have made
ample preparations to receive the truth,
have provided most hospitable lodging
within them ; and even though their eyes
may not see it, they are eagerly looking
towards the beauty and grandeur where
its residence surely must be.

We know nothing of nature's aim,
which for us is the truth that dominates
every other. But for the very love of
this truth, and to preserve in our soul the
ardour we need for its search, it behoves
us to deem it great. And if we should
find one day that we have been on a
wrong road, that this aim is incoherent
and petty, we shall have discovered its
pettiness by means of the very zeal its
presumed grandeur had created within us ;
and this pettiness once established, it will
teach us what we have to do. In the mean-
while it cannot be unwise to devote to its
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The Life of the Bee

search the most strenuous, daring efforts
of our heart and our reason. And should
the last word of all this be wretched, it will
be no little achievement to have laid bare
the inanity and the pettiness of the aim
of nature.

[91]

" There is no truth for us yet," a great
physiologist of our day remarked to me
once, as I walked with him in the
country ; " there is no truth yet, but
there are everywhere three very good
semblances of truth. Each man makes
his own choice, or rather, perhaps, has it
thrust upon him ; and this choice, whether
it be thrust upon him, or whether, as is
often the case, he have made it without
due reflection, this choice, to which he
clings, will determine the form and the
conduct of all that enters within him.
The friend whom we meet, the woman
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The Nuptial Flight

who approaches and smiles, the love that
unlocks our heart, the death or sorrow
that seals it, the September sky above us,
this superb and delightful garden, wherein
we see, as in Corneille's ' Psyche,' bow-
ers of greenery resting on gilded statues,
and the flocks grazing yonder, with their
shepherd asleep, and the last houses of
the village, and the sea between the trees,
— all these are raised or degraded before
they enter within us, are adorned or de-
spoiled, in accordance with the little signal
this choice of ours makes to them. We
must learn to select from among these
semblances of truth. I have spent my
own life in eager search for the smaller
truths, the physical causes; and now, at
the end of my days, I begin to cherish,
not what would lead me from these, but
what would precede them, and, above all,
what would somewhat surpass them."
We had attained the summit of a
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The Life of the Bee

plateau in the "pays de Caux," in Nor-
mandy, which is supple as an English
park, but natural and limitless. It is one
of the rare spots on the globe where
nature reveals herself to us unfailingly
wholesome and green. A little further to
the north the country is threatened with
barrenness, a little further to the south, it
is fatigued and scorched by the sun. At
the end of a plain that ran down to the
edge of the sea, some peasants were erect-
ing a stack of corn. " Look," he said,
" seen from here, they are beautiful.
They are constructing that simple and
yet so important thing, which is above
all else the happy and almost unvarying
monument of human life taking root —
a stack of corn. The distance, the air of
the evening, weave their joyous cries into
a kind of song without words, which re-
plies to the noble song of the leaves as
they whisper over our heads. Above
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The Nuptial Flight

them the sky is magnificent; and one
almost might fancy that beneficent spirits,
waving palm-trees of fire, had swept all
the light towards the stack, to give the
workers more time. And the track of
the palms still remains in the sky. See
the humble church by their side, over-
looking and watching them, in the midst
of the rounded lime trees and the grass of
the homely graveyard, that faces its native
ocean. They are fitly erecting their mon-
ument of life underneath the monuments
of their dead, who made the same gestures
and still are with them. Take in the
whole picture. There are no special,
characteristic features, such as we find in
England, Provence, or Holland. It is
the presentment, large and ordinary
enough to be symbolic, of a natural and
happy life. Observe how rhythmic
human existence becomes in its useful
moments. Look at the man who is
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The Life of the Bee

leading the horses, at that other who
throws up the sheaves on his fork, at the
women bending over the corn, and the
children at play. . . . They have not
displaced a stone, or removed a spadeful
of earth, to add to the beauty of the
scenery ; nor do they take one step, plant
a tree or a flower, that is not necessary.
All that we see is merely the involuntary
result of the effort that man puts forth to
subsist for a moment in nature; and yet
those among us whose desire is only to
create or imagine spectacles of peace,
deep thoughtfulness, or beatitude, have
been able to find no scene more perfect
than this, which indeed they paint or
describe whenever they seek to present
us with a picture of beauty or happiness.
Here we have the first semblance, which
some will call the truth."

332

The Nuptial Flight

[ 92 ]

" Let us draw nearer. Can you distin-
guish the song that blended so well with
the whispering of the leaves? It is
made up of abuse and insult; and when
laughter bursts forth, it is due to an ob-
scene remark some man or woman has
made, to a jest at the expense of the
weaker, — of the hunchback unable to Hft
his load, the cripple they have knocked
over, or the idiot whom they make their
butt.

" I have studied these people for many
years. We are in Normandy ; the soil is
rich and easily tilled. Around this stack
of corn there is rather more comfort than
one would usually associate with a scene
of this kind. The result is that most
of the men, and many of the women, are
alcoholic. Another poison also, which
I need not name, corrodes the race. To
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The Life of the Bee

that, to the alcohol, are due the children
whom you see there : the dwarf, the one
with the hare-lip, the others who are
knock-kneed, scrofulous, imbecile. All
of them, men and women, young and old,
have the ordinary vices of the peasant.
They are brutal, suspicious, grasping, and
envious ; hypocrites, liars, and slanderers ;
inclined to petty, illicit profits, mean in-
terpretations, and coarse flattery of the
stronger. Necessity brings them to-
gether, and compels them to help each
other ; but the secret wish of every indi-
vidual is to harm his neighbour as soon
as this can be done without danger to
himself. The one substantial pleasure of
the village is procured by the sorrows of
others. Should a great disaster befall one
of them, it will long be the subject of
secret, delighted comment among the rest. '
Every man watches his fellow, is jealous
of him, detests and despises him. While
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The Nuptial Flight

they are poor, they hate their masters
with a boiling and pent-up hatred because
of the harshness and avarice these last
display ; should they in their turn have
servants, they profit by their own experi-
ence of servitude to reveal a harshness and
avarice greater even than that from which
they have suffered. I could give you
minutest details of the meanness, deceit,
injustice, tyranny, and malice that under-
lie this picture of ethereal, peaceful toil.
Do not imagine that the sight of this mar-
vellous sky, of the sea which spreads out
yonder behind the church and presents
another, more sensitive sky, flowing over
the earth like a great mirror of wisdom
and consciousness — do not imagine that
either sea or sky is capable of Hfting their
thoughts or widening their minds. They
have never looked at them. Nothing has
power to influence or move them save
three or four circumscribed fears, that of
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The Life of the Bee

hunger, of force, of opinion and law, and
the terror of hell when they die. To
show what they are, we should have to
consider them one by one. See that tall
fellow there on the right, who flings up
such mighty sheaves. Last summer his
friends broke his right arm in some tavern
row. I reduced the fracture, which was a
bad and compound one. I tended him
for a long time, and gave him the where-
withal to live till he should be able to get
back to work. He came to me every
day. He profited by this to spread the
report in the village that he had discov-
ered me in the arms of my sister-in-law,
and that my mother drank. He is not
vicious, he bears me no ill-will ; on the
contrary, see what a broad, open smile
spreads over his face as he sees me. It
was not social animosity that induced him
to slander me. The peasant values wealth
far too much to hate the rich man. But
336

The Nuptial Flight

I fancy my good corn-thrower there could
not understand my tending him without
any profit to myself. He was satisfied
that there must be some underhand
scheme, and he declined to be my dupe.
More than one before him, richer or
poorer, has acted in similar fashion, if not
worse. It did not occur to him that he
was lying when he spread those inventions
abroad; he merely obeyed a confused
command of the morality he saw about
him. He yielded unconsciously, against
his will, as it were, to the all-powerful de-
sire of the general malevolence. . . . But
why complete a picture with which all are
familiar who have spent some years in the
country ? Here we have the second sem-
blance that some will call the real truth.
It is the truth of practical life. It un-
doubtedly is based on the most precise,
the only, facts that one can observe and
test."

22 337

The Life of the Bee

" Let us sit on these sheaves,'* he con-
tinued, "and look again. Let us reject
not a single one of the little facts that
build up the reality of which I have
spoken. Let us permit them to depart
of their own accord into space. They
cumber the foreground, and yet we can-
not but be aware of the existence behind
them of a great and very curious force
that sustains the whole. Does it only
sustain and not raise ? These men whom
we see before us are at least no longer
the ferocious animals of whom La
Bruyere speaks, the wretches who talked
in a kind of inarticulate voice, and
withdrew at night to their dens, where
they lived on black bread, water, and
roots.

