_bees from british guiana_ by t. d. a. cockerell bulletin of the american museum of natural history vol. xxxviii, art. xx, pp. 685-690 _new york, december 21, 1918_ 59.57.99(88) #article xx.#--bees from british guiana by t. d. a. cockerell. in connection with the work of the tropical research station of the new york zoological society, conducted by mr. william beebe, collections of insects, including bees, were made. the present report deals with a series of bees from the bartica district, and mr. john tee van, in forwarding them, states that "almost all of these bees were procured about a clump of several species of nightshades (_solanum_), which were flowering in thinned-out jungle." i give an artificial key, which will enable one who is not a specialist in bees to separate readily each species from the rest. it will, of course, remain necessary to compare any species with a fuller account to make sure that it is not some form unrepresented in the present collection. the types of the new species and varieties from british guiana are deposited in the american museum of natural history. species marked p. are from the penal settlement; those marked k. occur at kalacoon. the body, or some part of it, brilliant green 1. no part of the body brilliant green 11. 1. thorax dark, with more or less purple tints, not bright green 2. thorax bright or clear green, at least in part 4. 2. small bee, less than 10 mm. long _augochlora callichlorura_, new species. large, robust bees, greatly exceeding 10 mm. 3. 3. abdomen with the first two segments dark; tongue not extending to end of abdomen _eufriesia pulchra_ (smith). abdomen all bright green, with brassy tints; tongue extending backward far beyond tip of abdomen _euglossa brullei_ lepeletier. 4. hind margins of abdominal segments broadly black. _augochlora nigromarginata_ (spinola).--p. hind margins of abdominal segments green 5. hind margins of abdominal segments red or whitish; very robust bees 10. 5. small bee, less than 10 mm. long, the clypeus with a transverse apical ivory-colored band _ceratina læta_ spinola. larger, very robust bees 6. 6. tongue extending beyond abdomen posteriorly 7. tongue not extending beyond abdomen 8. 7. scutellum with a patch of black tomentum _euglossa ignita_ smith; female. scutellum without a patch of black tomentum _euglossa ignita_ smith; male. 8. robust bees, about 10 mm. long or a little over; scutellum with, a patch of black tomentum _euglossa cordata_ (linnæus).--p. much larger bees, a little over 20 mm. long 9. 9. scutellum with an obtuse median keel; posterior angles of scutellum rounded _exærele smaragdina_ (guérin). scutellum depressed in middle, without any keel; posterior angles of scutellum rather prominent _exærele dentata_ (linné). 10. scutellum with a patch of light fulvous tomentum; scape red. _euglossa decorata ruficauda_, new variety; female--k. scutellum with a patch of black tomentum; scape dark, with a pale yellow mark _euglossa singularis_ mocsáry.--p. scutellum without a patch of tomentum; scape pale yellow in front. _euglossa decorata ruficauda_, new variety; male. 11. very large bees, anterior wing at least 23 mm. long; integument partly or wholly ferruginous 12. anterior wing less than 20 mm. long 13. 12. abdomen with broad black bands. _xylocopa frontalis nitens_ (lepeletier); male[a]--p. abdomen without black bands _xylocopa fimbriala_ (fabricius). 13. wasp-like bee, with fusiform abdomen, reddish wings and red legs; three complete submarginal cells, first recurrent nervure meeting second transversocubital _rhathymus beebei_, new species otherwise formed, the abdomen broad at base 14. 14. surface of eyes with fine short hair; first abdominal segment red, the others black; female abdomen sharply pointed. _cælioxys ardescens_ cockerell. (hym. 6 and 138.) eyes not hairy; female abdomen not sharply pointed 15. 15. anterior wings with three complete submarginal cells 16. anterior wings with submarginal cells incomplete or wanting; stingless social bees 29. 16. small bee, about 8 mm. long; wings beyond middle milky-white, the extreme apex dusky _tetrapedia lacteipennis_ vachal.--p. larger bees; the wings not thus colored 17. 17. abdomen clear ferruginous; large robust bees 18. abdomen not ferruginous; or only partly so 19. 18. hind legs with black hair _centris personata_ smith; male.--p. hind legs with pale hair _centris personata_ smith; female.--p. 19. integument with at least some bluish, purplish or greenish tints; abdomen not banded; form very robust 20. integument not at all metallic (very slightly in _eulæma nigrita_, variety) 21. 20. larger; anterior wing at least 17 mm. long; head and thorax with black hair; fourth and fifth abdominal segments purple _eulæma nigrita_ lepeletier. much smaller; cheeks densely covered with white hair; clypeus black in female, yellow in male _xylocopa barbata_ (fabricius). 21. thorax and abdomen hairy; hair of thorax yellow, with a transverse black band, of abdomen black, with a transverse yellow band. _bombus incarum_ franklin. not thus colored 22. 22. clypeus with two longitudinal keels 23. clypeus with a single, median longitudinal keel, sharp and extending its whole length; black bee, with black hair. _eulæma nigrita_ lepeletier, variety; female.[b] clypeus without any distinct keels 25. 23. scutellum with two large yellow marks. _epicharis maculata barticana_, new variety.--k. scutellum with the integument all dark 24. 24. second abdominal segment with a yellow mark on each side. _epicharis affinis_ smith.--p. abdomen with the integument all black _epicharis rustica_ (olivier).--p. 25. less than 12 mm. long; wings not deep fuliginous 26. over 18 mm. long; wings deep fuliginous 27. 26. hair bands of abdomen broad; male with long antennæ and yellow clypeus. _florilegus barticanus_, new species. hair bands of abdomen linear; integument of clypeus black. _melitoma fulvifrons_ (smith). 27. hair of mesothorax and scutellum dark brown; apical part of abdomen with integument red _centris fusciventris_ mocsáry.--p. hair of mesothorax and scutellum red 28. 28. face with yellow markings; anterior wing about 14 mm. long. _centris lineolata_ lepeletier. face without yellow markings; anterior wing about 20 mm. long. _centris atriventris_ mocsáry.--p. 29. robust bees, not less than 9 mm. long 30. small, fly-like bees, not nearly 9 mm. long 32. 30. thorax with ferruginous hair; integument of scutellum yellow. _melipona fasciata barticensis_ cockerell, ined.--p. thorax with dorsal hair not ferruginous 31. 31. abdomen more or less reddish, at least the first segment dorsally pale red. _melipona intermixta_ cockerell, ined.--p. abdomen black, with narrow yellowish-white tegumentary bands; a tuft of dark red hair before each tegula. _melipona interrupta_ (latreille).--k. 32. legs mainly red; clypeus yellow _trigona longipes_ smith.--k. legs and clypeus black _trigona_ sp. (specimens imperfect).--p. [a] the female of _x. nitens_ is black, with dark wings. it was not in the material sent. the female of _x. fimbriala_ is also black. [b] a little purple can be seen at sides of abdomen, but it is easily overlooked. notes and descriptions #melipona interrupta# (latreille).--in the specimen sent, the bands on second and following segments are notched above in middle, with only an obscure linear interruption. #melipona fasciata barticensis# cockerell.--one specimen has five linear red bands on abdomen, but in another the bands are very indistinct, almost obsolete. #melipona intermixta# cockerell.--the ground color of the first three abdominal tergites varies; in the lighter forms that of the first is pale fulvous with the shoulders blackish, of the second and third clear ferruginous. #euglossa singularis# mocsáry.--judging from the brief description, it appears that #e. meliponoides# ducke is probably the same species. #euglossa decorata# smith, var. #ruficauda#, new variety both sexes with abdomen ferruginous, apically more or less dusky, but the whole effect lighter and redder than typical; scutellum green with the hind margin red. tuft on female scutellum light fulvous. the female, from kalacoon, (hym. 212) is the type of the variety. #euglossa ignita# smith, var. #chlorosoma#, new variety green, without coppery tints, but variably suffused with purple. it is smaller than _e. piliventris_, with shorter mouth-parts, and the labrum pallid with a pair of dusky spots. a male in the u. s. nat. museum from bartica, which i reported as _e. piliventris_, belongs here. female _e. piliventris_ has long yellow hairs on the anterior margin of hind basitarsus, but in _chlorosoma_ the hair in this situation is black. the type of the variety is a female labelled hym. 140. a female from kalacoon has brassy and coppery tints on the apical part of abdomen, and must be referred to _e. ignita_ proper. the type locality of _ignita_ is jamaica. #ceratina læta# spinola. this was described from the female. the specimen sent is a male, and differs from the female in being smaller, and having a transverse band on anterior margin of clypeus, triangular marks on lower corners of face, and a large patch (emarginate above) on labrum all ivory-white. this is very like _c. viridula_ smith, which ducke considers a synonym of _læta_, but the base of the metathorax seems to differ, and the nervures are piceous. for the present, therefore, i retain _c. viridula_ as a distinct species. the female of _c. viridula_, collected by busck in the panama canal zone, is also distinguishable from that sex of _c. læta_. #epicharis maculata# var. #barticana#, new variety [female].--base of mandibles with a large cuneiform yellow mark; a broad black band down each side of labrum; yellow spots on prothorax large; scutellum with a pair of large transversely oval yellow areas, separated by a narrow black band; band on second abdominal segment with a posterior median projection. kalacoon, 1916. (hym. 217.) #rhathymus beebei#, new species [female].--length about 22 mm., anterior wing 18 mm.; head clear ferruginous, with red hair, lower part of face more pallid, with a creamy tint; apical half of mandibles black; clypeus prominent, minutely roughened, with a smooth median line; mesothorax black, with a median ridge, the surface on each side of this strongly punctured, but shining between the punctures; rest of thorax ferruginous, and all of thorax with ferruginous hair; scutellum not bigibbous, but with an elevated transverse ridge; pleura with a blackish area below the wings; lower part of mesopleura with a shining tubercle; tegulæ clear ferruginous, finely punctured; wings strongly reddened; legs clear ferruginous; abdomen fusiform, shining; first two segments dull reddish, pallid posterolaterally, the others reddish black, with the hind margins redder; apical plate very large, concave. bartica district (hym. 19). very distinct by the transverse straight ridge on scutellum; nearest perhaps to the considerably smaller _r. unicolor_ smith, but that has dark fuscous wings. the antennæ are unfortunately missing. #augochlora callichlorura#, new species [female].--length a little over 7 mm.; first two abdominal segments rather weakly vibrissate on hind margin with orange hairs; hind spur of hind leg with long spines. head and thorax very dark purplish, nearly black, but a blue-green spot at upper end of clypeus, supraclypeal area brilliant purple, and base of metathorax strongly tinged with purple; anterior and middle legs dark, with weak purple tints, but hind femora, tibiæ and basal half of basitarsi all brilliant green on outer side; abdomen short and broad, shining, very brilliant emerald green. head broad, eyes strongly converging below; clypeus with extremely large punctures; front dull and granular; ocelli ordinary; cheeks with thin white hair; mesothorax and scutellum shining, but well punctured; base of metathorax with strong short plicæ; angles of prothorax not prominent; tegulæ rufotestaceous; wings grayish translucent, stigma and nervures dusky pale brown; first recurrent nervure meeting second transversocubital; abdomen with thin pale hair, hind margins of segments not darkened. bartica district. unique by the combination of purplish head and thorax and green abdomen, the general effect recalling _a. atropos_ smith. #florilegus barticanus#, new species. [male].--length about 11 mm.; black, except as follows: first abdominal segment strongly greenish; clypeus and labrum entirely yellow; mandibles fulvous apically (but base black); antennæ, except the first two joints, ferruginous beneath; hind tarsi, and apex of hind tibiæ, dusky red; hair of head and thorax ferruginous, paler below, no admixture of dark hairs; eyes reddish; mesothorax shining, but distinctly punctured; tegulæ clear ferruginous; wings dusky hyaline, nervures reddish fuscous; legs with pale hair, conspicuously plumose on hind tibiæ; abdomen with four broad dense ochraceous hair-bands, that on fourth segment broadly excavated in middle posteriorly, on fifth broadly interrupted; sixth segment with a small patch of fulvous hair on each side; apical part of abdomen dorsally, except for the bands and patches, with very dark fuscous hair. bartica district (hym. 11). related to _f. lanieri_ guér. from cuba and _f. condigna_ cresson from the united states. in the coloration of the legs it is intermediate between these two. #tetrapedia lacteipennis# vachal.--it should be added to vachal's description, that the dorsal abdominal segments 2 to 4 have yellow bands. the bartica collection contains a _megalopta_ from hoorie, but it is unfortunately broken. i have _megalopta panamensis_ cockerell from maroni, french guiana (queensland museum, 42). i add the description of a new species from french guiana, the type of which is in my collection. #augochlora maroniana#, new species [female].--length slightly over 8 mm.; head, thorax and legs bright green; abdomen yellowish green strongly suffused with coppery, the first two segments with apical fringes of orange hair; face rather narrow; antennæ black; lower middle of clypeus black; mesothorax and scutellum rough with dense punctatures, the scutellum with two copper-red spots; area of metathorax with very feeble plicæ; tegulæ black with pallid margin, the basal side broadly green; wings dusky; second s. m. square; first r. n. meeting second t. c; stigma dusky reddish; legs with mainly pale hair, hind tibiæ with dark hair on outer side basally; hind spur with about six long spines; basal half of basitarsi green on outer side; abdomen shining, with pale ochreus hair. maroni, french guiana (queensland mus., 43). related to _a. cupreola_ (ckll.), but with the vibrissate fringes on abdomen nearly twice as long, and deep orange-fulvous, and the mesothorax much more densely punctured. also related to _a. diversipennis_ (lep.), but with the face much narrower, and the area of metathorax much less distinctly plicate. from _a. calypso_ sm. it is known by the wings not being yellowish, the inner orbits not edged with blue, and the tarsi not ferruginous. publications of the american museum of natural history memoirs volume i. zoology and palæontology. volumes ii-viii. anthropology. volume ix. zoology and palæontology. volumes x-xiv. anthropology. volumes ii, iv, v, vii, viii, x-xiv, and an ethnographical album form volumes i-vii of the memoirs of the jesup north pacific expedition. memoirs--new series volumes i and ii. zoology and palæontology. bulletin volumes i-xxiv, xxv, parts 1 and 2, and xxvi-xxxix. anthropological papers volumes i-ix, x, parts 1-6; xi, xii, parts 1-5; xiii; xiv, parts 1 and 2; xv, part 1; xvi, parts 1-3; xvii, parts 1-4; xviii, parts 1 and 2; and xix, part 1. monographs a review of the primates. by d. g. elliot. 3 volumes. hitherto unpublished plates of tertiary mammals and permian vertebrates. by e. d. cope and w. d. matthew. the american museum journal volumes i-xviii. the journal is a popular record of the progress of the american museum of natural history, issued monthly from october to may. handbooks. numbers 1-6. guide leaflets. numbers 1-48. annual reports. first (1869) to forty-ninth (1917). a more detailed list, with prices, of these publications may be had upon application to the librarian of the museum. buzz a buzz or the bees done into english from the german of wm. busch. author of "my bee book" london griffith & farran chester phillipson & golder buzz a buzz or the bees done freely into english by the author [illustration] of my bee book from the german of wilhelm busch. london: griffith & farran. chester: phillipson & golder. preface. explanatory. i must say a few words in explanation of the somewhat novel form which my new "bee-book" has taken, and which, doubtless, will be a surprise to the many bee-friends who are waiting with exemplary patience for the second edition of my original "bee-book," soon about to appear after an interval of thirty years from the publication of the first edition. i happened last year to be at the cologne station, waiting for the train, and employed my spare time in looking over the book stall for something to read on my way to aix-la-chapelle. the stall was covered with books about the late war. i had returned from a visit to the battle fields of 1870, and was sick of the subject. i wanted something of a more peaceful nature, and i was turning away, without making a purchase, when a book met my eye entitled _schnurrdiburr_. what that might mean i knew not, but the second title, _oder die bienen_, was intelligible, and had attraction enough for me. i opened it, and saw it was profusely illustrated with very comical cuts. i paid my thaler and carried away my prize. the cuts are reproduced in the book which my readers have in their hands. the verses were written up to the pictures rather than translated from the german text; for alas! my german is very limited; enough for travelling purposes, but hardly enough to enable me to read a bee-book either serious or comical. ridentem dicere verum quid vetat? there is much truth lying hid under these comical stories; still more in the illustrations; and the notes which i have appended may be found useful even by serious bee-masters. i promise my readers that they shall have the second edition of "my bee book" as perfect as i can make it, and with as little delay as possible. i trust it may be much nearer perfection than the first edition, published under great difficulties, could be, and i hope it may have as many purchasers as this its forerunner. w. c. c. _frodsham_, _cheshire_, _september_, 1872. prelude. [illustration] hail muse etc.! bring me peggy, my antient steed, now somewhat leggy; not him who on parnassus green erst fed, and drank of hippocrene; but such, as to supply the trade, at nuremburg by scores are made.- i mount him, and will now indite a bee-book for my own delight, i'll sing of johnny dull: his pig, made by his bees exceeding big; and of his daughter fair christine, of her queer lover dicky dean, and of his nephew rogue eugene- of honey-robbers i will tell, and bears, and bull-frogs, ghosts as well- all which my readers may discover who con this true tale ten times over- or make ten other bee friends buy it; for three and six i can supply it. fytte i. bee life. [illustration] all hail! thou lovely month of may, with parti-coloured flowers gay! and hail to you, my darling bees; much wealth you gain on days like these. from morn to eve a humming sound about the bee-house circles round. [illustration] the sentinels, in armour bright, keep watch and ward throughout the night; and drive away, constrained by oath, the mice, and toads, and death's head moth. [illustration] at early dawn 'tis quite a treat to see them work, they are so neat; some clean their house with brooms and mops, and others empty out the slops. [illustration] the architects, by rule and line, their future cells with skill define; the ever toiling workers these- meanwhile the queen, she takes her ease; sole mother of the winged nation, her only work is propagation. [illustration] the egg she lays; the nurses hatch that egg, and in the cradle watch. the babe to swaddle, and prepare the pap-boat, is their constant care. [illustration] all day, in regal state, the queen encircled by her court is seen; their backs they never rudely turn: good manners they by instinct learn. [illustration] and when night comes she goes to bed, and on the pillow lays her head; whilst by her side her faithful drone profoundly snores, for they are one. [illustration] they send for letters ere they rise; for just at ten they ope their eyes. [illustration] the post office is in a flower, which opens at a certain hour, miss crocus keeps it, fresh and fair; the tresses of her flowing hair they glitter like the purest gold; and by her saffron cakes are sold. [illustration] near is the pothouse where both grog is served to bumble-bees, and prog; and when the bumble-bees get groggy, their intellect, like men's, is foggy. [illustration] on rose leaves they their letters write, here's one they either wrote or might. "great queen, we hope you'll swarm to day"; "for 'is a lovely first of may." [illustration] the messenger this letter takes, and eke a store of saffron cakes. [illustration] the drones they neither work, nor can do aught but sleep on a divan; and smoke their pipes through all the day; chibouks these love, and those a clay. such is their life--who would not be a happy little worker bee; a queen's too high for me,--a drone, such laziness i let alone. fytte ii. the pig. [illustration] now johnny dull had once a pig,- 't was far from fat, its bones were big. to scratch his hide with all his might was this poor piggie's sole delight. [illustration] once on a time it so fell out he in the garden roamed about: he chanced to have an itching mood; the bee house quite convenient stood- [illustration] his hide he scratched; the bees rushed out, and stung him well from tail to snout- ugh! ugh! ugh! ugh! poor piggie cried, feeling these daggers pierce his hide. [illustration] john dull, who heard the awful clatter, said, "bless the pig! why what's the matter?" [illustration] he came,--he saw--, his porker, that was erst all lean, was now all fat. [illustration] it chanced a pig-jobber that way was passing by; he stopped to say "how much friend dull for that fat pig?" "just ten pounds ten, for he is big"- "done"--"done again"--the bargain's struck- john dull he found himself in luck, and blest his bees, and in their praise he chanted forth these jocund lays. [illustration] [illustration] fly forth, dear bees, 'tis morn, fly forth to south, to north, to west, to east; and cull from every fragrant flower a honied feast. * * * * * fly home, dear bees, 'tis eve, fly home! from north, from south, from east, from west; store in your cells your luscious spoil, and sweetly rest. * * * * * [illustration] the air is clear the day is warm, john dull sits watching for a swarm; what's this? he thought; while i've been talking my bees are all prepared for walking, staves in their hands, and on his back each carries his provision pack. [illustration] he strains his sight into the hole; "they'll swarm to day--upon my soul." [illustration] his brain swims round, his eyes feel heavy, he sees no more the increasing levee. [illustration] his nose, as down and down it drops, his half used pipe of 'bacca stops.- [illustration] buzz, buzz!--hum, hum! a joyful sound, echoes the teeming hive around. all gather at the trumpet's clang to hear their noble queen's harangue.- "up children up, to swarm prepare" "the honey thief sits stinking there." "and we who love the scent of roses" "have stale tobacco in our noses." "we toil, we sweat from early may" "to lay up for a rainy day." "our cells we fill, and at the fall" "he sulphers us, and takes it all." "so let us one and all deride" "this honey thief, this bee-i-cide." "up children, up! to swarm prepare" "whilst master dull sits snoring there." "a devil he, upon my troth:" "buzz! buzz! hum! hum! the swarm is off!" [illustration] fytte iii. the rivals. "nothing like soup," is still the cry in each well ordered family; so on christine the duty fell to cull the herbs they love so well; and every morn, the charming maid within her father's garden strayed, parsley to pluck, wherewith to make the soup, which they at noon should take. [illustration] her father's garden marched, i ween, with that of mr. richard dean; a school-master by trade was he, and she esteemed him--maidenly. but by degrees, within her soul a softer, tenderer passion stole; love--full of joy and full of sorrow, sunshine to day, and storm to-morrow,- love may forget a parsley bed, and dream of golden flowers instead. [illustration] and so the maiden stooped to cull a crocus, and an auricula. these flowers, together-bound, she placed just half a foot above her waist. [illustration] then sat her down beneath the shade, and thought about him--happy maid. now mr. dull a nephew had, a most audacious, awkward lad; some fifteen summers he had seen and still was very, very green. [illustration] christine he eyed, and with desire he felt his little soul on fire. with cat like pace behind the wall he crept (he was not near as tall.) [illustration] leapt up, and from the affrighted miss ravished the much desired kiss. [illustration] "stop little monster", and a whack descended on his upturned back- (the place i cannot more define within the limits of a line) --side, i should add, but wherefore tell what every school-boy knows so well. dick dean so roundly plied the stick that rogue eugene skedaddled quick. [illustration] then richard raised the fainting maid, and many a tender thing he said; her chin he chucked, his arm he placed about her little taper waist; [illustration] her flowers admired, and begged them too: christine, she knew not what to do; [illustration] but blushed assent; the flowers he took, and thanked her with an ardent look. [illustration] "sweets are repaid by sweets i wiss", he said, and he too had a kiss. "adieu and--au revoir--" to night [illustration] pray let us meet, my heart's delight, behind your father's bee-house, when the church-clock shall have sounded ten. eugene, still smarting with the cane, his heart on fire, with jealous pain, [illustration] o'erheard the place of assignation, and crept out from his hidden station; rushed to the bee-house, found john dull asleep, and snoring like a bull. "wake, uncle, wake" in startling tone he shouted, "for your swarm is gone." fytte iv. the swarm. [illustration] john dull, awakened from his slumber, observed his stock's diminished number; his apple trees he searched, and found the swarm some ten feet from the ground; [illustration] got his bee dress, his hive, and ladder; no bee master was ever gladder. [illustration] mounted, and without any trip got all the bees within the skip- [illustration] "well done i have them;" as he spoke the ladder's top-most rung it broke, [illustration] crack! crack! and, as i hope to thrive, the same befel the other five; [illustration] the bees rush forth and quit the hive! [illustration] john on his knees, and free from harm marked well the disappearing swarm. [illustration] two boys were making pies of dirt close by, and playing with a squirt; they squirted at the bees to stop 'em, squirted in vain; they could not drop 'em. [illustration] old sally met them with her mop, and sammy trumpeted, stop! stop! [illustration] and dick and bob and bill they screeched, but not a sound these flyers reached- [illustration] a sweep upon the chimney top showered soot upon them, and cried "stop!" [illustration] when they had cleared the churches roof, sam dutton put his gun to proof; [illustration] john dull came panting up behind and could no other stopper find; [illustration] he stamped and swore and scratched his head, "a pretty dance i have been led," "confound the bees; i've got a warming" some way i'll find to stop their swarming; a hive i'll build as big as two, sold by mancubrian p.tt.gr.w. fytte v. the patent monster hive. adverse events reveal the real man, so horace wrote, refute this truth who can. [illustration] and john dull to its full completion wrought the inspiration of his sudden thought. "room for the swarm!" this is great nature's law, and so he built two monstrous hives of straw.- [illustration] "good morning neighbour" from across the fence cried out dick dean. "may i without offence" "ask what your making." "why these blessed bees," "i find them creatures plaguey hard to please." "plaguey! dont say so--they're a real pleasure," "i love to watch them when i have the leisure;" "besides each scholar knows in antient days," "how maro sung his little darlings praise." "and when the roman legions brought alarm" "to every inmate of his mantuan farm,--" "smiling he stood, amidst his winged host;" "the mailed warriors fled and left him at his post." "all this i know--beekeeping would be charming," "if there was never such a thing as swarming." "but grubs my friend! your bees are sure to breed," "swarms come from grubs, as corn crops come from seed." "grubs you must have; and when your swarming's done," "two hives you'll find, where erst you had but one." "bother the grubs; i know a better way," "my patent monster hives, they are the things to pay." [illustration] fytte vi. the bear. [illustration] eugene would often take his lunch, of dry black bread a monstrous hunch, into a wood--ere he got through it he wished he'd some nice honey to it- when all at once it chanced a bee he saw creep up a hollow tree; another came, then two, and three. "hurrah! there's honey here for me," eugene exclaimed, "no more i'll eat this nasty bread, but have a treat."- [illustration] "honey for ever!" up he clomb to the trees fork--the honey comb he saw below him in the beech hollowed by age, beyond his reach- [illustration] his hold he missed and sad to tell down midst the honey combs he fell; [illustration] into the cakes his boots went crush, as though it were mere muddy slush. [illustration] honey he found but every school-boy knows he cannot eat his sweetmeats with his clothes. [illustration] another bee hunter that way one mister bruin chanced to stray; a dancing bear by trade was he, but fond of honey--certainly! [illustration] "if i smell right here's honey comb"; he said, or thought; then upwards clomb. [illustration] eugene below, half dead with fear, saw the bears hinder's drawing near, [illustration] with both hands gripped him tight and had a [illustration] mount upwards by this living ladder; sure never little lad was gladder. [illustration] meanwhile john dull, a spying round, the self same honey tree had found; [illustration] up to the fork himself he reared when bruin's ugly mug appeared. augh, back he fell through utter fright; close to his tail did braun alight; and by braun's heels braun's parasite. [illustration] braun seized john dull with either claw, just as himself was seized before; [illustration] john pulling out his hunting knife cut off his tail to save his life; [illustration] sam dutton here did interveen, "to shoot that grizzly bear i mean"! but braun was nowhere to be seen. [illustration] early next morn came sawyers two, and sawed the honey tree right through; [illustration] there stuck the boots of young eugene; [illustration] he drew them out, and licked them clean; such blacking ne'er before was seen! while john dull, from the luscious store, filled twenty honey pots or more. fytte vii. the frog. [illustration] "the appetite with eating grows"- this truth my little story shows. for many a day the rogue eugene to john dull's bee-hives creeps unseen; smokes them,--puff!--puff!--then boldly takes the much desired honey cakes. [illustration] when lo! one day the angry swarm out on him rushed--the day was warm; they covered him from top to toe, behind, before, above, below, they buzzed, they crawled, they stung him,--oh! [illustration] eugene half stifled, for his nose and mouth were covered like his clothes, rushed to the nearest water-pit, and took a header into it; [illustration] rose through the bee-besprinkled foam, and ran, all dripping, to his home. [illustration] felt quite unwell! the doctor came and to his illness gave a name. [illustration] "by aid of careful auscultation," "and thinking on his late natation," "i think, i think that i deskiver," "a frog within this dear boy's liver." [illustration] "i'll get him up." a bee he took, impaled it on a fishing-hook; [illustration] played it within his open jaws, a bite! and up the frog he draws; [illustration] frog to the open window took, and cut the line close by the hook; [illustration] frog to the pool, rejoicing, hopped; and plump into the water dropped. then chanted his batrachian lay quite in th' artistophanic way; "brekekekek, coax, coax, coax, coax, brekekekek." fytte viii. the ghost. [illustration] forbidden fruit is sweet they say; and so its gathered every day; and should this fruit be sweet before, forbid it, and 'tis ten times more. eugene oft coveted the pot of honey that john dull had got placed on the shelf above his head, for safety, when he went to bed; [illustration] john slept, john snored; then ope'd his eyes and stared about him with surprise. [illustration] "what's this i see come crawling on?" "sure, 'tis a strange phenomenon." [illustration] a winged beast, with tail, and claws on his four feet, which end in paws. [illustration] with stealthy pace on on it crawled, john turned upon his face, and bawled. [illustration] john's hair as this strange beast drew near his night cap raised for very fear. [illustration] on its hind legs itself it reared, as it its squalling master neared, [illustration] nearer still nearer--till he got [illustration] the much desired honey pot. [illustration] turns tail and runs; whilst johnnie sits bolt up, divested of his wits. [illustration] a pearly drop on every hair hangs pendant, not from heat, but fear. [illustration] eugene his garret sought, and there ate honey, like his friend the bear, the pot he emptied mighty soon, using his paws instead of spoon. fytte ix. the honey thief. [illustration] the flowers which christine culled at morn at eve were withered, and forlorn. [illustration] these withered flowers dick sadly took, and placed them in his music book; then put the book upon the table, and pressed, the best that he was able. [illustration] the pressed flowers took a wondrous shape, which seemed the human form to ape; and in these specimens, christine is imaged, and her dicky dean. [illustration] ten sounded from the old church tower- before the last stroke of the hour, close by the bee-house richard dean, his last new coat on, might be seen; christine, arrayed in all her charms, was there, and rushed into his arms. [illustration] "hist! what's that sound?" alack! alack! a thief, with crotchet at his back- a honey thief--ill may he thrive. [illustration] each crept into a monster hive. [illustration] the thief peered round; "this will i take"- "this big one will my fortune make." [illustration] then hoisted dicky, hive and all, upon his back so lean, so tall- [illustration] "halt," shouted dicky, and the head of his strange monture bonneted; [illustration] held him down tight, and with a stick passed 'twixt his legs, secured him quick. [illustration] and christine, what must she have felt while bruin round about her smelt? out of the hive she softly stole; [illustration] in crept the bear and through the hole at the hive's top he poked his nose; christine her ready courage shows, [illustration] she through his nose ring passed a stick, which from the ground she happed to pick. [illustration] poor bruin rolled upon his back, and grunted out alas! alack! [illustration] so after all these strange alarms, again dick rushed into her arms. [illustration] john dull by chance came strolling by, his hives upset first met his eye; he saw they both were tenanted- amazed he looked, then scratched his head; [illustration] peered all around, espied christine and her own true love dicky dean; behind the bee house they were placed, and dicky's arm was round her waist. [illustration] "come here" he cried "you little chit," "i understand it not a bit"- upon their knees they both fell down, and the whole mystery made known. [illustration] the father heard them all declare, then gave his blessing to the pair. "bless you my christine: dick i bless" "with stores of wedded happiness." [illustration] then came the dramatis personae; the tall, the short, the fat, the bony. [illustration] sam dutton thought to get a shot, now bruin could no longer trot. but sally interposed her mop, and to his shooting put a stop. [illustration] the night watch came, and 'twixt them bore the skewer'd thief to the prison door. [illustration] and came the bear leader as well, and took poor bruin to his cell. [illustration] sam with his trumpet blew a rally, and hip, hurrah! cried ancient sally. [illustration] long live both empty hives and full, long live dick dean and johnny dull. fytte x. the queen bee's fete. [illustration] the night is warm, and many a nose upturned, is snoring in repose; whilst every tree and every flower rejoices in that witching hour. and o'er john dull his garden beds, the moon her gentle influence sheds. [illustration] 'tis may the first, the queen bee's fãªte! and she, in all her regal state, beneath her fairy hall of roses with her beloved drone reposes. [illustration] she nods a sign; the bombardier awakes the echoes far and near. [illustration] whilst tinkle, tinkle, clang! clang! bang! the court musicians' strain out-rang. the fly he blows the shrill trompette, the gnat the softer clarionette; the grasshopper, a fiddler he- the drummer is the bumble bee.- [illustration] the willow-beetle, such a swell, with young sabina waltzes well; [illustration] liz too and kitty have their swains, who one and all are taking pains to make themselves agreeable, each to his own peculiar belle. [illustration] the stag-beetle, that beau precise, regales his partner with an ice. [illustration] the moon, upon the apple tree, surveys, well pleased, the revelry. [illustration] two cockchafers soon quit the dance; they cannot bear the piercing glance of their fair partners--see them set within a private cabinet. they smoke, they sing, they drink until their little polished paunch they fill. [illustration] their homes they cannot find--alas! they tumble backward on the grass. "to whit" "to whoo" policeman owl, the wisest of all feathered fowl, hoots out; "why here's a precious go," "drunk and incapable, ho! ho!" [illustration] "so come along, i know you well;"- he said, and drove them to his cell. were they discharged? no, never more, that cell it was an abattoir. the owl supped on the elder brother, and for his breakfast ate the other. so you, who think a dance divine, mind--never take excess of wine. [illustration] the evening star went flicker--flick- over the bedroom candlestick; and round its silver radiance shed to light the sleepy moon to bed. * * * * * [illustration] i've done--i doff my riding gear, and order pegasus--his beer. notes on buzz-a-buzz, apiarian, classical, poetical, and nondescript. prelude. hail muse! &c.--an invocation to the muses, both terse and expressive. possibly not quite original, as i have a dim recollection that a certain obscure poet called byron, whose works are now well nigh forgotten, made use of it. peggy.--a name dear to the writer, as that of the first pony which he ever had of his very own--the gift of a kind godfather--of a different sex indeed from pegasus. there is, therefore, some hopes that the breed may have been preserved, but, as far as my experience goes, i may regretfully say, quando ullam inveniam parem. i have, alas, grown stout; and it requires a strong cob to carry twenty stone, and go lively under it as well. such a mount fetches a long price, which does not suit a short purse; and such godfathers, alas! _abierunt ad plures_; their successors give no such gifts to their godchildren. parnassus green.--not at all the same sort of place as paddington green. the latter is now familiarly haunted by our comic song writers, those most dolorous of all funny men. parnassus green stands, from the necessity of rhyme, for green parnassus. hippocrene.--the first horse drinking fountain, and produced, moreover, by a stamp of peggy's hoof. this would be a good subject for a drinking fountain of the present day. i make a present of the idea to any young sculptor who has a commission from one of our merchant princes, and is hard up for a subject. the most approved receipt for developing a poetic temperament was to sleep on parnassus, and drink of hippocrene in the morn. persius has it, "non fonte labra prolui caballino, nec in bicipiti somniasse parnasso memini, ut repente sic poeta prodirem." no more have i; and perhaps some of my readers may say that i should have done better had i waited for a sleep on parnassus, and a drink of hippocrene before i began to write. all i can say is, i hope to take one next year, if i visit greece. fytte i.--_page 1-7._--the fun of this first fytte will be "real nuts" to every bee-master. the whole economy of a hive is viewed from a human stand-point. the sentinels watching with their own stings in their hands as lances; the early labours of the chamber and house maids; the architects setting out the day's work; the swaddling clothes and pap boat for the grub royal; the state of the queen; the idleness of the drones: all is well told, at least in the wood cuts. "pig in the garden strayed around."--_page 8._--a very improper place for pig to take his constitutional walk. the wicket gate which leads to your hives should be always properly secured, or results very different from the fattening of a pig may be produced. for what is possible, though not very probable, see one of the early chapters of maryatt's mr. midshipman easy. "was erst all lean, was now all fat."--_page 10._--the alteration of the animal tissue in consequence of a sting is very wonderful; it is certainly not fat which is deposited. so that this method of getting bacon pigs ready for market, though it would save corn, would not be satisfactory to the bacon curer when he puts his flitches in salt, still less to the cook, when frying a rasher. "fly forth, dear bee, 'tis morn, fly forth."--_page 11._--i shall be obliged to any one of my many friends, skilled in musical composition, if they will set this original bee song. the prelude and refrain offer a fine opportunity for a buzz-a-buzz effect. on receipt of a satisfactory production i will forward to the composer a bound copy of _buzz-a-buzz_, with the translator's autograph. inestimable reward! john dull sits waiting for a swarm.--_page 11._--as i have done for many an hour, and lost the swarm after all. john dull drops asleep whilst watching. i have often ceased watching just as the swarm was about to rise. the bees choose their own time, which is not always that which the bee master would for them. but the whole subject of swarming, and how to regulate it, or prevent it, will be fully treated of in the forthcoming second edition of "my bee book." "this honey thief, this bee-i-cide."--_page 14._--this latter word is the invention of the learned doctor cumming, the times' bee-master. see a most stunning article on his bee-book in the saturday review, the second or third number for december, 1864. the proverbial thickness of a scotchman's skin can alone have preserved him from dying from the effects of this stinging article. "docte commenas utriusque linquoe" say i. "cull a crocus and an auricula."--_page 17._--the last word was indeed a difficult one to hitch into rhyme. it has, however, been, i think, successfully overcome. i might have added another line, and made a triplet, "flowers which her richard loved particular," but i had compassion on the ears of my readers. "the place i cannot more define, "within the limits of a line."--_page 19._ i well remember, when an eton boy, walking in the playing fields with a late revered and beloved prelate, then a fellow of eton, whose memory is dear to every etonian who knew him, as that of a kind friend and finished scholar,--such as alas! seem extinct in these degenerate days. he was living in a picturesque old house, "the warf," now destroyed, that his two sons, then at eton, might still have the benefit of home associations. his daughters, and their french governess, accompanied us in this well-remembered stroll. mademoiselle was very curious as to how the eton boys were punished. she wanted all the details, and asked if they were whipped on their backs. the question made us all look foolish, but dr. l. with a twinkle of his eyes, which marked his appreciation of the _situation_, answered, "a little lower down, mademoiselle, a little lower down." "fetched his bee dress, his hive, his ladder."--_page 23._--a veritable guy mr. dull looks in his defensive armour! a simpler and equally efficient dress may be made of a black net bag, large enough to be drawn over a straw or felt hat, with a brim sufficiently wide to keep the net away from the prominent organ, the nose, and long enough to be buttoned into the bee-master's coat. a couple of elastic bands round the wrists will prevent the bees crawling up his sleeves, the same round the ancles will secure the most timorous bee master. "a lady's dress i cannot pretend to regulate." see "my bee book," where many instances of the effect of stings are given. when swarming, bees are particularly gentle, and never sting, except when some are crushed. a true bee-master will despise such defensive armour, but trust rather to his gentleness and knowledge of the habits of his bees for his immunity from stings. should he be stung, nevertheless, in spite of all precautions, let him instantly extract the sting, and apply a drop of honey to the place. this will immediately allay the smarting pain, and the swelling, except in certain places, as the eye or lip, be trifling. _eau de luce_ as it is commonly called, that is, strong ammonia, is another excellent remedy; a small bottle should be kept in every apiary in the box of "needments." but above all, let the bee-master eschew gloves, specially when delicate operations are to be performed. a cat might as soon expect to catch mice in mittens, as a bee-master to capture a queen with hands encased in, and fingers stiffened by, thick woollen gloves, as recommended by some. "some way i'll find to stop this swarming."--_page 29._--it is not to be done by monster hives, or ventilation, or by adding supers. if the bees will swarm, they will. they are a stiff-necked generation, and know their own business, at least they think so, better than we men can teach it them. our objects, however, are slightly different. their's to propagate and preserve their species: ours to secure the maximum amount of honey in any given locality. i have known a swarm sent forth from a _ruche a l'air libre_, a french hive, which i worked in new zealand. the combs and bees were entirely exposed to the external air, which was not then particularly warm. but a swarm was ready to go, so off they went. for full particulars of this remarkable instance see "my bee book," second edition. to regulate, not to prevent swarming should be the bee-master's aim. more of this hereafter. i here give, by the kindness of mr. alfred neighbour, illustrations of the sort of hive by which alone this can be accomplished, viz., the bar frame hive. originally of german invention, it, with various modifications, has been widely adopted both on the continent and in america; and every bee-master in england who claims the title of scientific, would do well to supply himself at once. each honey comb, it will be seen, is built in a separate bar frame like a picture. they are ranged to the number of 9, 11, or 13, in a strong box, and each is both moveable and interchangeable with those of any other hive. swarming may be checked in any particular stock by cutting out the queen cells. the great production of drones can be regulated by limiting the amount of drone cell in any hive, and altogether prevented by removing it all from a stock hive, about the purity of whose strain there is the least doubt; whilst again, it may be encouraged in a pure blooded stock hive, by inserting at the proper time an additional bar containing drone comb. any man handy with tools may make them for himself at the cost of the materials, and they will last a lifetime. i can supply my friends with as many as they require at half a guinea, for which they pay double or treble in the shops; whilst those who think nothing can be good except it is high-priced, and do not like the trouble of making their own hives, may go to any cost they like. the preceding woodcut represents a hive on this principle, but with certain modifications, which may be obtained of mr. neighbour, 149, regent-street, and will suit the class of bee keepers last mentioned. mr. neighbour has, i may mention, made arrangements for supplying ligurian queens of the greatest purity. [illustration] [illustration] [illustration] "a dancing bear by trade was he, "and honey loved exceedingly."--_page 35._ this "bar" story is an addition to, and improvement on, one which i recollect to have read in some american publication. a man who had dropped into a hollow tree is hoisted up by the same "living ladder." he, if i remember rightly, grasped the hinders of the bear with one hand, and with the other prodded him with his bowie knife, so as to change his descending into an ascending motion. honey cakes.--the french use the word _gateaux_. i wish the name "honey cakes" were universally adopted by bee-masters. it would supply a meaning which the word "comb" does not at all. a honey comb may be as dry as dust, whilst the "honey cake" places before the eyes of the imagination a full comb well sealed over, with here and there a drop of clear honey oozing out, as a sample of the store within. perfectly sealed honey cakes may be kept without deterioration through the winter, by wrapping them up separately in clean writing paper, and then packing them away in a tin, each cake being placed as it stood in the hive. if bar-frame hives are used, the cakes should not be cut away from the frame till wanted; they should be stored away in some close box, fitted to receive them. "and cover him from top to toe."--_page 43._--bee literature contains many instances of persons having been completely enveloped in a swarm of bees, who by remaining perfectly still did not receive a single sting. old thorley, in his [greek: melissologia] tells the story of his maid-servant being so covered in a manner very quaint and charming. perfect quiet under these circumstances is essential to, and will secure, safety; whilst any thing which can enrage 20,000 soldiers, armed with a poisoned dart, may lead to fatal results. since i wrote the above, a story has appeared in the newspapers, and is, i fear a true one, as names, dates and places are given, of a sting having been fatal to a lady accustomed to the management of bees. any person who has this idiosyncrasy had better give bees a wide berth. "i deskiver."--_page 44._--there was evidently a taste of milesian blood in this learned doctor. 'tis fortunate that it was so, for "discover" and "liver" would not rhyme. "brekekekex, coax, coax, "coax, coax, brekekekex."