The Life of the Bee BY MAURICE MAETERLINCK Translated bj ALFRED SUTRO BLUE RIBBON BOOKS NEW YORK Copyright, IQOI BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPAHY All rights reserved PRINTED IN U. S. A. PRINTED BY THE CORNWALL PRESS, INC. CORNWALL, N. Y. Contents PAG* I. ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE HIVE 3 II. THE SWARM 37 cja III. THE FOUNDATION OF THE CITY . 131 IV. THE LIFE OF THE BEE . . . .159 V. THE YOUNG QUEENS .... 233 than her own. 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 The 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, QO 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 s«ne 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 Buffbn, who has a somewhat amusing prejudice against the bee, — "all must agree that Q2 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, howevei slight the sentiment within them, to adopt common habits, to liv« 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 91 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. However these things may be, and with- out abandoning this conjecture of ours, that at least has the advantage of connecting 96 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 » 97 The Life of the Bee When the queen has become com- pletely sterile, 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. 0* 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. [3*..] 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 ij probable that, in a state of nature, thankj 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 j 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 never draw it against 100 . 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 wilJ 101 • 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 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.1 1 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 dooi 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. Simmins, 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 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 joyfully. 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. 108 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-cells, 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« aate prisoner, hustle and ill-treat her, ICQ 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] 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- The Swarm * mention 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 in 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- The Swarm mai. I refer to the manner in which the bees will dispose of a mouse or a slug that may happen to have found its way into the 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 8 11 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- racv that offered an independence more "5 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 I 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 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 nevef 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 118 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 othei 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 Uf 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 1 The brain of the bee, according to the calcula- tion of Dujardin, constitutes the i-l74th 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. I2J 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 oi luminous wings. 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 ruie on the shrub or the tree that is 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 "5 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. fc 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- "7 The Life of the Bee tacle that they present. We may regard h 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 iao 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 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 tSEP 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 worker* 135 The Life of the Bee are obliged to sweep as they hasten behind 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 '37 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 familiar 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 through 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. The Foundation of the City And one fine day the industry of 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 thr Surfaces of their dwelling. 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. The Life of the Bee [43] This power of appropriation may well 6e 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 144 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 difficulty, 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 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 theii liberty to them. The same naturalist cites yet anothei proof of the bees' iack 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. 147 The Life of the Bee I have seen thousands strained out from the syrups in which they had perished ; thousands more alighting even on the boiling sweets ; the floors covered and win^ dows darkened with bees, some crawling, 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 ; fov 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 mere 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 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 01 death of their comrades. There is n 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 01 tne 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 iround. 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, 'S3 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 The Foundation of the City will spring with incredible fury on any living thing, ant or lion 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 157 IV THE LIFE OF THE BEE C45] T ET us now, in order to form a -i— ' clearer conception of the bees' in* tellectual power, proceed to consider theii 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- '59 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 antennas — 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. t^or 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 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 jyour 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 ; she, on the contrary, wiJJ M 161 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 are unable to perceive the astonishing 163 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 ? 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- 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 OM bee will bring others four times out of ten 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 1 66 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 161 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 difference. 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, without 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 Italiai? 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 insufficient, 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. 171 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 u 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^ 172 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- 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 '74 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 entirety '75 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 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 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 frou, an eminence loftier than any we can attain 178 The Life of the Bee for the contemplation of the destinies 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 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 thai 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. -.80 The Life of the Bee [so ; 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 Huber's admirable studies, I shall con- fine myself generally to relating what is x8i 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 182 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 hex 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 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. [53] 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 186 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] it'ji* -^ 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 for this purpose the cell of the bee.1 Each of the cells is an hexagonal tube 1 It was as well, perhaps, that this standard was not adopted. For although the 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. 180 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 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." The Life of the Bee [55] " 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 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 saving, or the least expense of mate- rial and labour.1 This is one of tht 1 Reaumur suggested the following problem to th«, 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't 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 " 193 Th« 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 fluctiqnary 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." [56] 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° 28^" for the large angle, and 70° 3i>£" for the small 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 combs 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 les? advanced civilisation, erect only one row of rearing-cells, and support their horizon- tal, superposed combs on shapeless anfl costly columns of wax. Their provision • cells are merely great pots, gathered to *95 The Life of the Bee gather 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 BuflFon and now revived, which assumes that the bees have not the least intention of constructing hexagons with a pyramidal base, but that theif 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 Buffo n 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 apace 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 «eem, 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- Bon 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 pris- matic base of the cells. But above 9,11 we might answer that there are more ways than one of dealing with rigid neces- sity ; that the wasp, the humble-bee, the trigonae 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 •lice of comb, duty furnished with its 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 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 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 clustei 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- aess of love. 20 ,05 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 realised 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. 