" The race, you will tell me, is neither
as strong nor as healthy. That may be ;
33^

The Nuptial Flight

alcohol and the other scourge are accidents
that humanity has to surmount ; ordeals,
it may be, by which certain of our organs,
those of the nerves, for instance, may
benefit; for we invariably find that life
profits by the ills that it overcomes. Be-
sides, a mere trifle that we may discover
to-morrow may render these poisons in-
nocuous. These men have thoughts and
feelings that those of whom La Bruyere
speaks had not." " I prefer the simple,
naked animal to the odious half-animal,"
I murmured. " You are thinking of the
first semblance now," he replied, " the
semblance dear to the poet, that we saw
before ; let us not confuse it with the
one we are now considering. These
thoughts and feelings are petty, if you
will, and vile ; but what is petty and
vile is still better than that which is
not at all. Of these thoughts and feel-
ings they avail themselves only to hurt
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The Life of the Bee

each other, and to persist in their pres-
ent mediocrity; but thus does it often
happen in nature. The gifts she accords
are employed for evil at first, for the ren-
dering worse what she had apparently
sought to improve ; but, from this evil, a
certain good will always result in the end.
Besides, I am by no means anxious to
prove that there has been progress, which
may be a very small thing or a very great
thing, according to the place whence we
regard it. It is a vast achievement, the
surest ideal, perhaps, to render the condi-
tion of men a little less servile, a little less
painful ; but let the mind detach itself for
an instant from material results, 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 considerable. Among these
young rustics, whose mind is haunted
only by formless ideas, there are many
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The Nuptial Flight

who have in themselves the possibility of
attaining, in a short space of time, the
degree of consciousness that we both en-
joy. One is often struck by the narrow-
ness of the dividing line between what we
regard as the unconsciousness of these
people and the consciousness that to us
is the highest of all

" Besides, of what is this consciousness
composed, whereof we are so proud ? Of
far more shadow than light, of far more
acquired ignorance than knowledge ; of
far more things whose comprehension, we
are well aware, must ever elude us, than
of things that we actually know. And
yet in this consciousness lies all our dig-
nity, our most veritable greatness ; it is
probably the most surprising phenomenon
this world contains. It is this which per*
mits us to raise our head before the un-
known principle, and say to it : ' What
you are I know not; but there is some-
341

The Life of the Bee

thing within me that already enfolds you.
You will destroy me, perhaps, but if your
object be not to construct from my ruins
an organism better than mine, you will
prove yourself inferior to what I am ; and
the silence that will follow the death of
the race to which I belong will declare to
you that you have been judged. And
if you are not capable even of caring
whether you be justly judged or not, of
what value can your secret be ? It must
be stupid or hideous. Chance has en-
abled you to produce a creature that you
yourself lacked the quality to produce.
It is fortunate for him that a contrary
chance should have permitted you to
suppress him before he had fathomed
the depths of your unconsciousness ;
more fortunate still that he does not
survive the infinite series of your awful
experiments. He had nothing to do in
a world where his intellect corresponded
342

The Nuptial Flight

to no eternal intellect, where his desire
for the better could attain no actual
good.'

" Once more, for the spectacle to absorb
uSj there is no need of progress. The
enigma suffices ; and that enigma is as
great, and shines as mysteriously, in the
peasants as in ourselves. As we trace life
back to its all-powerful principle, it con-
fronts us on every side. To this principle
each succeeding century has given a new
name. Some of these names were clear
and consoling. It was found, however,
that consolation and clearness were alike
illusory. But whether we call it God,
Providence, Nature, chance, life, fatality,
spirit, or matter, the mystery remains un-
altered ; and from the experience of thou-
sands of years we have learned nothing
more than to give it a vaster name, one
nearer to ourselves, more congruous with
our expectation, with the unforeseen.
343

The Life of the Bee

That is the name it bears to-day, where-
fore it has never seemed greater. Here
we have one of the numberless aspects
of the third semblance, which also is
truth."

344

VII

THE MASSACRE OF THE
MALES

345

VII

THE MASSACRE OF THE
MALES

[94]

IF skies remain clear, the air warm, and
pollen and nectar abound in the
flowers, the workers, through a kind of
forgetful indulgence, or over-scrupulous
prudence perhaps, will for a short time
longer endure the importunate, disastrous
presence of the males. These comport
themselves in the hive as did Penelope's
suitors in the house of Ulysses. Indeli-
cate and wasteful, sleek and corpulent,
fully content with their idle existence as
honorary lovers, they feast and carouse,
throng the alleys, obstruct the passages,
and hinder the work ; jostling and jos-
347

The Life of the Bee

tied, fatuously pompous, swelled with
foolish, good-natured contempt ; harbour-
ing never a suspicion of the deep and
calculating scorn wherewith the workers
regard them, of the constantly growing
hatred to which they give rise, or of the
destiny that awaits them. For their
pleasant slumbers they select the snuggest
corners of the hive ; then, rising carelessly,
they flock to the open cells where the
honey smells sweetest, and soil with their
excrements the combs they frequent. The
patient workers, their eyes steadily fixed
on the future, will silently set things
right. From noon till three, when the
purple country trembles in blissful lassi-
tude beneath the invincible gaze of a
July or August sun, the drones will ap-
pear on the threshold. They have a
helmet made of enormous black pearls,
two lofty, quivering plumes, a doublet
of iridescent, yellowish velvet, an heroic
348

The Massacre of the Males

tuft, and a fourfold mantle, translucent
and rigid. They create a prodigious
stir, brush the sentry aside, overturn
the cleaners, and collide with the for-
agers as these return laden with their
humble spoil. They have the busy
air, the extravagant, contemptuous gait,
of indispensable gods who should be sim-
ultaneously venturing towards some des-
tiny unknown to the vulgar. One by
one they sail off into space, irresistible,
glorious, and tranquilly make for the
nearest flowers, where they sleep till the
afternoon freshness awake them. Then,
with the same majestic pomp, and still
overflowing with magnificent schemes,
they return to the hive, go straight to
the cells, plunge their head to the neck
in the vats of honey, and fill themselves
tight as a drum to repair their exhausted
strength ; whereupon, with heavy steps,
they go forth to meet the good, dreamless
349

The Life of the Bee

and careless slumber that shall fold them
in its embrace till the time for the next
repast.

[95]
But the patience of the bees is not
equal to that of men. One morning
the long-expected word of command goes
through the hive ; and the peaceful work-
ers turn into judges and executioners.
Whence this word issues, we know not ;
it would seem to emanate suddenly from
the cold, deliberate indignation of the
workers ; and no sooner has it been ut-
tered than every heart throbs with it,
inspired with the genius of the unanimous
republic. One part of the people re-
nounce their foraging duties to devote
themselves to the work of justice. The
great idle drones, asleep in unconscious
groups on the melliferous walls, are rudely
torn from their slumbers by an army
3S^

The Massacre of the Males

of wrathful virgins. They wake, in
pious wonder ; they cannot believe their
eyes ; and their astonishment struggles
through their sloth as a moonbeam
through marshy water. They stare
amazedly round them, convinced that
they must be victims of some mistake ;
and the mother-idea of their life being
first to assert itself in their dull brain,
they take a step towards the vats of
honey to seek comfort there. But ended
for them are the days of May honey, the
wine-flower of lime trees and fragrant am-
brosia of thyme and sage, of marjoram
and white clover. Where the path once
lay open to the kindly, abundant reser-
voirs, that so invitingly offered their
waxen and sugary mouths, there stands
now a burning-bush all alive with poi-
sonous, bristling stings. The atmosphere
of the city is changed ; in lieu of the
friendly perfume of honey, the acrid odour
351

The Life of the Bee

of poison prevails; thousands of tiny-
drops glisten at the end of the stings,
and diffuse rancour and hatred. Before
the bewildered parasites are able to realise
that the happy laws of the city have crum-
bled, dragging down in most inconceivable
fashion their own plentiful destiny, each
one is assailed by three or four envoys
of justice ; and these vigorously proceed
to cut off his wings, saw through the peti-
ole that connects the abdomen with the
thorax, amputate the feverish antennae,
and seek an opening between the rings
of his cuirass through which to pass their
sword. No defence is attempted by the
enormous, but unarmed, creatures ; they
try to escape, or oppose their mere bulk
to the blows that rain down upon them.
Forced on to their back, with their re-
lentless enemies clinging doggedly to
them, they will use their powerful claws
to shift them from side to side ; or, turn-
352

The Massacre of the Males

ing on themselves, they will drag the
whole group round and round in wild
circles, which exhaustion soon brings to
an end. And, in a very brief space, their
appearance becomes so deplorable that
pity, never far from justice in the depths
of our heart, quickly returns, and would
seek forgiveness, though vainly, of the
stern workers who recognise only nature's
harsh and profound laws. The wings of
the wretched creatures are torn, their
antennae bitten, the segments of their legs
wrenched off; and their magnificent eyes,
mirrors once of the exuberant flowers,
flashing back the blue light and the inno-
cent pride of summer, now, softened by
suffering, reflect only the anguish and
distress of their end. Some succumb to
their wounds, and are at once borne away
to distant cemeteries by two or three of
their executioners. Others, whose injuries
are less, succeed in sheltering themselves
^3 353

The Life of the Bee

in some corner, where they lie, all huddled
together, surrounded by an inexorable
guard, until they perish of want. Many
will reach the door, and escape into space
dragging their adversaries with them ;
but, towards evening, impelled by hunger
and cold, they return in crowds to the
entrance of the hive to beg for shelter.
But there they encounter another piti-
less guard. The next morning, before
setting forth on their journey, the work-
ers will clear the threshold, strewn with
the corpses of the useless giants ; and
all recollection of the idle race disappear
till the following spring.