--_page 46._ is the refrain of the well-known chorus in the frogs of aristophanes. any one with an accurate ear, who has been so happy as to assist at a chorus of bull frogs in full song in the sweet spring tide, sacred to love and melody, must have felt how accurately the great comic poet noted down their song. i do not believe that in the two thousand years which have elapsed since that time there has been a single note altered in their love ditty. i have never been in greece, and so cannot testify to the musical powers of the frogs of boeotia; but i have had that pleasure both in spain and in the neighbourhood of constantinople: in both instances under very favourable circumstances, which i will relate. in june, 1855, during the crimean war, i was at constantinople, the guest of lord napier, then chief secretary to the british embassy in that city. he was residing at that lovely place, therapia, the summer retreat of our ambassador and his suite. i had pitched my little tent in a grass meadow, close to lord napier's snug house. his hospitality by day was unbounded, but straitened as he was for room by night, he was not sorry to entertain a guest who delighted in camping out, and brought with him the means of doing so. not fifty yards from my tent was a dark stagnant pool, overshadowed by trees, and every night and all night long the bull frogs, from their reedy habitations, sang "brekekekex, coax, coax," whilst above the water, and in and out of the dark shadows of the trees, the fire flies flickered about in their ever varying gambols. it was as though taglioni, resplendent with jewels, had been dancing her very best to the strains of a scotch bag-pipe. again, i was in the noble town of seville at easter, 1867, twelve years later, during which time i had been hard at work in england, and "no holiday had seen," so by that time i needed one. not a hundred yards from the glorious cathedral, behind the alcazar, the old palace of the moors, is a large orange garden, and in the midst of it a square tank, of moorish work, used for irrigation. the garden was tenanted by a widow woman who owned a dozen or so magnificent stall-fed milch cows, and thither i resorted early every morning, after visiting the cathedral, for the sake of a glass of new milk, and a lesson in spanish from her two little daughters aged respectively nine and ten, incarnacion (the last c pronounced th) and salud. commend me to two chattering little girls, when their shyness has once worn off, as the best teachers of a new language. one glorious morning i was sitting on the edge of the aforesaid tank, inhaling the delicious perfume of the orange blossoms, when a frog struck up his "brekekekex, coax coax" from the still water, and at the same time the air was resonant with the sweet song of the nightingale. i pride myself on knowing somewhat of the languages of birds, beasts, and (fishes? no! they are mutum pecus, but let us say) bull frogs so i listened attentively, and found the nightingale and bull frog, were each of them serenading his own wife, arboreal, and aquatic. each wife thought her husband the very best singer in the world: that not a note of his song could be altered for the better; and both nightingale and bull frog thought the other singer a bore. i noted down the whole of this musical contest at the time. it is quite in the way of one of virgil's amoeboean bucolics. not corydon and thyrsis, but batrachos and philomela were contending for the prize. it is too long to insert here, but may be had of my publishers, under the title of "bull frog and nightingale;" an apologue, price 6d. but the sum of the whole matter is this: i do not believe, "pace darwinii nostri dicatur," that natural selection, and conjugal preference has had the effect of altering or improving the nightingale's song in the last two thousand years. it could not be louder or better, and i trust may last my time unchanged, whilst on the evidence of aristophanes' chorus we know that bull frogs, then, as now, sang "brekekekex, coax, coax," _and that song only_. the honey pot.--_page 47-52._--this fytte, comical as it is in itself, is particularly valuable as instructing the untravelled britisher in the peculiarities of a german bedstead; far too short for all who have not by some procrustoean process been reduced to the normal height of five feet, no inches! the upper sheet sown to the coverlid, with no possibility of tucking it in, and liable to fall off the sleeper altogether. no blankets, but a mountain of feather-bed piled above, which either stifles you in summer, or rolling off, leaves you to freeze in the winter. yet in such a bed as this what wonderful positions mr. dull managed to assume under the influence of fear. imitate him, my gentle reader, if you are still young and active, and then you will appreciate his contortions. "a honey thief, ill may he thrive."--_page 55._--every bee keeper will echo this wish. i know no sight more piteous than an apiary the night after it has been plundered. light hives upset, and lying, with the combs all broken, on the ground. the bees crawling about in wild confusion around their violated homes, lately so neat, and now the very picture of desolation. in vain they attempt to repair the damage which the spoiler's hand has created; whilst the stands where the heavy stocks stood the evening before, are one and all tenantless. many devices to protect hives from robbers have been tried. wooden boxes are tightly screwed to the bottom board from below, whilst the bottom board itself is strongly bolted to the stand. this will indeed protect a hive from anything but a powerful crow bar. but the remedy is worse than the disease, as it prevents your ever changing or cleaning the bottom board, and is, in many ways, inconvenient. the best preservative i can think of is to have a savage dog, savage to all but his master, with a strong chain, not fastened to his kennel, but ending in an iron ring, which can slide along a small pole placed horizontally about a foot from the ground in front of the hives. i have seen this mode of defence adopted in germany for the protection of the valuable leech ponds, which are there fattened for the market. it answers for the defence of leeches, and if so, why not for bees. "many a nose, upturned, was snoring in repose."--_page 66._--my readers will doubtless remember, as i confess to have done when penning the above line, the opening of southey's thalaba, and the inimitable parody thereof in the rejected addresses. when a thing has been done excellently well, it is folly to again attempt the same with a certainty of failure before our eyes. we verse makers do not steal from each other; we are all one brotherhood, and _corbies nae pike out corbies e'en_. but we convey--_conveys_ the word, says glorious will. "and between them bore, "the felon to the prison door."--_page 66._ this mode of removing a captive would have suited that extinct species of our protective force, that of the dogberry and verges order, and may be recommended to our new police as more merciful, and less grating to the feelings of a prisoner than the present mode of "running a man in;" especially as they generally get hold of the wrong person. a police sedan would enable the innocent captive to conceal his features from the tail of little boys and idle quidnuncs, specially if he were carried like our honey thief head downwards. the last chapter is like the first, written in the style of the butterfly's ball and the grasshopper's feast, and is, it seems to me, no less admirable. if i pride myself on anything in this translation it is on the concluding lines: "the evening star went flicker--flick- over the bedroom candlestick; and round its silver radiance shed to light the sleepy moon to bed." "i've done i doff my riding gear, "and order pegasus--his beer."--_page 72._ baierische bier is infinitely superior to any hippocrene. but no drink in the world can hold a candle to genuine "wienische bier," as it comes cool drawn from the cellar. the romans knew not beer, and so had to put up with "falernian," or even the "vile coecubum." i say put up, for the wine that now goes by the name of falernian is detestable. i suppose, however, that two thousand years ago it was far more carefully made, as i trust it may again be in "italia unita." the romans, knew not beer, but the greeks had tasted it, though brewed by the hands of barbarians. in xenophon's retreat of the ten thousand we are told that they came upon a race of people from whom they got [greek: hek krithã´n methu.] let us then leave pegasus to enjoy his drink of barley wine, though like baron munchausen's famous steed, he hath not the wherewithal to stow away his beer. my dear old peggy, alluded to in the first of this series of notes, and therefore the fittest subject for a wind up, was, when hard worked, very fond of a quart of good ale, with half a quartern loaf broken into it; she would drink up the ale at a draught, then quickly munch the sop, and start with fresh vigour for another ten-mile trot. corrigenda. the reader is asked to excuse the following errors, excusable--as for the sake of having its original wood blocks, the work, with the exception of the notes, was printed abroad. page 6, for _'ts_ read _t'is_. page 35 should be- "but every sweet-toothed school-boy knows, he can't eat honey with his toes." page 36, for _hinder's_ read _hinders_. page 70, for _ap le tree_ read _apple tree_. phillipson and golder, printers, chester. bee hunting a book of valuable information for bee hunters--tell how to line bees to trees, etc. by john r. lockard published by a. r. harding, publisher columbus, ohio copyright 1908 by a. r. harding pub. co. contents i. bee hunting ii. early spring hunting iii. bees watering--how to find them iv. hunting bees from sumac v. hunting bees from buckwheat vi. fall hunting vii. improved method of burning viii. facts about line of flight ix. baits and scents x. cutting the tree and transferring xi. customs and ownership of wild bees xii. benefactors and their inventions xiii. bee keeping for profit some memories of bee hunting i was born in a little valley, hemmed in by mountains running north and south on either side. it varies in width from one to three miles from the foot of one range to the other. from my home i have a clear view of these beautiful mountains and, as these mountains and lowlands teemed with game of all kind, and being heavily timbered, made an ideal location for the home of the wild bee. from early youth i loved to lure the wild turkey, stalk the deer and line the bee to his home. is it any wonder that after forty years of undiminished passion for sports of this kind that i can truthfully say there is scarcely a square rod of these mountains that is not indelibly impressed on my mind in connection with some of the above mentioned sports or pastimes? i will confine myself in this work to the subject of bee hunting, believing it to be one of the most fascinating and beneficial of pastimes. preface in the preparation of this work, it has been my aim to instruct the beginner in the art of bee hunting, rather than offer suggestions to those who have served an apprenticeship at the fascinating pastime. i do not wish to leave the impression that i think others who have made this a study do not know enough on the subject to give suggestions; far from it. but to be candid with each other, as lovers of nature and her ways should be, even though we be veterans in the business, by an exchange of ideas we can always learn something new and of value. many books on sports of various kinds have been written, but outside of an occasional article in periodicals devoted to bee literature, but little has been written on the subject of bee hunting. therefore, i have tried, in this volume, bee hunting for pleasure and profit, to give a work in compact form, the product of what i have learned along this line during the forty years in nature's school room. brother, if in reading these pages you find something that will be of value to you, something that will inculcate a desire for manly pastime and make your life brighter, then my aim will have been reached. i am very truly yours, john r lockard. bee hunting chapter i. an old bee hunter. the bee hunters in my early days used one of two methods in hunting the bee. the hunter would select a clear day, generally during buckwheat bloom, and after determining on a course, sun them to the tree. this was done by placing the hat or hand between the eye and sun as close to the light as the eye would permit. if the hunter knew the difference between the flight of a loaded bee and an unloaded one he would keep on the course until the tree was located. this method must undoubtedly be injurious to the eyes and i do not follow this plan nor advise others to do so. the other method was what was termed burning or baiting. a fire was built near where the bee tree was supposed to be, large flat sand stones were placed on the fire and heated. one of these was removed to some place clear of trees and underbrush, some bee-comb, dampened with water, was then placed on the stone, and when the fumes of the comb would go off into the air any bees flying near were apt to be enticed to the bait, which was sprinkled on a bunch of bushes and laid near the stone. many bees were found in this way, but if they went any great distance two or more fires had to be built. this would require much time and often the hunter, not being careful in extinguishing the fire, the surrounding leaves would catch fire and a destructive forest fire would result. therefore it shall be my aim to eliminate anything of an injurious or objectionable nature in the work i lay before the reader. on a calm morning in the early part of november, i went to the top of the mountain west of my home. the day was an ideal one. the trees had shed their leaves, making a thick carpet over the earth. it seemed that all nature was getting ready for a long winter sleep. all flowers except a few bunches of mountain goldenrod were dead. the bees seemed to be aware that their labors were about ended and were eagerly looking for anything in shape of sweets that would add to their store of supplies and thus help to tide over the long winter. after arriving at the top of the mountain i built a fire, heated a large flat stone and took some bee comb and proceeded to follow the example before mentioned. after watching quite a long time and not seeing any bees i was on the point of giving it up, at this place at least, when that sound so delightful to the ear of the bee hunter, the silvery tone of the bee in flight, came to my ear. several times the sound was repeated but so far i had not got a sight of it. on looking over the top of the bushes i saw two bees flying slowly, sometimes coming near the bait, then darting away, then returning and finally settling down on the bait. all was anxiety! i must be sure to see these two bees take their homeward flight. in a very short time one of them slowly raised from the bait, circled a time or two, and then darted away so quickly that i knew not where. now the other one won't escape me so easily. but when i turned to look, she, too, was gone. in a short time they were back and lots of others close behind. in a half hour there must have been a quart of bees on the bait. by this time i had seen a number of bees fly due west and some due east. so taking another hot stone and going some distance on the course west, i put the stone down, burnt more comb, and in a few minutes had lots of bees. they still continued westward. the next time i stopped where a swamp extended from the top of the mountain back some two hundred yards. there were many large gum trees growing in this swamp. after a while i was convinced that the bees flew at right angles from the former course. leaving the bait i went into the swamp and found them going into a large gum tree about twenty feet from the ground. my spirits were high, this being the first bee i had ever found entirely by myself. taking out my knife and going up to the tree to put my initials thereon, my spirits fell as suddenly as they had risen. there in plain view were the letters i. w. the spirit of selfishness then showed itself. what right had anyone to take this bee from me? i had almost come to the point of thinking i had a monopoly in the bee hunting business and that others had no right to intrude. i trust others do not show this spirit and am sure i have got rid of it myself. if there is any pleasure or benefit to be derived from anything, god certainly intends it for all. the initials would not correspond with the name of anyone i knew, but supposed that some time i would find out who i. w. was. now the bee that flew east could be looked for, but what was the use? hadn't the best bee hunters in the country tried to find it and failed? beyond a certain point all trees disappeared. this was the only italian bee known to be in a radius of ten miles and it was not a great while after their introduction into this country. so taking my way to the top of the mountain near the edge of the swamp, i was surprised to find a cabin, and from indication it had just been built. on going up to the door my eye fell on the occupant, a man well up in years. in one corner was a number of steel traps. in another a rifle of the then modern type. these signs told me that a new hunter had taken up his abode among us. he told me to be seated and moved over on the rude bench to make room for me. he began by asking me what i was doing out on the mountain, and as i was so young, no doubt had an idea that i was lost. i told him that i was bee hunting and had found one but some one had found it before i had, and that the initials i. w. were cut on the tree. turning to me he said, "you don't know who that stands for? well, young man, i kin tell you. i. w. stands for ike ward, and that's me. the little fellers come sippin' around my cabin and i give 'em a little sweet water and found 'em in a jiffy." i then told him of the italian bee. he asked me why i didn't find it. the reply was that the very best bee hunters in the country had tried it and failed and i supposed it would be of no use for me to try it. "well, they must be great bee hunters; why, young man, i would rather undertake to find a bee than ketch a rabbit in a good trackin' snow. the rabbit might jump up and run away, but after i get my bee started, he's mine." it was getting well along in the afternoon and i told him i must go home. "well, your folks might think something has happened to you and i won't ask ye to stay any longer; but come up again and we will find that yaller bee." i thanked him and asked when it would suit him to go. "you kin come any time you keer to, but ye'd better come early when you do come, fer i might be out scoutin' round and not be home." that proposed bee hunt was the only thing thought of on my way home, the only thought that went with me to my bed, and in my dreams i saw the most beautiful yellow bees in the world on combs of snowy whiteness, some of them as large as a door. early the next morning, before the sun had shown himself to the people down in the valley, i was far on my way up the mountain on my way to the hunter's cabin. great drops of sweat were standing all over my face, but i never slackened my pace until i heard the cheering "good morning" from the old hunter at the cabin. "jist come and rest yerself. it's a little too early fer bees to fly yit." i replied that i wasn't tired. "when i was your age i didn't get tired either, but if you get to be as old as me you won't walk so fast up hill; you're all a lather of sweat." about an hour later we went out to where i had first baited the bees. i began to gather wood to start a fire and burn for them again. "what are ye goin' to do with that wood?" was his inquiry. on being informed that this was the way i got them to bait, he chuckled to himself and said he would show me a better and easier way. he then took a handkerchief from his pocket, then a small bottle containing something that was of a fluid form, and sprinkled the handkerchief with it. he then got a pole eight or ten feet long and put the cloth on one end, raised it as high in the air as he could, moving it back and forth in the breeze. very soon hundred of bees were darting through the air. the pole was slowly lowered until the handkerchief rested on the ground, sweetened water was sprinkled on some bushes, and in a few minutes the yellow bees were flying east and the black ones found previously flying west. this was a very simple, but a new departure from the mode followed in those days. he explained to me that the little vial contained water, with a few drops of the oil of anisseed added, and there were other scents perhaps better, but this being the only kind he had at that time was the reason for using it. we went directly east on the course four or five hundred yards. this brought us to the top of the mountain and to a large rock that was fully one hundred feet from the ground at the base to the top. from this rock we had a clear view of the valley below. the eastern side of the mountain was very hilly, and covered with a dense growth of trees, and farther down, this forest never hearing the sound of the woodman's ax, became so dense that the sun could scarcely find an opening to the earth. the cloth was sprinkled with more of the scent, waved a few times in the air, and laid beside the bait, which was composed of sugar and water, on the rock. bees came in abundance. very soon we could see some bees, heavily loaded, circle around and dart off down, down, until lost to our sight. others would fly both north and south along the top, making three distinct courses. the old hunter watched these different flights for a considerable time, then going some distance along the top, and after a short time came back saying, "just as i expected. these fly out there, make a turn, and come back to join the course that flies straight down. now come with me out the other way and we will see if the others don't do the same." sure enough! taking our station some fifty yards from the bait we could see them coming heavily loaded, bend down and back toward the main course. "i have found many bees in my time, young man, an' never saw one act this way unless the tree was close. they act like they don't want to leave that rock; but we will go down and look at some of that timber." as all the timber far below had been looked at many times in the past i thought it useless but did not say so. after looking at the nearest trees below, those farther down were examined. the morning had been cloudy but now the sun was bright and clear. the hunter placed his hand before his eyes and gazing up at the sun said he "never saw sich actin'; they seem to come right toward the ground. i have found 'em in queer places but never in the ground." just then a bee lit on some leaves in front of me. i called his attention to it. "now ain't it a beauty? poor little fellow; got too heavy a load an' has to rest. now watch sharp; when he goes he will likely fly straight." in a short time he slowly raised, made a half circle, darted down the mountain, and was lost to me. not so with my companion. stooped low, his arm thrust forward as though guiding the bee in its flight, he slowly turned his arm, still following, until he was pointing straight up the hill. "as sure as my name is ike ward that bee flew up the hill, and just as sure its home is there, too." up the hill he went, looking more carefully at every tree, until the last tree below the rock had been reached. i was on the upper side of this tree and was almost sure that it must be in this one. the old hunter was on the lower side, gazing intently up the hill toward the rock. for some time he stood thus, then said, "you had better look behind you if you want to find the yaller bee." on turning round i saw a steady stream of bees going in and coming out from the very base of the rock. the mystery was a mystery no longer. they had baffled all the bee hunters in the community for three years, but at last they gave up the secret of their hidden home to ike ward. taking a piece of paper and writing thereon these words: "this bee was found by ike ward and pard; if any person find it please don't mislest it." he laid the paper above the entrance of the bees, and, laying a stone on it to keep it in place, we ended this our first bee-hunt together. this was only one of the many delightful trips which i took with the hunter, only one of the many valuable lessons received from him on this fascinating pastime. he has long since passed away, but the book of nature was open to him at all times and with a spirit that had no taint of selfishness in it, was always ready to impart knowledge to others. chapter ii. early spring hunting. bees are very fond of salt in the early spring, and, in fact, in all parts of the season when brood rearing is in progress. now we will start out some fine spring morning, take a hatchet or an ax and a polk of salt, and we will go up on the side of the mountain and chop out a little trough large enough to hold a quart or more, then sprinkle a little water, scented with oil of anise or bergamont, on the outside of this trough, then put a few corncobs and a handful of salt in the trough and place the trough in the fork of a small tree out of the way of any stock that may be pasturing in the woods. our work is now done at this place. we can go on and put out several of these baits along the mountain. the first rain that comes will fill the trough, dissolve the salt, which will soak into the corncobs, and the scent which we placed on the outside of the trough will entice any bees that may be flying. after this we go home and a day or so after the first good rain that comes, we will go back and the chances are that we will have several good courses. now we will cover the trough over with a bunch of leaves--green boughs--and sprinkle these freely with sweetened water. take a pint bottle, fill it one-fourth full of granulated sugar and fill up with water. this is better than more sugar, for when the syrup is too thick it requires more time for the bees to load up and if too thick, in a short time the bushes become sticky. after several bees have loaded up and gone home, we will take a cloth and saturate it with the same scent used on the trough, then take the bait--bunch of bushes--with us on the course, hunt a place as free from timber as possible and lay out bait on the top of a bush, the cloth beside it, and in a short time we should have plenty of bees. after determining on the course the same tactics are pursued until we arrive at the tree, or, if we have good reason to believe the bee stands in any certain group of trees and we fail to find the tree, to make sure that our ideas are correct we will move our bait off to one side of the original course and thus get a cross course, and at the junction of the first line of flight and this second line, the bees must certainly have their home. we must look at every tree with the utmost care, for it is a very easy matter to overlook a bee tree, even experienced bee hunters have done this. but if we take time to examine a tree from all sides we should always be able to locate them. chapter iii. bees watering. how to find them. as soon as the bees begin to stir in the spring they go searching around for water, for this is one essential element in brood-rearing. early in the season the ground is generally so full of water that bees are not confined to any certain place in order to get the amount needed. but later in the season, when the ground has dried off and wet weather springs have dried up, if we go into the woods along the mountain and visit the never-failing springs sure to be found in the hollows and low flat places, we will be pretty sure to find bees at some of these places. it is not often that bees are numerous enough at these springs to make what would be termed a strong course, but by following the plan which i here give, you can, in a short space of time, have all the bees necessary, with no danger of having bees from other trees or from our neighbors' stands, which would make a mix-up, and make it much harder for us to follow the bee that is watering. when we go on a trip of this kind first we will provide ourselves with a small glass tumbler; a cover, made of some dark heavy material, long enough so that when slipped over the glass it will come within one-fourth of an inch of the open end. then we will take a few drops of honey in a small vial, the scent, cloth, and bait of sugar and water mentioned previously. when we find the bees watering we take the glass, without cover, and place it over the bee, which will immediately try to fly and finding himself a prisoner, will crawl around the upper part of the glass. previous to this a few drops of the honey were placed on a piece of cardboard or large leaf. then we lift the glass and place the hand under to prevent the bee escaping and place it on the cardboard or leaf. now place the black hood over it and watch the result. there is but one place for light to enter and this is the narrow opening at lower end of cover. in a moment the bee can be seen crawling around the bottom, sometimes reaching down to the cardboard. now he has found a drop of the honey and seemingly forgets his sad plight of a moment ago and proceeds to take a meal. the glass is lifted gently off, the dark thick cover preventing him from seeing our hand. as soon as he is loaded he starts and circles many times and then goes home, and in some manner that we can't explain, tells others of what delicious sweets he has found. no more water for that bee; he is bound to come back and search for more honey. we can go and catch as many bees as we think it necessary, but generally five or six would be ample. then the scented cloth is placed on the ground, a bunch of green bushes laid on the spot where the cardboard had been sprinkled freely with sweetened water, and we are soon ready to start on the course, following the instructions given in previous chapter. chapter iv. hunting bees from sumac. sumac begins to bloom about the first of july and continues through the month. it is unquestionably the greatest source of honey in the country in which i live. from the time the dew is off until dusk the bee is busy on it. every old worn-out field is plentifully supplied with it and a different variety is found growing in small patches all over the mountains. i have found more bee trees by the plan now given than perhaps any other. we will visit some of these places and select a spot where there are a few bunches near together, if no more than a half dozen bunches the better. now having our bottle containing bait prepared, let us select two or three bunches standing close together and sprinkle them freely with the bait, then break off all others standing near. at first the bees will fly around as if they don't like to light on the wet bushes but the ones that were used to getting honey from these flowers may visit other flowers and fly away, but they are sure to come back, and, after taking a sip, finding it a quicker method of getting a load of sweets, settle down to business and in a short space of time adapt themselves to the new order of things and are soon on their way home, never failing to return, bringing others along. keeping the bushes well supplied with bait, we will soon discover a course and perhaps two or more. then take the scented cloth, lay it near the bait, and after ten or fifteen minutes break these bushes off a foot or more below the flowers and we are ready to start on the course. after going two or three hundred yards, select a place clear of trees so that they can fly on their course without being compelled to fly around timber, lay the scent cloth near by, and in five or ten minutes you will have plenty of bees, or, we may be going on the line of flight and find the bees suddenly cease to come to bait. this is an unfailing sign that we have passed the tree or are very close to it. chapter v. hunting bees from buckwheat. during buckwheat bloom, which occurs in the month of august and early part of september, many bees are found. some hunters line them to the tree by sunning. this method requires a very clear day and unless the hunter thoroughly understands this art, knows an unloaded bee from a loaded one, he is not apt to be very successful. besides this fact i have known many hunters to so injure their eyesight as to become, in old age, partially blind and perhaps altogether so. i, myself, have found many bees in this way and feel certain that my eyesight has been injured, but am very thankful that i discarded this method many years ago. bees do their work on buckwheat from the time the dew is leaving until near noon; and on a hot, clear day but few bees, if any, will be found working on it after 12 m. one of the greatest elements of success in hunting bees by the baiting method is to use a scent that is the same as the flower the bee is working on. therefore, gather some of the flowers of the buckwheat and have them distilled, or, if this is out of the question, put some of the flowers in a quart jar, say half full, well packed down, then just cover with diluted alcohol and let it stand a few days and you have an ideal scent to use at this particular time. after getting a course from a field of buckwheat, about ten or half-past ten go on the course, and when you come to a place clear of underbrush and no large trees to bother the flight of bees, sprinkle some of the scent mentioned above on some leaves and near the scent place a bunch of bushes sprinkled with bait made by filling a pint bottle one-fourth full of honey, one-fourth of granulated sugar and one-half water. many bees, at this time of day, are going to and fro from the field. some of them find nectar harder to get than it was an hour before and some fly on the homeward journey lightly loaded. they are beginning to lose faith in the buckwheat field and these are the very ones that detect the scent first. others are becoming dissatisfied as these first ones did--one rubs against another, and in bee language tells that he has found something mighty good down in the bushes, and by the time the bait is licked up we should have a direct course from this location and be ready to repeat the operation farther on the course. the next time the bait is put down we should have plenty of bees in not more than ten minutes, and if they are tardy about coming, providing we had a fair amount at the first location, we have either passed the tree, are nearly under it, or have gone far off the course. chapter vi. fall hunting. the main sources of the honey supply are now over, and if the methods given in the preceding chapters are followed it is necessary for us to get out on the mountains or fields far distant from home apiaries and look for the few flowers that have escaped killing frosts. a few bunches of mountain goldenrod are found here and there scattered over the mountain-side. a white flower, growing on a stem about two feet in height, is also found in many locations. i am unable to give the botanical name of this latter flower, but every bee hunter who has had much experience has seen many bees on it when other flowers have ceased to exist or have been rendered useless by frosts, as a source of honey. if but a few of these flowers are found growing together and a few bees are seen on them, sprinkle freely with bait before described, and in a short time you will find ten bees to where there was one at first. now if you start them from goldenrod, scent of almost anything used in bee hunting will serve to draw them on the course; but essence of goldenrod is far superior at this season of the year. as i have before stated, a scent should be used to conform as nearly as possible to the scent of the flower the bee is working on at any particular time. it would be a superfluity to explain any farther, as the same tactics must be followed as described earlier in this work. chapter vii. the latest improved method of burning. we now come to the time of the year when all flowers, by the laws of nature, cease to bloom. indian summer is here with its nice balmy days. just right--not too warm not yet too cool. the very time when even those of us who are getting up in years begin to feel young again. how sad it would be to the one who loves nature and her ways to be obliged to lay aside all thought of sport until nature unfurled her robes again! some of the happiest moments of my life have come during this part of the year, and i hope to be able to convince my readers that we should always say "welcome" to the aged year. well do i remember when i used to go along with the old hunter in search of the bee. a fire would be made, some large fiat stones heated and carried to a convenient place, then bee comb moistened with water, placed on them and soon bees would be seen darting through the air. some might settle on the bait, but if not enough to satisfy the hunter, another hot stone was brought, and the process repeated until there were enough bees working on the bait to give a strong course. then taking another hot stone and going a long ways on the course we would proceed to burn again. perhaps the stone had cooled off by this time and the bee failed to come quickly or in sufficient numbers. then we had to either go back, replenish the fire, heat more stones, or build another fire at the new location. carrying the hot stones from place to place was the work generally assigned to me. sometimes stones of a slaty nature would be heated and when becoming quite hot would burst with a loud report and fly in all directions. at that time i would just about as soon approach a loaded cannon. after twisting a stick around the stone it was carried at arm's length to the new location and with sweat streaming down my face i was glad when the time came to lay it down. this was undoubtedly laborious, but the excitement connected with the sport was at such a pitch that the thought of labor being in any way connected with bee hunting never entered my mind. but as time wore on i got to thinking that there might be other plans much easier and quicker than the one described, and i feel sure that those who love the sport will agree that the plan laid before the readers is in every way superior to the old method. first get a small tin pail, holding about a half gallon. cut out, from the bottom upwards, a hole four or five inches up and down and two inches wide. have a pan made so that it will fit down inside the pail just deep enough to come down to upper edge of the hole cut out of pail. there should be a rim on top part of the pan to prevent it working lower down than the hole in the pail. now get a miner's lamp, which will not cost more than from fifteen to twenty-five cents. coal oil can be used but lard oil is much better, and better than either of these is alcohol. a small lamp suitable for burning this can be purchased at a small cost. now you are ready to start out. take some refuse honey and your bottle of bait, get far out on the mountains, so there will be little danger of drawing bees from apiaries that may be situated in the valleys. when a suitable place is found, clear of underbrush and no large trees to bother the bees when starting for home, set pail down, put some of the honey in the upper part of the pail (or pan), strike a match, touch it to the wick of the lamp. the spout of the lamp should come within about two inches of the bottom of the pan. the honey begins to boil immediately and sends its scent out over the mountains. a few drops of the oil of anise and bergamont mixed can be dropped into the pan, and a bunch of bushes held over the fumes until it is scented. this is then laid on the top of a bush or stump close by and sprinkled with bait. by this time bees may be heard darting through the air or seen hunting slowly through the bushes in search of something to eat. it is a very good plan to blow the lamp out when the first bees are flying around. the scent is strong all around and when the lamp is blown out the scent soon dies out except near the bait and the bees find the bait much sooner than if the lamp was kept burning. there may be plenty of bees to start with from the first burning and if not, all we have to do is to light the lamp again. if you have your course and are about to start, it only requires a second of time to pick up the burning apparatus and the bunch of bushes and start on the course. but for fear you may be only a beginner and make a mistake which might discourage you, i want to have a little talk with you before starting from the first location. in reading articles relating to bee hunting, some of the writers tell how, after loading up, the bees would circle round and round before starting on the homeward journey. i believe i have seen a few bees make a complete circle. i have seen hundreds of thousands that did not. as a rule when a bee raises from the bait it will act as though it intends to circle, but watch closely and you find before coming around to the place of starting it will quickly turn in the opposite direction, repeating this several times--always widening out. it will seem to fall far back with a downward motion, then gather up and come slowly back, often passing to the opposite side of the bait and making a sudden motion, is lost to sight. this fact might make you think the bee really went in this direction. i want to stake my reputation as a bee hunter of years of experience, that when a bee is seen to make these half circles on one side of the bait and seem to fall off in any direction, bearing down toward the earth, that this is the general direction in which the tree stands, and if i can see a bee make a few of these half circles (though it may be the first one on the bait), it settles the matter in my mind as to the general direction of the tree. but even if our minds are made up in regard to this line of flight, it is wise to take more time and watch closely, for there is no good reason why we should not get two or possibly more courses from this first location. then go on the strongest course until we find the tree and then come back and start on the others. in going on the course don't fail to look well at every tree, for sometimes they are found in very small trees when there are lots of large ones standing all around. i will give my experience in finding a bee that has taught me to look at every thing on the course, not even discarded stumps, logs and bushes, for i have found bees in the two former and hanging on the latter. in early november i had a strong course from bait. they flew directly up on the side of the mountain. the course flew over a large barren thicket and after looking at the timber on the lower edge of the barrens, the bait was moved across the thicket. there were a few chestnut trees standing between the upper edge and the place i selected to bait them again. soon they came and flew back down. i was sure they must be in one of the trees mentioned, for there was nothing growing in the thicket large enough for a bee to go in. after looking at the few trees spoken of and not finding them, i went back down to the lower edge and could see them fly nearly half way across the thicket. i was puzzled, and proceeded to look at the few logs that were laying down and still failed to locate them. my next move was to hang my burning bucket on a limb and burn. in no time there were bees by the quart on the bait, flying in all directions. singling out some of the steady flying ones, they seemed to fly a short distance, and drop into the brush. on investigating, i found them hanging on a little bush, working away as though they had the best place in the world to store their honey. they had evidently been there for a long time as they had several good sized combs fastened to the bush. i knew they were bound to perish, for cold weather was coming on, so i told a friend where to find it, and gave it to him with the understanding that he was to hive it, putting the combs and brood in the hive. the above is mentioned to prove that bees are sometimes found in places out of the ordinary, and in closing this part of my work i want to impress you with the fact that it always pays to go slow and look well while on the course. * * * note--if not convenient and a vessel of the kind described (for burning) cannot be had, any small tin pail will do without cutting out the hole for lamp. a couple of stones laid on the ground a few inches apart will make a place for the lamp and the bucket placed over it on the stones, although the first mentioned will be found more convenient. chapter viii. some facts about line of flight. you have all heard the term "bee line" used, and naturally infer that it means a straight line. this was what i believed it to be in my earlier days, but from numerous observations i am led to believe that the terms "bee line" and "straight line" are in some cases incompatible. if the line of flight is over ground unbroken by hills and hollows, a bee will fly as straight home after loading up as anything having wings can. but in following a course through a wooded country, along the side of hills or mountains containing ridges and deep hollows, the line of flight deviates far from a straight line. to illustrate and prove the above assertion, i will here give an incident in connection with bee hunting that occurred not many years ago, and which goes to prove that bees do not always fly in a perfectly straight line. east of my home about one mile there is a mountain extending north and south. along the foot of this mountain, a stream, known as sideling hill creek, runs the entire length of the valley. the mountain extending up from this creek is made up of ridges and hollows. a friend of mine, one day in july, found bees watering along the creek and nearly east of my home. the bees flew south with the creek along the foot of the mountain. after trying to find them, (consuming two days' time in the attempt), he came for me to help him out, telling me that he had looked at every tree near the course for a distance of a mile. it was a very finely marked italian bee, and being anxious to find and hive it, offered to pay me for my time whether we found the bee or not. i asked him if he had baited them at the water. he said he had tried but not a bee could be induced to take bait. my time being limited just then, i told him i would get them to bait for him and after this he certainly could find it himself. "oh, yes, that's all i ask," he replied. going with him, i used the method described in an early chapter entitled "hunting the bee from water." in a short space of time i had lots of them loading up and flying south along the creek. about a half mile on the course an old clearing ran up some distance on a ridge, and the course seemed to go about midway through it. my instructions were to put the bait on this place, as it was clear of all bushes that might bother him from getting a direct course, and after giving all necessary instruction i went home and awaited results. the next evening he told me he had gone into the old field and, as the bees were a little slow in coming to the bait, he built a fire and proceeded to burn and got bees in abundance, still flying on the same course; then moving the bait much farther on the course to another old field, found that they continued on the same line of flight; and from this last location followed them in sight of a house, the owner having thirty stands of bees, thus convincing him that the bees all had come from this apiary. but i was convinced he had overlooked the bees started with, for these reasons: this apiary was two miles from where the bees watered; the same stream flowed near by the apiary--there were many springs near and water in abundance all along the course. then the clearing first mentioned had lots of sumac growing in it; many bees from the apiary were working on this and other flowers, and by burning, these bees were enticed to the bait in such numbers that the few that may have been on bait from the tree were not noticed by an inexperienced hunter. after telling him of my suspicions, he was the more anxious that i should go along with him again and see for myself that there was no wild bee on the course. i was equally anxious to prove to him that there was. so the following morning found us in the old field where he had first placed the bait. taking my bottle containing bait. i sprinkled some on a bunch of bushes left there the day previous. this was all that was required and the bees that had been having a feast at this location the day before soon found it out and eagerly settled down for another feast. it seemed that the whole apiary had swarmed out and come to the bait--hundreds were soon flying towards this apiary. here my friend ventured to ask if i was not convinced that they went to the apiary. i had been watching very close and knew very well that the majority of the bees did go there, but i had also seen a few bees fly a short distance on the course and bear off to the left. i said nothing about this at the time, thinking it best to be positive before giving a final opinion. there was a deep hollow running up from the opposite side of the clearing and getting in a more favorable position i could see many bees bear off from the main course and go up to the hollow. now i was ready to tell him he had been outwitted by the bees. calling him to me, i showed him the bees flying up the hollow. we then moved the bait about one hundred yards farther up and found that they still went on up. we left the bait and proceeded to look at the timber. finally one hundred yards above this last place there was a large white pine standing on the left side of the hollow and not over ten feet from the ground they were pouring in, in a steady stream, pure golden italians. was he convinced this was the bee we had started with from the watering place? no, not at all. it was too far from the course. i told him we would cut it and take it home, and if bees still continued to water at the same location i would give in. the bee was cut next day and taken home and all watering ceased at that place. this was evidence enough for him and proved to him, as it must to every one, that under certain conditions bees will vary very much from a straight line of flight. chapter ix. baits and scents. in rambling through the woods and over the mountains i have seen bee hunters using bait with the oil of anise in it, or perhaps a bait containing several different scents. they did not seem to know, nor care, that bait containing these oils was injurious to bees; but the fact is well known that they are injurious--not to our neighbor's bees alone, but to the ones we are trying to find. therefore, never combine baits with scents of any kind. the former is intended to furnish feed for the bee, and when loaded will always start for the home. the latter is used as a means of getting them to come to bait. there are many different scents used for enticing the bee to bait. some hunters prefer oil of anise, others use bergamont; then some combine these or other scents. but bear in mind that what should be used ought to conform as nearly as possible in scent to the main source of nectar at any particular season of the year. in preparing these scents, take an ounce of the oil you may prefer, put it into a pint bottle and fill bottle one-fourth full of alcohol; let it stand a few days and then fill up with water. this would make sufficient scent to last any one for several years. a small vial can be filled and taken along--even an ounce vial will last several trips; or a few drops of the oil can be put into a bottle and water added, but as water will not cut the oil, it remains insoluble and when the bottle is turned in order that the mixture will run out, it often happens that our scent (after using a time or two) is no good, the oil having disappeared. but by cutting the scent with alcohol, the last drop will be just as strongly scented as the first. i have used about all the different scents known to bee hunters and oil of anise was my standby for many years. i found bergamont to be good. horse mint, goldenrod, and many other oils and scents were used at some particular time of the year, but the most powerful and lasting scent i ever used was oil of sweet clover. having run out of the oil and not knowing where to get it without sending to some drug house, i bought a toilet preparation labled "essence of sweet clover," and found it filled the bill. a few drops were spilled on my sleeve and in going on a course this was all that was needed. if i stopped but a moment, my arm was covered with bees. i don't advocate the use of the hunting-box for bee hunting. i tried them long ago and found the method slow and uncertain. in carrying my box from one location to another and releasing the imprisoned bees i would always see them circle around and light on a leaf and consume from five minutes to a half hour in cleaning themselves up and when they did depart, there was no assurance that they would come back. however, some hunters must meet with better success than i have had in hunting by the box method, and to those i would say, if bringing the bees to your box is what you want, just rub a few drops of the oil of sweet clover on the side of your box and that part of finding the bee is done. it is hardly necessary to say more about baits. my views have been given in the earlier chapters on bee hunting. a few drops of pure honey is perhaps the best that can be used in starting the bees on bait, but as soon as several have loaded with the honey, sprinkle your bunch of bushes which you intend to carry on the