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 oattling with infinite ^ower, 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 3°7 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 ot 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 petf y 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 life 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 JOQ 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 tir 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 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 ; ail 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 blameworthv as it may be to separate the The Life of the Bee two orders in cases, only too frequent in life, where we suffer 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 3M The Nuptial Flight to equalise, or allot -more methodically, the share he attributes to the universe and to himself. « 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 maje. 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, trailing 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 516 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- 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 hei- first eggs, and her people immediately surround her with the 319 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. 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, 320 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 a» 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 3*5 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 tha* 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 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 328 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 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 330 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 specialv 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 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 lift 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 333 The Life of the Bee that, to the alcohol, are due the childreiv 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 334 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 lifting 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 335 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 [93] M Let us sit on these sheaves," he con- es nued, "and look again. Let us reject hot a single one of the little facts that t-uild 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*, 338 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 339 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, wnich 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 *nly by formless ideas, there are mam 340 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 youf 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 ta you that you have been judged. AncS 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 ir 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 us, 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. 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." VII THE MASSACRE OF THE MALES 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 33° 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 35' 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 antennge 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 23 353 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. SSJ [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 provp 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 rej 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 3S6 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 tht 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- 358 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 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 on^y 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 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 larvae 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- txpected, 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 Huber'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 eince 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 ? 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- 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 dc^ 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 The Life of the Bee whereto it has had to conform.1 The difference between these various species is scarcely greater than that between an Englishman 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 <*ur eyes, refusing the aid of hypothesis, be this never so probable or so imperious. We shall mention no facts 1 The scientific classification of the domestic bee is as follows : Class 1-nsecta Order Hymenoptera Family Apidae Genus Apis Species Mellifica The term "Mellifica" is that of the Linnaean 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 are not susceptible of immediate proof; and of such facts we will only rapidly refer to some of the more sig- nificant. [too] 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 [101] This great progress, not the less actual for being hereditary and ancient, was fol- lowed by 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 oi 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.1 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 suffi- 1 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 thft 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 political civilisation 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.1 1 Biichner cites an analogous fact. In the Barbadoes, the bees whose hives are in the midst of the refineries, a* 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. [•03] So much for what our own eyes can lee. 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 favoui The Life of the Bee i»re 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- 184 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 h« 25 385 The Life of the Bee by whose side he seats himself, he who has guarded the hearth, be blind or very old. So long as the fire still burn that he has been watching, he has done as much as the best could have done. Well 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 386- The Progress of the Race the other, banishes for all time the living elements of the problem, and explains nothing. [ I04] 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.1 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 1 It is important that the terms we shall succes- sively employ, adopting the classification of M. Emile Blanchard, — " APIENS, APID^E and APIT^E, — should not be confounded. The tribe of the Apiens comprises all families of bees. The Apidas constitute the first of these families, and are subdivided into three groups : the Meliponae, the Apitas, and the Bombi (humble-bees). And, finally, *he Apitae include all the different varieties of our domestic bees. The Progress of the Race ot 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 The Life of the Bee «he Apidae, 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 little 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 lived. 39° The Progress of the Race 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 devtlopment 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. 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 Colletes, 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 393 The Progress of the Race at the expense of the working type of its race.1 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- 1 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. . . . [,06] 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- copae, in passing beyond this first obscure line of love. Among other Apiens, this groping idea assumes other forms. The Chalicodomae 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 dwelling 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 t 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. 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. 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 %11-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 Meliponitae, which comprises the tropical Meliponae and Trigonae. [108] 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 The Life of the Bee life less assured, prosperity more limited, than with our bees ; and wherever these are introduced, the Meliponitse 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 4P2 The Progress of the Race nymphs are destroyed after these have been hatched.1 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, 1 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 Meliponitze in our climate. 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 I73° 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 menr placed end to end, form but a second in the history of Nature's thought. [ I09] 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 In ing 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 onl) 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 numbersv 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. Ha 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 "tore he v/ill supplement perhaps with ft few droppings of honey. The result ii, 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 believe 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 fhey 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- 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 [I'M] The evolution of the Apiens, or at kast of the Apitae, 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 scarcel/ 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, 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 2? Al7 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. 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. ["4] 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 The Life of the Bee left to ourselves, to our own resource*. 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 out 3wn. 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 theif 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 need, 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. III. 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," 1712; Reaumur, " Memoires pour servir a 1'Histoire des Insectes," 1740; Ch. Bonnet, " CEuvres d'Histoire Naturelle," 1779-1783 ; A. G. Schirach, " Physikalischo 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 Vollstandige 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 Honey- 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'Ap/cul- 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 1'Apicul- teur ; " Pollmann, " Die Biene und ihre Zucht ; " Jekei4, 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. 3. 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 1'Abeille;" F. Cheshire, " Diagrams on the Anatomy of the Honey- bee ; " Gunderach, " Die Naturgeschichte der Honigbiene ; " L. Buchner, " Geistes- leben der Thiere ; " O. Butschli, " Zur Ent- wicklungsgeschichte der Biene ; " J. D. Haviland, "The Social Instincts of Bees, their Origin and Natural Selection." 42S The Life of the Bee 4. 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. Mul- ler, "Ein Beitrag zur Lebensgeschichte der DasypodaHirtipes;" 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 1'Intelli- gence des Betes ; " Espinas, " Animal Com- munities," etc. 427 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. OCT 9 DEC 11 1974 Form L9-32m-8,'58(5876s4)444 HEC'd LD-URD JOHlYiSjB DfSr»|^T.fjRt IDW •41988 M URL AA 000446847 6