[96]

In very many colonies of the apiary
this massacre will often take place on the
same day. The richest, best-governed*
hive will give the signal ; to be fol-
lowed, some days after, by the little
354

The Massacre of the Males

and less prosperous republics. Only the
poorest, weakest colonies — those whose
mother is very old and almost sterile —
will preserve their males till the approach
of winter, so as not to abandon the hope
of procuring the impregnation of the
virgin queen they await, and who may
yet be born. Inevitable misery follows ;
and all the tribe — mother, parasites,
workers — collect in a hungry and closely
intertwined group, who perish in silence
before the first snows arrive, in the ob-
scurity of the hive.

In the wealthy and populous cities
work is resumed after the execution of
the drones, — although with diminishing
zeal, for flowers are becoming scarce.
The great festivals, the great dramas, are
over. The autumn honey, however, that
shall complete the indispensable provi-
sions, is accumulating within the hospi-
table walls ; and the last reservoirs are
355

The Life of the Bee

sealed with the seal of white, incorrupti-
ble wax. Building ceases, births diminish,
deaths multiply ; the nights lengthen, and
days grow shorter. Rain and inclement
winds, the mists of the morning, the am-
bushes laid by a hastening twilight, carry
off hundreds of workers who never re-
turn ; and soon, over the whole little
people, that are as eager for sunshine as
the grasshoppers of Attica, there hangs
the cold menace of winter.

Man has already taken his share of the
harvest. Every good hive has presented
him with eighty or a hundred pounds of
honey ; the most remarkable will some-
times even give two hundred, which rep-
resent an enormous expanse of liquefied
light, immense fields of flowers that
have been visited daily one or two thou-
sand times. He throws a last glance
over the colonies, which are becoming
torpid. From the richest he takes their
356

The Massacre of the Males

superfluous wealth to distribute it among
those whom misfortune, unmerited always
in this laborious world, may have ren-
dered necessitous. He covers the dwell-
ings, half closes the doors, removes the
useless frames, and leaves the bees to
their long winter sleep. They gather
in the centre of the hive, contract them-
selves, and cling to the combs that con-
tain the faithful urns ; whence there shall
issue, during days of frost, the transmuted
substance of summer. The queen is in
the midst of them, surrounded by her
guard. The first row of the workers
attach themselves to the sealed cells ; a
second row cover the first, a third the
second, and so in succession to the last
row of all, which form the envelope.
When the bees of this envelope feel the
cold stealing over them, they re-enter
the mass, and others take their place.
The suspended cluster is like a sombre
357

The Life of the Bee

sphere that the walls of the comb di-
vide ; it rises imperceptibly and falls,
it advances or retires, in proportion as
the cells grow empty to which it clings.
For, contrary to what is generally believed,
the winter life of the bee is not arrested,
although it be slackened. By the con-
certed 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 vary, they maintain in their sphere
an unvarying warmth, equal to that of
a day in spring. This secret spring
comes from the beautiful honey, itself but
a ray of heat transformed, that returns
now to its first condition. It circulates
in the hive like generous blood. The
bees at the full cells present it to their
neighbours, who pass it on in their turn.'
Thus it goes from hand to hand and from
mouth to mouth, till it attain the extrem-
3S8

The Massacre of the Males

ity of the group in whose thousands of
hearts one destiny, one thought, is scat-
tered and united. It stands in lieu of the
sun and the flowers, till its elder brother,
the veritable sun of the real, great spring,
peering through the half-open door, glides
in his first softened glances, wherein
anemones and violets are coming to life
again ; and gently awakens the workers,
showing them that the sky once more is
blue in the world, and that the uninter-
rupted circle that joins death to life has
turned and begun afresh.

359

VIII
THE PROGRESS OF THE RACE

361

VIII
THE PROGRESS OF THE RACE

[97]

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 indus-
try and policy of the bees. Yes, they
will say, that is all very wonderful ; but
then, it has never been otherwise. The
bees have for thousands of years dwelt
under remarkable laws, but during those
thousands of years the laws have not
varied. For thousands of years they
have constructed their marvellous combs,
whereto we can add nothing, wherefrom
we can take nothing, — combs that unite
363

The Life of the Bee

in equal perfection the science of the
chemist, the geometrician, the architect,
and the engineer ; but on the sarcophagi,
on Egyptian stones and papyri, we find
drawings of combs that are identical in
every particular. Name a single fact that
will show the least progress, a single in-
stance of their having contrived some
new feature or modified their habitual
routine, and we will cheerfully yield, and
admit that they not only possess an ad-
mirable instinct, but have also an intellect
worthy to approach that of man, worthy
to share in one knows not what higher
destiny than awaits unconscious and sub-
missive matter.

This language is not even confined to
the profane ; it is made use of by ento-
mologists of the rank of Kirby and
Spence, in order to deny the bees the
possession of intellect other than may
vaguely stir within the narrow prison of
364

The Progress of the Race

an extraordinary but unchanging instinct.
" Show us," they say, " a single case where
the pressure of events has inspired them
with the idea, for instance, of substituting
clay or mortar for wax or propolis ; show
us this, and we will admit their capacity
for reasoning."

This argument, that Romanes refers to
as the " question-begging argument," and
that might also be termed the " insatiable
argument," is exceedingly dangerous, and,
if applied to man, would take us very far.
Examine it closely, and you find that it
emanates from the " mere common-
sense," which is often so harmful ; the
" common-sense " that replied to Galileo :
" The earth does not turn, for I can see
the sun move in the sky, rise in the
morning and sink in the evening ; and
nothing can prevail over the testimony of
my eyes." Common-sense makes an
admirable, and necessary, background for
365

The Life of the Bee

the mind ; but unless it be watched by a
lofty disquiet ever ready to remind it,
when occasion demand, of the infinity of
its ignorance, it dwindles into the mere
routine of the baser side of our intellect.
But the bees have themselves answered
the objection Messrs. Kirby and Spence
advanced. Scarcely had it been formu-
lated when another naturalist, Andrew
Knight, having covered the bark of some
diseased trees with a kind of cement made
of turpentine and wax, discovered that his
bees were entirely renouncing the collec-
tion of propolis, and exclusively using
this unknown matter, which they had
quickly tested and adopted, and found in
abundant quantities, ready prepared, in
the vicinity of their dwelling.

And indeed, one-half of the science

and practice of apiculture consists in

giving free rein to the spirit of initiative

possessed by the bees, and in providing

366

The Progress of the Race

their enterprising intellect with opportuni-
ties for veritable discoveries and veritable
inventions. Thus, for instance, to aid in
the rearing of the larvas and nymphs, the
bee-keeper will scatter a certain quantity
of flour close to the hive when the pollen
is scarce of which these consume an enor-
mous quantity. In a state of nature, in
the heart of their native forests in the
Asiatic valleys, where they existed prob-
ably long before the tertiary epoch, the
bees can evidently never have met with
a substance of this kind. And yet, if
care be taken to " bait" some of them
with it, by placing them on the flour,
they will touch it and test it, they will
perceive that its properties more or less
resemble those possessed by the dust of
the anthers ; they will spread the news
among their sisters, and we shall soon
find every forager hastening to this un-
expected, incomprehensible food, which,
367

The Life of the Bee

in their hereditary memory, must be in-
separable from the calyx of flowers where
their flight, for so many centuries past,
has been sumptuously and voluptuously
welcomed.

[98]

It is a little more than a hundred years
ago that Ruber's researches gave the first
serious impetus to our study of the bees,
and revealed the elementary important
truths that allowed us to observe them
with fruitful result. Barely fifty years
have passed since the foundation of ra-
tional, practical apiculture was rendered
possible by means of the movable combs
and frames devised by Dzierzon and
Langstroth, and the hive ceased to be
the inviolable abode wherein all came to
pass in a mystery from which death alone
stripped the veil. And lastly, less than
fifty years have elapsed since the improve-
368

The Progress of the Race

ments of the microscope, of the ento-
mologist's laboratory, revealed the precise
secret of the principal organs of the
workers, of the mother, and the males.
Need we wonder if our knowledge be
as scanty as our experience ? The bees
have existed many thousands of years ;
we have watched them for ten or twelve
lustres. And if it could even be proved
that no change has occurred in the hive
since we first opened it, should we have
the right to conclude that nothing had
changed before our first questioning
glance? 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 river, and that millenaries glide as
swiftly over the life of universal matter
as single years over the history of a
people ?

24 369

The Life of the Bee

[99]
But there is no warrant for the state-
ment that the habits of the bees are un-
changed. If we examine them with an
unbiassed eye, and without emerging
from the small area lit by our actual ex-
perience, we shall, on the contrary, dis-
cover marked variations. And who shall
tell how many escape us ? Were an ob-
server of a hundred and fifty times our
height and about seven hundred and fifty
thousand times our importance (these
being the relations of stature and weight
in which we stand to the humble honey-
fly), one who knew not our language, and
was endowed with senses totally different
from our own ; were such an one to have
been studying us, he would recognise
certain curious material transformations'
in the course of the last two thirds of
the century, but would be totally un-
370

The Progress of the Race

able to form any conception of our moral,
social, political, economic or religious
evolution.