course with a bait made by filling a bottle one-fourth full of pure granulated sugar, then a little honey and filling the bottle up with water. this will make the bait sweet enough and it will not become so sticky as if more sugar or honey were used. chapter x. cutting the tree and transferring. i hope those who read this book may find something in its pages that will be beneficial. in your excursions through the forests you are unconsciously getting the benefit of the greatest source in the world of physical perfection--god's pure air--and, at the same time there are no reasons why one with reasonable tact cannot be benefited financially. when should a bee tree be cut and transferred to the hive? there is a difference of opinion in regard to the time of the year and also to the manner in which it should be done. i respect the opinions of those who have expressed themselves on the subject, but after trying nearly all the methods described i found nothing in them that came up to my ideal of a perfect plan of transferring the bee from the tree to the hive. my first plan was to cut the tree and, if not too large, saw it off both above and below the bees, keep them in with smoke, and tack screen over the place of entrance. then hire someone to help carry it home. it was set up on end and left to take care of itself and if a swarm would issue from it and we were successful in hiving it in the old box hive (the kind mostly in use in my boyhood days), we thought the last chapter of bee-keeping had been learned. then, after the movable frame hive came into use the tree would be cut, the bees drove into a box, the honey taken from the tree and with a few pieces of brood all was taken home. the small bits of comb were tied in the central frames for the bees to cluster on and the bees shaken from the box in front of the hive. this plan was certainly superior to the first mentioned but had one serious drawback--the brood that was in the tree was left to perish. after seeing the serious defects in the described methods, my next move was to take a hive with me on going to cut the tree. all comb containing brood was placed in the frames, the bees run into the hive, which was left at the tree for a week or more in order that the bees might have all the combs joined to the frames, and then brought home. this was another advance in the method of transferring, for the thousands of young bees about to emerge from their cells were saved, and the colony having its brood and strength undiminished should be able to fill at least one super of honey besides all stores needed for themselves. taking it for granted that we cut the bee in the early part of the summer, one super would be a low estimate, but even this would pay all expenses connected with the cutting, buying a hive and fixtures, and as the bee is now in an ideal hive we can hopefully look forward to the next year when our profits are coming in. there could be other plans given, some of them having virtue, but i will now lay a plan before the reader which if followed will prove more remunerative, and with less expense, than the former methods. to carry a hive and tools necessary to cut a bee tree will require the service of an assistant and when, after a week or so, we return to bring the bee home, more help is needed. a man is worthy of his hire and of course is paid. carrying a hive over rough and uneven ground is hard work. so by the time we have the bee home and sum the matter up, the financial part of bee hunting don't impress us very strongly. i have been in the habit of hunting bees during the fall months, but if i need a day's outing, no month from early spring, until late fall fails to find me on my tramps through the forest in search of a bee tree. no difference what time of the year i find my bee nor how many may be found in any particular season, they are always left stand over winter and cut the following spring, but not before may, for i want the bee to be strong in bee with abundance of brood. about this time of year i take a box eight inches square at the end and two feet in length. over the one end some wire screen is nailed and a lid, the center being cut out and replaced with wire screen, serves as a covering for the other end. with bucket, ax, and this box we will go to the tree, cut it, being careful to fell it as easy as possible. when it falls the bees should be smoked at once to prevent them rising in the air. for good reasons i prefer to cut the tree about nine or ten o'clock in the forenoon. after blowing a little smoke in at the entrance, proceed to chop a hole in the tree low down on the side, then another hole farther up or down the tree, depending on whether the bee works up or down from the place of entrance. after this is done, split the piece out, blow more smoke on the bees and take the combs out. brush the bees off, lay them on the log some distance from the bees, place the forcing box over the main body of the bees and by brushing and smoking drive them into it. the box should be in an elevated position, say forty-five degrees or more, as bees will go on the upper end much more readily when the box is in this position. be sure the queen is in, which can generally be determined by the manner in which the bees enter the box. if they are inclined to run back out after being forced in, it is a pretty sure sign the queen is not with them. when you are sure the queen is with them, and there is a sufficient number of bees with her, lift the box gently off, turn it upside down and place the lid on and fasten with a couple of tacks taken along. now place the brood combs back in the tree. first a comb then a couple of small sticks crosswise to form a bee space. continue this until all the combs are back in the tree, and as the top part of the log was not split off, the piece split from the side can be fit in, bark and flat stones can be used to form a covering that will keep the rain from getting in. by cutting the tree at this time of day thousands of bees are out in search of nectar and when they come home and find their home gone, will fly around in the air until becoming exhausted, and will then settle on the leaves and bushes in bunches and knots by the hundreds. if there was any nice white honey we have it in the bucket and picking up the box start on the homeward journey. presuming we have a movable frame hive at home with an inch of starter in the frames or, what would be better, a hive filled with comb from the year previous, we place the hive on its permanent stand and take the lid from the box and shake the bees down at the entrance. for fear the queen has been left in the tree it would be well to have an entrance guard placed on the hive, as this would exclude the queen and as soon as the queen is seen the guard can be removed. in a short time we can tell whether they take kindly to their new home. the queen is a laying one and some pollen should be taken in the following day. i always made sure i had the queen and never had a bee so treated to swarm out after being hived. now what about the bee in the tree? when we left it there were thousands flying around and settling on the leaves and bushes, other thousands in all stages of development in the combs. the ones that are hanging on the bushes begin to make further investigation and finding their brood soon cover it and with the bees hatching out every hour soon make the colony almost as populous as it was before the tree was cut. in taking the combs out we may have seen some queen cells started. if so, so much the better. if not, there certainly were eggs in some of the combs and in sixteen days at the most they can rear a queen from these eggs. when this time has elapsed, take your box and smoker. take the combs out as before; drive the bees into the box, and as the brood is nearly all hatched out by this time you will have nearly as many bees as you got the first time. these are brought home and treated as the first swarm and the combs can be placed in the log again for the few remaining bees that may have been left, to cluster on and these can be brought home later and joined to the second swarm. by this method you get two strong colonies from one tree. there is no help needed; no heavy lifting and carrying of hives to and from the tree. by following this plan you can soon have quite an apiary and be on your way to enjoy the profits as well as the pleasures of bee hunting. this plan is original with me and i believe it to be the very best plan given so far, and i expect to follow it until someone gives us something superior. the profits of bee hunting will depend on the ability of the man to manipulate the bees after taking them from the tree. you must agree with me that in cutting the tree, there is nearly always some of the combs containing honey broken up and covered with dirt, and this honey can never be classed as salable. therefore, if we hunt bees merely for what honey may be in the tree and leave the bees to perish from starvation and cold, it were far better, from a moral and financial point of view, to let the tree stand. chapter xi. customs and ownership of wild bees. there are customs in vogue among sportsmen that have been handed down from generation to generation, that have almost become laws. indeed, we have heard it said that custom becomes law. a hunter may wound a deer, follow it for a distance and find that another hunter has shot and killed it. the question might arise as to whom the deer belonged. a bee hunter may find a bee tree and mark it and some other hunter might find it afterwards and cut it. the same question might arise as to whom it legally belonged. if sportsmen were to settle the disputes they would refer back to custom and say the deer belonged to the one first wounding it, providing the wound was of such nature that the one first wounding it would have been pretty sure of getting it, by following on, and they would also decide that the bee belonged to the one who first found and marked it. a custom that may seem to be founded on justice is pretty apt to be followed by laws that may coincide with the custom. but we must remember there are statute laws relating to the ownership of wild animals and bees, and though we all band together as sportsmen, we cannot abrogate nor set aside these laws already formed. in my boyhood days, when i would find a bee, i was very slow to tell any one just where it was for fear they might cut it. was this true sportsmanship? i think not. some other bee hunter might hunt for that bee a day or more and finding it would have reason to say that i had deceived him and he could hardly be blamed if he cut it. i have been used just this very way more than once, and felt like retaliating by cutting a bee that was found prior by another party. but am glad to say that i never did. since i became more mature in years i have had more confidence in my fellow sportsmen and now after finding a bee tree the first time i see any one who is likely to look for the bee, he is told its exact location, thus probably saving him much valuable time in not looking for a bee that is found. as a fitting close to this work it might be well to quote the statute laws relating to the ownership of wild bees. "bees while unreclaimed, are by nature wild animals. those which take up their abode in a tree belong to the owner of the soil, if unreclaimed, but if reclaimed and identified, they belong to the former owner. if a swarm leave a hive they belong to the owner as long as they are in sight and are easily taken; otherwise they become the property of the first occupant. merely finding a bee on the land of another and marking the tree does not vest the property of the bees in the finder. _they do not become private property until they are in a hive."_ this is a statute law. but true sportsmen do not think of going to law for adjustment of these matters, but rather depend on that fraternal spirit by which all questions relating to ownership are settled amicably. chapter xii. some of our benefactors and their inventions. bee keeping as a source of revenue dates far back in ancient history. with the advent of the movable frame hive and the increased demand for honey all over the world as a source of food supply, it received a new impetus and there are many bee keepers in this and other countries who are not only making an honest living in the pursuit, but have become wealthy as well. over half a century ago, rev. l. l. langstroth invented the movable frame hive and became the benefactor of the bee-keeping fraternity. prior to this time there was no way of telling the condition of a bee except what could be learned from an external diagnosis. if from their actions we were led to believe the colony was diseased, or that the bee moth was holding sway, there was no way by which we could remedy the evil. but this invention gives us access at all times to the brood chamber and we are able to see just what is wrong and apply the proper remedy. perhaps it is fair to add that all bee keepers do not agree that the movable frame was invented by father langstroth. this honor is conceded by many to belong to huber or dzierzon, german bee keepers. be this as it may, the movable frame hive of today, used throughout america and many foreign countries, is the product of the inventive genius of this great benefactor of the bee-keeping fraternity. the invention of many accessories since the death of father langstroth, many years ago, would almost make us believe that there is nothing further to be desired, that perfection has been reached. but well we know that perfection cannot be reached on this earth, and so we will look forward, knowing as time goes on that other great minds will add to the store of knowledge now possessed by the bee keeper, and bee keeping of the future will be as far in advance of the present as the present is of the past. with the help of appliances and the instruction given by able writers in many magazines and bee papers anyone with a fair amount of ability should be able to make a success at this vocation. there are many men who, while they have proved to be benefactors to us, have at the same time become wealthy. there are many instances of this, but i will mention the a. i. root co., of medina, o. a. i. root, the senior member of this firm, was an apiarist of note while i was still a little boy. after a while he began the manufacture of hives and appliances. he invented the pound section box, the extractor and many other accessories that could not be dispensed with at the present day. many of his inventions were never patented, thus saving that cost to those whom he wished to befriend, and by honest dealing, selling the best of everything needed by the apiarist at the lowest possible cost consistent with superior workmanship, he has today, the most extensive manufacturing establishment in america, and possibly the world. in connection, the firm publishes, "gleanings in bee culture," a monthly magazine, devoted to the interest of bee keeping. the ablest writers, men who have made this their life work, contribute regularly and give us advice which, if followed will lead to success. therefore, when the bee history is completed, and the names of many who have been our benefactors are recorded, the names of l. l. langstroth and a. i. root will shine with lustre. chapter xiii. beekeeping for profit. it is not generally known that beekeeping is quite an industry in the united states and that this country maintains a lead over all other lands both as to the quantity and quality of the honey it produces. this is the case, however, and america is recognized by other countries as the honey-land par excellence, where beekeepers turn out honey by the carload and this is so, for california, in one lone year, produced 800 carloads, and of this 500 were shipped out of the state. texas is also a heavy producer and year in and year out will actually outrank california. although produced in such vast quantities it must not be inferred that quality is neglected; on the contrary we cannot be excelled when merit is considered. our apiarists are scientific to a very high degree and possibly no branch of american farming has been worked up to so great a pitch of excellence, only dairying and horsebreeding can be compared with it, but american apiculturists lead the world, whereas, our horsemen or dairymen do not. this proud position is owing to the splendid discoveries and inventions of the rev. l. l. langstroth of oxford, ohio, who has been dead for some years, but whose spirit still lives. previous to his time beekeeping was only an amusement or pastime, or more accurately speaking, a hobby. now, the industry is founded on a sound scientific basis and bids fair to grow at a lively rate in the years that are to come. at present, the amount of money invested in bees and bee appliances is not less than one hundred million dollars. the annual income from this source cannot be much less than $20,000,000, and in a good year all over the country, it would approximate $50,000,000 though it is very seldom that there is a good season for bees all over this vast country. beekeeping is a branch of agriculture and like other pursuits belonging to that science there are fat years and lean years. it is not an uncommon event for a beekeeper to clean up a sum of money for his crop which will more than equal the value of his bees and all the appliances he uses. other years may be total failures, but year in and year out no industry pays larger returns on the labor and money expended. the wise beekeeper is not deterred by a bad season but simply bides his chance. he knows that in course of time the bees will make good all losses and give in addition a handsome profit to the owner for his kind attention and thoughtful consideration. there are still many opportunities for bee-keepers in this country. this is particularly true of west virginia, tennessee and kentucky, where the conditions for beekeeping are almost ideal and where, as a usual thing, the market for honey is good. all through the south there are openings for beekeepers and it will be a long time yet before all openings are filled. southwest texas is a sort of beekeeper's paradise and only a part of it has been occupied as yet. arkansas is a particularly good state for bees, but it has only been partially developed by up-to-date beekeepers. parts of pennsylvania are open to good beekeepers and so are portions of michigan, one of the leading states of the union. ontario and quebec are excellent for bees--none better. nearly all the western states are good for bees and some of them rank high as honey producers. this is true of colorado and utah. idaho, montana, nevada, wyoming, new mexico, arizona, washington and oregon offer excellent openings for first-class beekeepers. in the west, beekeepers, usually select an irrigated region where alfalfa and sweet clover are common, so that during the long dry summers the bees are kept busy storing honey of a very high quality. successful beekeepers are found in every state, and it would be hazardous for anyone to say just what state is best for bees. ohio, indiana and illinois produce large quantities of fine honey, but this is nearly all consumed within their own borders at fair prices so that beekeepers do fairly well. what hinders beekeeping more than any other fault is the neglect of the beekeepers in not providing adequate shelter for the bees during cold weather, and also from the heat of summer. in the northern and central states good protection must be provided against zero weather. our bees originally came from the tropics, and for that reason they require ample protection. the ordinary hives must have an outer case placed around them and then leaves, straw or sawdust well packed around them. fixed in this way they will withstand the rigors of an arctic winter. lack of adequate winter protection is the weakest point in american bee culture, and yet is easily provided. this accounts for the saying of many who have tried it, "beekeeping doesn't pay." perhaps at no time is protection more necessary than in early spring when the hives are full of young and tender brood. the hives may also be covered with layers of thick paper or asbestos board. a small hole will allow all of the fresh air necessary for bees in a state of sleep. these points are first mentioned because neglect of them accounts for most of the failures we often hear of. no success can be anticipated unless one uses the best hives made on the langstroth principle. we have no space here in which to give a complete account of the hives now made on that plan. the better way would be for anyone interested to write for a sample of "gleanings in bee culture" medina, ohio, or to american bee journal, hamilton, illinois, so as to get in touch with the publishers, who issue books adapted to the wants of beginners. these magazines also issue supply catalogues and in other ways are quite helpful. splendid books can be purchased at a low price giving complete information with regard to the bee industry. many persons have learned the whole art of beekeeping by a careful study of a good book on bee culture supplemented of course by observation. nothing very important, however, can be learned about bees unless one possesses a colony of bees in a movable comb hive. in fact it is useless to attempt to obtain a knowledge of bees without a hive to work with. i, therefore, earnestly recommend any beginner to obtain a colony at the earliest opportunity. very often an ordinary box hive can be secured for a "song." this will do to begin with. next send for two complete standard langstroth hives, a smoker, a veil and a bee book; also a swarm-catcher. if the box hive is of a medium size it will probably east two swarms in spring about fruit-bloom time or a little later. when the swarms emerge they may be quickly taken down by means of the swarm-catcher, if they happen to lodge in a branch of a tree, as they usually do. if the hives are in readiness it is no great feat to safely place the swarms in their new homes and all will go well. the parent colony may be disposed of in a week or ten days (not later) after the second swarm issues, by drumming the bees out of the box into the hive which holds the second swarm. this is done by giving them smoke from the smoker and then battering on the hive with a stick, which so alarms the inmates that they rush over the side of the upturned hive into the new one. what is left is simply a lot of dirty combs fit only for the melting pot. this is probably, the neatest, cleanest and cheapest method of making a start in beekeeping. it is well within the ability of most men and the cost is comparatively small. if the bees are native blacks, later on they may be changed to italians simply by purchasing young pure bred queens for about a dollar each. the old queens are killed and new ones introduced in a cage till the bees make her acquaintance, when she is automatically released. in two months' time very few of the original bees will be found, all having died from hard work and old age, and their places taken by rich golden yellow italian bees. it may be well to add this caution, "do not experiment with any other race of bees." page images produced and generously made available by the core historical literature in agriculture collection of cornell university (http://chla.library.cornell.edu/) note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original illustrations. see 19319-h.htm or 19319-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/9/3/1/19319/19319-h/19319-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/9/3/1/19319/19319-h.zip) images of the original pages are available through the core historical literature in agriculture collection of cornell university. see http://chla.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=chla;idno=5017637 a description of the bar-and-frame-hive, invented by w. augustus munn, esq. with an abstract of wildman's complete guide for the management of bees throughout the year. ipsa autem, seu corticibus tibi suta cavatis, seu lento fuerint alvearia vimine texta, angustos habeant aditus; nam frigore mella cogit hiems, eademque calor liquefacta remittit. virgil, _g. lib._ iv. london: john van voorst, paternoster row. m.dccc.xliv. london printed by s. & j. bentley, wilson, and fley, bangor house, shoe lane. preface having been frequently requested to explain the use of the _bar-and-frame-hive_, in the management of bees, i have been induced to print the following pamphlet, to point out the advantages this new hive possesses over the common ones. i have added extracts from various authorities to show the importance of transporting bees for a change of pasturage, and thus prolonging the honey harvest. regarding the natural history of the bee, i have merely stated a few of the leading facts connected with that interesting subject, drawn from wildman's book on bee-management. _london, april, 1844._ [illustration: plate i. _fig. 1._] explanation of the plate. plate i, figure 1. a b c d e f and e f, the oblong box as shown in fig. 1, plate i. a b c d, the top lid of the oblong box; g h, the half of it made to fall back, and supported at an angle by the hinges, _h h_; _l_, the upper part of the lock of the box; _i k_, the two gable ends of the roof; _i_, the perforated zinc shown as secured in a triangular frame; and _k_, the outside appearance of the ventilator. q q, the two quadrants, supporting the table, i j, which is formed by the side of the box, a c e e, being let down; _a a a_, &c., fifteen holes made to receive the back bolt, _m_, of the observation-frame, z; _b b_, two bolts to fasten into the holes, _c_ and _d_, when the table i j, is closed, _f_, being the other part of the lock. t, one of the handles of the box (the other not seen). u, one of the blocks (the other not shown) to keep the bottom of the box from the ground, when the four legs l l l l, are unscrewed from the four corners of the box. x x b d, the front of the box; _e_, the alighting board, four inches wide, extending the whole length from f to f; x _2_, shows a small ledge to keep the wet from entering the bee-box, and x i, one of the slides _s_, drawn out, and extending beyond the end of the box; the other half slide, _s_, on the _left_ hand side, not drawn out in the sketch, the part under x 1, shows the opening for the ingress and egress of the bees. r, one of the two pieces of red cedar at the inside of the box, fixed at the ends, e f. e f. the q q, quadrants being made to work between the red cedar and the outer case or box; _v v_, the fillet fixed in the length of the box, on a level with the tops of red cedar; _c d_, the holes for the bolts _b b_, in the table i j. w w, pieces of perforated zinc laid upon the tops of the bee-frames resting on the fillets, _v v_. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, six of the 15 grooves, half an inch deep, 9-1/2 long, and 1-1/2 of an inch broad, formed on the floor-board: the holes shown in the floor-board above the figures being made for the reception of the two pins, _a b_, in the observation-frame. no. 8, shows the "division-frame" run into the eighth groove of the floor-board, and no. 14 and 15, the bee-frames run into their respective grooves, and the 1-1/8 of an inch openings in the back closed by the slips of tin, _q q q q_, &c. y y, the bar of mahogany with corresponding grooves, x x x x, &c. to those on the floor-board, at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, and 15-2/8 holes for the top bolt, _r_, of the observation-frame, z, to fix into. _t, t, t_, the screw nuts at the backs of the bee-frames, &c., for the screw at the end of the spindle, s, to work into, and thus hold and draw out of the grooves the bee-frames; _w_, the bee-frame containing comb and bees, drawn partly into the observation-frame, z. a description of the bar-and-frame-hive. the bar-and-frame-hive. by first giving a general description of the "bar-and-frame-hive," the details of its construction can be better explained afterwards. an oblong box is formed of well seasoned wood of an inch in thickness, about thirty inches long, sixteen inches high, and twelve inches broad; but the size may be varied to suit the convenience or taste of different apiarians. instead of the lid of the box being flat, it is made in the shape of the roof of a cottage, and with projecting eaves to throw off the wet more effectually. one of the long sides of the box is constructed to open with hinges, and to hang on a level with the _bottom_ of the box, and is held up by means of two quadrants. as many grooves, half of an inch broad, half an inch deep, and about 9-1/2 inches long, are formed, 1-1/8 of an inch apart, in the inside of the bottom of the box as its length will admit. in the other side, a long half inch slip is cut for the egress and ingress of the bees, having a piece of wood about an inch thick, and four inches wide, fastened on the outside, just under the opening, to form the alighting board for them. at the top, of the side of the box which is made to let down, a four inch piece of mahogany the length of the inside of the box is secured in, having corresponding grooves formed, half an inch broad, 1-1/8 of an inch deep, and half an inch apart, to those made in the bottom of the box, leaving just _twelve_ inches between the bottom grooves and the upper bar grooves. when the four legs are screwed into the four corners of the box, the small "bee-house" is ready for the reception of the "bee-frames" and the bees. the "bee-frames" are made of half inch mahogany, being twelve inches high, nine inches long, and not more than half of an inch broad, so that these frames will fit into the box, sliding into fifteen grooves formed on the bottom, and kept securely in their places by the upper grooves in the mahogany bar. when the fifteen, or whatever number of the bee-frames intended to be used, have been run into the grooves, sheets of perforated zinc are placed on the tops of them; the 1-1/8 of an inch openings at the backs of the frames being closed with slips of tin. one of the bee-frames is made solid, with sheets of zinc being fixed in it; this frame can then be used as a divider between any number of the bee-frames, and thus form the box into two compartments, either to augment or diminish the space in the box according to the size of the swarm, or the increasing wants of the bees for more room. the bees are then introduced into the hive (having first closed the backs of the bee-frames with the slips of tin, and fastened the side lid of the box against them, and also removed one of the sheets of perforated zinc from the tops of the bee-frames) by dislodging the bees from the straw-hive in which they had been previously collected, or shaken from the boughs of the tree, where they may have settled, so as to fall upon the tops of the frames within the box; when the bees have all congregated within the bee-frames by crawling through the open spaces at the top, the perforated sheet of zinc is placed over them; the bees can then only escape through the long slip or entrance which was made for them in the front of the box. the top lid can be closed and locked, when the bees will be secure from the gaze of the inquisitive, or the bad intentions of thieves. before i proceed to give any directions for the construction of the "bar-and-frame-hive" i am _anxious_ to _warn_ all amateur carpenters, and those who delight to superintend the labours of a "cheap working country carpenter," against the fatal error of using unseasoned wood; for, unless the "bottom board" and the "bee-frames" are made of mahogany, or some well-seasoned, hard, or close-grained wood, the advantages of the bar and frame-hive will be quite destroyed, as the great object is to have the bee-frames to slide in and out of the grooves with the _greatest facility_. throughout the whole of the making of the hive or box, no glue should be used, unless further secured with small screws or nails.[1] [footnote 1: mr. john milton of no. 10, great marylebone-street, has some well constructed bar and frame bee-hives of various prices.] the oblong box, a b c d, e f and e f (plate i, fig. 1), is to be made of well-seasoned poplar, fir, or deal, of an inch in thickness; the inside dimensions are 28 inches and 5/8 of an inch long from a to c, 10-1/2 inches broad from a to b, and sixteen inches deep from a to e. the top lid a b c d is formed in the shape of a common roof, and made to project an inch, before, behind, and at the two gable ends, like the eaves of a cottage to throw off the wet. the half of this roof g h, is made to open and fall back with hinges _h h_. the two gable ends of the roof have holes cut in them, _i, k_, to admit the circulation of air; and secured with perforated zinc withinside to prevent the intrusion of wasps, or any other enemies to bees; the gable marked _i_, shows the perforated zinc framed into the gable, and _k_ the outside appearance of the ventilator. the side of the box marked a c e e, is made to let down and form a table i j, hung on hinges p p, and supported by the quadrants q q, one inch _below the level of the bottom board_. two handles are fixed in the ends of the box, one shown in the sketch at t. two blocks of wood are screwed on the bottom of the box (one shown at u) to keep it off the ground, &c., when the four legs, l l l l, at the four corners of the box are unscrewed for the convenience of packing, &c. in the opposite side or front of the box at x x, is fixed a piece of board _e_, four inches broad, and an inch thick, extending the whole length from f f; this is secured at an angle with the bottom of the box, so as to form a slightly inclined plain _e_, for the alighting board, which would be always dry for the bees to land upon. a half inch opening is made from f to f, just above the alighting board, for the ingress and egress of the bees. slides are made _s s_, to regulate the extent of the openings, or to entirely close the entrance to the box; these slides can be drawn out when it is necessary to clean the bottom board, &c. within-side the box, two pieces of red cedar of half an inch in thickness, 12-1/8 inches long, 9-1/2 inches broad, are nailed on to each end at e f, and e f (one of the pieces of red cedar shown at r). the quadrants, q q, being made to work between them and the outer case. a fillet, _v v_, is fastened on a level with the tops of the two pieces of red cedar, to form a ledge of about a 1/4 of an inch all round, to support the sheets of perforated zinc, as shown at w w. sixteen pieces of mahogany, 1-1/8 of an inch broad, and half an inch deep, are to be screwed to the mahogany floor board, commencing against the piece of red cedar, r, and leaving a space between each piece, half of an inch, and finishing against the other piece of red cedar with the last; there will then be formed fifteen grooves, half of an inch in width, half an inch in depth, and 9-1/2 inches long on the floor-board as shown at 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. a bar of mahogany, y y, about two inches square, having grooves, x x x x, &c., corresponding to those on the floor-board, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, &c., is let in, and fastened between a and c, having a clear space of twelve inches between the floor-board, and this top bar; the object of these grooves being to receive, and keep steadily in their places, the fifteen bee-frames, when introduced into them. [illustration: _fig. i._] the "bee-frames" are made of mahogany, nine inches long, twelve inches high, and half an inch broad. each frame is _dove-tailed_ to make it strong at the angles, and to keep it true; the upper part is formed of one inch mahogany, and _bevelled_ off (as the carpenters call it) to the eighth of an inch, in the centre, as shown at _a_, fig. 1: on the two sides of this triangular bar, _b b_, pieces of glass, extending the length of the bar, are fixed with red lead. the two sides of the frame, _d, d_, are to increase in size, from half an inch at the top, to 1-1/2 inches at the bottom. the bottom piece, _c_, is half an inch in depth. the back of each frame has a piece of tin, about the thickness of a card, fixed on it, of the exact size, viz. twelve inches long, and half an inch broad, _e, e_. in the centre of the back of each frame, _f_, a screw-nut is let in, which is made to fit a screw at the end of a long spindle, s, plate i, fig. 1. this spindle with a handle, z, will screw equally well into the screw-nuts of the fifteen bee-frames and division-frame. the use of this spindle being, to draw in and out of the grooves the fifteen bee-frames when required. when the bee-frames have been put into the grooves in the box, slips of tin about thirteen inches long, and and a half broad, are slipped into their backs (being run in between the backs of the bee-frames, and the pieces of thin tin fixed upon them), to close the 1-1/8 of an inch openings. and three or four sheets of perforated zinc are laid upon the tops of the bee-frames, resting on the fillets. thus, then, when a swarm of bees has been introduced into this box, the bees have to build their combs within the fifteen bee-frames, or whatever number may have been run into the grooves for that purpose. the bees cannot escape from above the frames, as the sheets of perforated zinc prevent them, nor from the 1-1/8 of an inch openings at the backs of the frames, as they have been closed with the slips of tin; the only open part being the long narrow slip, just above the alighting board, which was originally left for their ingress and egress. the division-frame is made of half inch mahogany, twelve inches high, 9-1/2 long, and half of an inch broad. so that it will run into any of the grooves formed for the bee-frames; but made to fit close to the box at the end, by means of a slip of wood, c c, fig. 2, to prevent the bees crawling between the frame and the outer-box, as they can do round the bee-frames. [illustration: _fig. ii._] the division-frame itself is closed by having two sheets of zinc run into it as shown in fig. 2, the one marked _b b b b_, and partly drawn out, being of solid sheet zinc; and _a a_, the other in the frame, of perforated zinc; _d_, being the screw-nut (like those in the bee-frames) by means of which it can be drawn out into the observation-frame, &c. thus, wherever this division-frame is run into the bee-box, (except of course at no. 1, and no. 15 grooves) it cuts off all communication with the bee-frames on the right or left of it; and two colonies of bees may be kept in the same box, and still have distinct frames to work upon, and separate entrances, &c. if then bees have been put into one of the bar-and-frame-hives, and sufficient time has been given them to build their combs within "the bee-frames," the frames with their contents can be drawn out into the "observation-frame," (which will be more fully described) whenever it is wished to examine the bees, &c., as the 1-1/8 of an inch spaces between the grooves will allow of a sufficient distance to be preserved, between the lateral surfaces of the perpendicular combs formed in the "bee-frames," and thus permit them to slide by each other with facility. [illustration: _fig. iii._] the "observation-frame," fig. 3, is a mahogany frame, fourteen inches high, eleven inches long, and about four inches wide, having a single groove half an inch deep, and half an inch broad, running within its whole length of eleven inches. the two largest sides have panes of glass fixed in them with small brads. the top, bottom, and one end (this end forming the back) of this frame, are made of solid wood; the back having a small hole, _f_, 2/8 of an inch in diameter in the middle, to allow the spindle before mentioned to pass through it. the end which forms the front of the frame is open, so that any one of the bee-frames can be run into the observation-frame, but may be closed by a piece of tin (_d_) being slipt into the small grooves at _c c_. the observation-frame has two pins, _a, b_, to fit into the 2/8 holes made along the bottom board of the bee-box, shown by the figures, 1, 2, 3, &c., see plate i, fig. 1, and also two small bolts _r_ and _m_; _r_, the upper one to fix into the holes above x x x, &c., in the mahogany bar; (but this bolt is only used during the operation of drawing out the bee-frames into the observation frame); and the other bolt _m_ at the back of the frame, to fasten into the 2/8 holes, _a, a, a_, &c., made in the lid, i j. when the two pins and the bolts of the observation-frame have been adjusted and fixed, the groove in it will be in a straight line with one of the grooves formed in the bottom board of the box, consequently a bee-frame can be made to slide, by means of the long spindle, in and out of the box, into the observation-frame. the use of this "observation frame" must now be explained more fully: the top lid of the bee box, plate i, fig. 1. g. h. being thrown up, will screen the "operator" from the bees, which are flying in and out in the front of the hive or box. the back lid, i. j., is let down, and supported by the quadrants q. q., and forms a table, the box having been raised from the ground by the four legs, l l l l. the observation frame is placed opposite to whichever bee-frame is to be examined; the two pins, _a, b_, fig. 3, running into the holes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, &c., made in the bottom board. the small bolts, plate i, secured at the top, as at _r_, and the back _m_: the long spindle, s, is run through the 2/8 hole in the back of the observation frame, as at z, and the end of the spindle screwed into the screw socket _t_, at the back of the bee-frame _w_; the two pieces of tin on the right and left of the bee-frame are pulled out (of course the observation frame being empty, and having the piece of tin from its front taken out), the operator holding by the handle, _z_, of the spindle, gradually draws out the bee-frame into the observation frame, and after examining the bees and comb, gently returns the bee-frame into its groove in the floor-board: the two slips of tin are then replaced in the backs of the bee-frames: the spindle is unscrewed and withdrawn, the bolts are unfastened, the observation frame being kept firmly in its place, held by the left hand of the operator, whilst with the right he runs in the long slip of tin, _d_, fig. 3, into the front of the observation frame, to keep the bees (escaped from the returned bee-frame), until the observation frame is again fixed opposite to another bee-frame, when the tin is withdrawn and the bolts fastened as before. it has been shown that by these means, each bee-frame, and the bees and comb contained in it, can be easily drawn out and examined, without interfering with any other part of the hive, or occasioning the loss of a single bee. the whole of the interior of the hive is thus open to inspection at any moment, and a choice can be made of the combs containing the most honey, or the bee owner enabled to trace the devastation of the honey moth, and ascertain the presence of any other enemy, and this without the assistance of smoke, which must be injurious both to the bees and their brood. when the bee-frame is returned and secured, the observation-frame is removed; then the lid, i j, being shut up and bolted, and the upper lid, g h, closed, the box may be locked up. when the bees have been shut in with the slide in the front, the hive or box is ready to be transported anywhere, to procure new pasturage for them, which, as every experienced bee-keeper knows, is of the greatest benefit to prolong their honey-harvest. perfect protection from wet and the vicissitudes of temperature, is partly ensured by the external bee-box being made of well-seasoned wood; poplar is recommended as of a looser grain than fir, deal, &c., and consequently, not so great a conductor of heat; but the objection to wooden bee-hives or boxes, for being more easily affected by the variations of the temperature, is removed by the construction of the "bar frame-hive;" for the bee-frames form, as it were, a smaller box within the oblong box, and are not in immediate contact with the external air, but have a half inch space nearly all round them, which will to a certain extent maintain an equable temperature for the bees, both in summer and winter. any moisture condensed from the heated air generated by the bees, is carried off through the perforated sheets of zinc above the frames, and cool store-room for the honey is also thus secured. a feeding trough is made on the principle of a bird-glass: with a tin feeder and a small bottle for the liquid food to be put into. [illustration: _fig. iv._] the tin feeder is six inches by 7-1/2 long, and one inch deep, and just fits on to the top of the bee-frames, where the perforated sheets of zinc are laid; within this feeder a half inch opening is cut at the bottom, fig 4, _a_, and an inclined plane _b_, reaching half way up the depth of the trough; and a sheet of perforated tin, _c_ (placed horizontally from point _b_,) through which the bees suck the food, which is kept at the same level by atmospheric pressure; for as the food is drawn down below the mouth of the bottle, _d_, air forces itself into the bottle, and the same quantity of food trickles down into the feeder, a piece of glass, _e_, exactly the same size as the feeder, is placed over it, through which the bees may be seen whilst feeding, and the feeding trough will be nearly of the same temperature as the interior of the box or hive, and prevent the bees being chilled, as they would be in winter, if compelled to descend for their food; and besides, the bees are less likely to be attacked by wasps or strange bees when fed from above, as the intruders would have to ascend through the mass of bees in the box, which would be attended with danger to them. the bees can be fed when necessary by one of the sheets of perforated zinc being drawn on one side, and the feeding trough, with the bottle of food in it, being placed over the opening; when the bees will ascend through the half inch space at _a_, and feed themselves with the liquid, or carry it away and store it up for future use. hives and bee-boxes. having given a description of the bar-frame-hive, it will be as well to enter into the comparative advantages of using wooden boxes and straw hives. some apiarians confine themselves to the use of straw hives, others to wooden boxes, and a third party use both; but as far as the bees are concerned it matters little what kind of hive is given them, for if the season be favourable, and the bee-pasturage rich with flowers, they collect and store up the honey in their combs in any receptacle of any shape or size, provided it affords them shelter from the weather. hives made of straw are generally preferred for an out-of-door apiary, as being less liable to be over-heated by the rays of the sun, and in the winter they exclude the cold better than hives made of other materials, while the moisture arising from the bees is more quickly absorbed within the hive, and does not run down the sides as it generally does in wooden hives or boxes; at the same time they are always to be obtained from their cheapness, and from their simplicity easily understood and made use of; wooden boxes can only be used with advantage in a bee-house, they stand firmer on the bottom boards, or one upon another, they admit of having glass windows, through which to observe the operations of the bees, and they are not so liable to harbour moths, spiders, and other insects, as the straw hives. the objects to be attained in the construction and management of an apiary, are, to secure the prosperity and multiplication of the colonies of bees, to increase the amount of their productive labour, and to obtain their products with facility, and with the least possible detriment to the stock. it is to the interest of the owner, therefore, that he provide for the bees shelter against moisture, and the extremes of heat and cold--especially, sudden vicissitudes of temperature, protection from their numerous enemies, every facility for constructing their combs and for rearing their brood, and that the hive should be so constructed as to allow of every part of the combs to be inspected at any moment, and capable of removal when requisite: and while attention is paid to economy, it should be made of materials that will secure its durability. these observations apply equally to the straw hives, boxes, or whatever the bees may be lodged in or hived. some cultivators of bees have been chiefly anxious to promote their multiplication, and to prevent the escape of the swarms in their natural way, by forming artificial swarms, by separating a populous hive previous to its swarming, into two parts, and allowing to each greater room for the construction of their works. others, and the most numerous class, have contemplated only the abundance of the products which they yield, and the facility of extracting them from the hive, without showing any particular solicitude as to the preservation of the bees themselves. another class of apiarians have, on the other hand, had it more particularly in view, to facilitate the prosecution of researches in the natural history and economy of bees. then, again, amongst apiarians a diversity of opinion exists regarding the system to be adopted in the management of the hives, whether the bees are to be kept in single hives, caps or bell-glasses, and extra boxes, which may be added at the top, which is called the _storifying_ system; or inserting additional room at the bottom, called _nadering_; or whether adding boxes at the sides, called the _collateral_ system, should be followed out; and a plan of ventilating the boxes has been added to the last system, but experience has proved that it is utterly useless, as in spite of ventilating tubes and thermometers, the bees have swarmed, and the queen-bee has deposited her eggs in the collateral boxes and destroyed the purity of the honey. no successful plan has been yet devised to ventilate the combs where the bees cluster; for the bees prevent the circulation of the cold air amongst the combs by immediately forming themselves in thick rows at the bottom of the combs; and instead of ranging the fields to gather honey or pollen, have to collect together and idle away their time to retain the necessary heat for the formation of the combs, or to rear their brood. as a single hive, huber's leaf-hive is certainly the best; but it requires great attention, and none but experienced apiarists can use it for the purpose of trying experiments; but in the hands of experienced apiarists it is invaluable. all other single hives are objectionable, as neither the proceedings of the bees can be observed, nor the honey taken out, without either destroying the bees, or driving them out with smoke by which much of the brood is killed; or if rainy weather occur at the time the bees are preparing to throw off a swarm, and the hive be filled to its utmost limits with comb, all the bees must remain idle till the return of fine weather for want of room. to meet this objection, some apiarians have straw-hives with flat wooden tops made, or use boxes, and have holes cut in them at the top, so that small glasses may be added, when the bees require room. but this does not prevent swarming, and besides, the flatness of the roof is prejudicial, as it allows the moisture which exhales from the bees to collect in the roof, and to fall in drops at different parts, to the great injury of the subjacent contents of the hive, and, like the common straw hive or square box, the bees cannot be examined, except partially through the windows made in the sides. to remedy this evil, the further plan of _storifying_ hives or boxes, was introduced, and by this method swarming may to an extent be prevented, and the wax and honey can be taken without destroying the bees; and with the same view was introduced the _collateral_ system, which is adding room at the sides (of course preserving a free communication between the boxes and hives). but there are objections to the _collateral_ system, as it is now a very well established fact, that partitions of any kind are detrimental to the prosperity of the bees; and the same applies, though perhaps in an inferior degree, to the _storied_ system, or hives and boxes divided into stories one above another; besides that which holds good equally to all hives or boxes, that it is not possible to