The most likely of all the scientific
hypotheses will presently permit us to
connect our domestic bee with the great
tribe of the " Apiens," which embraces
all wild bees, and where its ancestors are
probably to be found. We shall then
perceive physiological, social, economic,
industrial, and architectural transforma-
tions more extraordinary than those of
our human evolution. But for the mo-
ment we will limit ourselves to our do-
mestic bee properly so called. Of these,
sixteen fairly distinct species are known ;
but, essentially, whether we consider the
Apis Dorsata, the largest known to us, or
the Apis Florea, which is the smallest,
the insect is always exactly the same, ex-
cept for the slight modifications induced
by the climate and by the conditions
371

The Life of the Bee

whereto it has had to conform.-^ The
difference between these various species
is scarcely greater than that between an
EngHshman and a Russian, a Japanese
and a European. In these preliminary
remarks, therefore, we will confine our-
selves to what actually lies within the
range of our eyes, refusing the aid of
hypothesis, be this never so probable or
so imperious. We shall mention no facts

^ The scientific classification of the domestic bee is
as follows :

Class Insecta

Order . Hymenoptera

Family Apidae

Genus Apis

Species Mellifica

The term *« Mellifica" is that of the Linnsan
classification. It is not of the happiest, for all the
Apidae, with the exception of certain parasites per-
haps, are producers of honey. Scopoli uses the*
term " Cerifera " ; Reaumur ** Domestica " ; Geof-
froy "Gregaria.** The "Apis Ligustica,'* the
Italian bee, is another variety of the <* Mellifica.**

372

The Progress of the Race

that arc not susceptible of immediate
proof; and of such facts we will only
rapidly refer to some of the more sig-
nificant.

[lOo]

Let us consider first of all the most
important and most radical improvement,
one that in the case of man would have
called for prodigious labour : the external
protection of the community.

The bees do not, like ourselves, dwell
in towns free to the sky, and exposed to
the caprice of rain and storm, but in cities
entirely covered with a protecting envel-
ope. In a state of nature, however, in
an ideal climate, this is not the case. If
they listened only to their essential in-
stinct, they would construct their combs
in the open air. In the Indies, the Apis
Dorsata will not eagerly seek hollow trees,
or a hole in the rocks. The swarm will
373

The Life of the Bee

hang from the crook of a branch ; and the
comb will be lengthened, the queen lay
her eggs, provisions be stored, with no
shelter other than that which the work-
ers* own bodies provide. Our Northern
bees have at times been known to revert
to this instinct, under the deceptive influ-
ence of a too gentle sky ; and swarms have
been found living in the heart of a bush.
But even in the Indies, the result of
this habit, which would seem innate, is
by no means favourable. So considerable
a number of the workers are compelled to
remain on one spot, occupied solely with
the maintenance of the heat required by
those who are moulding the wax and rear-
ing the brood, that the Apis Dorsata,
hanging thus from the branches, will con-
struct but a single comb ; whereas if she
have the least shelter she will erect four
or five, or more, and will proportionately
increase the prosperity and the population
374

The Progress of the Race

of the colony. And indeed we find that
all species of bees existing in cold and tem-
perate regions have abandoned this primi-
tive method. The intelligent initiative
of the insect has evidently received the
sanction of natural selection, which has
allowed only the most numerous and best
protected tribes to survive our winters.
What had been merely an idea, therefore,
and opposed to instinct, has thus by slow
degrees become an instinctive habit. 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 ob-
scure hollow of a tree or a cavern, the
bees have followed what at first was an
audacious idea, based on observation,
probably, on experience and reasoning.
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 man.
375

The Life of the Bee

[loi]

This great progress, not the less actual
for being hereditary and ancient, was fol-
lowed hy an infinite variety of details
which prove that the industry, and even
the policy, of the hive have not crystal-
lised into infrangible formulae. We have
already mentioned the intelligent substi-
tution of flour for pollen, and of an arti-
ficial cement for propolis. We have seen
with what skill the bees are able to adapt
to their needs the occasionally discon-
certing dwellings into which they are in-
troduced, and the surprising adroitness
wherewith they turn combs of foundation-
wax to good account. They display ex-
traordinary ingenuity in their manner of
handling these marvellous combs, which
are so strangely useful, and yet incomplete.
In point of fact, they meet man half-way.
Let us imagine that we had for centuries
376

The Progress of the Race

past been erecting cities, not with stones,
bricks, and lime, but with some pliable
substance painfully secreted by special
organs of our body. One day an all-
powerful being places us in the midst of
a fabulous city. We recognise that it is
made of a substance similar to the one
that we secrete, but, as regards the rest, it
is a dream, whereof what is logical is so
distorted, so reduced, and as it were con-
centrated, as to be more disconcerting
almost than had it been incoherent. Our
habitual plan is there ; in fact, we find
everything that we had expected ; but all
has been put together by some antecedent
force that would seem to have crushed it,
arrested it in the mould, and to have
hindered its completion. The houses
whose height must attain some four or
five yards are the merest protuberances,
that our two hands can cover. Thousands
of walls are indicated by signs that hint
377

The Life of the Bee

at once of their plan and material. Else-
where there are marked deviations, which
must be corrected ; gaps to be filled and
harmoniously joined to the rest, vast
surfaces that are unstable and will need
support. The enterprise is hopeful, but
full of hardship and danger. It would
seem to have been conceived by some
sovereign intelligence, that was able to
divine most of our desires, but has ex-
ecuted them clumsily, being hampered by
its very vastness. We must disentangle,
therefore, what now is obscure, we must
develop the least intentions of the super-
natural donor; we must build in a few
days what would ordinarily take us years ;
we must renounce organic habits, and
fundamentally alter our methods of labour.
It is certain that all the attention man
could devote would not be excessive for
the solution of the problems that would
arise, or for the turning to fullest account
378

The Progress of the Race

the help thus offered by a magnificent
providence. Yet that is, more or less,
what the bees are doing in our modern
hives.^

[ 102]

I have said that even the policy of the
bees is probably subject to change. This
point is the obscurest of all, and the most
difficult to verify. I shall not dwell on
their various methods of treating the
queens, or the laws as to swarming that
are peculiar to the inhabitants of every
hive, and apparently transmitted from
generation to generation, etc. ; but by
the side of these facts which are not sufE-

* As we are now concerned with the construction of
the bee, we may note, in passing, a strange peculiarity
of the Apis Florea. Certain walls of its cells for males
are cylindrical instead of hexagonal. Apparently she
has not yet succeeded in passing from one form to the
other, and indefinitely adopting the better.

379

The Life of the Bee

ciently established are others so precise
and unvarying as to prove that the same
degree of pohtical civihsation has not
been attained by all races of the domestic
bee, and that, among some of them, the
public spirit still is groping its way, seek-
ing perhaps another solution of the
royal problem. The Syrian bee, for
instance, habitually rears 120 queens and
often more, whereas our Apis Mellifica
will rear ten or twelve at most. Cheshire
tells of a Syrian hive, in no way abnormal,
where 120 dead queen-mothers were
found, and 90 living, unmolested queens.
This may be the point of departure, or
the point of arrival, of a strange social
evolution, which it would be interesting
to study more thoroughly. We may add
that as far as the rearing of queens is con-
cerned, the Cyprian bee approximates to
the Syrian. And finally, there is yet
another fact which establishes still more
380

The Progress of the Race

clearly that the customs and prudent or-
ganisation of the hive are not the results
of a primitive impulse, mechanically fol-
lowed through different ages and climates,
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 advantage, as in times long past it
was capable of meeting the dangers that
hemmed it around. Transport our black
bee to California or Australia, and her
habits will completely alter. Finding that
summer is perpetual and flowers forever
abundant, she will after one or two years
be content to live from day to day, and
gather sufficient honey and pollen for the
day's consumption; and, her thoughtful
observation of these new features triumph-
ing over hereditary experience, she will
cease to make provision for the winter.^

^Biichner cites an analogous fact. In the Barbadoes,
the bees whose hives are in the midst of the refineries,

38-

The Life of the Bee

In fact it becomes necessary, in order to
stimulate her activity, to deprive her
systematically of the fruits of her labour.

[ 103 ]

So much for what our own eyes can
see. It will be admitted that we have
mentioned some curious facts, which by
no means support the theory that every
intelligence is arrested, every future clear-
ly defined, save only the intelligence and
future of man.

But if we choose to accept for one mo-
ment the hypothesis of evolution, the
spectacle widens, and its uncertain, gran-
diose light soon attains our own destinies.
"Whoever brings careful attention to bear
will scarcely deny, even though it be not
evident, the presence in nature of a will
that tends to raise a portion of matter to-

where they find sugar in abundance during the whole

year, will entirely abandon their visits to the flowers.