proportion the hives in all cases to the magnitude of the swarms, or the energy with which they labour. in single hives the honey becomes bad and discoloured from being put into the old breeding cells. in double storied, or collateral hives, the bees are divided, and live in different families; while their own preservation, and that of the brood, requires them to live in the strictest union; the heat also necessary for the secretion of wax is lessened by the division of the bees into different groups. and, besides, all these different hives or boxes should have some sort of protection from the weather, either in the way of eaves or covers, or be placed in a shed or bee-house. they require also centre boards and division tins, &c. to separate one hive or box from another, floor boards for them to stand upon, as well as stands or stools to raise them from the ground, &c., for a description of which, and a full history of all hives and boxes, i refer the reader to dr. bevan's "honey-bee." in mentioning the defects of these different boxes and hives, i do not mean to condemn them as useless, for they will all answer to a certain extent the purposes for which they were intended, rewarding the attentive bee-keeper, according to the seasons, and enabling the bees to send forth many swarms, and collecting and storing up their treasures of honey; but my object has been to point out briefly to those anxious for the better, more extended, and economical mode of bee-management, the difficulties to be provided against, and to recommend to their consideration the advantages offered in the bar frame-hive. but, however, i should not be doing justice to mr. r. golding, if i did not particularly mention his "improved grecian hive" by the use of which combs may be removed from the interior of the hive and inspected at pleasure: this improvement he has effected by carefully investigating the laws of the insects for whose use the hives were intended, and by a particular arrangement of the bars, (every alternate one being furnished with guide combs,) the bees have been induced, in a manner at once simple and beautiful, to construct a uniform range of combs. when the hive is filled with honey, two or three, or more of the bars may be, at any time, removed, or exchanged for unoccupied bars, without much disturbing the brood combs, all annoyance from the bees being prevented by a whiff or two of tobacco smoke being blown into the hive at the time of the removal of the bars. with the protection of a bee-house these hives can be applied to many of the systems of bee-management, and prove equally profitable, and more manageable than some of the newly-invented hives. the apiary. next of importance to the kind of hive and the system to be followed, is the proper situation of an apiary. this subject engaged the attention of bee-keepers in ancient as much as in modern times; but the directions given by columella and virgil are as good now as when they were written; and as is observed by the writer in no. cxli. of the quarterly review, in the amusing article on "bee-books,"--"it would amply repay (and this is saying a great deal,) the most forgetful country gentleman to rub up his schoolboy latin, for the sole pleasure he would derive from the perusal of the fourth georgic." the aspect has been regarded as of the first importance; but there are points of greater consequence, namely the vicinity of good bee pasturage, the shelter of the hives from the winds by trees or houses, and their distance from ponds or rivers, as the high winds might dash the bees into the water. various aspects have been recommended, but the south, with a point to the east or west, according to its situation as respects the shelter it may receive from walls or trees, &c. is the best: care, however, must be taken that neither walls, trees, nor anything else impede the going forth of the bees to their pasturage. "i have ever found it best," says wildman, "to place the mouth of the hives to the west in spring, care being taken that they have the afternoon sun; the morning sun is extremely dangerous during the colder months, when its glare often tempts these industrious insects out to their ruin; whereas the mouth of the hive being then in the shade, the bees remain at home; and as clouds generally obscure the afternoon's sun at that season, the bees escape the temptation of going out. when food is to be obtained, the warmth of the air continues round the hive in the afternoon, which enables the bees to pursue their labours without danger. a valley is a better situation for an apiary than a hill, being more convenient to the bees returning home with their loads; and, besides, bees are not so apt to fly away when swarming as when on a hill: but when swarms take a distant flight, they generally fly against the wind, so that the stragglers of the swarms may better hear the direction of the course taken by their fellow emigrants. i recommend a hard gravel terrace for the hives to be placed upon, as being drier both in summer and winter for the bee-master to walk upon, when inspecting his bees, and also as less likely to afford shelter for ants or other enemies to bees; and, besides, it is better for the bees, which when much fatigued by their journeys, or benumbed by the cold, are apt to fall around the hives, and would recover more quickly from the warmth of the dry ground than if they had alighted on damp grass. the hives should not be placed where water from the eaves of houses, from hedges, or trees, drop upon them; but they should be near the mansion house for the convenience of watching the bees, &c. a small stream of water running near the hives is thought to be of advantage, especially in dry seasons, with gently declining banks, in order that the bees may have safe access to it. heaths, or places abounding in wild flowers, constitute the best neighbourhood for an apiary, and in default of this pasturage, there should be gardens where flowers are cultivated, and fields in which buck-wheat, clover, or sainfoin, is sown. but cultivating small gardens of flowers for bees is useless, except a few early flowers near the hives for the bees to collect some pollen for the brood, such as the common kinds of crocus, white alyssum, single blue hepaticas, helleborus niger, and tussilago petasites, all of which flower early; but should any of the tribe of the willows grow near, there will be no necessity for cultivating the flowers above-mentioned, as they yield an abundant harvest of farina, or pollen. a rich corn country is well known to be a barren desert to the bees during a greater portion of the year. hence the judicious practice of shifting the bees from place to place according to the circumstances of the season, and the custom of other nations in this particular well deserves our imitation. few places are so happily situated as to afford bees proper pasturage both in the beginning of the season and also the autumn; it was the advice of celsus that, after the vernal pastures are consumed, they should be transported to places abounding with autumnal flowers; as was practised by conveying the bees from achaia to attica, from euboea and the cyclad islands to syrus, and also in sicily, where they were brought to hybla from other parts of the island. pliny states that the custom of removing bees from place to place for fresh pasturage was frequent in the roman territories, and such is still the practice of the italians who live near the banks of the po, (the river which pliny particularly instances,) mentioned by alexander de montfort, who says that the italians treat their bees in nearly the same manner as the egyptians did and still do; that they load boats with hives and convey them to the neighbourhood of the mountains of piedmont; that in proportion as the bees gather in their harvest, the boats, by growing heavier, sink deeper into the water; and that the watermen determine from this, when their hives are loaded sufficiently, and it is time to carry them back to their places from which they came. the same author relates that the people of the country of juliers used the same practice; for that, at a certain season of the year, they carried their bees to the foot of mountains that were covered with wild thyme. m. maillet, who was the french consul in egypt in 1692, says in his curious description of egypt; "that in spite of the ignorance and rusticity which have got possession of that country, there yet remain in it several traces of the industry and skill of the ancient egyptians." one of their most admirable contrivances is, the sending their bees annually into different districts to collect food, at a time when they could not find any at home. about the end october, all such inhabitants of lower egypt, as have hives of bees, embark them on the nile, and convey them up that river quite into upper egypt; observing to time it so that they arrive there just when the inundation is withdrawn, the lands have been sown, and the flowers begin to bud. the hives thus sent are marked and numbered by their respective owners, and placed pyramidically in boats prepared for the purpose. after they have remained some time at their furthest station, and are supposed to have gathered all the pollen and honey they could find in the fields within two or three leagues around, their conductors convey them in the same boats, two or three leagues lower down, and there leave the laborious insects so long a time as is necessary for them to collect all the riches of this spot. thus the nearer they come to the place of their more permanent abode, they find the plants which afford them food, forward in proportion. in fine, about the beginning of february, after having travelled through the whole length of egypt, and gathered all the rich produce of the delightful banks of the nile, they arrive at the mouth of that river, towards the ocean; from whence they had set out: care is taken to keep an exact register of every district from whence the hives were sent in the beginning of the season, of their numbers, of the names of the persons who sent them, and likewise of the mark or number of the boat in which they were placed. niebuhr saw upon the nile, between cairo and damietta, a convoy of four thousand hives, in their transit from upper egypt to the delta. savary, in his letters on egypt, also gives an account of the manner of transporting the hives down the nile. in france floating bee-houses are common. goldsmith describes from his own observation, a kind of floating apiary in some parts of france and piedmont. "they have on board of one barge," he says, "three score or a hundred bee-hives, well defended from the inclemency of an accidental storm, and with these the owners float quietly down the stream: one bee-hive yields the proprietor a considerable income. why," he adds, "a method similar to this has never been adopted in england where we have more gentle rivers, and more flowery banks, than in any part of the world, i know not; certainly it might be turned to advantage." they have also a method of transporting their hives by land in carts in germany; and particularly in hanover travelling caravans of bees may be seen during the season. i have thus briefly quoted from famous authorities, to impress upon those who keep apiaries the importance of transporting their bees from pasture to pasture. the advantage to weak swarms is very great, "but whilst so little of the true principles of bee management is understood, as that the destruction of the bees has been considered absolutely essential, in order to the attainment of their stores, it is no wonder that so little attention should have been paid to their cultivation in this country, and that it should not have proved a more productive department of rural economy." "bees, like everything else worth possessing, require care and attention; but persons generally think it is quite sufficient to procure a hive and a swarm, and set it down in the middle of a garden, and that streams of honey and money will forthwith flow; and, perhaps, commence calculating, from the perusal of the statements of the profits made by thorley from a single hive, which he estimates to be 4300_l._ 16_s._ from 8192 hives kept during fourteen years! deducting ten shillings and sixpence, the cost of the first hive!" the bar and frame-hives are so constructed that they can be moved from place to place with the greatest ease, and, perhaps, this may be an inducement for bee-masters to try the recommendations of transporting bees, and thus avoid one expense of feeding them during the winter. connected with the foregoing subject of transporting bees from place to place, is the question of the distance to which bees extend their flight in search of food, &c.; and the comparative excellence of the position of an apiary depends in some measure on the greater or less distance the bees will have to fly to their pasturage. dr. chambers, and dr. hunter were of opinion, that the bee cannot extend its flight beyond a mile, which idea they adopted on the authority of schirach; but then it must be recollected that the german mile of schirach is equal to about 3-1/2 english miles. it was the opinion of huber, that the radii of the circle of the flight of the bee extended nearly to four english miles. and huish says "the travelling apiaries of germany, particularly those of hanover, are regulated by the prevailing opinion, that the bee can, and does, extend its flight to four and even five miles; and acting upon that supposition, when the bee-masters move their apiaries, they always travel about two _stunden_, that is, about eight miles, as they then calculate that the bees are beyond the former range of their pasture by four miles." and adds, "a travelling apiary of 80 or 100 hives will exhaust the food within the area of a circle of four miles in about a fortnight or three weeks." "but certainly there is no reason to fear that any part of this country will be overstocked with bees, for where one hive is now kept, fifty might be kept without running any risk of overstocking the country; for the average number of hives in the various apiaries does not exceed five." "it has been calculated" says another authority, "that the pastures of scotland could maintain as many bees as would produce 4,000,000 pints of honey, and 1,000,000 lbs. of wax; and were these quantities tripled for england and ireland, the produce of the british empire would be 12,000,000 pints of honey, and 3,000,000 lbs. of wax per annum, worth about five shillings per pint for the honey, and one shilling and sixpence per lb. for the wax, making an annual produce in money of about 3,225,000_l._ but in consequence of the present neglect of this branch of rural economy, we pay annually nearly 12,000_l._ for honey alone. the imports and exports of wax bleached and unbleached were as follows: returned imported. exported. for home the rate consumption. of duty 1831. 1832. 1831. 1832. 1831. 1832. cwt. cwt. cwt. â£ s. d. unbleached 7,005 1,878 10,002 1 10 0 4,349 2,536 826 bleached 195 504 94 3 0 0 produce of duty. unbleached â£ 10,262 bleached 823 the price of wax varies (duty included) from 5_l._ to 10_l._ a cwt. in 1831, 7,203 cwt. of wax were imported, of which 3,892 cwt. of it came from western africa; 1,551, from tripoli, barbary, &c.; and 910 cwt. from the united states. in 1839, imports were 6,314 cwt., in 1841, 4,483 cwt. of wax; in 1838, 675 cwt. of honey; and in 1841, 3,761 cwt. valued at 12,000_l._ brought principally from the west indies, germany, and portugal. the above statement proves the demand there is in this country for honey and wax. it is mentioned in wildman's pamphlet that, when corsica was subject to the romans, a tribute was imposed upon it of no less than two hundred thousand pounds of wax yearly; but this is no proof of the excellence of their honey, which, according to ovid, was of very ill account, and seems to be the reason why the tributary tax was exacted in wax, in preference to honey. the honey collected by the bees at all times retains qualities derived from the kind of plant from whence it has been procured, as is manifest not only by the peculiar odour of the honey, such as that collected from leek blossoms and all the onion tribe, but by the effects produced by the use of honey obtained from certain plants, chiefly from the subtribe rhodoraceã¦, such as the kalmia, azalea, rhododendron, &c., which yield a honey frequently poisonous and intoxicating, as has been proved by the fatal effects on persons in america. it is recorded by xenophon in his anabasis that, during the retreat of the ten thousand, the soldiers sucked some honey-combs in a place near trebizonde, and in consequence became intoxicated, and did not recover their strength for three or four days; and these effects are supposed to have been produced from the honey having been extracted by the bees from the rhododendron ponticum or azalea pontica of linnã¦us. although many of these plants have been introduced into this country, yet, probably from their small proportion to the whole of the flowers in bloom, the honey collected by the bees has not been found to be injured or to have produced any evil consequences. the goodness and flavour of honey depend on the fragrance of the plants from which the bees collect it, and hence it is that the honey of different places is held in different degrees of estimation. the honey gathered from the genus erica (termed _heather honey_) and most labiate plants, is wholesome. that which is made early in the year is preferred to what is collected in the latter end of the season. whilst on the subject of honey, i will add the directions given by wildman, how to separate the honey from the wax: "take," he says, "the combs which have been extracted from the different hives or boxes into a close room, rather warm than otherwise, that the honey may drain more freely, and keep the doors and windows shut, to prevent the bees from entering, or else they will be very troublesome, and will attack and carry away the greater part of the honey from the combs. "lay aside such combs as have young bees or brood in them, as they would give your honey a bad flavour and render it unwholesome, and the bee-brood must also be separated and melted with the brood-combs. when you have thus separated the combs, let such as are very fine be nicely drained by themselves, without the least pressing whatever, having been carefully cleaned of every sort of filth, or insects, and dividing each comb in such a manner that the cells may be open at both ends, and placing them upon a sieve or coarse cloth, that the honey may drain off quite pure and undefiled. the remainder of the combs from which the honey has been thus drained, together with those which contained the bee-bread and brood, must be put into a coarse cloth or bag, and squeezed or pressed to get all the honey out. this will make it inferior in quality, and unfit for many uses, therefore it should be put into pots or bottles by itself, to feed bees with, for which purpose it will be better than pure honey, on account of the bee-bread that will be mixed with it, which is necessary for their subsistence. "in order to obtain the wax in a pure state, what remains of the combs after separating the honey, together with the empty combs which had been laid aside, should be put into a copper with clean water; made to boil gently over a slow fire, keeping it constantly stirring. when it is melted, run it through a coarse cloth or bag made for the purpose, and put it into a press to separate the wax from the dross. let the wax run from the press into a vessel placed under it, into which put some water to prevent the wax adhering to the sides. "if this process of boiling and pressing is repeated twice or even three times, the wax will be much purer and consequently of greater value. set it in a place where it may cool by degrees, in pans of the size you would choose your cakes to be, with some water in them, to prevent the wax sticking to the sides whilst hot. honey should be kept only in stone jars, called bristol ware, and in a cool and dry situation, but not corked up until a week or two after it has transuded through the sieve, &c., but should be carefully covered with perforated sheets of zinc to keep out insects and flies, &c. after which period the jars may be secured and put into the store-rooms. "the only protection necessary for gentlemen,--for ladies, i presume, would never venture to undertake the dangerous task of extracting the honey combs from hives or boxes,--will be a pair of buckskin gloves, with a pair of worsted gloves over them extending to the elbows; so that the bees should not be able to creep between the gloves and the sleeves; for the face a piece of wire pattern gauze net, made in the shape of a bag, to draw with a string round the hat above the brim, which will keep it from the face, and the other open end being secured under the neck handkerchief, and with the assistance of a puff or two of smoke into any hive intended to be operated upon, the bee-master may fearlessly turn up the hive, and cut out combs or dislodge bees from their habitations, &c. with impunity." the enemies to bees, &c. the proprietor having provided shelter for his bees, and as great a plenty of pasture as he possibly can, should next be careful to guard them from the numerous enemies which prey upon them, and destroy their honey-combs. bees themselves, in the autumn and spring, are very often great enemies to one another, and rob each other's hives, especially in dry seasons, when the honey gathering is almost over; and the bees from over-stocked hives, not having honey sufficient for their winter's store, will through necessity attack the old hives or stocks, which are thinned by over swarming, carry away all their honey, and often destroy their queens. in order to prevent this havoc, contract the entrance or entrances of the hive attempted to be robbed, so that a few bees only can enter at a time, by which means the old stocks will be better able to defend themselves. if, notwithstanding this narrowness of the passage, robbers attack a hive, the entrance should be instantly closed and kept so till the thieves are gone, and it will be advisable in the evening to examine the state of the hive, especially as to weight, and if the queen be safe, remove it to another place, at least a mile from the old locality. the person who is thus employed, at a time when the bees are full of resentment, should be well defended from their stings. but, should he be so unfortunate as to get stung for his interference, the first thing is to extract the sting. to alleviate the irritation, cooling lotions should be applied, but the pain of a sting is relieved by applying spirits of hartshorn, or liquor potassã¦, to the spot where the sting entered. one would imagine the moth to be an enemy of no consequence, but the wax-moth (_tinea mellonella_) is a most formidable enemy. she lays her eggs under the very skirts of the hive, or in the rubbish on the floor, or even in the combs of the bees; these eggs when hatched produce a small whitish worm or larva, and it is in this stage that it commits its ravages, extending its galleries through every quarter of the combs, detaching them from the tops and sides of the hives, and causing them to fall together. the way to destroy them is frequently to lift up the hive in the morning, and kill all you can see. the most effectual way is to drive the bees into a new hive, but this can be only done in the height of the honey season; or the affected combs may be cut out, and the bees restored to their old habitation. mice are likewise very destructive to bees; sometimes they enter at the door, but most commonly near the top of the hive; this they do generally during winter, when the bees are in a torpid state; when this is suspected, set a few traps about the hives. the common bat will also sometimes take possession of a hive, and commit very great havoc amongst the bees. wasps and hornets must be destroyed, if possible, either by gunpowder, or by the more primitive mode of placing limed twigs before the holes, when you have discovered their nests. the spring is the time to kill the female wasps and hornets, for then, by the death of one female, a whole nest is destroyed. or place bottles half full of sugar and beer where the wasps frequent; they will go in to drink, and drown themselves in the liquor, not being able to get out of the bottle again. spiders must be killed, and their nets or webs broken down, otherwise they will catch and destroy many bees. swallows, frogs, ants, earwigs, snails, woodlice, poultry, and small birds of almost all kinds, are reckoned amongst their foes. and, therefore, there should be no lack of vigilance on the part of the owner of bees, to keep the bee-house as clean as possible from all vermin. the signs of dysentery having commenced in any colony of bees may be known by the floor-boards and combs being covered with stains, by the dark coloured evacuations, producing an offensive smell, and frequent deaths amongst the bees. "bees," says gelieu, "have no real disease; they are always in good health as long as they are at liberty, are kept warm, and provided with plenty of food. all their pretended diseases are the result of cold, hunger, or the infection produced by a too close and long confinement during winter, and by exposure to damp, &c." they appear however sometimes to be seized, in the spring, with dysentery; this is occasioned by their feeding too greedily, it is supposed, on honey dew, without the mixture of pollen and other wholesome nutriment. the only remedy that has been found for this disease, is to give the bees plenty of honey, such honey as that extracted from the refuse combs in the autumn, that had abundance of bee-bread pressed amongst it,--the more the better,--mixing with it a table-spoonful of salt, and giving the bees their full liberty, and a clean hive. many things are necessary for the preservation of bees, but more especially in this country, where the bees have only one season in five, on an average of years, really good for their honey harvest; wherefore the owner should take care to provide the light stocks with a sufficient quantity of food, which they have not been able to secure by their own industry, either through the badness of the bee-pasturage, the inclemency of the seasons, the weakness of the colony, or the spoil made by their enemies; and sometimes by the ill-judged management of their owners, in robbing the bees beyond the bounds of reason. by this last unjust way of proceeding, these poor industrious little insects are absolutely starved, and their greedy masters deservedly experience the old proverb; that "too much covetousness breaks the bag." it is impossible to ascertain what quantity of honey will serve a hive of bees the whole winter, because the number in the hive may be more or less, and in some years, the spring is more forward than in others; but 25 lbs. is said to be the quantity required in a common cottage-hive. during frost, the bees consume very little food indeed; and still less during severe cold weather. mr. white (with many other apiarians) is of opinion, that a greater degree of cold than is commonly imagined to be proper for bees is favourable to them in winter, for the bees during that period, are in so lethargic a state, that little food supports them. the best method to feed the weak stocks, if in one of mr. r. golding's improved grecian hives, is to place some combs (drone combs reserved for that purpose) filled on one side with honey, over the centre-board, and covering it over with a common hive. the advantage of feeding bees from above is great; they are less likely to be attacked by the bees from other hives, and they do not become benumbed by the cold, as the same temperature is maintained above as in the rest of the hive. but in all cases, bees should be fed in autumn, and before they are in absolute want of food, otherwise they will be so poor and weak that they will not be able to ascend or descend to feed themselves. when that happens, it is almost too late to save them; however, you may try and feed them, by first tying a piece of gauze over the bottom of the hive, turning it up to receive the heat of the sun or fire, and, if the bees revive at all, place a pewter dish with some liquid honey in it, on the floor-board, and the hive over it, when the bees will draw up the honey through the gauze or net without smearing themselves, the the pewter dish having been filled with hot water to keep the honey liquid, and to diffuse a genial warmth throughout the hive, and thus secure them for a time from the cold, which would chill and even kill the bees in the winter, when they came down to the bottom of the hive to feed on the proffered bounty. in prosperous hives or colonies, as soon as the severity of the winter's frost is past, the queen-bee begins to lay her eggs in the various cells in the combs, and proceeds in proportion to the mildness of the season to deposit a succession. the number of young bees that may by this means rise in a hive, may endanger the lives of all the bees by famine, for the increased multitude consume a great deal of honey, an accident likely to happen if the mild weather of january or february should be succeeded by cold, rainy, or even dry weather; for it is found that the flowers do not secrete the sweet juices, which constitute honey, so freely during the prevalence of dry easterly winds; and thus present a barren field for the out-of-door labours of the bees. on this account, the proprietor should examine the hives frequently at this season, that, if necessary, he may give them a proper supply, in which he should be bountiful rather than otherwise, because the bees are faithful stewards, and will return with interest what is thus in their great need bestowed upon them. the time of the bees' swarming is generally in the months of may and june, and sometimes july, but the latter is too late, as there are then fewer bees than in the earlier swarms, and they seldom live through the winter without much care and feeding. the later swarms should be hived in rather smaller hives than the first, that, by clustering together, they may the better nourish and keep themselves warm. the hours of their swarming are for the most part about twelve o'clock at noon, never before eight, and seldom after four in the afternoon. the symptom of swarming, is generally the unusual number of bees seen hanging at the mouth of the hive, and if a piping noise, or a shrill note, which is made by the queen is heard, it is a sure index the bees will swarm, if the weather be warm and dry. if the bees work a comb under the floor-board, as is sometimes the case, it is a sign they will not swarm; a more certain sign is when they throw out the young dead queens with the drone brood. when they retain the drones in the hives after august, it is a bad omen, as they are then reserved for the sake of the young queens, which they are expecting to raise; and the season being too far advanced, and their failing in the attempt, and being without a queen, the colony will most certainly dwindle away, before the next season. always choose a hive proportionable to the size of your swarm, and prepare to hive them as soon as possible, lest they should rise again. it is not unusual to ring a bell or tinkle a brass pan, &c., at the time the bees swarm; it is also a common method to dress the hives with honey, balm, &c. i mention these things, because they are customs of long standing: the tinkling of bells is of little use, as the bees will generally settle near the hive; and as to dressing the hives, i by no means recommend it, as the bees like a clean new hive much better, for it does not give them so much trouble to clean, &c. if the swarm should rise in the full heat of the day, and the sun shine hot upon them, they will not continue long in their first situation; for when they find they have all got their company together, they will soon uncluster, rise again, fly to some particular spot which has been fixed upon for that purpose by detached parties of bees, who return and acquaint the swarm; therefore i would advise to hive them as soon as possible, and remove them in the evening to the place where they are to remain. the supposed relative value of early and late swarms is thus mentioned in an old english proverb:- a swarm in may, is worth a load of hay. a swarm in june, is worth a silver spoon; a swarm in july, is not worth a fly. swarming and hiving the bees. every good swarm should weigh about 5 lbs., and according to the account given in key's treatise, would contain 23,000 bees. the manner of hiving them must be regulated chiefly by the places upon which they alight. if they settle on a dead hedge, or upon the ground, set a hive over them, putting props under it if necessary, and, with a large spoon or brush of wet weeds, stir them softly underneath, and they will go in. if they should happen to settle upon a small bough, you may cut it off, and laying it quietly on a cloth, place a hive over them; or if you cannot conveniently separate the bough from the body of the tree, you may shake or sweep them off into the hive. if the sun shines hot upon it, shade it with a few boughs, &c., but let it remain near the place where the bees settled until the evening, at which time move it to the bee-house, or the place where it is to stand during the season, as just directed. if the bees have hung a considerable time to the place where they first settled, you will, perhaps, find it difficult entirely to dislodge them, as they will neglect their labour and fly about the spot for many days afterwards. the best method to prevent this is, by rubbing the branches with rue, or any kind of herb disagreeable to the bees; but be careful not to hurt any of the bees. swarms seldom return home again, when they are well settled, and if you find them inclined to do so, depend upon it, some accident has happened to their queen, which you will easily ascertain by their making a murmuring noise, and running in a distracted manner over and about the sides of the hive. when you observe this, immediately seek about for her, beginning with the stock-hive from whence the swarm rose, and pursue the track they took at setting out; you will seldom miss finding her, for she is never alone, but generally encompassed with a cluster of bees, who would sooner perish than leave her in danger. when you have found her, take her up gently, and put her to the swarm, and you will soon find the cause of their dissatisfaction removed by the arrival of the queen. the greatest care must be taken to have your hive clean and sweet, free from loose straws or other obstacles, which will create great trouble and loss of time to the bees, if left to them to remove. if bees have flowers suitable to their tastes, and no great distance to travel to them, they will fill their hives both with honey and wax, in about a month or five weeks, and, if the season has proved fair and pleasant, in less time; but the bee-keeper must expect four out of every five seasons to be unpropitious to his little charge, and, therefore, he must be on the watch to assist them with food in the time of need. scarcely has the swarm arrived at its new habitation, when the working bees labour with the utmost diligence, to procure food and build their combs. their principal aim is not only to have cells in which they may deposit the honey and pollen, but a stronger motive seems to animate them; they seem to know that their queen is about to deposit her eggs; and their industry is such, that in four and twenty hours they will have made combs, twelve inches long, and three or four inches wide. they build more combs during the first fortnight, than they do during all the rest of the year. other bees are at the same time busy in stopping all the holes and crevices they happen to find in their new hive, in order to guard against the entrance of insects which covet their honey, their wax, or themselves; and also to exclude the cold air; for it is indispensably necessary that they be lodged warm and secure from damp, &c. a second swarm scarcely is, and much less are the third ones called _casts_ worth keeping single, because, being few in number, they cannot allow so large a proportion of working bees to go abroad in search of provisions, as more numerous swarms can, after retaining a proper number for the various works to be done within the hive. bees sometimes swarm so often that the mother-hive is too much weakened or reduced in population. in this case they should be restored; and this should also be done when a swarm produces a swarm the first summer, as is sometimes the case in early seasons. the best way, indeed, is to prevent such swarming, by giving the bees more room; though this, again, will not answer where there is a prolific young queen in the hive; as she well knows that her life is the forfeit of her remaining at home. before the union of one or two casts or late swarms is made, it is better to kill one of the queens, if possible, to prevent the queens destroying one another. if an old hive is full of bees, and yet shows no disposition to swarm, puff in a little smoke at the entrance of the hive, then turn the hive up, and give it some slight strokes on the sides so as to alarm the bees. they will immediately run to the extremities of the combs, and if you then attentively examine them, you will, in all probability, perceive the queen-bee the foremost amongst them. seize her between your fore finger and thumb, and confine her in your hand till most part of the bees take wing; let her then go, the bees will soon join her, and settle on some branch of a tree. put them into an empty hive. restore the old hive in its place, that the bees which have been out in the fields may enter it on their return, and having allowed them to remain there an hour or two, place it upon another stand near or next to its own. the hive having what may now be called a swarm in it, is then placed on the stand of the old stock; and if the bees in both hives work regularly, carrying in loads of pollen on their thighs, all is well. bees are not apt to sting when they swarm naturally, therefore, it is not necessary then to take extraordinary precaution against them; but when any of these violent and artificial modes are attempted, i should advise the operator to be well guarded at all points. wildman weighed bees and found it required 4,928 bees to make a pound of sixteen ounces, but the different circumstances in bees may occasion a considerable difference in their weight. when the bees swarm, they come out loaded with wax secreted in their wax pockets and honey in their honey bags, and would weigh heavier than bees taken for that purpose by chance; and, therefore, the number of the bees is not to be thus computed, from the weight of the swarm; for one fourth of the number at least should be deducted, in lieu of the wax and honey they have brought off with them. there is also another allowance to be made, namely, that when alive, they do not probably weigh so heavy as when dead. the person who intends to erect an apiary, should purchase a proper number of hives at the latter end of the year, when they are cheapest. the hives should be full of combs, and well stored with bees. the purchaser should examine the combs, in order to know the age of the hives. the combs of that season are white, those of a darkish yellow are of the previous year; and, where the combs are black, the hives should be rejected, because old hives are most liable to vermin and other accidents. if the number of hives wanted were not purchased in the autumn, it will be necessary to remedy this neglect after the severity of the cold is past in the spring. at this season, bees which are in good condition, will get into the fields early in the morning, return loaded, enter boldly, and do not come out of the hive in bad weather; for when they do, this indicates that they are in great want of provisions. they are alert on the least disturbance; and by the loudness of their humming, you can judge of their strength. they preserve their hives free from filth, and are ready to defend it against every enemy that approaches. but the better plan is at once to commence with new hives, and purchase the first and strong swarms to put into them, and introduce them into the bee-house. there are various substances found in a hive, such as the _wax_, with which the combs are built, the _honey_, the _farina_ or _pollen_, with which the bee-brood is fed, and _propolis_. _honey_, is a fluid or semi-fluid substance, the materials of which are collected by the bees, from the nectaries at the base of the corollã¦ of flowers, where this vegetable production is secreted. it cannot be said to be a purely vegetable production when found in the combs, for after being collected by the insect by means of its proboscis, it is transmitted into what is called the honey bag, where it is elaborated, and, hurrying homewards with its precious load, the bee regurgitates it into the cell of the honey comb. it takes a great many drops to fill a cell, as the honey bag when full does not exceed the size of a small pea. when the cell is full, it is sealed up with a mixture of of wax and pollen, and reserved for future use in winter and spring. _wax_. there are several varieties of this substance, but bees-wax is a secretion of that insect from its ventral scales. with this substance the comb is constructed; it takes the bees, according to huber's account, twenty-four hours to secrete the six laminã¦ of wax in the wax pockets, which may be seen to exude between the segments of the under side of the abdomen of the bee. for the purpose of the formation of wax, the bees have to cluster and form themselves into festoons from the top of the hive, and after the elapse of the necessary period, the wax scales are formed, with which the bees commence immediately to build their combs, and the various cells for the reception of the brood or food, according to the season of the year. _propolis_, is a tenacious, semi-transparent substance, having a balsamic odour; which the bees gather from the buds of certain trees in the spring, such as the horse-chestnut, the willow, the poplar, and the birch. this tenacious substance is employed by the bees to attach more firmly the combs to the top or foundation, and also the edges of the combs to the sides of the hive or box, to stop the crevices, and fasten the hives or boxes to the floor-boards, and in forming barriers against the intrusion of enemies. _farina_, or _pollen_, is the dust or minute globules contained in the anthers of flowers, and is the fertilizing property of flowers, which the bees thus assist to carry, whilst travelling from flower to flower, without which the flowers would not fructify. the bees have been found to continue collecting pollen from the same species of flowers, and prevent the multiplication of hybrid plants. they collect and carry this substance on the outer surface of the tibia, or the middle joint of the hinder leg; this part of the leg is broad, and on one side it is concave, and furnished with a row of strong hairs on its margins, forming as it were a natural basket, well adapted for the purpose. this substance mixed with honey, forms the food of the larvã¦ or young brood, after undergoing, perhaps, a peculiar elaboration by the working or nurse bees. having thus mentioned the different substances found in a hive, it only remains to add a short history of the inmates of the hive. every swarm of bees comprises three distinct kinds of the same species, namely, the _female_ or _queen_, the _neuter_ or _worker-bee_, and the _male_ or _drone_. as there is only one _queen-bee_ in each swarm or colony, she is seldom to be seen amidst the thousands of other bees; but she is easily distinguished from the rest by her slower movements, her greater length and larger size; and the general appearance of her body, being of a more dark orange colour, and her hinder legs having neither brushes nor pollen baskets upon them, although longer than those of the worker-bee; her wings also appear stronger, and she possesses a more curved sting, which she seldom uses, except when asserting her rights to the sovereignty of the hive. without a _queen-bee_ no swarm can thrive, for she is not only the ruler, but chiefly the mother of the community in which she dwells, and wherever she goes, the greatest attention is paid her. in the hive, the utmost solicitude is evinced to satisfy her in every wish; wherever she moves the bees anxiously clear away before her, and turn their heads towards their sovereign, and with much affection touch her with their antennã¦, and supply her, as often as she needs, with honey or other delicacy which their own exertions, or those of their fellow labourers, have gathered for her use. the queen-bee is said to live four or five years, and is generally succeeded on her throne by one of her own descendants duly brought up for the purpose; but in the event of her untimely decease, the workers have the power of raising a sovereign from amongst themselves, and fitting her for the station she is intended to occupy; this they do by selecting one of the larvã¦ of the worker-bee of a certain age, and, enlarging the cell which it is to occupy, supplying it with a nourishment different from that which they give to the worker and drone-brood. a _queen-bee_ takes seventeen days to arrive at maturity, that is to say, from the egg-state to the fully developed queen, but this period will vary as a sudden change of temperature will prolong the interval; and this also applies to the perfect _queen_ herself, who will not deposit her eggs in the cells, when any severe weather happens at the period she may be expected to produce the eggs. the fecundity of the queen-bee is very great, for it is estimated that during breeding time, unless prevented by the cold weather, she lays at the rate of from one hundred to two hundred eggs a day, causing an increase of not less than eighty thousand worker-bees, and drones included, in a season when circumstances are favourable. the cells formed for the royal brood are very different from those of the males or the workers, and are generally suspended from the sides or edges of the combs; in shape they are very much like a pear, the thickest end joining the comb, and the small end having the mouth or entrance to the cell, and hanging downwards, and being almost as large as a lady's thimble. the _drones_ or _males_ in a hive are computed at from six hundred to two thousand, but the numbers are remarkably irregular, and the proportion is not regulated by the number of bees contained in a hive; for a small swarm or colony will contain as many, or more sometimes, than a large one. the drone may be easily distinguished from the _queen_ or _workers_, from its greater breadth, having large eyes which meet at the top of the head, and no sting, and from its making a loud humming whilst flying. it takes twenty-four days from the time of the laying of the drone _egg_ to its coming forth a perfect insect. drones are generally hatched about the end of april or the beginning of may; they venture out of the hive only in warm weather, and then only in the middle of the day, and they are generally expelled by the bees from the hives about july or august, after the impregnation of the young queens has taken place. when the destruction of the drones takes place earlier, it may be considered a certain indication that no swarming will take place during that season; but the retention of the drones after august, is a very bad sign, as the swarm must certainly perish in the winter, unless their vacant throne is supplied with a prolific queen. the _neuter_ or _worker-bee_, is the least of the three, and of a dark brown colour; the abdomen is conical, and composed of six distinct segments, and armed with a straight sting; it possesses a long flexible trunk, known by the name of a proboscis, and has on its two hinder legs a hollow or basket, to receive the propolis and farina which it collects as before described. the number of workers in a well-stocked hive is about fifteen thousand or twenty thousand. upon them devolves the whole care and labour of the colony, to collect pollen, propolis, and honey; to build the combs and to attend upon the brood or young bees. the _worker-bee_ is short-lived, seldom surviving more than a year, but this is more from the toil they have to endure, though it be a labour of love, and the many risks they run upon each occasion of going out in search of food, &c., from the weather, or their numerous winged enemies. "sunt quibus ad portas cecidit custodia sorti: inque vicem speculantur aquas et nubila coeli, aut onera accipiunt venientum, aut agmine facto ignavum fucos pecus ã  prã¦sepibus arcent. fervet opus, redolentque thymo fragrantia mella." london: printed by s. & j. bentley, wilson, and fley, bangor house, shoe lane. * * * * * transcribers notes: a page of errata appearing here has been applied to the text and removed. inconsistency in the hyphenation of phrases has been retained. a manual or an easy method of managing bees, in the most profitable manner to their owner, with infallible rules to prevent their destruction by the moth. by john m. weeks, of salisbury, vt. second edition. middlebury: elam r. jewett, printer. 