382

The Progress of the Race

a subtler and perhaps better condition,
and to penetrate its substance little by
little with a mystery-laden fluid that we at
first term life, then instinct, and finally
intelligence; a will that, for an end we
know not, organises, strengthens, and fa-
cilitates the existence of all that is. There
can be no certainty, and yet many in-
stances invite us to believe that, were an
actual estimate possible, the quantity of
matter that has raised itself from its begin-
nings would be found to be ever increas-
ing. A fragile remark, I admit, but the
only one we can make on the hidden force
that leads us ; and it stands for much in a
world where confidence in life, until certi-
tude to the contrary reach us, must remain
the first of all our duties, at times even
when life itself conveys no encouraging
clearness to us.

I know all that may be urged against
the theory of evolution. In its favour
3?^3

The Life of the Bee

are numerous proofs and most powerful
arguments, which yet do not carry irre-
sistible conviction. We must beware of
abandoning ourselves unreservedly to the
prevailing truths of our time. A hundred
years hence, many chapters of a book
instinct to-day with this truth, will appear
as ancient as the philosophical writings of
the eighteenth century seem to us now,
full as they are of a too perfect and non-
existing man, or as so many works of the
seventeenth century, whose value is less-
ened by their conception of a harsh and
narrow god.

Nevertheless, when it is impossible to
know what the truth of a thing may be,
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 world. The chances
are that it will be false ; but so long as
we believe it to be true it will serve a use-
384

The Progress of the Race

fill purpose by restoring our courage and
stimulating research in a new direction.
It might at the first glance seem wiser,
perhaps, instead of advancing these in-
genious suppositions, simply to say the
profound truth, which is that we do not
know. But this truth could only be help-
ful were it written that we never shall
know. In the meanwhile it would induce
a state of stagnation within us more per-
nicious than the most vexatious illusions.
We are so constituted that nothing takes
us further or leads us higher than the
leaps made by our errors. In point of
fact we owe the little we have learned to
hypotheses that were always hazardous
and often absurd, and, as a general rule,
less discreet than they are to-day. They
were unwise, perhaps, but they kept alive
the ardour for research. To the traveller,
shivering with cold, who reaches the hu-
man Hostelry, it matters little whether he
25 385

The Life of the Bee

by whose side he seats himself, he who
has guarded the hearth, be bhnd or very-
old. So Ions: as the fire still burn that he
has been watching, he has done as much
as the best could have done. Weil for
us if we can transmit this ardour, not as
we received it, but added to by ourselves ;
and nothing will add to it more than this
hypothesis of evolution, 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 entrails, in the
depths of the sea and expanse of the sky.
Reject it, and what can we set up against it,
what can we put in its place ? There is
but the grand confession of scientific igno-
rance, aware of its knowing nothing — but
this is habitually sluggish, and calculated
to discourage the curiosity more needful
to man than wisdom — or the hypothesis
of the fixity of the species and of divine
creation, which is less demonstrable than
3S6

The Progress of the Race

the other, banishes for all time the living
elements of the problem, and explains
nothing.

[ 104 ]
Of wild bees approximately 4500 vari-
eties are known. It need scarcely be said
that we shall not go through the list.
Some day, perhaps, a profound study,
and searching experiments and observa-
tions of a kind hitherto unknown, that
would demand more than one lifetime,
will throw a decisive light upon the his-
tory of the bee's evolution. All that
we can do now is to enter this veiled re-
gion of supposition, and, discarding all posi-
tive statement, attempt to follow a tribe
of hymenoptera in their progress towards
a more intelligent existence, towards a little
more security and comfort, lightly indi-
cating the salient features of this ascen-
sion that is spread over many thousands
387

The Life of the Bee

of years. The tribe in question is already
known to us ; it is that of the " Apiens,"
whose essential characteristics are so dis-
tinct and well-marked that one is inclined
to credit all its members with one common
ancestor.^

The disciples of Darwin, Hermann
Miiller among others, consider a little
wild bee, the Prosopis, which is to be
found all over the universe, as the actual
representative of the primitive bee whence
all have issued that are known to us
to-day.

The unfortunate Prosopis stands more

^ It is important that the terms we shall succes-
sively employ, adopting the classification of M. fimile
Blanchard, — "APIENS, APID^ and APIT^,—
should not be confounded. The tribe of the Apiens
comprises all families of bees. The Apidae constitute
the first of these families, and are subdivided into three"
groups : the Meliponae, the Apit^, and the Bombi
(humble-bees). And, finally, the Apitse include all
the different varieties of our domestic bees.
388

The Progress of the Race

or less in the same relation to the inhabi-
tants of our hives as the cave-dwellers to
the fortunate who live in our great cities.
You will probably more than once have
seen her fluttering about the bushes, in
a deserted corner of your garden, without
realising that you were carelessly watching
the venerable ancestor to whom we prob-
ably owe most of our flowers and fruits
(for it is actually estimated that more than
a hundred thousand varieties of plants
would disappear if the bees did not visit
them) and possibly even our civilisation,
for in these mysteries all things inter-
twine. She is nimble and attractive, the
variety most common in France being
elegantly marked with white on a black
background. But this elegance hides an
inconceivable poverty. She leads a life
of starvation. She is almost naked,
whereas her sisters are clad in a warm
and sumptuous fleece. She has not, like
389

The Life of the Bee

the Apidas, baskets to gather the pollen,
nor, in their default, the tuft of the
Andrenae, nor the ventral brush of the
Gastrilegidae. Her tiny claws must labor-
iously gather the powder from the calices,
which powder she needs must swallow
in order to take it back to her lair. She
has no implements other than her tongue,
her mouth and her claws ; but her tongue
is too short, her legs are feeble, and her
mandibles without strength. Unable to
produce wax, bore holes through wood,
or dig in the earth, she contrives clumsy
galleries in the tender pith of dry berries ;
erects a few awkward cells, stores these
with a Httle food for the offspring she
never will see ; and then, having accom-
plished this poor task of hers, that tends
she knows not whither and of whose aim
we are no less ignorant, she goes off and
dies in a corner, as solitarily as she had
liv^ed.

390

The Progress of the Race

C105]

We shall pass over many intermediary
species, wherein we may see the gradual
lengthening of the tongue, enabling more
nectar to be extracted from the cups of
corollas, and the dawning formation and
subsequent development of the appara-
tus for collecting pollen, — hairs, tufts,
brushes on the tibia, on the tarsus, and
abdomen, — as also claws and mandibles
becoming stronger, useful secretions being
formed, and the genius that presides over
the construction of dwellings seeking
and finding extraordinary improvement
in every direction. Such a study would
need a whole volume. I will merely
outline a chapter of it, less than a chapter,
a page, which shall show how the hesitat-
ing endeavours of the will to live and be
happier result in the birth, development,
and affirmation of social intelligence.
391

The Life of the Bee

We have seen the unfortunate Prosopis
silently bearing her solitary little destiny
in the midst of this vast universe charged
with terrible forces. A certain number
of her sisters, belonging to species already
more skilful and better supplied with
utensils, such as the well-clad CoUetes,
or the marvellous cutter of rose-leaves,
the Megachile Centuncularis, live in
an isolation no less profound ; and if
by chance some creature attach itself to
them, and share their dwelling, it will
either be an enemy, or, more often, a
parasite.

For the world of bees is peopled with
phantoms stranger than our own ; and
many a species will thus have a kind of
mysterious and inactive double, exactly
similar to the victim it has selected, save
only that its immemorial idleness has
caused it to lose one by one its imple-
ments of labour, and that it exists solely
392

The Progress of the Race

at the expense of the working type of
its race.^

Among the bees, however, which are
somewhat too arbitrarily termed the " sol-
itary Apidae," the social instinct already
is smouldering, like a flame crushed be-
neath the overwhelming weight of matter
that stifles all primitive life. And here
and there, in unexpected directions, as
though reconnoitring, with timid and
sometimes fantastic outbursts, it will
succeed in piercing the mass that op-

^ The humble-bees, for instance, have the Psithyri
as parasites, while the Stelites live on the Anthidia.
" As regards the frequent identity of the parasite with
its victim," M. J. Perez very justly remarks in his book
"The Bees,'* **one must necessarily admit that the
two genera are only different forms of the same type,
and are united to each other by the closest affinity. And
to naturalists who believe in the theory of evolution
this relationship is not purely ideal, but real. The
parasitic genus must be regarded as merely a branch
of the foraging genus, having lost its foraging organs
because of its adaptation to parasitic life."

393

The Life of the Bee

presses it, the pyre that some day shall
feed its triumph.