1837. entered according to act of congress, in the year 1836. by john m. weeks, in the clerk's office of the district court of vermont. preface. it appears to the writer of the following pages, that a work of this description is much needed in our country. the cultivation of the bee (apis mellifica) has been too long neglected in most parts of the united states. this general neglect has unquestionably originated from the fact, that the european enemy to the bees, called the moth, has found its way into this country, and has located and naturalized itself here; and has made so much havoc among the bees, that many districts have entirely abandoned their cultivation. many apiarians, and men of the highest literary attainments, as well as experience, have nearly exhausted their patience, in examining the peculiar nature and habits of this insect; and have tried various experiments to devise some means of preventing its depredations. but, after all that has been done, the spoiler moves onward with little molestation, and very few of our citizens are willing to engage in the enterprize of cultivating this most useful and profitable of all insects, the honey-bee. the following work is comprised in a set of plain, concise rules, by which, if strictly adhered to and practised, any person, properly situated, may cultivate bees, and avail himself of all the benefits of their labors. if the apiarian manages strictly in accordance with the following rules, the author feels confident that no colony will ever materially suffer by the moth, or will ever be destroyed by them. the author is aware of the numerous treatises published on this subject; but they appear to him, for the most part, to be the result not so much of experience as of vague and conjectural speculation, and not sufficiently embodying what is practical and useful. this work is intended as an accompaniment to the vermont hive, and will be found to be the result of observation and experience, and it is thought comprises all that is necessary to make a skilful apiarian. the author. index chapter rule i. on the construction of the hive, 5 rule ii. on swarming and hiving, 11 rule iii. on ventilating, 23 rule iv. on preventing robberies, 24 rule v. on equalizing colonies, by doubling, trebling, &c, 26 rule vi. on removing honey, 30 rule vii. the method of compelling swarms to make extra queens, and keep them for the use of their owner, 33 rule viii. on supplying swarms with queens, when necessary, 38 rule ix. on multiplying colonies to any desirable extent, without swarming, 42 rule x. on preventing the depredations of the moth, 43 rule xi. on feeding, 56 rule xii. on wintering, 60 rule xiii. on transferring bees from one hive to another, 60 xiv. general observations, 65 manual, &c. rule i. on the construction of a bee-hive. a bee-hive should be made of sound boards, free from shakes and cracks; it should also be planed smooth, inside and out, made in a workmanlike manner, and painted on its outside. remarks. that a bee-hive should be made perfect, so as to exclude light and air, is obvious from the fact, that the bees will finish what the workman has neglected, by plastering up all such cracks and crevices, or bad joints, as are left open by the joiner. the substance they use for this purpose is neither honey nor wax, but a kind of glue or cement of their own manufacturing, and is used by the bees to fill up all imperfect joints and exclude all light and air. this cement or glue is very congenial to the growth of the moth in the first stages of its existence. the moth miller enters the hive, generally, in the night--makes an incision into the glue or cement with her sting, and leaves her eggs deposited in the glue, where it remains secure from the bees; it being guarded by the timber on its sides. thus, while a maggot, (larva) the moth uses the cement for food until it arrives so far towards a state of maturity as to be able to spin a web, which is more fully explained in remarks on rule 10. the size of a hive should be in accordance with the strictest rules of economy, and adapted to the peculiar nature and economy of the honey-bee, in order to make them profitable to their owner. the lower apartment of the hive, where they store their food, raise their young bees, and perform their ordinary labors, should hold as much as a box thirteen inches and one half or fourteen inches square in the clear. if the hive is much larger than the one described above, with the chamber in proportion, which should hold about two-thirds as much as the lower apartment, the bees will not be likely to swarm during the season. bees in large hives never swarm; and those in hives much less than the one already described, do but little else than raise young bees and lay up a sufficient quantity of food to supply them through the coming winter, and are more liable to be robbed. all hives of bees that swarm are liable to swarm too much, and reduce their colonies so low in numbers as to materially injure them, and is frequently the cause of their destruction by the moth, which is more particularly explained in remarks on rule 2. the changer of the hive should be made perfectly tight, so as to exclude all light from the drawers. drawers should be small like no. 2, for all purposes except such as are used for multiplying colonies and transferring, which should always be large like no. 1. hives should have elects on their sides, so as to suspend them in the air some distance from the floor of the apiary, the better to secure the bees from destruction by mice, reptiles, and other vermin. the back side or rear of the lower apartment of the hive should slant forward, so as to render the same smallest at the bottom, the better to secure the combs from falling when cracked by frost or nearly melted in hot weather. no timbers or boards should be placed very near the lower edge of the hive, because it facilitates the entrance of depredators. that the back side should slant forward, is obvious from the fact, that bees generally rest one edge of their combs on that side, and build towards the front in such a manner as to enter upon the same sheet where they intend to deposit their stores, when they first enter the hive, without being compelled to take any unnecessary steps. the bottom of the hive should slant downward from rear to front, so as to afford the greatest facility to the bees to clear their tenement of all offensive substances, and let the water, which is occasioned by the breath and vapor of the bees, run off in cold water. it also aids the bees very much in preventing the entrance of robbers. the bottom board should be suspended by staples and hooks near each corner of the hive, in such a manner as to afford a free entrance and egress to the bees on all its sides, which will better enable them to keep their tenement clear of the moths. there should be a button attached to the lower edge of the rear of the hive, so as to enable the apiarian to govern the bottom board in such a manner as to give all the air they need, or close the hive at pleasure. the hive should have two sticks placed at equal distances, extending from front to rear, resting on the rear, with a screw driven through the front into the end of the stick, which holds it fast in its place, and a ventilator hear the top of the lower apartment of the hive, to let off the vapor which frequently causes the death of the bees in the winter by freezing. the door to the chamber should be made to fit in the rabitings of the same against the jambs, in such a manner as to exclude the light from the windows of the drawers, and also to prevent the entrance of the little ants. it should also be hung by butts, or fastened by a bar, running vertically across the centre of the door, and confined by staples at each end. there should be three sheet-iron slides, one of which should be nearly as wide as the chamber, and one or two inches longer than the length of the chamber. the other two should be the same length of the first, and half its width only. all hives and all their appendages should be made exactly of a size and shape in the same apiary. the trouble of equalizing colonies is far less than it is to accommodate hives to swarms. much perplexity and sometimes serious difficulties occur, where the apiarian uses different sized hives and drawers. but this part of the subject will be more fully discussed under its proper rule. rule ii. on swarming and hiving. the apiarian, or bee-owner, should have his hives in readiness, and in their places in the apiary, with the drawers in their chambers bottom up, so as to prevent entrance. when a swarm comes forth and has alighted, cut off the limb if convenient--shake it gently, so as to disengage the bees, and let them fall gently on to the table, board, or ground, (as the case may be,) place the hive over them before many rise into the air, taking care at the same time to lay one or more sticks in such a manner as to raise the hive so as to give the bees rapid ingress and egress. if the bees act reluctantly in taking possession of their new habitation, disturb them by brushing them with a goose-quill or some other instrument, not harsh, and they will soon enter. in case it is found necessary to invert the hive to receive the bees, (which is frequent, from the manner of their alighting,) then, first secure the drawers down to the floor by inserting a handkerchief or something above them; now invert the hive and shake or brush the bees into it; now turn it gently right end up on the table, or other place, observing the rule aforesaid. remarks. bees swarm from nine o'clock in the morning to three o'clock in the afternoon on a fair day, differing in the season according to the climate. in vermont they generally swarm from the middle of may to the fifteenth of july; in late seasons some later. i have known them to swarm as early as seven in the morning and as late as four in the afternoon. i have also known them to come forth when it rained so hard as nearly to defeat them by beating down many to the ground which were probably lost from their colony; and i once had a swarm come forth on the sixteenth day of august. experience and observation have taught that the queen leaves the old stock first, and her colony rapidly follow. they fly about a few minutes, apparently in the greatest confusion, until the swarm is principally out of the hive. they then alight, generally on the limb of some tree, shrub, or bush, or some other place convenient for them to cluster in a bunch not far from the old stock, and make their arrangements for a journey to a new habitation. perhaps not one swarm in a thousand knows where they are going until after they have left the old stock, alighted, and formed into a compact body or cluster; and not then until they have sent off an embassy to search out a place for their future residence. now if the bees are hived immediately after they have alighted, before they send off their embassy to seek a new tenement, they will never fly away, admitting they have sufficient room, (for it is want of room that makes them swarm in the first place,) and their hive is clear of every thing that is offensive to them. the old custom of washing hives with salt and water and other substances, to give them a pleasant effluvia, should be speedily abolished. nothing but bees should ever be put into a hive. when bees die, the hive should be cleared of its contents, and scraped out clean, and the chamber rubbed with cloth wet in clean water; then set it in its place in the apiary, and there let it stand until wanted for use. an old hive, thus prepared, is as good as a new one for the reception of a swarm. the apiarian should examine before using to see that the hive is free from spiders and cobwebs. when bees are not hived immediately after they have clustered in a body, they should be removed to the apiary, or several rods from the place where they alighted, as soon as they can be hived, to prevent their being found on the return of the embassy. since i have thus practised, i have never lost a swarm by flight. experience has taught that it is best to remove the new swarm to the place where it is intended to stand during the season, immediately after hiving. fewer bees are lost by a speedy removal, than when permitted to stand until evening, because they are creatures of habit, and are every moment establishing themselves in their location. it also prevents their being found by the embassy when they return. the longer bees stand in the place where they are hived, the greater will be the number lost when removed. but more of this hereafter. when bees are collected in drawers for the purpose of equalizing colonies, by doubling, &c., they should be permitted to stand until evening before they are united, it being a more favorable time for them to become acquainted with each other by degrees; and the scent of the bees in the lower apartment will enter through the apertures during the night so much that there is a greater degree of sameness in the peculiar smell of the two colonies, which takes off their animosity, if they chance to have any. no confusion or noise which is uncommon to the bees should ever be made during their swarming or hiving. the only effect of noise, ringing of bells, &tc., that i could ever discover, was, to render them more hostile and unmanageable. when bees are treated in accordance with their true nature, they are sometimes hostile, which originates from two causes: first, some of them lie out of the hive before swarming and some of them, in consequence of their confusion in swarming, are not apprised of the intention of the queen to leave the old stock and seek a new habitations and they sally forth with the swarm without filling their sacks with stores, which always makes them more irritable than when their stomachs are rilled with food. the vermont hive possesses advantages in this respect, as well as others, far superior to the old box. instead of lying out before swarming, as in the old box, they go up into the drawers, and are constantly employed in depositing the delicious fruits of their labors; and being in the hive, where they can hear and observe all the movements of the queen, they go forth well stored with provisions suited to the peculiar exigency of the case; which ordinarily prevents all feelings of hostility. the second reason why bees are sometimes irritable, and are disposed to sting when they swarm, is, the air is forbidding to them, by being cold or otherwise, so as to impede them in their determined emigration. in all such cases, the apiarian should be furnished with a veil, made of millinet, or some light covering which may be worn over his hat, and let down so low as to cover his face and bosom, and fixed in such a manner as to prevent their stinging. he should also put on a pair of thick woolen gloves or stockings over his hands, thus managing them without the least danger. a clean hive is all that is needed for a swarm of bees, with careful and humane treatment. a cluster of bees should never be shook or jarred any more than merely to disengage them from the limb or place where they are collected, nor should they fall any great distance, because their sacks are full when they swarm, which renders them both clumsy and harmless, and harsh treatment makes them irritable and unmanageable. i know of no rule by which the exact day of their first swarming can be known with certainty. the apiarian will estimate near the time by the number of bees in and about the hive, as it will become very much crowded. the day of second swarming, and all after that during the same season, may be most certainly predicted as follows: listen near the entrance of the hive in the evening. if a swarm is coming forth the next day, the queen will be heard giving an alarm at short intervals. the same alarm may be heard the next morning. the observer will generally hear two queens at a time in the same hive, the one much louder than the other. the one making the least noise is yet in her cell, and in her minority. the sound emitted by the queens is peculiar, differing materially from that of any other bee. it consists of a number of monotonous notes in rapid succession, similar to those emitted by the mud-wasp when working her mortar and joining it to her cells, to raise miss-wasps. if, after all, the weather is unfavorable to their swarming two or three days while in this peculiar stage, they will not be likely to swarm again the same season. two reasons, and two only, can be assigned why bees ever swarm. the first is, want of room, and the second, to avoid the battle of the queens. it is indeed true that there are exceptions. perhaps one in a hundred swarms may come forth before their hive is filled with comb; but from nearly forty years experience in their cultivation, i never saw an instance of it, where the hive was not full of bees at their first swarming. when bees go from the old stock to the tree without alighting, it is when they lie out of the hive before swarming, and the embassy are sent forth before the swarm leaves the old stock. when the first swarm comes forth, eggs, young brood, or both, are left in the combs, but no queen; for the old queen always goes forth with the swarm, and leaves the old stock entirely destitute. not a single queen, in any stage of minority, is left in the hive. the bees very soon find themselves destitute of the means of propagating their species, (for the queen is the only female in the hive,) and immediately set themselves to work in constructing several royal cells, (probably to be more sure of success,) take a grub (larva) from the cell of a common worker, place it in the new-made royal cell, feed it on royal jelly, and in a few days they a queen. now as the eggs are laid in about three litters per week, the bees, to be still more sure of succeeding in their enterprize, take maggots, differing in age, so that if more than one queen is hatched, one will be older than the others. this fact accounts for hearing more than one queen at the same time, because one comes out a perfect fly, while the other is a nymph, or little younger, and has not yet made her escape from the cell where she was raised; and yet both answer the alarm of the other, the youngest more feebly than the elder. bees will never swarm but once the same season unless they make more than one queen, immediately after the departure of the first swarm; and not then, if the bees permit the oldest queen to come in contact with the cell where the young ones are growing. queens entertain the most deadly animosity towards each other, and will commence an attack upon each other the first moment opportunity offers. the old queen will even tear all the cradles or cells to pieces where young ones are growing, and destroy all the chrysalis queens in the hive. if the weather becomes unfavorable to swarming, the next day after the alarm of the queen is heard, and continues so for several days, the oldest queen may come in contact with the others, or gain access to their cells; in either case the life of one of them is destroyed by the other, and the colony will not be likely to send forth another swarm the same season. if the old queen succeeds in taking the life of the younger, or _vice versa_, the remaining nymphs will be likely to share the same fate of their martyred sisters, by the hand of the reigning queen, who considers all others in the same hive as her competitors. second swarms would be as large and numerous as any others, if it was not the fact that they come forth to avoid the battle of the queens. bees are very tenacious to preserve the lives of their sovereigns, particularly those of their own raising; and when they find they have more than one in the hive, they will guard each so strong as to prevent, if possible, their coming within reach of each other. they being thus strongly guarded to prevent the fight, is unquestionably the cause of their giving the alarm, as described in the foregoing article. the knowledge of the existence of another queen in the same hive inspires them with the greatest uneasiness and rage; and when the oldest one finds herself defeated in gaining access to her competitor, she sallies forth with as many as see fit to follow her, and seeks a new habitation. bees will not swarm but once in a season, if the second one does not come forth within seventeen days from the departure of the first, unless they swarm for want of room, in which case no queen will be heard before swarming. the drawers should be turned over, so as to let the bees into them as soon as they have built their combs nearly to the bottom of the hive. if the swarm is so large that the lower apartment will not hold all of them, they should be let into one or both of the drawers, at the time of hiving; otherwise they may go off for want of room. bees should be let into the drawers in the spring as soon as blossoms are seen. rule iii. on ventilating the hive. graduate the bottom board and ventilator at pleasure, by means of the button or otherwise, so as to give them more or less air, as the circumstances may require. remarks. bees require more air in order to enable them to endure the heat of summer and the severity of winter, than at any other time. if they are kept out in the cold, they need as much air in the winter as in the heat of summer. it is in a mild temperature only, that it is safe to keep them from the pure air. if placed below frost in a dry sand-bank, they seem to need scarcely more than is contained in their hive at the time they are buried, during the whole winter. if kept in a clean, dry cellar, the mouth so contracted as to keep out mice, gives them enough. but if they are kept in the apiary, there should be a slow current of air constantly pressing in at the bottom and off at the top thro' the ventilator. rule iv. on preventing robberies. at the moment it is observed, that robbers are within, or about the hive, raise the bottom board so near the edge of the hive as to prevent the ingress or egress of the bees, and stop the mouth or common entrance and ventilator. at the same time take care that a small space on all sides of the hive be left open, so as to afford them all the air they need. open the mouth only at evening, and close early in the morning, before the robbers renew their attack. remarks. bees have a peculiar propensity to rob each other, and every precaution necessary to prevent it, should be exercised by the cultivator. families in the same apiary are more likely to engage in this unlawful enterprize than any others, probably because they are located so near each other, and are more likely to learn their comparative strength. i never could discover any intimacy between colonies of the same apiary, except when they stood on the same bench; and then, all the social intercourse seems to subsist between the nearest neighbors only. bees are not likely to engage in warfare and rob each other, except in the spring and fall, and at other times in the season, when food is not easily obtained from blossoms. bees do not often engage in robbery in the spring, unless it is in such hives as have had their combs broken by frost or otherwise, so as to cause the honey to drip down upon the bottom board. much care should be exercised by the apiarian to see that all such hives are properly ventilated, and at the same time closed in such a manner as to prevent the entrance of robbers in the day-time, until they have mended the breach, so as to stop the honey from running. clear water should be given them every day, so long as they are kept in confinement. i have known many good stocks to be lost in the spring, by being robbed; and all for want of care. bees rob each other when they can find but little else to do; they will rob at any time when frost has destroyed the flowers, or the weather is so cold as to prevent their collecting honey from them. cold, chilly weather prevents the flowers from yielding honey without frost, as was the case in the summer of 1835, in many places. bees need but little air at any time when they rob, and yet more is necessary for them when confined by compulsory means, than otherwise. when deprived of their liberty, they soon become restless, and use their best efforts to make their way out of the hive--hence the importance of leaving a small space all around the bottom, to admit air and to prevent their melting down. rule v. on equalizing colonies. hive one swarm in the lower apartment of the hive; collect another swarm in a drawer, and insert the same in the chamber of the hive containing the first. then, if the swarms are small, collect another small swarm in another drawer, and insert the same in the chamber of the hive containing the first, by the side of the second. in case all the bees from either of the drawers, amalgamate and go below with the first swarm, and leave the drawer empty, then it may be removed, and another small swarm added in the same manner. remarks. it is of prime importance to every bee cultivator, that all his colonies be made as nearly equal in numbers and strength, as possible. every experienced bee-master must be aware that small swarms are of but little profit to their owner. generally, in a few days after they are hived, they are gone;--no one can trace their steps: some suppose they have fled to the woods--others, that they were robbed: but after all, no one is able to give any satisfactory account of them. some pieces of comb only are left, and perhaps myriads of worms and millers finish off the whole. then the moth is supposed to be their destroyer, but the true history of the case is generally this: the bees become discouraged, or disheartened, for want of numbers to constitute their colony, abandon their tenement, and join with their nearest neighbors, leaving their combs to the merciless depredations of the moth. they are sometimes robbed by their adjoining hives, and then the moths finish or destroy what is left. second swarms are generally about half as large as the first, and third swarms half as large as second ones. now if second swarms are doubled, so as to make them equal in number with the first, the owner avails himself of the advantage of a strong colony, which will not be likely to become disheartened for want of numbers, nor overcome by robbers from stronger colonies. it is far less trouble, and less expense, for the bee-owner lo equalize his colonies, than to prepare hives and drawers of different sizes to fit colonies. when colonies and hives are made as near alike as possible, many evils are avoided, and many advantages realized: every hive will fit a place in the apiary--every drawer a hive, and every bottom board and slide may in any case be used without mistakes. swarms may be doubled at any time before they become so located as to resume their former hostility, which will not be discovered in less than three or four days. bees are provided with a reservoir, or sack, to carry their provision in; and when they swarm, they go loaded with provision suited to their emergency, which takes off all their hostility towards each other; and until these sacks are emptied, they are not easily vexed, and as they are compelled to build combs before they can empty them, their contents are retained several days. i have doubled, at a fortnight's interval in swarming, with entire success. the operation should be performed within two or three days--at the farthest four days. the sooner it is done, the less hazardous is the experiment. as a general rule, second swarms only should be doubled. third and fourth swarms should always have their queen taken from them, and the bees returned to the parent stock, according to rule 10. rule vi. on removing honey. insert a slide under the drawer, so far as to cut off all communication between the lower apartment and the drawer. insert another slide between the first slide and the drawer. now draw out the box containing the honey, with the slide that is next to it. set the drawer on its window end, a little distance from the apiary, and remove the slide. now supply the place of the drawer, thus removed, with an empty one, and draw the first inserted slide. remarks. care must be exercised in performing this operation. the apertures through the floor into the chamber must be kept closed by the slides during the process, so as to keep the bees from rushing up into the chamber when the box is drawn out. the operator must likewise see that the entrances into the drawer are kept covered with the slide, in such a manner as to prevent the escape of any of the bees, unless he is willing to be stung by them. if the bees are permitted to enter the chamber in very warm weather, they will be likely to hold the occupancy of it, and build comb there, which will change the hive into one no better than an old-fashioned box. i have succeeded best in removing honey by the following method, to wit:--shut the window-blinds so as to darken one of the rooms in the dwelling-house--raise up one casement of a window--then carry the drawer and place the same on a table, or stand, by the window, on its light or glass end, with the apertures towards the light. now remove the slide, and step immediately back into the dark part of the room. the bees will soon learn their true condition, and will gradually leave the drawer, and return home to the parent stock; thus leaving the drawer and its contents for their owner; not however until they have sucked every drop of running honey, if there should chance to be any, which is not often the case, if their work is finished. there are two cases in which the bees manifest some reluctance in leaving the drawer. the first is, when the combs are in an unfinished state--some of the cells not sealed over. the bees manifest a great desire to remain there, probably to make their stores more secure from robbers, by affixing caps to the uncovered cells, to prevent the effluvia of running honey, which is always the greatest temptation to robbers. bees manifest the greatest reluctance in leaving the drawer, when young brood are removed in it, which never occurs, except in such drawers as have been used for feeding in the winter or early in the spring. when the queen has deposited eggs in all the empty cells below, she sometimes enters the drawers; and if empty cells are found, she deposits eggs there also. in either case, it is better to return the drawer, which will be made perfect by them in a few days. special care is necessary in storing drawers of honey, when removed from the care and protection of the bees, in order to preserve the honey from insects, which are great lovers of it, particularly the ant. a chest, made perfectly tight, is a good store-house. if the honey in the drawers is to be preserved for winter use, it should be kept in a room so warm as not to freeze. frost cracks the combs, and the honey will drip as soon as warm weather commences. drawers should be packed with their apertures up, for keeping or carrying to market. all apiarians who would make the most profit from their bees, should remove the honey as soon as the drawers are rilled, and supply their places with empty ones. the bees will commence their labors in an empty box that has been filled, sooner than any others. rule vii. the method of compelling swarms to make and keep extra queens, for their apiarian, or owner. take a drawer containing bees and brood comb, and place the same in the chamber of an empty hive; taking care to stop the entrance of the hive, and give them clean water, daily, three or four days. then unstop the mouth of the hive, and give them liberty. the operator must observe rule 6 in using the slides. remarks. the prosperity of every colony depends entirely on the condition of the queen, when the season is favorable to them. every bee-master should understand their nature in this respect, so as to enable him to be in readiness to supply them with another queen when they chance to become destitute. the discovery of the fact, that bees have power to change the nature of the grub (larva) of a worker to that of a queen, is attributed to bonner. but neither bonner nor the indefatigable huber, nor any other writer, to my knowledge, has gone so far in the illustration of this discovery as to render it practicable and easy for common people to avail themselves of its benefits. the vermont hive is the only one, to my knowledge, in which bees can be compelled to make and keep extra queens for the use of their owner, without extreme difficulty, as well as danger, by stings, in attempting the experiment. the idea of raising her royal highness, and elevating and establishing her upon the throne of a colony, may, by some, be deemed altogether visionary and futile; but i will assure the reader, that it is easier done than can be described. i have both raised them, and supplied destitute swarms repeatedly. when the drawer containing bees and brood comb is removed, the bees soon find themselves destitute of a female, and immediately set themselves to work in constructing one or more royal cells. when completed, which is commonly within forty-eight hours, they remove a grub (larva) from the worker's cell, place the same in the new-made queen's cell, feed it on that kind of food which is designed only for queens, and in from eight to sixteen days they have a perfect queen. as soon as the bees have safely deposited the grub in the new-made royal cell, the bees may have their liberty. their attachment to their young brood, and their fidelity to their queen, in any stage of its minority, is such, that they will never leave nor forsake them, and will continue all their ordinary labors, with as much regularity as if they had a perfect queen. in making queens in small boxes or drawers, the owner will not be troubled by their swarming the same season they are made. there are so few bees in the drawer, they are unable to guard the nymph queens, if there are any, from being destroyed by the oldest, or the one which escapes from her cell first. in examining the drawer, in which i raised an extra queen, i found not only the queen, but two royal cells, one of which was in perfect shape; the other was mutilated, probably by the queen which came out first. now when there are so few bees to guard the nymphs, it would not be very difficult for the oldest queen to gain access to the cells, and destroy all the minor queens in the drawer. when a drawer is removed to an empty hive, for the purpose of obtaining an extra queen, it should be placed some distance from the apiary, the better to prevent its being robbed by other swarms. when it is some distance from other colonies, they are not so likely to learn its comparative strength. there is but little danger however, of its being robbed, until after the bees are out of danger of losing their queen, which generally occurs in the swarming season. the queen is sometimes lost, in consequence of the young brood being too far advanced at the time of the departure of the old queen with her swarm. if the grubs had advanced very near the dormant or chrysalis state, before the bees learnt their necessity for a queen, and the old queen neglected to leave eggs, which is sometimes the case, then it would be impossible for the bees to change their nature, and the colony would be lost, unless supplied with another. rule viii. on supplying swarms, destitute of a queen, with another. take the drawer from the hive, which was placed there according to rule 7, and insert the same into the chamber of the hive to be supplied; observing rule 6 in the use of the slides. remarks. colonies destitute of a queen may be supplied with another the moment it is found they have none; which is known only by their actions. bees, when deprived of their female sovereign, cease their labors; no pollen or beebread is seen on their legs; no ambition seems to actuate their movements; no dead bees are drawn out; no deformed bees, in the various stages of their minority, are extracted, and dragged out of their cells, and dropped down about the hive, as is usual among all healthy and prosperous colonies. colonies that have lost their queen, when standing on the bench by the side of other swarms, will run into the adjoining hive without the least resistance. they will commence their emigration by running in confused platoons of hundreds, from their habitation to the next adjoining hive. they immediately wheel about and run home again, and thus continue, sometimes for several days, in the greatest confusion, constantly replenishing their neighbor's hive, by enlarging her colony, and, at the same time, reducing their own, until there is not a single occupant left; and remarkable as it is, they leave every particle of their stores for their owner or the depredations of the moth. colonies lose their queens more frequently during the swarming season than any other. in the summer of 1830, i lost three good stocks of bees in consequence of their losing their queens, one of which was lost soon after the first swarming--the two others not many days after the second swarming--all of which manifested similar actions, and ended in the same results, which will be more particularly explained in remarks on rule 10. the queen is sometimes lost, when she goes forth with a swarm, in consequence of being too feeble to fly with her young colony; in which case the bees return to their parent stock in a few minutes. in fact all occurrences of this kind originate in the inability of the queen. if she returns to the old stock, the swarm will come out again the next day, if the weather is favorable. if the queen is too feeble to return, and the apiarian neglects to look her up, and restore her to her colony again, (which he ought to do,) the bees will not swarm again until they have made another, or are supplied, which may be done immediately by giving them any spare queen, i have done it with entire success, and never failed in the experiment. the queen, when lost in swarming, is easily found, unless the wind is so strong as to have blown her a considerable distance. a few bees are always found with her, which probably serve as her aids, and greatly assist the apiarian in spying her out. she is frequently found near the ground, on a spire of grass, the fence, or any place most convenient for her to alight, when her strength fails her. i once had quite a search for her majesty, without much apparent success. at the same time there were flying about me a dozen or more common workers. at last her royal highness was discovered, concealed from my observation in a fold of my shirt sleeve. i then returned her to her colony, which had already found their way home to the parent stock. the queen may be taken in the hand without danger, for she never stings by design, except when conflicting with another queen; and yet she has a stinger at least one third longer, but more feeble than a worker. the queen is known by her peculiar shape, size, and movements. she differs but little in color from a worker, and has the same number of legs and wings. she is much larger than any of the bees. her abdomen is very large and perfectly round, and is shaped more like the sugar-loaf, which makes her known to the observer the moment she is seen. her wings and proboscis are short. her movements are stately and majestic. she is much less in size after the season for breeding is over. she is easily selected from among a swarm, at any season of the year, by any one who has often seen her. rule ix. on multiplying colonies to any desirable extent, without their swarming. this large drawer, no. 1, should always be used for this purpose. insert slides, as in rule 6, and remove the drawer containing bees and brood-comb; place the same in the chamber of an empty hive; stop the entrances of both the new and old hives, taking care to give them air, as in rule 4. give clean water daily, three or four days. now let the bees, in both hives, have their liberty. remarks. this operation is both practicable and easy, and is of prime importance to all cultivators, who wish to avoid the necessity of hiving them when they swarm; and yet it will not prevent swarming, except in that part of the divided colony which contains the queen at the time of their separation. the other part being compelled to make another queen, (and they generally make two or more) will be likely to swarm to avoid their battle, as explained in remarks on rule 2. the hive containing the old queen may swarm for want of room; but, at any rate, in performing the operation, it has saved the trouble of hiving one swarm, and prevented all danger of their flight to the woods. multiplying colonies by this rule is a perfectly safe method of managing them, admitting they are not allowed to swarm themselves so low as to leave unoccupied combs, which will be explained in remarks on rule 10. rule x. on preventing the depredations of the moth. all such stocks as are infested with the moth, will manifest it as soon as warm weather commences in the spring, by dropping some of the worms upon the bottom board. let the apiarian clean off the bottom board every other morning; at the same time strew on a spoonful or two of fresh, pulverized salt. immediately after a second swarm has come forth from a hive, the same season, the old stock should be examined; and if swarming has reduced their numbers so low as to leave unoccupied combs, the apiarian should take the queen from the swarm, and let them return to the old stock. in case they remain in a cluster, hive them in a drawer, and return them immediately. third and fourth swarms should always have their queens taken from them and the bees returned to the parent stock. remarks. "this insect (the moth) is a native of europe; but has found its way into this country, and naturalized itself here."--thatcher. this unwelcome visitor has interested the attention and called forth all the energies of the most experienced apiarians of our country, and of many of the greatest naturalists in the world. their movements have been observed and scrutinized by the most learned--their nature has been studied; various experiments have been tried to prevent their depredations; but after all, the monster in gaudy hue marches onward, committing the greatest havoc and devastation, with but little molestation. i have lost my whole stock at least four times since 1808, as i supposed by the moth. i tried all the experiments recommended in this and other countries, that came to my knowledge; but after all, i could not prevent their ravages. in 1830, i constructed a hive (which has since been patented) which i supposed would afford all the facilities for managing bees in every manner that their nature would admit of, and at the same time render their cultivation most profitable to their owner. by constructing windows of glass, on every side of the hive, nearly the size of its sides, and darkening them by closing doors on the outside of the windows, which may be opened at pleasure, i have been able to discover many important facts, both in relation to the nature and economy of the bee, and its enemy the moth; but, probably, much yet remains to be learned concerning both. the moth, when first discovered by the common observer, is a white worm or maggot, with a reddish crusted head, and varies in size according to its living. those which have full and unmolested access to the contents of a hive, will frequently grow as large as a turkey-quill, and an inch and a half in length. others are scarcely an inch in length when full grown. they have sixteen short legs, and taper each way from the centre of their bodies to their head and exterior or abdomen. the worms, like the silk-worm, wind themselves into a cocoon, and pass the dormant (chrysalis) state of their existence, and in a few days come out of their silken cases perfect winged insects or millers, and are soon ready to deposit their eggs, from which another crop will be raised. the miller, or perfect moth, is of a grayish color, from three-fourths of an inch to an inch in length. they usually lie perfectly still in the day time, with their head downwards, lurking in and about the apiary. they enter the hive in the night, and deposit their eggs in such places as are uncovered, of course unguarded by the bees. these eggs hatch in a short time, varying according to circumstances, probably from two or three days to four or five months. at an early stage of their existence, while yet a small worm, they spin a web, and construct a silken shroud, or fortress, in which they envelope themselves, and form a sort of path, or gallery, as they pass onward in their march; at the same time being perfectly secure from the bees, in their silken case, which they widen as they grow larger, with an opening in their front only, near their head, they commit the greatest havoc and devastation on the eggs, young bees and all, that come in their way as they pass. when the moth has arrived to his full state of maturity, he makes preparation to change to a miller, by winding into a cocoon, as has been already explained. the miller is surprisingly quick in all its movements, exceeding by far the agility of the quickest bee, either in flight or on its legs. hence the enemy becomes so formidable that the bees are easily overcome and soon fall a sure prey to him. now, in order to remedy the evils of the moths, and prevent their ravages, and at the same time aid the bees in their prosperity, and make them profitable to their owner, i found it necessary to use a hive differing materially from the old box, and commenced operations in the one already referred to, (called the vermont hive,) in a course of experiments which have produced results perfectly satisfactory. from six years experience in its use, i have not the least doubt that bees may be managed to the best advantage, and without ever being materially injured by the moths. a bee-hive should be made in a perfect workmanlike manner, so as to have no open joints; the boards should be free from shakes and cracks, because the bees will make their tenement perfectly tight, so as to exclude light and air, by plastering up all such places as are left open by the workman, with a kind of mortar, or glue, of their own make, which is neither honey nor wax, but is very congenial to the growth of worms in the first stages of their larva state, and being secured from the bees by the timber, in a short time they are able to defend themselves by a silken shroud. now the miller enters the hive and makes an incision into the bee-glue, or cement, with her sting, and leaves her eggs. these eggs hatch there, and the brood subsist on the glue until they have arrived so far toward maturity as to enable them to encase themselves in a silken shroud; and then they move onward. now unless the bees chance to catch him by the collar, or nape of his neck, while feeding, and drag him out of his place of concealment, they will be compelled to cut away the combs all around his silken path, or gallery, and drag out the worm and his fortress all together. at the same time, the bees are compelled to cut away the combs so far as to destroy many of their young brood in making room to remove the annoyance. i have known them to cut away their combs from four to eight or ten inches to re move this silken shroud, and have known them to cut and drag out their only remaining queen before she was transformed to the perfect fly, which occasioned the entire loss of the whole colony. repeated experiments have demonstrated the fact, that placing bees on the ground, or high in the air, is no security against the moths. i have lost some of my best stocks by placing them on the ground, when those on the bench were not injured by them. i have made a groove in the bottom board, much wider than the thickness of the boards to the hive, and filled the same with loam: i then placed the hive on the same, in such a manner as to prevent any crack or vacancy for the worms; and yet in raising the hive four weeks afterwards, i found them apparently full grown all around the hive in the dirt. i have found them very plenty in a tree ninety feet from the ground. the best method, in common practice, to prevent the depredations of the moth, is, to suspend the bottom board so far below the lower edge of the hive as to give the bees free entrance and egress all around the same during the moth season, or to raise the common hive, by placing under it little blocks at each corner, which produces nearly the same effect. but i know of but one rule, which is an infallible one, to prevent their depredations, and that is this: keep the combs well guarded by bees. see rule 10. large hives, that never swarm, are never destroyed by the moth, unless they lose their queen, melt down, or meet with some casualty, out of the ordinary course of managing them. they are not often in the least annoyed by them, unless there are bad joints, cracks, or shakes, so as to afford some lurking places for the worms. the reason for their prosperous condition is obvious. the stock of bees are so numerous that their combs are all kept well guarded during the moth season, so that no miller can enter and deposit her eggs. hives made so small as to swarm, are liable to reduce their colonies so small as to leave combs unguarded, especially when they swarm three or four times the same season. all swarms, after the first, sally forth to avoid the battle of the queens; constantly making a greater draft, in proportion to the number left, until the combs are partly exposed, which gives the miller free access to their edges.--the seeds of rapine and plunder are thus quickly sown, and soon vegetate, and fortify themselves by their silken fortress, before the bees are aware that their frontiers are invaded. while the moths are thus engaged in establishing their posts on the frontiers of the bees, the latter are constantly and indefatigably engaged in providing themselves with another queen, to supply the place of the old one, which has departed with a swarm, and raising young bees to replenish their reduced colony. now as the moths have got possession of the ground on their frontiers, it requires a tremendous effort on the part of the bees to save their little colony from a complete overthrow. if late, or second and third swarms are always returned immediately, according to the rule, the combs are kept so guarded that the moths are compelled to keep their distance, or be stung to death before they can accomplish their purposes. hives made so large as not to swarm may lose their queen, and then they will abandon their habitation and emigrate into the adjoining hive, leaving all their stores to their owner, which, unless immediately taken care of, the moths will not fail to destroy. the moths are often complained of when they are not guilty. hives are frequently abandoned by their occupants, in consequence of the loss of their queen, unnoticed by any observer, and before any thing is known of their fate, the hive is destitute of bees, and filled with moths. in the summer of 1834, one of my neighbors had a very large hive that never swarmed, which lost their queen; and in the course of a few days the bees entirely vacated their tenement, and emigrated into an adjoining hive, leaving the whole of their stores, which amounted to 215 lbs. of honey in the comb. no young bees or moths were discovered in the hive. instances of this kind frequently occur, and the true cause is unknown, from inattention. the queen may be superannuated, or may become diseased in the breeding season, so as to render her unfruitful; or she may die of old age. in either case, the colony will be lost, unless supplied with another queen, as explained in remarks on rule 8; for when the queen becomes unfruitful by either of the foregoing causes, the bees are not apprized of the loss which will in future be sustained by them, until after the means of repairing the same are gone beyond their reach. all the grubs may have passed the various stages of their transformation, or at least advanced so far towards the perfect insect, that their nature cannot be changed to a queen. the queen is much more tenacious of life than any other bee, and may live to a great age. but one queen exists in the same hive any great length of time. when there are more than one, the peculiar sound of each, as explained in remarks on rule 2, is heard by the other, which always results in a battle between them, or the issue of a swarm in the course of a day or two. bees, when placed in a dark room in the upper part of the house, or some out-house, are easily cultivated a short time with little trouble, and are sometimes made profitable to their owner; but as they are liable to some of the same casualties as those kept in swarming hives, they cannot be as profitable. large colonies never increase their stock in proportion to the swarming colonies. there is but one female in a large colony, and they can do but little more in raising young bees than to keep their stock good by replenishing them as fast as they die off or are destroyed by the birds, reptiles and insects, which are great admirers of them, and sometimes swallow them by dozens. now if it requires five swarming colonies to be equal in number to the one first described, it is not difficult to imagine that five times as many bees may be raised by the swarming colonies: for one queen will probably lay as many eggs as another. the swarming hives are no more liable to be destroyed by the moth during the swarming season, than others, if the hives are kept well replenished with bees according to rule 10. rule xi. on feeding bees. if it is found that a swarm need feeding, hitch on the feeder, well stored with good honey, while the weather is warm in october. the apiarian should use the same precaution in feeding, as directed in rule 4, to prevent robberies. remarks. the best time to feed is in the fall, before cold weather commences. all hives should be weighed, and the weight marked on the hive before bees are hived in them. then, by weighing a stock as soon as frost has killed the blossoms in the fall, the apiarian will be able to form a just estimate of their necessities. when bees are fed in the fall, they will carry up and deposit their food in such a manner as will be convenient for them in the winter. if feeding is neglected until cold weather the bees must be removed to a warm room, or dry cellar, and then they will carry up their food, generally, no faster than they consume it. a feeder should be made like a box with five sides closed, leaving a part of the sixth side open, to admit the bees from their common entrance with its floor level, when hitched on the front of the hive. it should be of sufficient depth to lay in broad comb, filled with honey. if strained honey without combs is used for feeding, a float, perforated with many holes, should be laid over the whole of the honey in the box, or feeder, so as to prevent any of the bees from drowning; and at the same time, this float should be so thin as to enable them to reach the honey. it should be made so small that it will settle down as fast as the honey is removed by the bees. as soon as warm weather commences in the spring, the feeder may be used. small drawers cannot be depended on as feeders, except in the spring and summer, unless they are kept so warm that the vapor of the bees will not freeze in them. it would be extremely hazardous for the bees to enter a frosty drawer. they will sooner starve than attempt the experiment. drawers may be used without danger from robbers, but when the feeder is used, robbers must be guarded against as directed in rule 4. care should be exercised, in fall-feeding, to supply them with good honey, otherwise the colony may be lost before spring by disease. poor honey may be given them in the spring, at the time when they can obtain and provide themselves with medicine, which they only best understand. sugar dissolved, or molasses, may be used in the spring to some advantage, but ought not to be substituted for honey, when it can be obtained. bees sometimes die of starvation, with plenty of honey in the hive at the same time. in cold weather they crowd together in a small compass in order to keep warm; and then their breath and vapor collect in frost, in all parts of the hive, except in the region they occupy. now, unless the weather moderates, so as to thaw the ice, the bees will be compelled to remain where they are located until their stores are all consumed that are within their reach. one winter we had cold weather ninety-four days in succession, during which time the bees could not move from one part of the hive to another. i examined all my hives on the eighty-third day, and on the ninetieth day i found four swarms dead. i immediately examined for the cause, which was as already stated. i then carried all my hives into a warm room and thawed them, so that the bees could move. some hives that i supposed were dead, revived; some few swarms i found nearly destitute of stores, which i carried into the cellar, turned them bottom up, cut out a few of the combs, so as to make room to lay in combs filled with honey, which served as good feeders. rule xii. on wintering bees. on the near approach of winter, as soon as the bees have receded from the drawers and gone below, insert a slide, take out the drawers, and supply their places with empty ones, bottom up. suspend the bottom board at least one eighth of an inch below the lower edge of the hive, and open the ventilator.