If in this world all things be matter,
this is surely its most immaterial move-
ment. Transition is called for from a
precarious, egotistic and incomplete life
to a life that shall be fraternal, a little
more certain, a little more happy. The
spirit must ideally unite that which in the
body is actually separate ; the individual
must sacrifice himself for the race, and
substitute for visible things the things
that cannot be seen. Need we wonder
that the bees do not at the first glance
realise what we have not yet disentangled,
we who find ourselves at the privileged
spot whence instinct radiates from all
sides into our consciousness ? And it is
curious too, almost touching, to see how
the new idea gropes its way, at first, in'
the darkness that enfolds all things that
come to life on this earth. It emerges
394

The Progress of the Race

from matter, it is still quite material. It
is cold, hunger, fear, transformed into
something that as yet has no shape. It
crawls vaguely around great dangers,
around the long nights, the approach
of winter, of an equivocal sleep which
almost is death. . . .

[io6]

The Xylocopae are powerful bees which
worm their nest in dry wood. Their life
is solitary always. Towards the end of
summer, however, some individuals of a
particular species, the Xylocopa Cyanes-
cens, may be found huddled together in a
shivering group, on a stalk of asphodel,
to spend the winter in common. Among
the Xylocopae this tardy fraternity is ex-
ceptional, but among the Ceratinae, which
are of their nearest kindred, it has become
a constant habit. The idea is germinat-
ing. It halts immediately ; and hitherto
395

The Life of the Bee

has not succeeded, among the Xylo-
copse, in passing beyond this first obscure
Hne of love.

Among other Apiens, this groping idea
assumes other forms. The ChaHcodomae
of the out-houses, which are building-
bees, the Dasypodae and Halicti, which
dig holes in the earth, unite in large
colonies to construct their nests. But it
is an illusory crowd composed of solitary
units, that possess no mutual understand-
ing, and do not act in common. Each
one is profoundly isolated in the midst
of the multitude, and builds a dwelHng
for itself alone, heedless of its neighbour.
"They are," M. Perez remarks, "a mere
congregation of individuals, brought to-
gether by similar tastes and habits, but
observing scrupulously the maxim of each
one for itself; in fact, a mere mob of
workers, resembling the swarm of a hive
only as regards their number and zeal.
396

The Progress of the Race

Such assemblies merely result from a
great number of individuals inhabiting the
same locality."

But when we come to the Panurgi,
which are cousins of the Dasypodae, a
little ray of light suddenly reveals the
birth of a new sentiment in this fortui-
tous crowd. They collect in the same
way as the others, and each one digs its
own subterranean chambers ; but the en-
trance is common to all, as also the gal-
lery which leads from the surface of the
ground to the different cells. " And thus,"
M. Perez adds, " as far as the work of
the cells is concerned, each bee acts as
though she were alone ; but all make
equal use of the gallery that conducts to
the cells, so that the multitude profit by
the labours of an individual, and are
spared the time and trouble required for
the construction of separate galleries. It
would be interesting to discover whether
397

The Life of the Bee

this preliminary work be not executed
in common, by relays of females, reliev-
ing each other in turn.'*

However this may be, the fraternal idea
has pierced the wall that divided two
worlds. It is no longer wild and unrec-
ognisable, wrested from instinct by cold
and hunger, or by the fear of death ; it is
prompted by active life. But it halts
once more ; and in this instance arrives
no further. No matter, it does not lose
courage ; it will seek other channels. It
enters the humble-bee, and, maturing
there, becomes embodied in a different
atmosphere, and works its first decisive
miracles.

[107]

The humble-bees, the great hairy, noisy

creatures that all of us know so well, so

harmless for all their apparent fierceness,

lead a solitary life at first. At the begin-

398

The Progress of the Race

ning of March the impregnated female
who has survived the winter starts to con-
struct her nest, either underground or in
a bush, according to the species to which
she belongs. She is alone in the world,
in the midst of awakening spring. She
chooses a spot, clears it, digs it and car-
pets it. Then she erects her somewhat
shapeless waxen cells, stores these with
honey and pollen, lays and hatches the
eggs, tends and nourishes the larvae that
spring to life, and soon is surrounded by
a troop of daughters who aid her in all
her labours, within the nest and without,
while some of them soon begin to lay in
their turn. The construction of the cells
improves ; the colony grows, the comfort
increases. The foundress is still its soul,
its principal mother, and finds herself
now at the head of a kingdom which
might be the model of that of our honey-
bee. But the model is still in the rough.
399

The Life of the Bee

The prosperity of the humble-bees never
exceeds a certain limit, their laws are ill-
defined and ill-obeyed, primitive cannibal-
ism and infanticide reappear at intervals,
the architecture is shapeless and entails
much waste of material ; but the cardinal
difference between the two cities is that
the one is permanent, and the other
ephemeral. For, indeed, that of the hum-
ble-bee will perish in the autumn ; its
three or four hundred inhabitants will
die, leaving no trace of their passage or
their endeavours ; and but a single female
will survive, who, the next spring, in the
same solitude and poverty as her mother
before her, will recommence the same use-
less work. The idea, however, has now
grown aware of its strength. Among the
humble-bees it goes no further than we
have stated, but, faithful to its habits and
pursuing its usual routine, it will im-
mediately undergo a sort of unwearying
400

The Progress of the Race

metempsychosis, and re-incarnate itself,
trembling with its last triumph, rendered
all-powerful now and nearly perfect, in
another group, the last but one of the
race, that which immediately precedes our
domestic bee wherein it attains its crown ;
the group of the Meliponitse, which
comprises the tropical Meliponae and
Trigonae.

[io8]

Here the organisation is as complete as
in our hives. There is an unique mother,
there are sterile workers and males. Cer-
tain details even seem better devised. The
males, for instance, are not wholly idle ;
they secrete wax. The entrance to the
hive is more carefully guarded ; it has a
door that can be closed when nights are
cold, and when these are warm a kind of
curtain will admit the air.

But the republic is less strong, general
26 401

The Life of the Bee

life less assured, prosperity more limited,
than with our bees ; and wherever these
are introduced, the Meliponitae tend to
disappear before them. In both races
the fraternal idea has undergone equal
and magnificent development, save in
one point alone, wherein it achieves no
further advance among the Meliponitae
than among the limited offspring of the
humble-bees. In the mechanical organ-
isation of distributed labour, in the pre-
cise economy of effort ; briefly, in the
architecture of the city, they display man-
ifest inferiority. As to this I need only
refer to what I said in section 42 of this
book, while adding that, whereas in the
hives of our Apitae all the cells are equally
available for the rearing of the brood and
the storage of provisions, and endure as
long as the city itself, they serve only one'
of these purposes among the Meliponitae,
and the cells employed as cradles for the
402

The Progress of the Race

nymphs are destroyed after these have
been hatched.-^ It is in our domestic
bees, therefore, that the idea, of whose
movements we have given a cursory and
incomplete picture, attains its most per-
fect form. Are these movements defi-
nitely, and for all time, arrested in each
one of these species, and does the con-
necting-line exist in our imagination alone ?
Let us not be too eager to establish a sys-
tem in this ill-explored region. Let our
conclusions be only provisional, and prefer-
entially such as convey the utmost hope ;

^ It is not certain that the principle of unique
royalty, or maternity, is strictly observed among the
Meliponitae. Blanchard remarks very justly, that as
they possess no sting and are consequently less readily
able than the mothers of our own bees to kill each
other, several queens will probably live together in
the same hive. But certainty on this point has hitherto
been unattainable owing to the great resemblance that
exists between queens and workers, as also to the im-
possibility of rearing the Meliponitae in our climate.

403

The Life of the Bee

for, were a choice forced upon us, occa-
sional gleams would appear to declare
that the inferences we are most desirous
to draw will prove to be truest. Besides,
let us not forget that our ignorance still is
profound. We are only learning to open
our eyes. A thousand experiments that
could be made have as yet not even been
tried. If the Prosopes, for instance, were
imprisoned, and forced to cohabit with
their kind, would they, in course of time,
overstep the iron barrier of total solitude,
and be satisfied to live the common life
of the Dasypodae, or to put forth the fra-
ternal effort of the Panurgi ? And if we
imposed abnormal conditions upon the
Panurgi, would these, in their turn, pro-
gress from a general corridor to general
cells ? If the mothers of the humble-
bees were compelled to hibernate together,
would they arrive at a mutual understand-
ing, a mutual division of labour ? Have
404

The Progress of the Race

combs of foundation-wax been offered to
the Meliponitae ? Would they accept them,
would they make use of them, would they
conform their habits to this unwonted
architecture ? Questions, these, that we
put to very tiny creatures ; and yet they
contain the great word of our greatest
secrets. We cannot answer them, for
our experience dates but from yesterday.
Starting with Reaumur, about a hundred
and fifty years have elapsed since the
habits of wild bees first received atten-
tion. Reaumur was acquainted with only
a few of them ; we have since then ob-
served a few more ; but hundreds, thou-
sands perhaps, have hitherto been noticed
only by hasty and ignorant travellers.
The habits of those that are known to
us have undergone no change since the
author of the " Memoirs " published his
valuable work ; and the humble-bees, all
powdered with gold, and vibrant as the
405

The Life of the Bee

sun's delectable murmur, that in the year
1730 gorged themselves with honey in
the gardens of Charenton, were absolutely
identical with those that to-morrow, when
April returns, will be humming in the
woods of Vincennes, but a few yards
away. From Reaumur's day to our own,
however, is but as the twinkling of an
eye ; and many lives of men, placed end
to end, form but a second in the history
of Nature's thought.