--clean off the bottom board as often as the weather changes from cold to warm. close no doors upon them, unless they are kept in a spacious room, and in such a place that the breath and steam of the bees will not freeze. remarks. various methods have been practised by different individuals. some have buried them in the ground, others kept them in the cellar, chamber, &c. one course only will be observed in this place. rule xiii. on transferring swarms. this operation should never be effected by compulsion. first method. insert drawer no. 1 into the chamber of the hive, to be transferred as early as the first of may. if the bees fill the drawer, they will recede from the lower apartment and winter in the drawer. as early in the spring as the bees carry in bread plentifully on their legs, remove the drawer, which will contain the principal part of the bees, to an empty hive. now remove the old hive a few feet in front, and place the new one containing the drawer where the old one stood. now turn the old hive bottom up. if there are any bees left in the old hive, they will soon return and take possession of their new habitation. second method. take drawer no. 1, well filled by any hive the same season, insert the same into the chamber of the hive, to be transferred in september, (august would be better.) if the bees need transferring, they will repair to the drawer and make the same their winter quarters. then proceed in the spring as directed in the first method. remarks. this management should excite a deep interest in every cultivator, both in a temporal and moral point of view. temporal, because the lives of all the bees are preserved; moral, because we are accountable to god for all our acts. we are not to be justified in taking the lives of animals or insects, which are but lent blessings, unless some benefit to the owner can be derived from their death, which will outweigh the evils resulting from such a sacrifice. duty compels me to protest in the strongest terms and feelings, against the inhuman practice of taking the lives of the most industrious and comforting insects to the wants of the human family by fire and brimstone. when bees have occupied one tenement for several years, the combs become thick and filthy, by being filled up with old bread and cocoons, made by the young bees when transformed from a larva to the perfect fly. bees always wind themselves in their cells, in a silken cocoon, or shroud, to pass their torpid and defenceless (chrysalis) state.--these cocoons are very thin, and are never removed by the bees. they are always cleaned immediately after the escape of the young bees, and others are raised in the same cells. thus a number of bees are raised, which leaves an additional cocoon as often as the transformation of one succeeds that of another, which often occurs in the course of the season. now in the course of a few years the cells become so contracted, in consequence of being thus filled up, that the bees come forth but mere dwarfs and sometimes cease to swarm. combs are rendered useless by being filled up with old bread, which is never used except for feeding young bees. a greater quantity of this bread is stored up yearly than is used by them, and in a few years they have but little room to perform their ordinary labors.--hence the necessity of transferring them, or the inhuman sentence of death must be passed upon them, not by being hung by the neck until they are dead, but by being tortured to death by fire and brimstone. it is obvious to every cultivator that old stocks should be transferred. i have repeatedly transferred them in the most approved manner, by means of an apparatus constructed for that purpose; but the operation always resulted in the loss of the colony afterwards, or a swarm which would have come from them. when it is necessary to transfer a swarm, insert drawer no. 1 into their chamber in the spring, say the first of may. if they till the drawer, let it remain there; if they need to be changed to a new hive, they will recede from the lower apartment and make the drawer their winter quarters, which should remain until warm weather has so far advanced as to afford them bread. then they may be removed to an empty hive, as directed in the rule. now the drawer contains no bread, and should remain in the old stock until the bees can provide themselves with a sufficient quantity of that article to feed their young bees with; for bread is not collected early enough and in sufficient quantities to feed their young as much as nature requires. if the bees fail in filling the drawer, one should be used that is filled by another swarm. general observations. the reader might have expected many things demonstrated in this work, which are omitted by design. the structure of the worker is too well understood by every owner of bees to need a particular description. so also of the drone; and the queen has already been sufficiently described to enable any one to select her out from among her subjects. if any further description is desired, the observer can easily satisfy himself by the use of a microscope.--every swarm of bees is composed of three classes or sorts, to wit: one queen or female, drones or males, and neuters or workers. the queen is the only female in the hive, and lays all the eggs from which all the young bees are raised to replenish their colony. she possesses no authority over them, other than that of influence, which is derived from the fact that she is the mother of all the bees; and they, being endowed with knowledge of the fact that they are wholly dependent on her to propagate their species, treat her with the greatest kindness, tenderness and reverence, and manifest at all times the most sincere attachment to her by feeding and guarding her from all danger. the government of a hive is nearer republican than any other, because it is administered in exact accordance with their nature. it is their peculiar natural instinct, which prompts them in all their actions. the queen has no more to do with the government of the hive than the other bees, unless influence may be called government. if she finds empty cells in the hive, during the breeding season, she will deposit eggs there, because it is her nature to do so; and the nature of the workers prompts them so take care and nurse all the young larvae, labor and collect food for their sustenance, guard and protect their habitations, and do and perform all things, in due obedience, not to the commands of the queen, but to their own peculiar instinct. the drone is probably the male bee, notwithstanding the sexual union has never been witnessed by any man; yet so many experiments have been tried, and observations made, that but little doubt can be entertained of its truth. that the sexual intercourse takes place high in the air, is highly probable from the fact, that other insects of the fly tribe do copulate in the air, when on the wing, as i have repeatedly seen. that the drone is the male bee, is probable from the fact that the drones are not all killed at once; but at least one in each hive is permitted to live several months after the general massacre. i examined four swarms, whose colonies were strong and numerous, three months after the general massacre of the drones, and in three hives i found one drone each; the other was probably overlooked, as the bees were thrown into the fire as fast as they were examined. but there are many mysterious things concerning them, and much might be written to little purpose; and as it is designed to go no further in illustrations than is necessary to aid the apiarian in good management, many little speculations have been entirely omitted in the work, and the reader is referred to the writings of thatcher, bonner, and huber, who are the most voluminous and extensive writers on bees within my knowledge. bees are creatures of habit, and the exercise of caution in managing them is required. a stock of bees should be placed where they are to stand through the season before they form habits of location, which will take place soon after they commence their labors in the spring. they learn their home by the objects surrounding them in the immediate vicinity of the hive. moving them, (unless they are carried beyond their knowledge,) is often fatal to them. the old bees forget their new location, and on their return, when collecting stores, they haze about where they formerly stood, sad perish. i have known some fine stocks ruined by moving them six feet and from that to a mile and a half. it is better to move them before swarming than afterwards. the old bees only will be lost. as the young ones are constantly hatching, their habits will be formed at the new stand, and the combs will not be as likely to become vacated, so as to afford opportunity to the moths to occupy any part of their ground. swarms, when first hived, may be moved at pleasure without loss of bees, admitting they are all in the hive; their habits will be formed in exact proportion to their labors.--the first bee that empties his sack and goes forth in search of food, is the one whose habits are first established. i have observed many bees to cluster near the place where the hive stood, but a few hours after hiving, and perish. now if the swarm had been placed in the apiary, immediately after they were hived, the number of bees found there would have been less. bees may be moved at pleasure at any season of the year, if they are carried several miles, so as to be beyond their knowledge of country. they may be carried long journeys by travelling nights only, and affording them opportunity to labor and collect food in the day time. the importance of this part of bee-management is the only apology i can make for dwelling so long on this point. i have known many to suffer serious losses in consequence of moving their bees after they were well settled in their labors. bees should never be irritated, under any pretence whatever. they should be treated with attention and kindness. they should be kept undisturbed by cattle and all other annoyances, so that they may be approached at any time with safety. an apiary should be so situated, that swarming may be observed, and at the same time where the bees can obtain food easily, and in the greatest abundance. it has been a general practice to front bee-houses either to the east or south. this doctrine should be exploded with all other whims. apiaries should be so situated as to be convenient to their owner, as much as any other buildings. i have them front towards all the cardinal points, but can distinguish no difference in their prosperity. young swarms should be scattered as much as convenient during the summer season, at least eight feet apart. they should be set in a frame and so covered as to exclude the sun and weather from the hive. it is not surprising that this branch of rural economy, in consequence of the depredations of the moth, is so much neglected.--notwithstanding, in some parts of our country, the business of managing bees has been entirely abandoned for years, i am confident they may be cultivated in such a manner as to render them more profitable to their owners, than any branch of agriculture, in proportion to the capital necessary to be invested in their stock. they are not taxable property, neither does it require a large land investment, nor fences; neither does it require the owner to labor through the summer to support them through the winter.--care is, indeed, necessary, but a child, or a superannuated person can perform most of the duties of an apiarian. the cobwebs must be kept away from the immediate vicinity of the hive, and all other annoyances removed. the management of bees is a delightful employment, and may be pursued with the best success in cities and villages, as well as towns and country. it is a source of great amusement, as well as comfort and profit. they collect honey and bread from most kinds of forest trees, as well as garden flowers, orchards, forests, and fields; all contribute to their wants, and their owner is gratified with a taste of the whole. sweet mignonette cannot be too highly recommended.--this plant is easily cultivated by drills in the garden, and is one of the finest and richest flowers in the world from which the honey-bee can extract its food. the vermont hive is the only one i can use to much advantage or profit, and yet there are some other improvements, which are far superior to the old box. in the summer of 1834, i received in swarms and extra honey from my best stock, thirty dollars; and from my poorest, fifteen dollars. my early swarms afforded extra honey which was sold, amounting to from five to ten dollars each hive; and all ray late swarms which were doubled, stored a sufficient quantity of food to supply them through the following winter. the rules in the foregoing work, perhaps, may be deemed, in some instances, too particular; yet, in all cases, they will be found to be safe and unfailing in their application, though liable to exceptions, such as are incident to all specific rules. supplementary remarks. on rule first.--the underside of the chamber floor should be planed smooth; then scratched with a sharp scratch, so as to enable the bees to hold fast; otherwise they may fall suddenly upon the bottom board, which may induce them to leave the hive and flee to the woods. that the inside of the hive should be made smooth, is evident from the fact, that comb adheres much more firmly to a smooth board than it doss to the small fibres or splinters which are left by the saw, and is less likely to drop. these remarks were omitted in the work by mistake. rule second--on swarming and hiving,--the drawers should be turned, so as to let the bees into them at the time of hiving; unless the swarm is so small that they can locate in a drawer. remarks.--bees commence making comb, where the whole colony have room to work. now if the bees can all get into the drawer, they will begin there; of course they will raise young bees and deposit bread in the drawer. if the swarm is so large as to be unable to work in the drawer, there is no danger of letting them in. at the same time there may be danger if they are prevented from entering, because they sometimes go off for want of room in the lower apartment. i therefore, recommend letting the bees into the drawers at the time of hiving them, in all cases, except when the swarms are small, then the rule should be strictly adhered to. notwithstanding i have hived hundreds of swarms in eight years last past, and have not lost a single swarm by flight to the woods, yet i frequently hear of losses of this kind, which appears to render these remarks necessary. my practice in hiving, is to get the bees into the hive as quick as possible, hang on the bottom board, fasten the same forward by means of the button so as to prevent the escape of any of the bees, except through the mouth of the hive; place the hive immediately where i intend it shall stand through the season. let the bottom board down 3/8ths of an inch, on the third day after swarming. remarks on rule 10.--small swarms should have the queens taken from them and the bees returned to the parent stock, so as to keep the old hive well replenished with bees during the moth season; likewise to avoid the loss of the old stock by freezing in the winter. too much swarming frequently occasions the loss of the old stock the winter following, because their numbers are so reduced that the necessary animal heat cannot be kept up to prevent them from perishing by cold. there may be more than one queen in all swarms after the first[1], as in all cases when bees make one queen they make a plurality of them, and if more than one is hatched at the time of swarming, in the confusion which takes place in the hive, during swarming, all the queens which are hatched will sally forth with the swarm; hence, in taking away queens, the bee master should look for them until the bees begin to return to the parent stock. cut off a limb and shake the bees on a table to find the queens. ---- [1] large colonies sometimes loose their queen and have been known to make more, in which case, in order to avoid the conflict of the queens, they have been known to swarm out several bushels of bees. at the internet archive (https://www.archive.org). transcriber notes text emphasis shown as =bold= and _italics_. whole and fractional parts of numbers displayed as 17-5/8. issued may 23, 1911 u. s. department of agriculture. =farmers' bulletin 447.= =bees.= by e. f. phillips, ph. d., _in charge of bee culture, bureau of entomology._ washington: government printing office. 1911. letter of transmittal. u. s. department or agriculture, bureau of entomology, _washington. d. c., march 4, 1911._ sir: i have the honor to transmit herewith a manuscript entitled "bees," by e. f. phillips, ph. d., in charge of bee culture in this bureau. this paper will supersede farmers' bulletins 59 and 397, a few new illustrations which add greatly to the value of the paper and some minor alterations in the text are the only changes in this from farmers' bulletin 397; but since it is not now the policy of the department to issue revised editions, it is recommended that this bulletin be issued under a new serial number. in the preparation of this paper the aim has been to give briefly such information as is needed by persons engaged in the keeping of bees, and to answer inquiries such as are frequently received from correspondents of the department. no attempt has been made to include discussions of bee anatomy, honey plants, or the more special manipulations sometimes practiced, such as queen rearing. the discussion of apparatus is necessarily brief. respectfully, l. o. howard, _entomologist and chief of bureau._ hon, james wilson, _secretary of agriculture._ contents. page. introduction 5 location of the apiary 6 equipment in apparatus 9 workshop 9 hives. 9 hive stands 11 other apparatus 11 equipment in bees 12 bee behavior 15 directions for general manipulations 19 transferring 22 uniting 24 preventing robbing in the apiary 25 feeding 26 spring management 26 swarm management and increase 29 artificial swarming 31 prevention of swarming 32 preparation for the harvest 33 the production of honey 33 extracted honey 34 comb honey 36 the production of wax 39 preparations for wintering 40 diseases and enemies 42 general information 44 breeders of queens 44 introducing queens 44 dealers in bee keepers' supplies 45 bee keepers' associations 45 laws affecting beekeeping 45 disease inspection 45 laws against spraying fruit trees while in bloom 46 laws against the adulteration of honey 46 when bees are a nuisance 46 supposed injury of crops by bees 46 journals and books on beekeeping 46 publications of the department of agriculture on beekeeping 47 illustrations. page. fig. 1. a well-arranged apiary 7 2. a ten-frame hive with comb honey super and perforated zinc queen excluder 10 3. smoker 11 4. bee veil with silk-tulle front 11 5 hive tools 12 6. drone and queen trap on hive entrance 12 7. bee escape for removing bees from supers 13 8. spring bee escape 13 9. bee brush 14 10. worker, queen, and drone 16 11. comb architecture 17 12. egg, larvæ, and pupa 18 13. queen cells 18 14. handling the frame: first position 21 15. handling the frame: second position 21 16. handling the frame : third position 22 17. division-board feeder to be hung in hive in place of frame 27 18. feeder set in collar under hive body 27 19. "pepper-box" feeder for use on top of frames 28 20. pan in super arranged for feeding 28 21. knives for uncapping honey 34 22. honey extractor 35 23. perforated zinc queen excluder 38 24. shipping cases for comb honey 38 25. queen mailing cage 45 bees. =introduction.= beekeeping for pleasure and profit is carried on by many thousands of people in all parts of the united states. as a rule, it is not the sole occupation. there are, however, many places where an experienced bee keeper can make a good living by devoting his entire time and attention to this line of work. it is usually unwise to undertake extensive beekeeping without considerable previous experience on a small scale, since there are so many minor details which go to make up success in the work. it is a good plan to begin on a small scale, make the bees pay for themselves and for all additional apparatus, as well as some profit, and gradually to increase as far as the local conditions or the desires of the individual permit. bee culture is the means of obtaining for human use a natural product which is abundant in almost all parts of the country, and which would be lost to us were it not for the honey bee. the annual production of honey and wax in the united states makes apiculture a profitable minor industry of the country. from its very nature it can never become one of the leading agricultural pursuits, but that there is abundant opportunity for its growth can not be doubted. not only is the honey bee valuable as a producer, but it is also one of the most beneficial of insects in cross-pollinating the flowers of various economic plants. beekeeping is also extremely fascinating to the majority of people as a pastime, furnishing outdoor exercise as well as intimacy with an insect whose activity has been a subject of absorbing study from the earliest times. it has the advantage of being a recreation which pays its own way and often produces no mean profit. it is a mistake, however, to paint only the bright side of the picture and leave it to the new bee keeper to discover that there is often another side. where any financial profit is derived, beekeeping requires hard work and work at just the proper time, otherwise the surplus of honey may be diminished or lost. few lines of work require more study to insure success. in years when the available nectar is limited, surplus honey is secured only by judicious manipulations, and it is only through considerable experience and often by expensive reverses that the bee keeper is able to manipulate properly to save his crop. anyone can produce honey in seasons of plenty, but these do not come every year in most locations, and it takes a good bee keeper to make the most of poor years. when, even with the best of manipulations, the crop is a failure through lack of nectar, the bees must be fed to keep them from starvation. the average annual honey yield per colony for the entire country, under good management, will probably be 25 to 30 pounds of comb honey or 40 to 50 pounds of extracted honey. the money return to be obtained from the crop depends entirely on the market and the method of selling the honey. if sold direct to the consumer, extracted honey brings from 10 to 20 cents per pound, and comb honey from 15 to 25 cents per section. if sold to dealers, the price varies from 6 to 10 cents for extracted honey and from 10 to 15 cents for comb honey. all of these estimates depend largely on the quality and neatness of the product. from the gross return must be deducted from 50 cents to $1 per colony for expenses other than labor, including foundation, sections, occasional new frames and hives, and other incidentals. this estimate of expense does not include the cost of new hives and other apparatus needed in providing for increase in the size of the apiary. above all it should be emphasized that the only way to make beekeeping a profitable business is to produce only a first-class article. we can not control what the bees bring to the hive to any great extent, but by proper manipulations we can get them to produce fancy comb honey, or if extracted honey is produced it can be carefully cared for and neatly packed to appeal to the fancy trade. too many bee keepers, in fact, the majority, pay too little attention to making their goods attractive. they should recognize the fact that of two jars of honey, one in an ordinary fruit jar or tin can with a poorly printed label, and the other in a neat glass jar of artistic design with a pleasing, attractive label, the latter will bring double or more the extra cost of the better package. it is perhaps unfortunate, but nevertheless a fact, that honey sells largely on appearance, and a progressive bee keeper will appeal as strongly as possible to the eye of his customer. =location of the apiary.= in choosing a section in which to keep bees on an extensive scale it is essential that the resources of the country be known. beekeeping is more or less profitable in almost all parts of the united states, but it is not profitable to practice extensive beekeeping in localities where the plants do not yield nectar in large quantities. a man who desires to make honey production his business may find that it does not pay to increase the apiaries in his present location. it may be better to move to another part of the country where nectar is more abundant. [illustration: <sc>fig. 1.</sc>--a well-arranged apiary.] the location of the hives is a matter of considerable importance. as a rule it is better for hives to face away from the prevailing wind and to be protected from high winds. in the north, a south slope is desirable. it is advisable for hives to be so placed that the sun will strike them early in the morning, so that the bees become active early in the day, and thus gain an advantage by getting the first supply of nectar. it is also advantageous to have the hives shaded during the hottest part of the day, so that the bees will not hang out in front of the hive instead of working. they should be so placed that the bees will not prove a nuisance to passers-by or disturb live stock. this latter precaution may save the bee keeper considerable trouble, for bees sometimes prove dangerous, especially to horses. bees are also sometimes annoying in the early spring, for on their first flights they sometimes spot clothes hung out to dry. this may be remedied by having the apiary some distance from the clothes-drying yard, or by removing the bees from the cellars on days when no clothes are to be hung out. the plot on which the hives are placed should be kept free from weeds, especially in front of the entrances. the grass may be cut with a lawn mower, but it will often be found more convenient and as efficient to pasture one or more head of sheep in the apiary inclosure. the hives should be far enough apart to permit of free manipulation. if hives are too close together there is danger of bees entering the wrong hive on returning, especially in the spring. these conditions, which may be considered as ideal, need not all be followed. when necessary, bees may be kept on housetops, in the back part of city lots, in the woods, or in many other places where the ideal conditions are not found. as a matter of fact, few apiaries are perfectly located; nevertheless, the location should be carefully planned, especially when a large number of colonies are kept primarily for profit. as a rule, it is not considered best to keep more than 100 colonies in one apiary, and apiaries should be at least 2 miles apart. there are so many factors to be considered, however, that no general rule can be laid down. the only way to learn how many colonies any given locality will sustain is to study the honey flora and the record of that place until the bee keeper can decide for himself the best number to be kept and where they shall be placed. the experience of a relatively small number of good bee keepers in keeping unusually large apiaries indicates that the capabilities of the average locality are usually underestimated. the determination of the size of extensive apiaries is worthy of considerable study, for it is obviously desirable to keep bees in as few places as possible, to save time in going to them and also expense in duplicated apparatus. to the majority of bee keepers this problem is not important, for most persons keep but a small number of colonies. this is perhaps a misfortune to the industry as a whole, for with fewer apiaries of larger size under the management of careful, trained bee keepers the honev production of the country would be marvelously increased. for this reason, professional bee keepers are not favorably inclined to the making of thousands of amateurs, who often spoil the location for the honey producer and more often spoil his market by the injudicious selling of honey for less than it is worth or by putting an inferior article on the market. out apiaries, or those located away from the main apiary, should be so located that transportation will be as easy as possible. the primary consideration, however, must be the available nectar supply and the number of colonies of bees already near enough to draw on the resources. the out apiary should also be near to some friendly person, so that it may be protected against depredation and so that the owner may be notified if anything goes wrong. it is especially desirable to have it in the partial care of some person who can hive swarms or do other similar things that may arise in an emergency. the terms under which the apiary is placed on land belonging to some one else is a matter for mutual agreement. there is no general usage in this regard. =equipment in apparatus.= it can not be insisted too strongly that the only profitable way to keep bees is in hives with movable frames. the bees build their combs in these frames, which can then be manipulated by the bee keeper as necessary. the keeping of bees in boxes, hollow logs, or straw '"skeps"' is not profitable, is often a menace to progressive bee keepers, and should be strongly condemned. bees in box hives (plain boxes with no frames and with combs built at the will of the bees) are too often seen in all parts of the country. the owners may obtain from them a few pounds of inferior honey a year and carelessly continue in the antiquated practice. in some cases this type of beekeeping does little harm to others, but where diseases of the brood are present the box hive is a serious nuisance and should be abolished. =workshop.= it is desirable to have a workshop in the apiary where the crop may be cared for and supplies may be prepared. if the ground on which the hives are located is not level, it is usually better to have the shop on the lower side so that the heavier loads will be carried down grade. the windows and doors should be screened to prevent the entrance of bees. the wire-cloth should be placed on the outside of the window frames and should be extended about 6 inches above the opening. this upper border should be held away from the frame with narrow wooden strips one-fourth inch in thickness so as to provide exits for bees which accidentally get into the house. bees do not enter at such openings, and any bees which are carried into the house fly at once to the windows and then crawl upward, soon clearing the house of all bees. the windows should be so arranged that the glass may be slid entirely away from the openings to prevent bees from being imprisoned. the equipment of benches and racks for tools and supplies can be arranged as is best suited to the house. it is a good plan to provide racks for surplus combs, the combs being hung from strips separated the distance of the inside length of the hive. =hives.= it is not the purpose of this bulletin to advocate the use of any particular make of hive or other apparatus. some general statements may be made, however, which may help the beginner in his choice. the type of hive most generally used in this country (fig. 2) was invented by langstroth in 1851. it consists of a plain wooden box holding frames hung from a rabbet at the top and not touching the sides, top, or bottom. hives of this type are made to hold eight, ten, or more frames. the size of frame in general use, known as the langstroth (or l) frame (9-1/8 by 17-5/8 inches), is more widely used than all others combined. one of the best features in hive manufacture developed by langstroth is the making of the spaces between frames, side walls, and supers accurately, so that there is just room for the easy passage of bees. in a space of this size (called a "bee space") bees rarely build comb or deposit propolis. the number of frames used depends on the kind of honey produced (whether comb or extracted) and on the length of honey flow and other local factors. there are other hives used which have points of superiority. these will be found discussed in the various books on beekeeping and in the catalogues of dealers in bee keepers' supplies. whatever hive is chosen, there are certain important points which should be insisted on. the material should be of the best; the parts must be accurately made, so that all frames or hives in the apiary are interchangeable. all hives should be of the same style and size; they should be as simple as it is possible to make them, to facilitate operation. simple frames diminish the amount of propolis, which will interfere with manipulation. as a rule, it is better to buy hives and frames from a manufacturer of such goods rather than to try to make them, unless one is an expert woodworker. the choice of a hive, while important, is usually given undue prominence in books on bees. in actual practice experienced bee keepers with different sizes and makes of hives under similar conditions do not find as much difference in their honey crop as one would be led to believe from the various published accounts. [illustration: <sc>fig. 2.</sc>--a 10-frame hive with comb honey super and perforated zinc queen excluder.] hives should be painted to protect them from the weather. it is usually desirable to use white paint to prevent excessive heat in the colony during hot weather. other light colors are satisfactory, but it is best to avoid red or black. =hive stands.= generally it is best to have each hive on a separate stand. the entrance should be lower than any other part of the hive. stands of wood, bricks, tile (fig. 2), concrete blocks, or any other convenient material will answer the purpose. the hive should be raised above the ground, so that the bottom will not rot. it is usually not necessary to raise the hive more than a few inches. where ants are a nuisance special hive stands are sometimes necessary. [illustration: <sc>fig. 3.</sc>--smoker.] [illustration: <sc>fig. 4.</sc>--bee veil with silk-tulle front.] =other apparatus.= in addition to the hives in which the bees are kept some other apparatus is necessary. a good smoker to quiet the bees (fig. 3), consisting of a tin or copper receptacle to hold burning rotten wood or other material, with a bellows attached, is indispensable. a veil of black material, preferably with a black silk-tulle front (fig. 4), should be used. black wire-cloth veils are also excellent. even if a veil is not always used, it is desirable to have one at hand in case the bees become cross. cloth or leather gloves are sometimes used to protect the hands, but they hinder most manipulations. some sort of tool (fig. 5) to pry hive covers loose and frames apart is desirable. a screwdriver will answer, but any of the tools made especially for that purpose is perhaps better. division boards drone traps (fig. 6), bee escapes (figs. 7 and 8), feeders (figs. 17, 18, 19, 20), foundation fasteners, wax extractors, bee brushes (fig. 9), queen-rearing outfits, and apparatus for producing comb or extracted honey (figs. 2, 21, 22) will be found described in catalogues of supplies: a full discussion of these implements would require too much space in this bulletin. a few of these things are illustrated, and their use will be evident to the bee keeper. it is best to have the frames filled with foundation to insure straight combs composed of worker cells only. foundation is made from thin sheets of pure beeswax on which are impressed the bases of the cells of the comb. on this as a guide the worker bees construct the combs. when sheets of foundation are inserted they should be supported by wires stretched across the frames. frames purchased from supply dealers are usually pierced for wiring. it should be remembered that manipulation based on a knowledge of bee behavior is of far greater importance than any particular style of apparatus. in a short discussion like the present it is best to omit descriptions of appliances, since supply dealers will be glad to furnish whatever information is desired concerning apparatus. [illustration: fig. 5.--hive tools.] [illustration: fig. 6.--drone and queen trap on hive entrance.] =equipment in bees.= as stated previously, it is desirable to begin beekeeping with a small number of colonies. in purchasing these it is usually best to obtain them near at home rather than to send to a distance, for there is considerable liability of loss in shipment. whenever possible it is better to get bees already domiciled in the particular hive chosen by the bee keeper, but if this is not practicable then bees in any hives or in box hives may be purchased and transferred. it is a matter of small importance what race of bees is purchased, for queens of any race may be obtained and introduced in place of the original queen, and in a short time the workers will all be of the same race as the introduced queen. this is due to the fact that during the honey season worker bees die rapidly, and after requeening they are replaced by the offspring of the new queen. [illustration: fig. 7.--bee escape for removing bees from supers.] a most important consideration in purchasing colonies of bees is to see to it that they are free from disease. in many states and counties there are inspectors of apiaries who can be consulted on this point, but if this is not possible even a novice can tell whether or not there is anything wrong with the brood, and it is always safest to refuse hives containing dead brood. the best time of the year to begin beekeeping is in the spring, for during the first few months of ownership the bee keeper can study the subject and learn what to do, so that he is not so likely to make a mistake which will end in loss of bees. it is usually best to buy good strong colonies with plenty of brood for that season of the year, but if this is not practicable, then smaller colonies, or nuclei, may be purchased and built up during the summer season. of course, no surplus honey can be expected if all the honey gathered goes into the making of additional bees. it is desirable to get as little drone comb as possible and a good supply of honey in the colonies purchased. [illustration: fig. 8.--spring bee escape.] the question as to what race and strain of bees is to be kept is important. if poor stock has been purchased locally, the bee keeper should send to some reliable queen breeder for good queens as a foundation for his apiary. queens may be purchased for $1 each for "untested" to several dollars each for "selected" breeding queens. usually it will not pay beginners to buy "selected" breeding queens, for they are not yet prepared to make the best use of such stock. "untested" or "tested" queens are usually as good a quality as are profitable for a year or so, and there is also less danger in mailing "untested" (young) queens. various races of bees have been imported into the united states and among experienced bee keepers there are ardent advocates of almost all of them. the black or german race was the first imported, very early in the history of the country, and is found everywhere, but usually not entirely pure. as a rule this race is not desirable. no attention has been paid to breeding it for improvement in this country, and it is usually found in the hands of careless bee keepers. as a result it is inferior, although it often produces beautiful comb honey. the italian bees, the next introduced, are the most popular race among the best bee keepers in this country, and with good reason. they are vigorous workers and good honey gatherers, defend their hives well, and above all have been more carefully selected by american breeders than any other race. especially for the last reason it is usually desirable to keep this race. that almost any other race of bees known could be bred to as high a point as the italians, and perhaps higher, can not be doubted, but the bee keeper now gets the benefit of what has been done for this race. it should not be understood from this that the efforts at breeding have been highly successful. on the contrary, bee breeding will compare very unfavorably with the improvement of other animals or plants which have been the subject of breeding investigations. [illustration: fig. 9.--bee brush.] italian bees have been carefully selected for color by some breeders to increase the area of yellow on the abdomen, until we now have what are known as "five-banded" bees. these are very beautiful, but it can scarcely be claimed that they are improved as honey producers or in regard to gentleness. they are kept mostly by amateurs. some breeders have claimed to select italians for greater length of tongue, with the object of getting a bee which could obtain the abundance of nectar from red clover. if any gain is ever made in this respect, it is soon lost. the terms "red-clover bees" or "long-tongued bees" are somewhat misleading, but are ordinarily used as indicating good honey producers. caucasian bees, formerly distributed throughout the country by this department, are the most gentle race of bees known. they are not stingless, however, as is often stated in newspapers and other periodicals. many report them as good honey gatherers. they are more prolific than italians and may possibly become popular. their worst characteristic is that they gather great quantities of propolis and build burr and brace combs very freely. they are most desirable bees for the amateur or for experimental purposes. carniolan and banat bees have some advocates, and are desirable in that they are gentle. little is known of banats in this country, carniolans swarm excessively unless in' large hives. cyprians were formerly used somewhat, but are now rarely found pure, and are undesirable either pure or in crosses because of the fact that they sting with the least provocation and are not manageable with smoke. they are good honey gatherers, but their undesirable qualities have caused them to be discarded by american bee keepers. ''holy-land," egyptian, and punic (tunisian) bees have also been tried and have been universally abandoned. the department of agriculture does not now distribute or sell queen bees or colonies of bees of any race. =bee behavior.= the successful manipulation of bees depends entirely on a knowledge of their habits. this is not generally recognized, and most of the literature on practical beekeeping consists of sets of rules to guide manipulations. this is too true of the present paper, but is due to a desire to make the bulletin short and concise. while this method usually answers, it is nevertheless faulty, in that, without a knowledge of fundamental principles of behavior, the bee keeper is unable to recognize the seemingly abnormal phases of activity, and does not know what to do under such circumstances. rules must, of course, be based on the usual behavior. by years of association the bee keeper almost unconsciously acquires a wide knowledge of bee behavior, and consequently is better able to solve the problems which constantly arise. however, it would save an infinite number of mistakes and would add greatly to the interest of the work if more time were expended on a study of behavior; then the knowledge gained could be applied to practical manipulation. a colony of bees consists normally of one queen bee (fig. 10, _b_), the mother of the colony, and thousands of sexually undeveloped females called workers (fig. 10, _a_), which normally lay no eggs, but build the comb, gather the stores, keep the hive clean, feed the young, and do the other work of the hive. during part of the year there are also present some hundreds of males (fig. 10, _c_) or drones (often removed or restricted in numbers by the bee keeper), whose only service is to mate with young queens. these three types are easily recognized, even by a novice. in nature the colony lives in a hollow tree or other cavity, but under manipulation thrives in the artificial hives provided. the combs which form their abode are composed of wax secreted by the workers. the hexagonal cells of the two vertical layers constituting each comb have interplaced ends on a common septum. in the cells of these combs are reared the developing bees, and honey and pollen for food are also stored here. the cells built naturally are not all of the same size, those used in rearing worker bees being about one-fifth of an inch across, and those used in rearing drones and in storing honey about one-fourth of an inch across (fig. 11). the upper cells in natural combs are more irregular, and generally curve upward at the outer end. they are used chiefly for the storage of honey. under manipulation the size of the cells is controlled by the bee keeper by the use of comb foundation--sheets of pure beeswax on which are impressed the bases of cells and on which the bees build the side walls. [illustration: fig. 10.--the honey bee: _a_, worker; _b_, queen; _c_, drone. twice natural size.] in the north, when the activity of the spring begins, the normal colony consists of the queen and some thousands of workers. as the outside temperature raises, the queen begins to lay eggs (fig. 12, _a_) in the worker cells. these in time develop into white larvæ (fig. 12, _b_, _c_), which grow to fill the cells. they are then capped over and transform first into pupæ (fig. 12, _d_) and then into adult worker bees. as the weather grows warmer, and the colony increases in size by the emergence of the young bees, the quantity of brood is increased. the workers continue to bring in pollen, nectar to be made into honey, and water for brood rearing. when the hive is nearly filled with bees and stores, or when a heavy honey flow is on, the queen begins to lay eggs in the larger cells, and these develop into drones or males. continued increase of the colony would result in the formation of enormous, colonies, and unless some division takes place no increase in the number of colonies will result. finally, however, the workers begin to build queen cells (fig. 13). these are larger than any other cells in the hive and hang on the comb vertically. in size and shape they may be likened to a peanut, and are also rough on the outside. in preparing for swarming the queen sometimes lays eggs in partly constructed queen cells, but when a colony becomes queenless the cells are built around female larvæ. the larvæ in these cells receive special food, and when they have grown to full size they, too, are sealed up, and the colony is then ready for swarming. [illustration: fig. 11.--comb architecture: _a_, vertical section at top of comb; _b_, vertical section showing transition from worker to drone cells; _c_, horizontal section at side of comb showing end bar of frame; _d_, horizontal section of worker brood cells; e, diagram showing transition cells. natural size.] the issuing of the first swarm from a colony consists of the departure of the original queen with part of the workers. they leave behind the honev stores, except such as they can carry in their honey stomachs, the brood, some workers, drones, several queen cells, from which will later emerge young queens, but no adult queen. by this interesting process the original colony is divided into two. the swarm finds a new location in some place, such as a hollow tree, or, if cared for by the bee keeper, in a hive. the workers build new combs, the queen begins laying, and in a short time the swarm becomes a normal colony. [illustration: fig. 12.--the honey bee: _a_, egg; _b_, young larva; _c_, old larva; _d_, pupa. three times natural size.] the colony on the old stand (parent colony) is increased by the bees emerging from the brood. after a time (usually about seven or eight days) the queens in their cells are ready to emerge. if the colony is only moderately strong the first queen to emerge is allowed by the workers to tear down the other queen cells and kill the queens not yet emerged, but if a "second swarm" is to be given off the queen cells are protected. if the weather permits, when from 5 to 8 days old, the young queen flies from the hive to mate with a drone. mating usually occurs but once during the life of the queen and always takes place on the wing. in mating she receives enough spermatozoa (male sex cells) to last throughout her life. she returns to the hive after mating, and in about two days begins egg laying. the queen never leaves the hive except at mating time or with a swarm, and her sole duty in the colony is to lay eggs to keep up the population. when the flowers which furnish most nectar are in bloom, the bees usually gather more honey than they need for their own use, and this the bee keeper can safely remove. they continue the collection of honey and other activities until cold weather comes on in the fall, when brood rearing ceases; they then become relatively quiet, remaining in the hive all winter, except for short flights on warm days. when the main honey flow is over, the drones are usually driven from the hive. by that time the virgin queens have been mated and drones are of no further use. they are not usually stung to death, but are merely carried or driven from the hive by the workers and starve. a colony of bees which for any reason is without a queen does not expel the drones. [illustration: fig. 13.--queen cells. natural size.] many abnormal conditions may arise in the activity of a colony, and it is therefore necessary for the bee keeper to understand most of these, so that when they occur he may overcome them. if a virgin queen is prevented from mating she generally dies, but occasionally begins to lay eggs after about four weeks. in this event, however, all of the eggs which develop become males. such a queen is commonly called a "drone layer." if the virgin queen is lost while on her flight, or the colony at any other time is left queenless without means of rearing additional queens, it sometimes happens that some of the workers begin to lay eggs. these eggs also develop only into drones. it also happens at times that when a queen becomes old her supply of spermatozoa is exhausted, at which tune her eggs also develop only into drones. these facts are the basis of the theory that the drone of the bee is developed from an unfertilized egg or is partheno-genetic. a full discussion of this point is impossible in this place. the work of the hive is very nicely apportioned among the inmates, so that there is little lost effort. as has been stated, the rearing of young is accomplished by having one individual to lay eggs and numerous others (immature females or workers) to care for the larvæ. in like manner all work of the colony is apportioned. in general, it may be stated that all inside work--wax building, care of brood, and cleaning--is done by the younger workers, those less than 17 days old, while the outside work of collecting pollen and nectar to be made into honey is done by the older workers. this plan may be changed by special conditions. for example, if the colony has been queenless for a tune and a queen is then given, old workers may begin the inside work of feeding larvæ, and these may also secrete wax. or, if the old workers are all removed, the younger bees may begin outside work. as a rule, however, the general plan of division of labor according to age is probably followed rather closely. =directions for general manipulations.= bees should be handled so that they will be little disturbed in their work. as much as possible, stings should be avoided during manipulation. this is true, not so much because they are painful to the operator, but because the odor of poison which gets into the air irritates the other bees and makes them more difficult to manage. for this reason it is most advisable to wear a black veil (fig. 4) over a wide-brimmed hat and to have a good smoker (fig. 3). gloves, however, are usually more an inconvenience than otherwise. gauntlets or rubber bands around the cuffs keep the bees from crawling up the sleeve. it is best to avoid black clothing, since that color seems to excite bees; a black felt hat is especially to be avoided. superfluous quick movements tend to irritate the bees. the hive should not be jarred or disturbed any more than necessary. rapid movements are objectionable, because with their peculiar eye structure bees probably perceive motion more readily than they do objects. persons not accustomed to bees, on approaching a hive, often strike at bees which fly toward them or make some quick movement of the head or hand to avoid the sting which they fear is to follow. this should not be done, for the rapid movement, even if not toward the bee, is far more likely to be followed by a sting than remaining quiet. the best time to handle bees is during the middle of warm days, particularly during a honey flow. never handle bees at night or on cold, wet days unless absolutely necessary. the work of a beginner may be made much easier and more pleasant by keeping gentle bees. caucasians, carniolans, banats, and some strains of italians ordinarily do not sting much unless unusually provoked or except in bad weather. common black bees or crosses of blacks with other races are more irritable. it may be well worth while for the beginner to procure gentle bees while gaining experience in manipulation. later on, this is less important, for the bee keeper learns to handle bees with little inconvenience to himself or to the bees. various remedies for bee stings have been advocated, but they are all useless. the puncture made by the sting is so small that it closes when the sting is removed and liquids can not be expected to enter. the best thing to do when stung is to remove the sting as soon as possible without squeezing the poison sac, which is usually attached. this can be done by scraping it out with a knife or finger nail. after this is done the injured spot should be let alone and not rubbed with any liniment. the intense itching will soon disappear; any irritation only serves to increase the afterswelling. before opening a hive the smoker should be lighted and the veil put on. a few puffs of smoke directed into the entrance will cause the bees to fill themselves with honey and will drive back the guards. the hive cover should be raised gently, if necessary being pried loose with a screwdriver or special hive tool. when slightly raised, a little more smoke should be blown in vigorously on the tops of the frames, or if a mat covering for the frames is used, the cover should be entirely removed and one corner of the mat lifted to admit smoke. it is not desirable to use any more smoke than just enough to subdue the bees and keep them down on the frames. if at any time during manipulation they become excited, more smoke may be necessary. do not stand in front of the entrance, but at one side or the back. after the frames are exposed they may be loosened by prying gently with the hive tool and crowded together a little so as to give room for the removal of one frame. in cool weather the propolis (bee glue) may be brittle. care should be exercised not to loosen this propolis with a jar. the first frame removed can be leaned against the hive, so that there will be more room inside for handling the others. during all manipulations bees must not be mashed or crowded, for it irritates the colony greatly and may make it necessary to discontinue operations. undue crowding may also crush the queen. if bees crawl on the hands, they may be gently brushed off or thrown off. [illustration: fig. 14.--handling the frame: first position.] in examining a frame hold it over the hive if possible, so that any bees or queen which fall may drop into it. freshly gathered honey also often drops from the frame, and if it falls in the hive the bees can quickly clean it up, whereas if it drops outside it is untidy and may cause robbing. if a frame is temporarily leaned against the hive, it should be placed in a nearly upright position to prevent breakage and leaking of honey. the frame on which the queen is located should not be placed on the ground, for fear she may crawl away and be lost. it is best to lean the frame on the side of the hive away from the operator, so that bees will not crawl up his legs. [illustration: fig. 15.--handling the frame: second position.] in hanging frames the comb should always be held in a vertical position, especially if it contains much honey. when a frame is lifted from the hive by the top bar, the comb is vertical with one side toward the operator (fig. 14). to examine the reverse side, raise one end of the top bar until it is perpendicular (fig. 15), turn the frame on the top bar as an axis until the reverse side is in view, and then lower to a horizontal position with the top bar below (fig. 16). in this way there is no extra strain on the comb and the bees are not irritated. this care is not so necessary with wired combs, but it is a good habit to form in handling frames. it is desirable to have combs composed entirely of worker cells in order to reduce the amount of drone brood. the use of full sheets of foundation will bring this about and is also of value in making the combs straight, so that bees are not mashed in removing the frame. it is extremely difficult to remove combs built crosswise in the hive, and this should never be allowed to occur. such a hive is even worse than a plain box hive. superfluous inside fixtures should be avoided, as they tend only to impede manipulation. the hive should also be placed so that the entrance is perfectly horizontal and a little lower than the back of the hive. the frames will then hang in a vertical position, and the outer ones will not be fastened by the bees to the hive body if properly spaced at the top. [illustration: fig. 16.--handling the frame: third position.] in placing frames in the hive great care should be exercised that they are properly spaced. some frames are self-spacing, having projections on the side, so that when placed as close as possible they are the correct distance apart. these are good for beginners or persons who do not judge distances well and are preferred by many professional bee keepers. if unspaced frames are used, the brood frames should be 1-3/8 inches from center to center. a little practice will usually enable anyone to space quickly and accurately. careful spacing is necessary to prevent the building of combs of irregular thickness and to retard the building of pieces of comb from one frame to another. a beginner in beekeeping should by all means, if possible, visit some experienced bee keeper to get suggestions in handling bees. more can be learned in a short visit than in a considerably longer time in reading directions, and numerous short cuts which are acquired by experience will well repay the trouble or expense of such a visit. not all professional bee keepers manipulate in the very best way, but later personal experience will correct any erroneous information. above all, personal experimentation and a study of bee activity are absolute necessities in the practical handling of bees. =transferring.= in increasing the apiary it is sometimes best to buy colonies in box hives on account of their smaller cost and to transfer them to hives with movable frames. this should be done as soon as possible, for box hive colonies are of small value as producers. the best time to transfer is in the spring (during fruit bloom in the north) when the amount of honey and the population of the colony are at a minimum. transferring should not be delayed until spring merely because that season is best for the work. it may be done at any time during the active season, but, whenever possible, during a honey flow, to prevent robbing. if necessary, it may be done in a tent such as is often used in manipulating colonies. by choosing a time of the day when the largest number of bees are in the field the work will be lessened. =plan 1.=--the box hive should be moved a few feet from its stand and in its place should be put a hive with movable frames containing full sheets of foundation. the box hive should be turned upside down and a small, empty box inverted over it. by drumming continuously on the box hive with sticks for a considerable time the bees will be made to desert their combs and go to the upper box, and when most of them are clustered above, the bees may be dumped in front of the entrance of the hive which is to house them. the queen will usually be seen as the bees enter the hive, but, in case she has not left the old combs, more drumming will induce her to do so. it is necessary that the queen be in the hive before this manipulation is finished. the old box hive containing brood may now be placed right side up in a new location and in 21 days all of the worker brood will have emerged and probably some new queens will have been reared. these bees may then be drummed out and united with their former hive mates by vigorously smoking the colony and the drummed bees and allowing the latter to enter the hive through a perforated zinc to keep out the young queens. the comb in the box hive may then be melted up and any honey which it may contain used as the bee keeper sees fit. by this method good straight combs are obtained. if little honey is being gathered, the colony in the hive must be provided with food. =plan 2.=--if, on the other hand, the operator desires to save the combs of the box hive, the bees may be drummed into a box and the brood combs and other fairly good combs cut to fit frames and tied in place or held with rubber bands, strings, or strips of wood until the bees can repair the damage and fill up the breaks. these frames can then be hung in a hive on the old stand and the bees allowed to go in. the cutting of combs containing brood with more or less bees on them is a disagreeable job, and, since the combs so obtained are usually of little value in an apiary, the first method is recommended. =plan 3.=--another good plan is to wait until the colony swarms and then move the box hive to one side. a movable frame hive is now placed in the former location of the box hive and the swarm is hived in it. in this way all returning field bees are forced to join the swarm. in 21 days all of the worker brood in the box hive will have emerged. these young bees may then be united with the bees in the frame hive and the box hive destroyed. colonies often take up their abode in walls of houses and it is often necessary to remove them to prevent damage from melting combs. if the cavity in which the combs are built can be reached, the method of procedure is like that of transferring, except that drumming is impractical and the bees must simply be subdued with smoke and the combs cut out with the bees on them. another method which is often better is to place a bee escape over the entrance to the cavity, so that the bees can come out, but can not return. a cone of wire cloth about 8 inches high with a hole at the apex just large enough for one bee to pass will serve as a bee escape, or regular bee escapes (fig. 8) such as are sold by dealers may be used. a hive which they can enter is then placed beside the entrance. the queen is not obtained in this way and, of course, goes right on laying eggs, but as the colony is rapidly reduced in size the amount of brood decreases. as brood emerges, the younger bees leave the cavity and join the bees in the hive, until finally the queen is left practically alone. a new queen should be given to the bees in the hive as soon as possible, and in a short time they are fully established in their new quarters. after about four weeks, when all or nearly all of the brood in the cavity has emerged, the bee escape should be removed and as large a hole made at the entrance of the cavity as possible. the bees will then go in and rob out the honey and carry it to the hive, leaving only empty combs. the empty combs will probably do no damage, as moths usually soon destroy them and they may be left in the cavity and the old entrance carefully closed to prevent another swarm from taking up quarters there. in transferring bees from a hollow tree the method will depend on the accessibility of the cavity. usually it is difficult to drum out the bees and the combs can be cut out after subduing the colony with smoke. =uniting.= frequently colonies become queenless when it is not practicable to give them a new queen, and the best practice under such conditions is to unite the queenless bees to a normal colony. if any colonies are weak in the fall, even if they have a queen, safe wintering is better insured if two or more weak colonies are united, keeping the best queen. under various other conditions which may arise the bee keeper may find it desirable to unite bees from different colonies. some fundamental facts in bee behavior must be thoroughly understood to make this a success. every colony of bees has a distinctive colony odor and by this means bees recognize the entering of their hive by bees from other colonies and usually resent it. if, however, a bee comes heavily laden from the field and flies directly into the wrong hive without hesitation it is rarely molested. in uniting colonies, the separate colony odors must be hidden, and this is done by smoking each colony vigorously. it may at times be desirable to use tobacco smoke, which not only covers the colony odor but stupefies the bees somewhat. care should be taken not to use too much tobacco, as it will completely overcome the bees. the queen to be saved should be caged for a day or two to prevent the strange bees from killing her in the first excitement. another fact which must be considered is that the bees of a colony carefully mark the location of their own hive and remember that location for some time after they are removed. if, therefore, two colonies in the apiary which are not close together are to be united, they should be moved gradually nearer, not more than a foot at a time, until they are side by side, so that the bees will not return to their original locations and be lost. as the hives are moved gradually the slight changes are noted and no such loss occurs. as a further precaution, a board should be placed in front of the entrance in a slanting position, or brush and weeds may be thrown down so that when the bees fly out they recognize the fact that there has been a change and accustom themselves to the new place. if uniting can be done during a honey flow, there is less danger of loss of bees by fighting, or if done in cool weather, when the bees are not actively rearing brood, the colony odors are diminished and the danger is reduced. it is an easy matter to unite two or more weak swarms to make one strong one, for during swarming the bees have lost their memory of the old location, are full of honey, and are easily placed wherever the bee keeper wishes. they may simply be thrown together in front of a hive. swarms may also be given to a newly established colony with little difficulty. =preventing robbing in the apiary.= when there is no honey flow bees are inclined to rob other colonies, and every precaution must be taken to prevent this. feeding often attracts other bees, and, if there are indications of robbing, the sirup or honey should be given late in the day. as soon as robbing begins, manipulation of colonies should be discontinued, the hives closed, and, if necessary, the entrances contracted as far as the weather will permit. if brush is thrown in front of the entrance, robbers are less likely to attempt entering. at all times honey which has been removed from the hives should be kept where no bees can get at it, so as not to incite robbing. =feeding.= during spring manipulations, in preparing bees for winter, and at other times it may be necessary to feed bees for stimulation or to provide stores. _honey from an unknown source should never be used_, for fear of introducing disease, and sirup made of granulated sugar is cheapest and best for this purpose. the cheaper grades of sugar or molasses should never be used for winter stores. the proportion of sugar to water depends on the season and the purpose of the feeding. for stimulation a proportion of one-fourth to one-third sugar by volume is enough, and for fall feeding, especially if rather late, a solution containing as much sugar as it will hold when cold is best. there seems to be little advantage in boiling the sirup. tartaric acid in small quantity may be added for the purpose of changing part of the cane sugar to invert sugar, thus retarding granulation. the medication of sirup as a preventive or cure of brood disease is often practiced, but it has not been shown that such a procedure is of any value. if honey is fed, it should be diluted somewhat, the amount of dilution depending on the season. if robbing is likely to occur, feeding should be done in the evening. numerous feeders are on the market, adapted for different purposes and methods of manipulation (figs. 17, 18, 19). a simple feeder can be made of a tin pan filled with excelsior or shavings (fig. 20). this is filled with sirup and placed on top of the frames in a super or hive body. it is advisable to lean pieces of wood on the pan as runways for the bees, and to attract them first to the sirup, either by mixing in a little honey or by spilling a little sirup over the frames and sticks. it may be stated positively that it does not pay financially, or in any other way, to feed sugar sirup to be stored in sections and sold as comb honey. of course, such things have been tried, but the consumption of sugar during the storing makes the cost greater than the value of pure floral honey. =spring management.= the condition of a colony of bees in the early spring depends largely upon the care given the bees the preceding autumn and in the method of wintering. if the colony has wintered well and has a good prolific queen, preferably young, the chances are that it will become strong in time to store a good surplus when the honey flow comes. the bees which come through the winter, reared the previous autumn, are old and incapable of much work. as the season opens they go out to collect the early nectar and pollen, and also care for the brood. the amount of brood is at first small, and as the new workers emerge they assist in the brood rearing so that the extent of the brood can be gradually increased until it reaches its maximum about the beginning of the summer. the old bees die off rapidly. if brood rearing does not continue late in the fall, so that the colony goes into winter with a large percentage of young bees, the old bees may die off in the spring faster than they are replaced by emerging brood. this is known as "spring dwindling." a preventive remedy for this may be applied by feeding, if necessary, the autumn before, or keeping up brood rearing as late as possible by some other means. [illustration: fig. 17.--division-board feeder to be hung in hive in place of frame.] if spring dwindling begins, however, it can be diminished somewhat by keeping the colony warm and by stimulative feeding, so that all the energy of the old bees may be put to the best advantage in rearing brood to replace those drying off. the size of the brood chamber can also be reduced to conserve heat. [illustration: fig. 18.--feeder set in collar under hive body.] it sometimes happens that when a hive is examined in the spring the hive body and combs are spotted with brownish yellow excrement. this is an evidence of what is commonly called "dysentery." the cause of this trouble is long-continued confinement with a poor quality of honey for food. honeydew honey and some of the inferior floral honeys contain a relatively large percentage of material which bees can not digest, and, if they are not able to fly for some time, the intestines become clogged with fæcal matter and a diseased condition results. worker bees never normally deposit their fæces in the hive. the obvious preventive for this is to provide the colony with good honey or sugar sirup the previous fall. "dysentery" frequently entirely destroys colonies, but if the bees can pull through until warm days permit a cleansing flight they recover promptly. [illustration: fig. 19.--"pepper-box" feeder for use on top of frames.] bees should not be handled in the early spring any more than necessary, for to open a hive in cool weather wastes heat and may even kill the brood by chilling. the hive should be kept as warm as possible in early spring as an aid to brood rearing. it is a good practice to wrap hives in black tar paper in the spring, not only that it may aid in conserving the heat of the colony, but in holding the suns heat rays as a help to the warmth of the hive. this wrapping should be put on as soon as an early examination has shown the colony to be in good condition, and there need be no hurry in taking it off. a black wrapping during the winter is not desirable, as it might induce brood rearing too early and waste the strength of the bees. as a further stimulus to brood rearing, stimulative feeding of sugar sirup in early spring may be practiced. this produces much the same effect as a light honey flow does and the results are often good. others prefer to give the bees such a large supply of stores in the fall that when spring comes they will have an abundance for brood rearing, and it will not be necessary to disturb them in cool weather. both ideas are good, but judicious stimulative feeding usually more than pays for the labor. colonies should be fed late in the day, so that the bees will not fly as a result of it, and so that robbing will not be started. when the weather is warmer and more settled the brood cluster may be artificially enlarged by spreading the frames so as to insert an empty comb in the middle. the bees will attempt to cover all the brood that they already had, and the queen will at once begin laying in the newly inserted comb, thus making a great increase in the brood. this practice is desirable when carefully done, but may lead to serious results if too much new brood is produced. a beginner had better leave the quantity of brood to the bees. [illustration: fig. 20.--pan in super arranged for feeding.] it is desirable early in the season, before any preparations are made for swarming, to go through the apiary and clip one wing of each queen (see p. 30). this should be done before the hive becomes too populous. it is perhaps best to clip queens as they are introduced, but some colonies may rear new ones without the knowledge of the owner, and a spring examination will insure no escaping swarms. the beginner should perhaps be warned not to clip the wings of a virgin queen. queens sometimes die during the winter and early spring, and since there is no brood from which the bees can replace them, the queenless colonies are "hopelessly queenless." such colonies are usually restless and are not active in pollen gathering. if, on opening a colony, it is found to be without a queen and reduced in numbers, it should be united with another colony by smoking both vigorously and caging the queen in the queen-right colony for a day or two to prevent her being killed. a frame or two of brood may be added to a queenless colony, not only to increase its strength, but to provide young brood from which they can rear a queen bee keepers in the north can frequently buy queens from southern breeders early in the spring and naturally this is better than leaving the colony without a queen until the bees can rear one, as it is important that there be no stoppage in brood rearing at this season. =swarm management and increase.= the excessive rearing of brood at the wrong season or increase in the number of colonies greatly reduces the surplus honey crop by consumption. the ideal to which all progressive bee keepers work, when operating simply for honey, is to stimulate brood rearing to prepare bees for gathering, to retard breeding when it is less desirable, and to prevent swarming. formerly the measure of success in beekeeping was the amount of increase by swarming, but this is now recognized as being quite the contrary of success. the stimulation of brood rearing in the spring, however, makes it more likely that swarming will occur; so that the operator must counteract the tendency to swarm. this is especially true in comb honey production. very few succeed in entirely preventing swarming, but by various methods the situation can be largely controlled. when a swarm issues, it usually first settles on a limb of a tree or bush near the apiary. it was formerly common to make a noise by beating pans or ringing bells in the belief that this causes the swarm to settle. there is no foundation for such action on the part of the bee keeper. if the bees alight on a small limb that can be spared it may simply be sawed off and the bees carried to the hive and thrown on a sheet or hive cover in front of the entrance. if the limb can not be cut, the swarm can be shaken off into a box or basket on a pole and hived. if the bees light on the trunk of a tree or in some inaccessible place they can first be attracted away by a comb, preferably containing unsealed brood. in these manipulations it is not necessary to get all the bees, but if the queen is not with those which are put into the hive the bees will go into the air again and join the cluster. if a queen is clipped as recommended under "spring management" (p. 29) the swarm will issue just the same, but the queen, not being able to fly, will simply wander about on the ground in front of the hive, where she can be caught and caged. the parent colony can then be removed to a new stand and a new hive put in its place. the bees will soon return and the queen can be freed among them as they enter. the field bees on returning will enter the new hive with the swarm, thus decreasing still more the parent colony and making a second swarm less probable. to make sure of this, however, all queen cells except one good one can be removed soon after the swarm issues. another method of preventing second swarms is to set the old hive beside the swarm and in a week move the old hive to another place. the field bees of the parent colony then join the swarm and the parent colony is so much reduced that a second swarm does not issue. to hold a swarm it is desirable to put one frame containing healthy unsealed brood in the new hive. the other frames may contain full sheets or starters of foundation. usually comb honey supers or surplus bodies for extracting frames will have been put on before swarming occurs. these are given to the swarm on the old stand and separated from the brood chamber by queen-excluding perforated zinc. in three or four days the perforated zinc may be removed if desired. when clipping the queen's wing is not practiced, swarms may be prevented from leaving by the use of queen traps of perforated zinc (fig. 6). these allow the workers to pass out, but not drones or queens, which, on leaving the entrance, pass up to an upper compartment from which they can not return. these are also used for keeping undesirable drones from escaping, and the drones die of starvation. when a swarm issues from a hive provided with a queen trap, the queen goes to the upper compartment and remains there until released by the bee keeper. the workers soon return to the hive. when the operator discovers the queen outside, the colony may be artificially swarmed to prevent another attempt at natural swarming. a queen trap should not be kept on the hive all the time for fear the old queen may be superseded and the young queen prevented from flying out to mate. =artificial swarming= if increase is desired, it is better to practice some method of artificial swarming and to forestall natural swarming rather than be compelled to await the whims of the colonies. the situation should be under the control of the bee keeper as much as possible. the bees, combs, and brood may be divided into two nearly equal parts and a queen provided for the queenless portion; or small colonies, called nuclei, may be made from the parent colony, so reducing its strength that swarming is not attempted. these plans are not as satisfactory as shaken swarms, since divided colonies lack the vigor of swarms. a good method of artificially swarming a colony is to shake most of the bees from the combs into another hive on the old stand with starters (narrow strips) of foundation. the hive containing the brood with some bees still adhering is then moved to a new location. if receptacles for surplus honey have been put on previously, as they generally should be, they should now be put over the artificial swarm separated from the brood compartment by perforated zinc. this method of artificially swarming (usually called by bee keepers "shook" swarming) should not be practiced too early, since natural swarming may take place later. the colony should first have begun its preparations for swarming. the method is particularly useful in comb honey production. the bees may be prevented from leaving the hive by the use of a drone trap (fig. 6) or by putting in one frame containing unsealed brood. some bee keepers prefer using full sheets of foundation or even drawn combs for the artificial swarm, but narrow strips of foundation have some advantages. by using narrow strips the queen has no cells in which to lay eggs for a time, thus reducing brood rearing, but, since by the time artificial swarming is practiced the profitable brood rearing is usually over, this is no loss but rather a gain. there are also in the brood compartment no cells in which the gathering workers can deposit fresh honey, and they consequently put it in the supers. gradually the combs below are built out and brood rearing is increased. later the colony is allowed to put honey in the brood combs for its winter supply. if no increase is desired, the bees which emerge from the removed brood combs may later be united with the artificial swarm and by that time there will usually be little danger of natural swarming. artificial swarming can readily be combined with the shaking treatment for bee diseases, thus accomplishing two objects with one manipulation. if disease is present in the parent colony, only strips of foundation should be used and the colony should be confined to the hive until a queen and drone trap and not with a frame of brood. =prevention of swarming.= unless increase is particularly desired, both natural and artificial swarming should be done away with as far as possible, so that the energy of the bees shall go into the gathering of honey. since crowded and overheated hives are particularly conducive to swarming, this tendency may be largely overcome by giving plenty of ventilation and additional room in the hive. shade is also a good preventive of swarming. extra space in the hive may be furnished by adding more hive bodies and frames or by frequent extracting, so that there may be plenty of room for brood rearing and storage at all times. these manipulations are, of course, particularly applicable to extracted honey production. to curb the swarming impulse frequent examinations of the colonies (about every week or 10 days during the swarming season) for the purpose of cutting out queen cells is a help, but this requires considerable work, and since some cells may be overlooked, and particularly since it frequently fails in spite of the greatest care, it is not usually practiced. requeening with young queens early in the season, when possible, generally prevents swarming. swarming is largely due to crowded brood chambers, and since eggs laid immediately before and during the honey flow do not produce gatherers, several methods have been tried of reducing the brood. the queen may either be entirely removed or be caged in the hive to prevent her from laying. in either event the bees will usually build queen cells to replace her, and these must be kept cut out. these plans would answer the purpose very well were it not for the fact that queenless colonies often do not work vigorously. under most circumstances these methods can not be recommended. a better method is to remove brood about swarming time and thus reduce the amount. there are generally colonies in the apiary to which frames of brood can be given to advantage. in addition to these methods various nonswarming devices have been invented, and later a nonswarming hive so constructed that there is no opportunity for the bees to form a dense cluster. the breeding of bees by selecting colonies with less tendency to swarm has been suggested. on the whole, the best methods are the giving of plenty of room, shade, and ventilation to colonies run for extracted honey; and ventilation, shade, and artificial swarming of colonies run for comb honey. frequent requeening (about once in two years) is desirable for other reasons, and requeening before swarming time helps in the solution of that difficulty, =preparation for the harvest.= an essential in honey production is to have the hive overflowing with bees at the beginning of the honey flow, so that the field force will be large enough to gather more honey than the bees need for their own use. to accomplish this, the bee keeper must see to it that brood rearing is heavy some time before the harvest, and he must know accurately when the honey flows come, so that he may time his manipulations properly. brood rearing during the honey flow usually produces bees which consume stores, while brood reared before the flow furnishes the surplus gatherers. the best methods of procedure may be illustrated by giving as an example the conditions in the white clover region. in the spring the bees gather pollen and nectar from various early flowers, and often a considerable quantity from fruit bloom and dandelions. during this time brood rearing is stimulated by the new honey, but afterwards there is usually a period of drought when brood rearing is normally diminished or not still more increased as it should be. this condition continues until the white clover flow comes on, usually with a rush, when brood rearing is again augmented. if such a condition exists, the bee keeper should keep brood rearing at a maximum by stimulative feeding during the drought. when white clover comes in bloom he may even find it desirable to prevent brood rearing to turn the attention of his bees to gathering. a worker bee emerges from its cell 21 days after the egg is laid, and it usually begins field work in from 14 to 17 days later. it is evident, therefore, that an egg must be laid five weeks before the honey flow to produce a gatherer. since the flow continues for some time and since bees often go to the field earlier than 14 days, egg laying should be pushed up to within two or three weeks of the opening of the honey flow. in addition to stimulative feeding, the care of the colony described under the heading of "spring management" (p. 26) will increase brood production. =the production of honey.= the obtaining of honey from bees is generally the primary object of their culture. bees gather nectar to make into honey for their own use as food, but generally store more than they need, and this surplus the bee keeper takes away. by managing colonies early in the spring as previously described the surplus may be considerably increased. the secret of maximum crops is to "keep all colonies strong." honey is gathered in the form of nectar secreted by various flowers, is transformed by the bees, and stored in the comb. bees also often gather a sweet liquid called "honeydew," produced by various scale insects and plant-lice, but the honeydew honey made from it is quite unlike floral honey in flavor and composition and should not be sold for honey. it is usually unpalatable and should never be used as winter food for bees, since it usually causes dysentery (p. 40). when nectar or honeydew has been thickened by evaporation and otherwise changed, the honey is sealed in the cells with cappings of beeswax. it is not profitable to cultivate any plant solely for the nectar which it will produce, but various" plants, such as clovers, alfalfa, and buckwheat, are valuable for other purposes and are at the same time excellent honey plants; their cultivation is therefore a benefit to the bee keeper. it is often profitable to sow some plant on waste land; sweet clovers are often used in this way. the majority of honey-producing plants are wild, and the bee keeper must largely accept the locality as he finds it and manage his apiary so as to get the largest possible amount of the available nectar. since bees often fly as far as 2 or 3 miles to obtain nectar, it is obvious that the bee keeper can rarely influence the nectar supply appreciably. before deciding what kind of honey to produce the bee keeper should have a clear knowledge of the honey resources of his locality and of the demands of the market in which he will sell his crop. if the bulk of the honey is dark, or if the main honey flows are slow and protracted, it will not pay to produce comb honey, since the production of fancy comb honey depends on a rapid flow. the best localities for comb honey production are in the northern part of the united states east of the mississippi river, where white clover is a rapid and abundant yielder. other parts of the united states where similar conditions of rapidity of flow exist are also good. unless these favorable conditions are present it is better to produce extracted honev. [illustration: fig. 21.--knives for uncapping honey.] =extracted honey.=[1] [1] for farther discussion of the production and care of extracted honey, see bulletin 75, part i, bureau of entomology. extracted honey is honey which has been removed by means of centrifugal force from the combs in which the bees stored it. while it is possible to adulterate extracted honey by the addition of cheap sirups, this is rarely done, perhaps largely on account of the possibility of detection. it may be said to the credit of bee keepers as a class that they have always opposed adulteration of honey. in providing combs for the storage of honey to be extracted the usual practice is to add to the top of the brood chamber one or more hive bodies just like the one in which brood is reared, and fill these with frames. if preferred, shallower frames with bodies of proper size may be used, but most honey extractors are made for full-size frames. the surplus bodies should be put on in plenty of time to prevent the crowding of the brood chamber, and also to act as a preventive of swarming. honey for extracting should not be removed until it is well ripened and a large percentage of it capped. it is best, however, to remove the crop from each honey flow before another heavy producing plant comes into bloom, so that the different grades of honey may be kept separate. it is better to extract while honey is still coming in, so that the bees will not be apt to rob. the extracting should be done in a building, preferably one provided with wire-cloth at the windows (p. 9). [illustration: fig. 22.--honey extractor.] the frames containing honey to be extracted are removed from the hive, the cappings cut off with a sharp, warm knife (fig. 21) made specially for this purpose, and the frames are then put into the baskets of the honey extractor (fig. 22) . by revolving these rapidly the honey is thrown out of one side. the basket is then reversed and the honey from the other side is removed. the combs can then be returned to the bees to be refilled, or if the honey flow is over, they can be returned to the bees to be cleaned and then removed and stored until needed again. this method is much to be preferred to mashing the comb and straining out the honey, as was formerly done. in large apiaries special boxes to receive cappings, capping melters to render the cappings directly into wax, and power-driven extractors are often used. these will be found listed in supply catalogues. the extracted honey is then strained and run into vessels. it is advisable not to put it in bottles at once, but to let it settle in open vessels for a time, so that it can be skimmed. most honeys will granulate and become quite hard if exposed to changes of temperature, and to liquefy granulated extracted honey it should be heated in a water bath. never heat honey directly over a stove or flame, as the flavor is thereby injured. the honey should never be heated higher than 160° f. unless it is necessary to sterilize it because of contamination by disease. extracted honey is put up in bottles or small tin cans for the retail trade, and in 5-gallon square tin cans or barrels for the wholesale market. great care must be exercised if barrels are used, as honey will absorb moisture from the wood, if any is present, and cause leakage. the tin package is much to be preferred in most cases. in bottling honey for retail trade, it will well repay the bee keeper or bottler to go to considerable expense and trouble to make an attractive package, as the increased price received will more than compensate for the increased labor and expense. honey should be heated to 160° f. and kept there for a time before bottling, and the bottle should be filled as full as possible and sealed hermetically. =granulated honey.=--some honeys, such as alfalfa, granulate quickly after being extracted. such honeys are sometimes allowed to granulate in large cans and the semisolid mass is then cut into 1-pound bricks like a butter print and wrapped in paraffin paper. it may be put into paraffined receptacles before granulation, if desired. there is always a ready market for granulated honey, since many people prefer it to the liquid honey. =comb honey.= comb honey is honey as stored in the comb by the bees, the size and shape being determined by the small wooden sections provided by the bee keeper. instead of having comb in large frames in which to store surplus honey, the bees are compelled to build comb in the sections and to store honey there (fig. 2). a full section weighs about 1 pound; larger ones are rarely used. by the use of modern sections and foundation the comb honey now produced is a truly beautiful, very uniform product, so uniform in fact that it is often charged that it must be artificially manufactured. the purchaser of a section of comb honey may be absolutely certain, however, that he is obtaining a product of the bees, for never has anyone been able to imitate the bees' work successfully. to show their confidence in the purity of comb honey, the national bee keepers' association offers $1,000 for a single pound of artificial comb filled with an artificially prepared sirup, which is at all difficult of detection. there are several different styles of sections now in use, the usual sizes being 4-1/4 inches square and 4 by 5 inches. there are also two methods of spacing, so that there will be room for the passage of bees from the brood chamber into the sections and from one super of sections to another. this is done either by cutting "bee ways" in the sections and using plain flat separators or by using "no bee-way" or plain sections and using "fences"--separators with cleats fastened on each side, to provide the bee space. to describe all the different "supers" or bodies for holding sections would be impossible in a bulletin of this size, and the reader must be referred to catalogues of dealers in beekeeping supplies. instead of using regular comb honey supers, some bee keepers use wide frames to hold two tiers of sections. it is better, however, to have the supers smaller, so that the bees may be crowded more to produce full sections. to overcome this difficulty, shallow wide frames holding one tier of sections may be used. the majority of bee keepers find it advisable to use special comb honey supers. in producing comb honey it is even more necessary to know the plants which produce surplus honey, and just when they come in bloom, than it is in extracted honey production. the colony should be so manipulated that the maximum field force is ready for the beginning of the flow. this requires care in spring management, and, above all, the prevention of swarming. supers should be put on just before the heavy flow begins. a good indication of the need of supers is the whitening of the brood combs at the top. if the bees are in two hive bodies they should generally be reduced to one, and the frames should be filled with brood and honey so that as the new crop comes in the bees will carry it immediately to the sections above. if large hives are used for the brood chamber it is often advisable to remove some of the frames and use a division board to crowd the bees above. to prevent the queen from going into the sections to lay, a sheet of perforated zinc (fig. 23) may be put between the brood chamber and the super (fig. 2). it is often difficult to get bees to begin work in the small sections, but this should be brought about as soon as possible to prevent loss of honey. if there are at hand some sections which have been partly drawn the previous year, these may be put in the super with the new sections as "bait." another good plan is to put a shallow extracting frame on either side of the sections. if a few colonies in the apiary that are strong enough to go above refuse to do so, lift supers from some colonies that have started to work above and give them to the slow colonies. the super should generally be shaded somewhat to keep it from getting too hot. artificial swarming will quickly force bees into the supers. to produce the finest quality of comb honey full sheets of foundation should be used in the sections. some bee keepers use nearly a full sheet hung from the top of the section and a narrow bottom starter. the use of foundation of worker-cell size is much preferred. when one super becomes half full or more and there are indications that there will be honey enough to fill others, the first one should be raised and an empty one put on the hive under it. this tiering up can be continued as long as necessary, but it is advisable to remove filled sections as soon as possible after they are nicely capped, for they soon become discolored and less attractive. honey removed immediately after capping finds a better market, but if left on the hive even until the end of the summer the quality of the honey is improved. a careful watch must be kept on the honey flow, so as to give the bees only enough sections to store the crop. if this is not done a lot of unfinished sections will be left at the end of the flow. honeys from different sources should not be mixed in the sections, as it usually gives the comb a bad appearance [illustration: fig. 23.--perforated zinc queen excluder.] to remove bees from sections, the super may be put over a bee escape so that the bees can pass down but can not return, or the supers may be removed and covered with a wire-cloth-cone bee escape. [illustration: fig. 24.--shipping case for comb honey.] after sections are removed the wood should be scraped free of propolis (bee glue) and then packed in shipping cases (fig. 24) for the market. shipping cases to hold 12, 24, or 48 sections, in which the various styles of sections fit exactly, are manufactured by dealers in supplies. in shipping these cases, several of them should be put in a box or crate packed in straw and paper and handles provided to reduce the chances of breakage. when loaded in a freight car the combs should be parallel with the length of the car. in preparing comb honey for market it should be carefully graded so that the sections in each shipping case are as uniform as possible. nothing will more likely cause wholesale purchasers to cut the price than to find the first row of sections in a case fancy and those behind of inferior grade. grading rules have been adopted by various bee keepers' associations or drawn up by honey dealers. the following sets of rules are in general use: eastern grading rules for comb honey. _fancy._--all sections -well filled; combs straight; firmly attached to all four sides; the combs unsoiled by travel, stain, or otherwise; all the cells sealed except an occasional one; the outside surface of the wood well scraped of propolis. _a no. 1._--all sections well filled except the row of cells next to the wood; combs straight; one-eighth part of comb surface soiled, or the entire surface slightly soiled; the outside surface of the wood well scraped of propolis. _no. 1._--all sections well filled except the row of cells next to the wood; combs comparatively even; one-eighth part of comb surface soiled, or the entire surface slightly soiled. _no. 2._--three-fourths of the total surface must be filled and sealed. _no. 3._--must weigh at least half as much as a full-weight section. in addition to this the honey is to be classified according to color, using the terms white, amber, and dark; that is, there will be "fancy white," "no. 1 dark," etc. new comb honey grading rules adopted by the colorado state bee keepers' association. _no. 1 white._--sections to be well filled and evenly capped, except the outside row, next to the wood ; honey white or slightly amber, comb and cappings white, and not projecting beyond the wood; wood to be well cleaned; cases of separatored honey to average 21 pounds net per case of 24 sections; no section in this grade to weigh less than 13-1/2 ounces. cases of half-separatored honey to average not less than 22 pounds net per case of 24 sections. cases of unseparatored honey to average not less than 23 pounds net per case of 24 sections. _no. 1 light amber._--sections to be well filled and evenly capped, except the outside row next to the wood; honey white or light amber; comb and cappings from white to off color, but not dark; comb not projecting beyond the wood; wood to be well cleaned. cases of separatored honey to average 21 pounds net per case of 24 sections; no section in this grade to weigh less than 13-1/2 ounces. cases of half-separatored honey to average not less than 22 pounds net per case of 24 sections. cases of unseparatored honey to average not less than 23 pounds net per case of 24 sections. _no. 2._--this includes all white honey, and amber honey not included in the above grades; sections to be fairly well filled and capped, no more than 25 uncapped cells, exclusive of outside row, permitted in this grade; wood to be well cleaned; no section in this grade to weigh less than 12 ounces. cases of separatored honey to average not less than 19 pounds net. cases of half-separatored honey to average not less than 20 pounds net per case of 24 sections. cases of unseparatored honey to average not less than 21 pounds net per case of 24 sections. =the production of wax.= beeswax, which is secreted by the bees and used by them for building their combs, is an important commercial product. there are times in almost every apiary when there are combs to be melted up, and it pays to take care of even scraps of comb and the cappings taken off in extracting. a common method of taking out the wax is to melt the combs in a solar wax extractor. this is perhaps the most feasible method where little wax is produced, but considerable wax still remains in old brood combs after such heating. various wax presses are on the market, or one can be made at home. if much wax is produced, the bee keeper should make a careful study of the methods of wax extraction, as there is usually much wax wasted even after pressing. =preparations for wintering.