[ 109 ]

Although the idea that our eyes have
followed attains its supreme expression in
our domestic bees, it must not be inferred
therefrom that the hive reveals no faults.
There is one masterpiece, the hexagonal
cell, that touches absolute perfection, — a
perfection that all the geniuses in the
world, were they to meet in conclave,
could in no way enhance. No living
406

The Progress of the Race

creature, not even man, has achieved, in
the centre of his sphere, what the bee has
achieved in her own ; and were some one
from another world to descend and ask
of the earth the most perfect creation of
the logic of life, we should needs have
to offer the humble comb of honey.

But the level of this perfection is not
maintained throughout. We have al-
ready dealt with a few faults and short-
comings, evident sometimes and sometimes
mysterious, such as the ruinous super-
abundance and idleness of the males,
parthenogenesis, the perils of the nuptial
flight, excessive swarming, the absence of
pity, and the almost monstrous sacrifice
of the individual to society. To these
must be added a strange inclination to
store enormous masses of pollen, far in
excess of their needs ; for the pollen,
soon turning rancid, and hardening, en-
cumbers the surface of the comb ; and
407

The Life of the Bee

further, the long sterile interregnum be-
tween the date of the first swarm and the
impregnation of the second queen, etc.,
etc.

Of these faults the gravest, the only
one which in our climates is invariably
fatal, is the repeated swarming. But here
we must bear in mind that the natural
selection of the domestic bee has for
thousands of years been thwarted by man.
From the Egyptian of the time of Pha-
raoh to the peasant of our own day, the
bee-keeper has always acted in opposition
to the desires and advantages of the race.
The most prosperous hives are those
which throw only one swarm after the
beginning of summer. They have ful-
filled their maternal duties, assured the
maintenance of the stock and the neces-
sary renewal of queens ; they have guar-
anteed the future of the swarm, which,
being precocious and ample in numbers,
408

The Progress of the Race

has time to erect solid and well-stored
dwellings before the arrival of autumn.
If left to themselves, it is clear that these
hives and their offshoots would have
been the only ones to survive the rigours
of winter, which would almost invariably
have destroyed colonies animated by dif-
ferent instincts ; and the law of restricted
swarming would therefore by slow de-
grees have established itself in our north-
ern races. But it is precisely these
prudent, opulent, acclimatised hives that
man has always destroyed in order to
possess himself of their treasure. He
has permitted only — he does so to this
day in ordinary practice — the feeblest
colonies to survive ; degenerate stock,
secondary or tertiary swarms, which have
just barely sufficient food to subsist
through the winter, or whose miserable
store he will supplement perhaps with a
few droppings of honey. The result is,
409

The Life of the Bee

probably, that the race has grown feebler,
that the tendency to excessive swarming
has been hereditarily developed, and that
to-day almost all our bees, particularly
the black ones, swarm too often. For
some years now the new methods of
" movable " apiculture have gone some
way towards correcting this dangerous
habit ; and when we reflect how rapidly
artificial selection acts on most of our
domestic animals, such as oxen, dogs,
pigeons, sheep and horses, it is permissible
to beheve that we shall before long have
a race of bees that will entirely renounce
natural swarming and devote all their ac-
tivity to the collection of honey and
pollen.

[no]

But for the other faults : might not an
intelligence that possessed a clearer con-
sciousness of the aim of common life
410

The Progress of the Race

emancipate itself from them ? Much
might be said concerning these faults,
which emanate now from what is unknown
to us in the hive, now from swarming and
its resultant errors, for which we are
partly to blame. But let every man
judge for himself, and, having seen what
has gone before, let him grant or deny
intelligence to the bees, as he may think
proper. I am not eager to defend them.
It seems to me that in many circum-
stances they give proof of understanding,
but my curiosity would not be less were
all that they do done blindly. It is
interesting to watch a brain possessed
of extraordinary resources within itself
wherewith it may combat cold and
hunger, death, time, space, and solitude,
all the enemies of matter that is springing
to life ; but should a creature succeed in
maintaining its little profound and com-
plicated existence without overstepping
411

The Life of the Bee

the boundaries of instinct, without doing
anything but what is ordinary, that would
be very interesting too, and very extraor-
dinary. Restore the ordinary and the
marvellous to their veritable place in the
bosom of nature, and their values shift ;
one equals the other. We find that their
names are usurped ; and that it is not
they, but the things we cannot under-
stand or explain that should arrest our
attention, refresh our activity, and give a
new and juster form to our thoughts and
feelings and words. There is wisdom in
attaching oneself to nought beside.

And further, our intellect is not the
proper tribunal before which to summon
the bees, and pass their faults in review.
Do we not find, among ourselves, that
consciousness and intellect long will dwell
in the midst of errors and faults without
412

The Progress of the Race

perceiving them, longer still without ef-
fecting a remedy ? If a being exist whom
his destiny calls upon most specially, al-
most organically, to live and to organise
common life in accordance with pure rea-
son, that being is man. And yet see
what he makes of it, compare the mis-
takes of the hive with those of our own
society. How should we marvel, for
instance, were we bees observing men, as
we noted the unjust, illogical distribution
of work among a race of creatures that in
other directions appear to manifest eminent
reason ! We should find the earth's sur-
face, unique source of all common life,
insufficiently, painfully cultivated by two
or three tenths of the whole population ;
we should find another tenth absolutely
idle, usurping the larger share of the pro-
ducts of this first labour ; and the remain-
ing seven-tenths condemned to a life of
perpetual half-hunger, ceaselessly exhaust-
413

The Life of the Bee

ing themselves in strange and sterile efforts
whereby they never shall profit, but only
shall render more complex and more in-
explicable still the life of the idle. We
should conclude that the reason and
moral sense of these beings must belong
to a world entirely different from our own,
and that they must obey principles hope-
lessly beyond our comprehension. But
let us carry this review of our faults no
further. They are always present in our
thoughts, though their presence achieves
but little. From century to century only
will one of them for a moment shake off
its slumber, and send forth a bewildered
cry ; stretch the aching arm that supported
its head, shift its position, and then lie
down and fall asleep once more, until a
new pain, born of the dreary fatigue of
repose, awaken it afresh.

414

The Progress of the Race

The evolution of the Apiens, or at
least of the Apitse, being admitted, or
regarded as more probable than that they
should have remained stationary, let us
now consider the general, constant direc-
tion that this evolution takes. It seems
to follow the same roads as with ourselves.
It tends palpably to lessen the struggle,
insecurity, and wretchedness of the race,
to augment authority and comfort, and
stimulate favourable chances. To this
end it will unhesitatingly sacrifice the in-
dividual, bestowing general strength and
happiness in exchange for the illusory and
mournful independence of solitude. It is
as though Nature were of the opinion
with which Thucydides credits Pericles :
viz., that individuals are happier in the
bosom of a prosperous city, even though
they suffer themselves, than when indi-
415

The Life of the Bee

vidually prospering in the midst of a
languishing state. It protects the hard-
working slave in the powerful city, while
those who have no duties, whose associa-
tion is only precarious, are abandoned to
the nameless, formless enemies who dwell
in the minutes of time, in the movements
of the universe, and in the recesses of
space. This is not the moment to dis-
cuss the scheme of nature, or to ask
ourselves whether it would be well for
man to follow it; but it is certain that
wherever the infinite mass allows us to
seize the appearance of an idea, the ap-
pearance takes this road whereof we know
not the end. Let it be enough that we
note the persistent care with which nature
preserves, and fixes in the evolving race,
all that has been won from the hostile
inertia of matter. She records each happy
effort, and contrives we know not what
special and benevolent laws to counteract
416

The Progress of the Race

the inevitable recoil. This progress,
whose existence among the most intelli-
gent species can scarcely be denied, has
perhaps no aim beyond its initial impetus,
and knows not whither it goes. But at
least, in a world where nothing save a few
facts of this kind indicates a precise will,
it is significant enough that we should see
certain creatures rising thus, slowly and
continuously ; and should the bees have
revealed to us only this mysterious spiral
of light in the overpowering darkness,
that were enough to induce us not to re-
gret the time we have given to their little
gestures and humble habits, which seem
so far away and are yet so nearly akin to
our grand passions and arrogant destinies.

["3]

It may be that these things are all vain ;
and that our own spiral of light, no less
than that of the bees, has been kindled for
27 417

The Life of the Bee

no other purpose save that of amusing the
darkness. So, too, is it possible that
some stupendous incident may suddenly
surge from without, from another world,
from a new phenomenon, and either in-
form this effort with definitive meaning, or
definitively destroy it. But we must pro-
ceed on our way as though nothing abnor-
mal could ever befall us. Did we know
that to-morrow some revelation, a mes-
sage, for instance, from a more ancient,
more luminous planet than ours, were to
root up our nature, to suppress the laws,
the passions, and radical truths of our being,
our wisest plan still would be to devote
the whole of to-day to the study of these
passions, these laws, and these truths,
which must blend and accord in our
mind ; and to remain faithful to the des-
tiny imposed on us, which is to subdue,
and to some extent raise within and
around us the obscure forces of life.
418

The Progress of the Race

None of these, perhaps, will survive the
new revelation ; but the soul of those who
shall up to the end have fulfilled the mis-
sion that is pre-eminently the mission of
man, must inevitably be in the front rank
of all to welcome this revelation ; and
should they learn therefrom that indiffer-
ence, or resignation to the unknown, is
the veritable duty, they will be better
equipped than the others for the compre-
hension of this final resignation and in-
difference, better able to turn these to
account.

[114]

But such speculations may well be
avoided. Let not the possibility of gen-
eral annihilation blur our perception of
the task before us ; above all, let us not
count on the miraculous aid of chance.
Hitherto, the promises of our imagina-
tion notwithstanding, we have always been
419

The Life of the Bee

left to ourselves, to our own resources.
It is to our humblest efforts that every
useful, enduring achievement of this earth
is due. It is open to us, if we choose, to
await the better or worse that may follow
some alien accident, but on condition that
such expectation shall not hinder our
human task. Here again do the bees,
as Nature always, provide a most excel-
lent lesson. In the hive there has truly
been prodigious intervention. The bees
are in the hands of a power capable of
annihilating or modifying their race, of
transforming their destinies ; the bees'
thraldom is far more definite than our
own. Therefore none the less do they
perform their profound and primitive
duty. And, among them, 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
420

The Progress of the Race

species. And indeed, to discover the
unconquerable duty of a being is less
difficult than one imagines. It is ever
to be read in the distinguishing organs,
whereto the others are all subordinate.
And just as it is written in the tongue,
the stomach, and mouth of the bee that
it must make honey, so is it written in
our eyes, our ears, our nerves, our mar-
row, in every lobe of our head, that we
must make cerebral substance ; nor is there
need that we should divine the purpose
this substance shall serve. The bees know
not whether they will eat the honey they
harvest, as we know not who it is shall
reap the profit of the cerebral substance we
shall have formed, or of the intelligent fluid
that issues therefrom and spreads over the
universe, perishing when our life ceases
or persisting after our death. As they
go from flower to flower collecting more
honey than themselves and their offspring
421

The Life of the Bee

can needj let us go from reality to real-
ity seeking food for the incomprehensi-
ble flame, and thus, certain of having
fulfilled our organic duty, preparing our-
selves for whatever befall. Let us nour-
ish this flame on our feelings and passions,
on all that we see and think, that we hear
and touch, on its own essence, which is
the idea it derives from the discoveries,
experience and observation that result
from its every movement. 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 sim-
ple human duty, that the very suspicion
of the possible aimlessness of its exhaust-
ing effort will only render the duty the
clearer, will only add more purity, power,
disinterestedness, and freedom to the ar-
dour wherewith it still seeks.

422

Appendix

TO give a complete bibliography of the
bee were outside the scope of this book ;
we shall be satisfied, therefore, merely to indi-
cate the more interesting works : —

I. The Historical Development of Apia-
rian Science :

(a) The ancient writers : Aristotle, " His-
tory of Animals " (Trans. Bart. St. Hilaire) ;
T. Varro, " De Agricultura," L. HI. xvi. ;
Pliny, « Hist. Nat.," L. xi. ; Columella," De
Re Rustica ; " Palladius, " De Re Rustica,"
L. I. xxxvii., etc.

(b) The moderns : Swammerdam, " Biblia
Naturae," 1737 ; Maraldi, " Observations sur
les Abeilles," 17 12; Reaumur, " Memoires
pour servir a I'Histoire des Insectes," 1740;
Ch. Bonnet, " GEuvres d'Histoire Naturelle,"
1779-1783; A. G. Schirach, " Physikalische

423

The Life of the Bee

Untersuchung der bisher unbekannten aber
nachher entdeckten Erzeugung der Bienen-
mutter," 1767; J. Hunter, "On Bees"
(Philosophical Transactions, 1732); J. A.
Janscha, " Hinterlassene VoUstandige Lehre
von der Bienenzucht," 1773; Francois
Huber, " Nouvelles Observations sur les
Abeilles," 1794, etc.

2. Practical Apiculture :

Dzierzon, " Theorie und Praxis des neuen
Bienenfreundes ; " Langstroth, " The Floney-
bee " (translated into French by Ch. Dadant :
" L'Abeille et la Ruche," which corrects and
completes the original) ; Georges de Layens
and Bonnier, " Cours Complet d'Apicul-
ture ; " Frank Cheshire, " Bees and Bee-keep-
ing" (vol. ii. — Practical); Dr. E.Bevan,"The
Honey-bee;" T. W. Cowan, "The British
Bee-keeper's Guidebook ; " A. Root, " The
A B C of Bee-Culture;" Henry Allen,
"The Bee-keeper's Handy-book;" L'Abbe
Collin, " Guide du Proprietaire des Abeilles ; " '
Ch. Dadant, " Petit Cours d'Apiculture
Pratique ; " Ed. Bertrand, " Conduite du
Rucher ;" Weber, "Manuel pratique d'Api-
424

Appendix

culture;" Hamet, " Cours Complet d'Api-
culture ; " De Bauvoys, " Guide de I'Apicul-
teur ; '' Pollmann, " Die Biene und ihre
Zucht ; " Jeker, Kramer, and Theiler, " Der
Schweizerische Bienenvater ; " S. Simmins,
" A Modern Bee Farm ; " F. W. Vogel,
" Die Honigbiene und die Vermehrung der
Bienvolker ; " Baron A. Von Berlepsch,
" Die Biene und ihre Frucht,'* etc.

. General Monographs :

F. Cheshire, "Bees and Bee-keeping"
(vol. i. — Scientific) ; T. W. Cowan, " The
Honey-bee ; " J. Perez, " Les Abeilles ; "
Girard, "Manuel d' Apiculture" (Les Abeilles,
Organes et Fonctions) ; Schuckard, " British
Bees ; " Kirby and Spence, " Introduction to
Entomology ; " Girdwoyn, " Anatomic et
Physiologic de I'Abeille;" F. Cheshire,
" Diagrams on the Anatomy of the Honey-
bee ; " Gunderach, " Die Naturgeschichte
der Honigbiene ; " L. Buchner, " Geistes-
leben der Thiere;" O. Biitschli, " Zur Ent-
wicklungsgeschichte der Biene ; " J. D.
Haviland, "The Social Instincts of Bees,
their Origin and Natural Selection."

425

The Life of the Bee

Special Monographs (Organs, Func-
tions, Undertakings, etc.) :

F. Dujardin, " Memoires sur le Systeme
nerveux des Insectes ; " Dumas and Milne
Edwards, "Sur la Production de la Cire des
Abeilles ; " E. Blanchard, " Recherches ana-
tomiques sur le Systeme nerveux des Insectes;'*
L. R. D. Brougham, " Observations, Demon-
strations, and Experiences upon the Structure
of the Cells of Bees; " P. Cameron, " On Par-
thenogenesis in the Hymenoptera" (Trans-
actions Natural Society of Glasgow, 1888);
Erichson, " De Fabrica et Usu Antennarum in
Insectis ; " B. T. Lowne, " On the Simple
and Compound Eyes of Insects " (Philosophi-
cal Transactions, 1879); G. K. Waterhouse,
" On the Formation of the Cells of Bees and
Wasps ; " Dr. C. T. E. von Siebold, " On a
True Parthenogenesis in Moths and Bees ; "
F. Leydig, " Das Auge der Gliederthiere ; "
Pastor Schonfeld, " Bienen-Zeitung," 1854-
1883; " Illustrierte Bienen-Zeitung," 1885-
1890 ; Assmuss, "Die Parasiten der Honig-
biene."

426

Appendix
5. Notes on Melliferous Hymenoptera :

E. Blanchard, " Metamorphoses, Moeurs et
Instincts des Insectes ; " Vid : " Histoire des
Insectes ; " Darwin, " Origin of Species ; "
Fabre, " Souvenirs Entomologiques " (3d
series) ; Romanes, " Mental Evolution in
Animals ; " id., " Animal Intelligence ; "
Lepeletier et Fargeau, " Histoire Naturelle
des Hymenopteres ; " V. Mayet, " Memoire
sur les Moeurs et sur les Metamorphoses d'une
Nouvelle Espece de la Famille des Vesicants "
(Ann. Soc. Entom. de France, 1875) ; H. Miil-
ler, " Ein Beitrag zur Lebensgeschichte der
Dasypoda Hirtipes ;" E. HofFer, "Biologische
Beobachtungen an Hummeln und Schmarot-
zerhummeln ; " Jesse, " Gleanings in Natural
History ; " Sir John Lubbock, " Ants, Bees,
and Wasps ; " id., " The Senses, Instincts, and
Intelligence of Animals ; " Walkenaer, " Les
Haclites ; " Westwood, " Introduction to the
Study of Insects ; " V. Rendu, " De I'lntelli-
gence des Betes ; '' Espinas, " Animal Com-
munities," etc.

427

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