= after the main honey flow is over the management must depend on what may be expected later in the season from minor honey flows. if no crop is to be expected, the colony may well be kept only moderately strong, so that there will not be so many consumers in the hive. in localities where winters are severe and breeding is suspended for several months great care should be taken that brood rearing is rather active during the late summer, so that the colony may go into winter with plenty of young bees. in case any queens show lack of vitality they should be replaced early, so that the bees will not become queenless during the winter. the important considerations in wintering are plenty of young bees, a good queen, plenty of stores of good quality, sound hives, and proper protection from cold and dampness. if, as cold weather approaches, the bees do not have stores enough, they must be fed. every colony should have from 25 to 40 pounds, depending on the length of winter and the methods of wintering. it is better to have too much honey than not enough, for what is left is good next season. if feeding is practiced, honey may be used, but sirup made of granulated sugar is just as good and is perfectly safe. if honey is purchased for feeding, great care should be taken that it comes from a healthy apiary, otherwise the apiary may be ruined by disease. _never feed honey bought on the open market._ the bees should be provided with stores early enough so that it will not be necessary to feed or to open the colonies after cold weather comes on. honeydew honey should not be left in the hives, as it produces "dysentery." some honeys are also not ideal for winter stores. those which show a high percentage of gums (most tree honeys) are not so desirable, but will usually cause no trouble. in wintering out of doors the amount of protection depends on the severity of the winter. in the south no packing is necessary, and even in very cold climates good colonies with plenty of stores can often pass the winter with little protection, but packing and protection make it necessary for the bees to generate less heat, and consequently they consume less stores and their vitality is not reduced. dampness is probably harder for bees to withstand than cold, and when it is considered that bees give off considerable moisture, precautions should be taken that as it condenses it does not get on the cluster. an opening at the top would allow the moisture to pass out, but it would also waste heat, so it is better to put a mat of burlap or other absorbent material on top of the frames. the hive may also be packed in chaff, leaves, or other similar dry material to diminish the loss of heat. some hives are made with double walls, the space being filled with chaff; these are good for outdoor wintering. the hive entrance should be lower than any other part of the hive, so that any condensed moisture may run out. the hives should be sound and the covers tight and waterproof. entrances should be contracted in cold weather not only to keep out cold wind, but to prevent mice from entering. there should always be enough room, however, for bees to pass in and out if warmer weather permits a flight. in the hands of experienced bee keepers cellar wintering is very successful, but this method requires careful study. the cellar must be dry and so protected that the temperature never varies more than from 40 to 45° f.; 43° f. seems to be the optimum temperature. the ventilation must be good or the bees become fretful. light should not be admitted to the cellar, and consequently some means of indirect ventilation is necessary. cellar wintering requires the consumption of less honey to maintain the proper temperature in the cluster and is therefore economical. bees so wintered do not have an opportunity for a cleansing flight, often for several months, but the low consumption makes this less necessary. some bee keepers advocate carrying the colonies out a few times on warm days, but it is not fully established whether this is entirely beneficial and it is usually not practiced. the time for putting colonies in the cellar is a point of dispute, and practice in this regard varies considerably. they should certainly be put in before the weather becomes severe and as soon as they have ceased brood rearing. the time chosen may be at night when they are all in the hive, or on some chilly day. the hives may be piled one on top of the other, the lower tier raised a little from the floor. the entrances should not be contracted unless the colony is comparatively weak. it is usually not considered good policy to close the entrances with ordinary wire cloth, as the dead bees which accumulate more or less on the bottom boards may cut off ventilation, and the entrance should be free so that these may be cleaned out. it is, however, good policy to cover the entrance with wire-cloth having three meshes to the inch to keep out mice. the time of removing bees from the cellar is less easily determined than that of putting them in. the colonies may be removed early and wrapped in _black_ tar paper or left until the weather is settled. if the weather is very warm and the bees become fretful, the cellar must either be cooled or the bees removed. some bee keepers prefer to remove bees at night, so that they can recover from the excitement and fly from the hive normally in the morning. one of the chief difficulties is to prevent the bees from getting into the wrong hives after their first flights. they often "drift" badly with the wind, and sometimes an outside row will become abnormally strong, leaving other colonies weak. the night before the bees are removed from the cellar it is good practice to leave the cellar doors and windows wide open. =diseases and enemies.= there are two infectious diseases of the brood of bees which cause great losses to the beekeeping industry of the united states. these are known as american foul brood and european foul brood. both of these diseases destroy colonies by killing the brood, so that there are not enough young bees emerging to take the place of the old adult bees as these die from natural causes. the adult bees are not attacked by either disease. in the hands of careful bee keepers both diseases may be controlled, and this requires careful study and constant watching. in view of the fact that these diseases are now widely distributed throughout the united states, every bee keeper should read the available literature on the subject, so that if disease enters his apiary he may be able to recognize it before it gets a start. the symptoms and the treatment recommended by this department are given in another publication which will be sent free on request.[2] [2] farmers' bulletin no. 442. "the treatment of bee diseases." it is difficult for a bee keeper to keep his apiary free from disease if others about him have diseased colonies which are not properly treated. the only way to keep disease under control is for the bee keepers in the neighborhood to cooperate in doing everything possible to stamp out disease as soon as it appears in a single colony. the progressive bee keeper who learns of disease in his neighborhood should see to it that the other bee keepers around him are supplied with literature describing symptoms and treatment, and should also try to induce them to unite in eradicating the malady. since it is so often impossible to get all of the bee keepers in a community to treat infected colonies properly and promptly, it is desirable that the states pass laws providing for the inspection of apiaries and granting to the inspector the power to compel negligent bee keepers to treat diseased colonies so that the property of others may not be endangered and destroyed. this has been done in a number of states, but there are still some where the need is great and in which no such provision has been made. when no inspection is provided, bee keepers should unite in asking for such protection, so that the danger to the industry may be lessened. in case there is an inspector for the state or county, he should be notified as soon as disease is suspected in the neighborhood. some bee keepers hesitate to report disease through fear that the inspector will destroy their bees or because they feel that it is a disgrace to have disease in the apiary. there is no disgrace in having colonies become diseased; the discredit is in not treating them promptly. the inspectors are usually, if not universally, good practical bee keepers who from a wide experience are able to tell what should be done in individual cases to give the best results with the least cost in material and labor. they do not destroy colonies needlessly, and, in fact, they all advocate and teach treatment. the brood diseases are frequently introduced into a locality by the shipping in of diseased colonies; or, more often, the bees get honey from infected colonies which is fed to them, or which they rob, from discarded honey cans. it is decidedly dangerous to purchase honey on the market, with no knowledge of its source, to be used in feeding bees. many outbreaks of disease can be traced to this practice (see "feeding," p. 26). it is difficult to prevent bees from getting contaminated honey accidentally. if colonies are purchased, great care should be taken that there is no disease present. whenever possible, colonies should be purchased near at home, unless disease is already present in the neighborhood. there are other diseased conditions of the brood, known to bee keepers as "pickle brood," but these can usually be distinguished from the two diseases previously mentioned. the so-called "pickle brood" is not contagious and no treatment is necessary. bees also suffer from "dysentery," which is discussed in the earlier part of this bulletin, and from the so-called "paralysis," a disease of adult bees. no treatment for the latter disease can as yet be recommended as reliable. the sprinkling of powdered sulphur on the top bars of frames or at the entrance is sometimes claimed to be effective, but under what circumstances it is beneficial is unknown. a number of insects, birds, and mammals must be classed as enemies of bees, but of these the two wax moths, and ants, are the only ones of importance. there are two species of moth, the larger wax moth (_galleria mellonella_ l.), and the lesser wax moth (_achroia grisella_ fab.), the larvæ of which destroy combs by burrowing through them.[3] reports are frequently received in the department that the larvæ of these moths (usually the larger species) are destroying colonies of bees. it may be stated positively that moths do not destroy strong, healthy colonies in good hives, and if it is supposed that they are causing damage the bee keeper should carefully study his colonies to see what other trouble has weakened them enough for the moths to enter. queenlessness, lack of stores, or some such trouble may be the condition favorable to the entrance of the pest, but a careful examination should be made of the brood to see whether there is any evidence of disease. this is the most frequent cause of the cases of moth depredation reported to this department. black bees are less capable of driving moth larvæ out, but, even with these bees, strong colonies rarely allow them to remain. the observance of the golden rule of beekeeping, "keep all colonies strong," will solve the moth question unless disease appears. [3] bee keepers refer to these insects as "moths," "wax moths," "bee moths," "millers," "wax worms," "honey moths," "moth worms," "moth millers," and "grubs." the last six terms are not correct. moth larvæ often destroy combs stored outside the hive. to prevent this the combs may be fumigated with sulphur fumes or bisulphid of carbon in tiers of hives or in tight rooms. if bisulphid of carbon is used, great care should be taken not to bring it near a flame, as it is highly inflammable. combs should be stored in a dry, well-ventilated, light room. in the warmer parts of the country ants are often a serious pest. they may enter the hive for protection against changes of temperature, or to prey on the honey stores or the brood. the usual method of keeping them out is to put the hive on a stand, the legs of which rest in vessels containing water or creosote. another method is to wrap a tape soaked in corrosive sublimate around the bottom board. =general information.= for the purpose of answering numerous questions which are asked of this department the following brief topics are included. =breeders of queens.= there are a large number of bee keepers who make a business of rearing queens of good stock for sale. the queens are usually sent by mail. if poor stock is all that can be obtained locally, it is recommended that such colonies be purchased and the queens removed and replaced with those obtained from a good breeder. this department can supply names of breeders, nearest the applicant, of any race raised in this country. =introducing queens.= when queens are shipped by mail they usually come in cages (fig. 25) which can be used for introducing. if the colony to receive the new queen has one, she must be removed and the cage inserted between the frames. the small hole leading into the candy compartment is uncovered, and the bees gradually eat through and release the queen. if queens are reared at home, a similar cage may be used for introducing. in view of the fact that disease may be transmitted in mailing cages, it is always a wise precaution to remove the new queen and destroy the accompanying workers and the cage and its contents. the queen may then be put into a clean cage without worker bees, with candy known to be free from contamination (made from honey from healthy hives), and introduced in the regular way. queens sold by breeders are always mated unless otherwise specified, and consequently the colony in which they are introduced has no effect on her offspring. during the active season the bees in the colony are all the offspring of the new queen in about nine weeks. three weeks is required for the previous brood to emerge (if the colony has not been queenless). and in six weeks after all the old brood emerges most of the workers from it will have died. queens are usually sold according to the following classification: "_untested queen_"--one that has mated, but the race of the drone is not known. "_tested queen_"--one that has mated and has been kept only long enough to show, from the markings of her progeny, that she mated with a drone of her own race. "_breeding queen_"--a tested queen which has shown points of superiority, making her desirable for breeding purposes. [illustration: fig. 25.--queen mailing cage.] =dealers in bee keepers' supplies.= there are several manufacturers of supplies in this country who can furnish almost anything desired by the bee keeper. some of them have agents in various parts of the country from whom supplies may be purchased, thus saving considerable in freight. =bee keepers' associations.= there are a large number of associations of bee keepers in all parts of the country, formed for the betterment of the industry, and a few associations which are organized to aid the members in purchasing supplies and in selling the crops. of these the national bee keepers" association is the largest. it helps its members in obtaining their legal rights, and aids in securing legislation for the furtherance of the industry. the annual conventions are held in different parts of the country, and copies of the proceedings are sent to the members. there are also numerous state, county, and town associations, some of which publish proceedings. the names of officers of the nearest associations or of the national bee keepers' association will be sent from this department on request. =laws affecting beekeeping.= =disease inspection.=--various states have passed laws providing for the state or county inspection of apiaries for bee-disease control, and every bee keeper should get in touch with an inspector when disease is suspected, if one is provided. the inspectors are practical bee keepers who fully understand how to control the diseases, and are of great help in giving directions in this matter. the name of the inspector of any locality can usually be furnished, and this department is glad to aid bee keepers in reaching the proper officers. =laws against spraying fruit trees while in bloom.=--the spraying of fruit trees while in bloom is not now advised by economic entomologists, and to prevent the practice some states have passed laws making it a misdemeanor. such spraying not only kills off honey bees, causing a loss to the bee keeper, but interferes with the proper pollination of the blossoms and is thus a detriment to the fruit grower. bee keepers should do everything in their power to prevent the practice. =laws against the adulteration of honey.=--the national food and drugs act of 1906, and various state pure food laws, are a great aid to the bee keeper in preventing the sale of adulterated extracted honey as pure honey. bee keepers can often aid in this work by reporting to the proper officials infringements of these laws which come to their notice. =when bees are a nuisance.=--some cities have passed ordinances prohibiting the keeping of bees in certain areas, but so far none has been able to enforce them. if bees are a nuisance in individual cases, the owner may be compelled to remove them. the national bee keepers' association "will help any of its members in such cases, if they are in the right, as well as in cases where bees sting horses. bee keepers should be careful not to locate bees where they can cause any trouble of this kind. =supposed injury of crops by bees.= bee keepers are often compelled to combat the idea that bees cause damage to fruit or other crops by sucking the nectar from the flower. this is not only untrue, but in many cases the bees are a great aid in the pollination of the flowers, making a good crop possible. a more frequent complaint is that bees puncture fruit and suck the juices. bees never puncture sound fruit, but if the skin is broken by some other means bees will often suck the fruit dry. in doing it, however, they are sucking fruit which is already damaged. these and similar charges against the honey bee are prompted by a lack of information concerning their activities. bees may, of course, become a nuisance to others through their stinging propensities, but bee keepers should not be criticized for things which their bees do not do. =journals and books on beekeeping.= the progressive bee keeper will find it to his profit to subscribe for at least one journal devoted to beekeeping. several of these are published in the united states. the names and addresses of such journals may usually be obtained from a subscription agent for periodicals, or from a supply dealer. it will also be advantageous to read and study books on beekeeping, of which several are published in this country. these are advertised in journals devoted to beekeeping, or may usually be obtained through the local book dealer or through dealers in bee keepers' supplies. =publications of the department of agriculture on bee keeping.=[4] [4] list revised to april 1, 1911. (vii.) there are several publications of this department which are of interest to bee keepers, and new ones are added from time to time in regard to the different lines of investigation. the following publications relating to bee culture, prepared in the bureau of entomology, are for free distribution and may be obtained by addressing the secretary of agriculture:[5] [5] farmers' bulletin no. 59, "bee keeping," and farmers' bulletin no. 397, "bees," have been superseded by farmers' bulletin no. 447. circular no. 79, "the brood diseases of bees," has been superseded by farmers' bulletin no. 442. bulletin no. 1, "the honey bee," has been discontinued. farmers' bulletin no. 447, "bees." by e. f. phillips, ph. d. 1911. 48 pp., 25 figs. a general account of the management of bees. farmers' bulletin no. 442, "the treatment of bee diseases." by e. f. phillips, ph. d. 1911. 22 pp., 7 figs. this publication gives briefly the symptoms of the various bee diseases, with directions for treatment. circular no. 94, "the cause of american foul brood." by g. f. white, ph. d. 1907. 4 pp. this publication contains a brief account of the investigations which demonstrated for the first time the cause of one of the brood diseases of bees, american foul brood. circular no. 138. "the occurrence of bee diseases in the united states. (preliminary report.)" by e. f. phillips, ph. d. 1911. 25 pp. a record of the localities from which samples of diseased brood were received prior to march 1, 1911. bulletin no. 55, "the rearing of queen bees." by e. f. phillips, ph. d. 1905. 32 pp., 17 figs. a general account of the methods used in queen rearing. several methods are given, so that the bee keeper may choose those best suited to his individual needs. bulletin no. 70, "report of the meeting of inspectors of apiaries, san antonio, tex., november 12, 1906." 1907. 79 pp., 1 plate. contains a brief history of bee-disease investigations, an account of the relationship of bacteria to bee diseases, and a discussion of treatment by various inspectors of apiaries and other practical bee keepers who are familiar with diseases of bees. bulletin no. 75, part i, "production and care of extracted honey." by e. f. phillips, ph. d. "methods of honey testing for bee keepers." by c. a. browne, ph. d. 1907. 18 pp. the methods of producing extracted honey, with special reference to the care of honey after it is taken from the bees, so that its value may not be decreased by improper handling. the second portion of the publication gives some simple tests for adulteration. bulletin no. 75, part ii, "wax moths and american foul brood." by e. f. phillips, ph. d. 1907. pp. 19-22, 3 plates. an account of the behavior of the two species of wax moths on combs containing american foul brood, showing that moths do not destroy the disease-carrying scales. bulletin no. 75, part iii, "bee diseases in massachusetts." by burton n. gates. 1908. pp. 23-32, map. an account of the distribution of the brood diseases of bees in the state, with brief directions for controlling them. bulletin no. 75, part iv. "the relation of the etiologv (cause) of bee diseases to the treatment." by g. f. white, ph. d. 1908. pp: 33-42. the necessity for a knowledge of the cause of bee diseases before rational treatment is possible is pointed out. the present state of knowledge of the causes of disease is summarized. bulletin no. 75, part v, "a brief survey of hawaiian bee keeping." by e. f. phillips, ph. d. 1909. pp. 43-58, 6 plates. an account of the beekeeping methods used in a tropical country and a comparison with mainland conditions. some new manipulations are recommended. bulletin no 75, part vi, "the status of apiculture in the united states." by e. f. phillips, ph. d. 1909. pp. 59-80. a survey of present-day beekeeping in the united states, with suggestions as to the work yet to be done before apiculture will have reached its fullest development. bulletin no. 75, part vii, "bee keeping in massachusetts." by burton n. gates. 1909. pp. 81-109, 2 figs. an account of a detailed study of the apicultural conditions in massachusetts. the object of this paper is to point out the actual conditions and needs of beekeeping in new england. bulletin no. 75, contents and index. 1911. pp. vii+111-123. bulletin no. 75, parts i-vii, complete with contents and index. 1911. pp. viii+123. bulletin no. 98. "historical notes on the causes of bee diseases." by e. f. phillips, ph. d., and g. f. white, ph. d., m. d. (in press.) a summary of the various investigations concerning the etiology (cause) of bee diseases. technical series, no. 14, "the bacteria of the apiary with special reference to bee diseases." by g. f. white, ph. d. 1906. 50 pp. a study of the bacteria present in both the healthy and the diseased colony, with special reference to the diseases of bees. technical series no. 18, "the anatomy of the honey bee." by r. e. snodgrass. 1910. 162 pp., 57 figs. an account of the structure of the bee, with technical terms omitted so far as possible. practically all of the illustrations are new, and the various parts are interpreted according to the best usage in comparative anatomy of insects. a brief discussion of the physiology of the various organs is included . bureau of chemistry. bulletin no. 110, "chemical analysis and composition of american honeys." by c. a. browne. including "a microscopical study of honey pollen." by w. j. young. 1908. 93 pp., 1 fig., 6 plates. a comprehensive study of the chemical composition of american honeys. this publication is technical in nature and will perhaps be little used by practical bee keepers, but it is an important contribution to apicultural literature. by means of this work the detection of honey adulteration is much aided. hawaii agricultural experimental station. honolulu, hawaii. bulletin no. 17, "hawaiian honeys." by d. l. van dine and alice r. thompson. 1908. 21 pp., 1 plate. a study of the source and composition of the honeys of hawaii. the peculiar conditions found on these islands are dealt with. transcriber note illustrations were moved so as not to split paragraphs. transcriber's notes obvious spelling, typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources. more detail can be found at the end of the book. italic text is denoted by _underscores_. the perambulations of a _bee and a butterfly_, &c. &c. [illustration] published by tabart & co. 12, clifford street, may 1812. the perambulations of a _bee and a butterfly_, in which are delineated those smaller traits of character which escape the observation of larger spectators. _by miss sandham_, author of the twin sisters, &c. "the daily labors of the bee "awake my soul to industry." gay. london; _printed by w. lewis, paternoster-row;_ for b. tabart and co. clifford-street, new bond-street; and may be had of all booksellers. 1812. contents. chap. i. a young bee, deceived by fine weather, leaves the hive too early, and contrary to the advice and commands of his mother--his sufferings and close confinement, the result of his disobedience: excites the compassion of a butterfly--a friendship formed between them in consequence of it. chap. ii. the bee gets again on the wing--is introduced by his friend to a field of cowslips--interrupted by children--instance of vanity in the butterfly--conversation of the bee and his friend as they return--he resolves to find his hive. chap. iii. the bee out early in search of his former abode, accompanies the butterfly to a bed of tulips--farther discovery of vanity in the latter--children in pursuit of him--the bee appears in his defence and commits a great _outrage_--he sees his hive at a distance--his joy on beholding it--his return and re-admission there--the consequence of a bee in danger. chap. iv. the farther flights of the bee and the butterfly--visit to a cottage--such abodes not always the dwelling of peace--disagreement between two friends--the meanness of an informer--the bee's observation on their conduct--regard to appearances observable in creatures superior to the butterfly--his triumph on perceiving it. chap. v. the butterfly deceived by a flower--their visit to a conservatory--the alarm occasioned by their joining a party after dinner--a battle ensues--the bee puts the ladies to flight--his confinement--the butterfly's anxiety--his friend regains his liberty and returns late to the hive--the butterfly detects flattery in a gentleman to a lady, and is alarmed by a hint from his friend as they separate for the night. chap. vi. the bees swarm--their fondness for their queen--the bee in waiting--the butterfly goes into the country on a party of pleasure, is overtaken by a storm--returns in a stage-coach--an officer exercising his genius in _hoaxing_ his fellow-travellers--the butterfly recounts his adventures to his friend--their remarks on what passed during his journey. chap. vii. the butterfly's alarm, and account of a _naturalist_--wasps ensnared in a bottle--a bee drowning in a pot of honey, is extricated by his friend--flies--the bee's remarks upon them, nearly offends his friend by comparing them with him--the butterfly foretells the approach of winter, and notwithstanding the kind endeavours of his friend, dies--the bee's regret--he performs the last office for him, and returns to the hive, where, after remaining the winter, he persuades the whole community to remove their quarters--they forsake their hive and retire beyond the reach of men. preface. the flattering pictures of men and manners, which are drawn in most of the present publications for youth, can alone be well applied, when they are considered not as what mankind are, but what they ought to be; and, indeed, we may search the world through before we find their likeness. such is the simplicity of unguarded youth, that even when disappointed in their expectation of happiness from one quarter, they seek it in another equally fallacious; and, drawing all their ideas from fancied excellencies, fondly imagine, that while looking only for mental satisfaction, and the pleasures arising from friendship, rational society, and the exercises of humanity, they cannot be mistaken in the pursuit; though too often the frequent inconsistencies observable in those whom they have been led most to admire, excites a sigh of sad surprise, till from a more enlarged judgment, matured and exercised with a feeling sense of what they view, they learn that continual and glaring absurdities are all the fruit produced in nature's soil. it is to open this lesson to them that the following pages are written, and with the hope that if folly does not blind their eyes, and prejudice (who, whichever way she turns, chooses to see things _only_ through her own medium,) has not yet erected her throne in their breasts, they may receive even from the limited remarks of a bee and a butterfly a gentle hint or two of what they may expect to meet with in their future walks through life; and thus warned of the strange contrarieties, perceivable in human nature, escape the additional pang their being totally unexpected would produce. the perambulations, &c. &c. chap. i. "imagination to his view "presents it, deck'd with every hue, "that can seduce him not to spare "his pow'rs of best exertion there." cowper. a bee who had passed the first winter of his life under the fostering care of his mother, though often warned by her of mistaking a fine day early in the spring for the summer, or the time in which it would be of any use to make an excursion from the hive, was eager to begin his travels; he heard his companions talking of the flights they had taken in the former summer, and had tasted of the honey they had at that time brought home, and laid up in store for food when none other could be procured: he had also enjoyed some of those flights with them, and had helped to gather in the common stock, (for bees, though ever so young, are seldom idle;) but he was not aware that many a cold and wint'ry day would yet precede the time of gathering in a fresh store; even after the sun had shone, and the birds had sung, as if it was nearly come. during the severity of winter he remained quietly in his cell, rejoiced in the shelter it afforded him, and joined the crowded hive in paying every respect to their queen and mother, who, while she treated them with the care and tenderness of a parent, kept up her dignity as a sovereign, and ruled her subjects with the greatest order. every part of her dominions was thoroughly known to her, and nothing suffered to remain within them that could annoy her numerous family; she rejoiced in their prosperity, and all were happy under her government except the little fellow who is to be the hero of my tale. he would often creep to the entrance of the hive and peep, first on one side and then on the other, of the covering placed before it by its careful owners, while the blustering winds were raging around; but no sooner did the least warm weather appear than it was removed for the inhabitants to have more air, and this, to our young one, was a joyful sight; he looked upon it as a prelude to the summer, and running to his companions, he said, "we shall soon be able to get out, the way is open." "be not too eager;" replied one of more experience than himself, "by the time one winter has passed over your head you may be a little wiser." "it _is_ passed, i think," returned the young one, "don't you feel the warmth of the sun? it reminds me of the pleasant rambles we took together last summer, and i am impatient to renew them." "you are indeed _impatient_," replied the hoary bee, "but time enough yet; don't you know that our cities are always placed in such advantageous situations that we have the earliest benefit from the sun's rays? but let not this make you suppose the season farther advanced than it is." "well, now," replied the conceited chatterer, "only put your head out and feel how very warm it is." "no, i thank you," returned the other, with a shrug; "i know what it is to trust to appearances, and can feel even here that the cold weather is not gone, and if you go only to the back of the hive you may hear how the wind still whistles behind it." "i had rather look at the sunshine," returned the simple one, and leaving his sage adviser he determined to think that it was because he was old and lazy he wished to stay at home, and keep others there also, as an excuse for his own idleness; "let them stay then," said he, "but for my part i am inclined to make the most of my time, and no doubt shall bring home many a load before these old creepers will believe that there is anything to be gathered." this resolution of the young bee was not long a secret in the community; he buzzed it about among all his acquaintances; nor was it hid from the queen, who, acting in the two-fold character, first warned him of the danger, and then, on pain of their not being re-admitted, absolutely forbade any one's going out of the hive without her leave. but what can deter the obstinacy of a conceited youngster? nothing. if experience obliges him to confess that in _one_ thing he is wrong, he still continues as firmly bent upon another; and if once inclined to think that he must know as well as others, will continue to think so, till experience teaches him that in all things he is liable to mistake. but my little hero was not yet brought to this conclusion, neither perhaps are many who will read his history; but, as our ingenious fabulist tells us,- "every object of creation "can furnish hints for contemplation," who knows whether something may not be learnt from the history of a bee? in spite of the remonstrances of her majesty, he still wished to get out, and after daily visiting the front of the hive for nearly a month, during which time the fine weather continued, he began to persuade himself the interdiction could not extend so far as this; "it has been fine a great while," said he to himself, "and if we stay within at this rate we shall let all the summer pass away;" and again his former surmise returned, "they are old and lazy," continued he, "and while they have any food left, are determined not to seek for more; i will not stay, however;" and he was still farther confirmed in this resolution, when boldly advancing quite out on the block he saw other bees, from a neighbouring hive, taking the air, and appearing like himself to be thinking it high time to get abroad. a swarm of insects also were enjoying themselves, and frisking about in the warm sun. struck with shame that these should be on the wing before him, he at that moment forgot all the kind admonitions of his mother, and the punishment that awaited him if he disobeyed them; and mounting in the air, his loud humming testified his joy at being again at liberty. but alas! where was he to go? or to what flower could he now pay his court? the fluttering insects he had seen were but the dancers of the day, just born to frisk a few hours, and then return to their original nothingness; and our young adventurer disdained to join the giddy train, or even to appear to notice what was so unlike the character of a busy bee. it was now the latter end of april, when the thorn is in blossom, violets and primroses also decorate the hedges, and the hypatica, and polyanthus "of unnumbered dyes," already appeared in the gardens; but very few leaves were yet on the trees, though the buds were bursting, and many of the fruit-trees were in full bloom; to these our little wanderer winged his way, and as he flew from blossom to blossom, and from one branch to the other, he could not but acknowledge with regret that his limbs felt cold, and very different from the vigour they possessed the former summer. he wished to attribute it to his having been kept so long within the hive, but a sudden blast soon checked his ardour; a shivering came over him, and a drowsiness, which he could not account for, succeeded; presently a pelting shower obliged him to creep for shelter into a wall, against which the trees were nailed, and here he began to see his error; "can i go back again?" said he; "ah! no, they will not receive me; my absence is by this time known, and i am never to be admitted more. oh, my mother! would that i had followed your counsel!" he had scarcely spoken these words, when a mist spread itself before his eyes; his breath appeared failing, and he found himself still more inclined to sleep, yet instinct told him that in such a state to give way to the inclination was dangerous; he feared the cold would seize him while insensible, and his life must pay for it, but all his efforts to keep himself awake were vain; the rain continued so, that he could not get out to use his wings, and at length lost to all recollection, he sunk stupid and senseless to the bottom of his retreat. how long he continued in this torpid state i cannot say, but his friends he had left, after anxiously expecting his return from day to day, and being disappointed, gave him up for lost; and though he often awoke during his confinement, it was only to a keener sense of his misery; his limbs were still too stiff to move, his eyes dim, and each time that he closed them to return to sleep, (now the only alleviation of his sorrows,) he concluded he should never open them again: he breathed a sigh of regret on the remembrance of the home he had quitted, and would gladly have returned, and in the presence of the whole community acknowledge his rashness; but alas! he could not now move a wing: yet as the warm weather came on, he felt himself revive beyond his hopes: he could look out from the place of his confinement, and though not so ardent in his expectations as a few weeks before, he began again to feel a pleasure in the rays of the sun, and to anticipate a future enjoyment of them. "i shall not die," said he to himself, "but shall yet be able to accomplish my desire, and shew myself an industrious bee." the trees on which he had before observed only blossom were now full of leaves; where the bloom had first appeared, he saw the fruit, yet in its infant state. "this is not now the food for me," said he, and he looked wishfully around to observe if there were any flowers near, from which he could gather his accustomed nourishment. while thus engaged, a butterfly, on sportive wing, came frisking by, and though he settled first on one leaf, and then on another, was unmindful of him, till he fixed directly on that which shaded the place from which our poor invalid was examining the neighbouring plants. "oh!" said he, with a heavy sigh, as he marked the light wing of this new comer, "oh! that i could fly like him and ramble from flower to flower, without pain or dread of any." the attention of the butterfly was attracted by the mournful tone in which this was uttered, and unlike many of his kind, he even stopped to listen to the complaining insect, and ask if he could relieve him; "perhaps," said he, "you are entangled in a spider's web; and though i am unused to the art of war, i will endeavour to liberate you." "an offer like this," replied the bee, "i should not have expected from one of your nature; but you can give me no assistance; it is not a web which keeps me here, but ill health, and which i have brought upon myself by my own folly: i have no one else to blame, that i am not flying about as you are, though i hope to some better purpose." "do not be too sure of that," replied the good-humoured butterfly, "nor despise the help of one so insignificant as you suppose i am; if i can in any way assist _you_, i shall not have been flying about in vain." "i beg your pardon," returned the bee, conscious that he should not have answered in such a manner; "pray let the pain i feel plead my excuse; i have been confined within this place for i don't know how long, and now i feel the enlivening beams of the sun without being able to enjoy them, and must even starve for want of food, after i have escaped death from the cold that first seized me." "do not be discouraged," replied the butterfly, "look at the border just below you, where there are many of the most beautiful flowers; surely they will afford you nourishment; you need not fear starving in the midst of plenty." "i can't extend my wings," said the bee, very mournfully. "if not your wings," replied his cheerful comforter, "can't you use your feet and crawl down the wall, and then upon the ground, till you reach the flowers; don't be afraid, i'll venture my life that you will be able to fly after taking a little of the delicious food they offer you." animated by the butterfly's words, the poor half-starved bee endeavoured to follow his advice, and slowly creeping forth, he reached at length the desirable haven of a beautiful convolvulus, whose head rested on the ground, whilst his compassionate adviser waited on the nearest bud to observe his progress; "did not i say you could reach it?" said he, fluttering his wings for joy, "who shall despise the counsel of a butterfly?" "i will not for the future," replied the bee, as he felt himself reviving from the sweet smell of the flowers, and the warm rays of the sun shining full upon his back, and again he entreated him to pardon the churlishness with which he at first received it. "oh, say no more of that," returned the butterfly, "but tell me if you do not find yourself better already? what, because you could not fly, were you to starve? though it may be a disgrace for one who has wings to crawl, yet surely it is better to do this than lie down and die; but i do not despair of seeing you fly to-morrow;" and, as he said this, extended his wings, as if to depart. "you will not leave me," said the bee, who the longer he nestled in the bell of the flower and tasted the food it afforded, felt his affection increase for the means through which he had procured it; "won't you stay and see me return to my habitation? i think you'll already observe an alteration for the better." the butterfly received this invitation with pleasure; indeed he had only pretended to be going that he might observe if he was still of so little consequence in the eyes of the bee, as for him not to wish his stay. he therefore readily accepted it, attended him home, and had the pleasure of seeing him much better able to get up the wall than down it: and from this time a lasting friendship commenced between them, no less singular in its kind than in the cause of it; for naturally these insects do not notice the other. the butterfly, after seeing his new friend safely landed at his old resting-place, and with him a little store of the delicate food he had been tasting, marked the place, and kindly promised to see him again the next morning, "when," said he, "i hope i shall find you both able and willing to take a short flight with me," and then left him. chap. ii. "excuse me then if pride, conceit, "the manners of the fair, and great, "i give to monkeys, asses, dogs, "fleas, owls, goats, _butterflies_, and hogs; "i say that these are proud; what then? "i never said they equal men." gay. the bee thus returned began to feel something like pleasure, and as the morning sun lighted the place in which he had been so long a prisoner, his hopes revived that he should yet feel a greater benefit from them. he had not room to move his wings freely, yet he thought them rather more pliable, and creeping upon the branch of the tree which shaded the entrance of his habitation, he endeavoured to cleanse them from the dirt and stiffness which had incumbered them, and after repeatedly stroking his back with the little brushes with which nature had supplied his feet, he succeeded, and was able to fly from his station to a neighbouring flower. he had not forgotten the butterfly, but he did not suppose that he would remember him or his engagement of the preceding evening, but again he had to acknowledge the mistake of prejudice, for he had not been long upon the flower, (made more sweet by his having found the use of his wings to obtain it,) before he saw his friend approaching, flying through the air, and never fixing till he had found the spot on which he had left him. the loud humming of the bee soon discovered that he was not far off, and the butterfly hastening towards him, congratulated him on having found his liberty. "you are taking your breakfast," said he, "i give you joy of a fine morning," and after the kindest enquiries of how he now found himself, he expressed his hope that he would be able to accompany him to a field of cowslips which he had passed at a little distance; "they smell so sweet, and look so beautiful," continued he, "hanging down their yellow heads, that though i certainly admire a greater variety of colours, i could not but be pleased with these, and had i not wished for your company, could have flown from one to the other for some time; i am sure one day's feasting on their sweets will restore you to perfect health; come, shall i lead the way?" "i cannot but be grateful for your solicitude," returned the bee, "and that you should so far forget your nature as to be anxious for me who am of so different an one; i am able to fly but very slowly, if at all, and _you_ will like to extend your rambles much farther than i can accompany you; do not, therefore, think of tying yourself to me." the butterfly was evidently disappointed; "i know," said he, "that our natures are different; i am not held in such high estimation as yourself, nor am i half so useful, or my life so long as your's; 'the creatures but of a day,' is what we are generally called, yet that _day_ it is my wish to spend well, and as far as is in my power to be of benefit to another; if it was to one meaner than myself it would be gratifying, but when i consider that it is to a _bee_ that my services are useful, it is doubly so; why then will you deny me this pleasure?" the bee could not but be struck with this singular proof of friendship in one from whom he had not deserved it, and though he might be unwilling that any of his old companions should see him associating with one whom they were mostly inclined to treat with contempt, he could no longer resist his importunity, and therefore promised to accompany him to the place he had mentioned, and where he was amply recompenced by the delicious food he found there, for the fatiguing though short flight he had taken to procure it, whilst the good-natured butterfly was equally gratified by seeing his friend enjoy the fragrance he had introduced him to. "you will stay here all day," said he, "and by night i expect to see you strong and hearty; if you please, i will fly about a little, and perhaps shall be able to bring you intelligence of food for to-morrow, but promise me to remain here till my return." "undoubtedly," replied the bee, half lost in one of the sweet recesses he was thus enjoying, "believe me i feel your kindness! if you had not visited me last night, and encouraged my feeble efforts to move, i should have laid still and died, and all these bounties of nature would have been spread in vain for me; indeed, i am obliged to you, and feel that though you may never be of such service to me again, i should be sorry to lose your acquaintance." this acknowledgement was sufficient for the butterfly, who fluttered about in grateful joy, and in the course of the day made many excursions, from all of which he returned with good humour and kind enquiries; while the bee continued to fly from flower to flower, and though he was sometimes ready to regret that he had not a hive, to which he could carry the produce of his labours, and receive the commendations of his mother for so doing, he felt that he was yet too weak to work to much advantage, and therefore tried to be content with what was necessary for himself. several bees came to this field of sweets, in which he was thus revelling; but none of his old acquaintance were among them, and he forbore to speak to them; "though idle myself," said he, "i will not make others so by engaging them in talk with me;" and indeed so anxious was he not to disgrace the character of what a bee _should be_, that if he thought any of them were noticing him, he would pretend to be earnestly at work also, lest they should suppose him an idle drone. in his next visit, the butterfly brought him such intelligence as he thought would be agreeable to him; "we are in the land of plenty," said he, "every thing is flourishing, and innumerable flowers are every where to be seen." "i shall soon be able to visit them," returned the bee, "and after one more night's rest i shall almost forget that i have been ill; i have already recovered my spirits, and my health will soon return." as they were thus talking, they observed a troop of children with baskets in their hands, and an old man at their head, who seemed to be directing their steps to the field they were in. "these are some of my tormentors," said the butterfly, "though they appear to admire me, and to wish me no harm, they are in reality my greatest enemies; even the sound of their voices puts me in a fright: oh! how sick i am of hearing them singing, "butterfly, butterfly, come to me," though you may be very sure i never accept their invitation; once i was shut up in a box for nearly a whole day by one of these _kind_ admirers, with a few green leaves for me to eat and sleep upon; and i suppose she thought she was doing me a very great favor to procure me such a residence; but i was much more obliged to another little girl, who in her absence let me out of my confinement, and since that time i have been more than ever anxious to escape their notice." "i know nothing of an alarm of that sort," replied the bee, "children are in general afraid of me, and i have sometimes been half inclined to regret it, though in reality i believe it is the best thing that could happen, but these," continued he, "if i am not mistaken, are going to be otherwise employed than in admiring either you or me, for i think we shall see them gathering the flowers on which we have been feeding," and this was actually the case, for as they entered the field, the old man encouraged them to begin by promising that when the wine was made for which these cowslips were to be gathered, they should all have a glass of it. "what devouring creatures are these men," observed the bee, "every one of these sweet flowers will be destroyed to make their wine; but they are 'the lords of the creation,' and take away at one stroke what would satisfy us more moderate creatures for months and months; but see, the children are coming, had you not better take to your wings?" "not yet," replied the butterfly, "they are going to be otherwise engaged; 'tis when they are idle, or at play, that i have most reason to be alarmed, and besides here are a great many more of my race frisking about, though among ever so great a number, i am the most admired." the bee smiled at this discovery of vanity in his friend, though he made no reply, and as the children began clearing the field at the other end of it, they continued a little longer to enjoy the sweets they were so soon to be deprived of, till the shades of the evening began to advance, when the bee proposed returning home, and bade adieu to those charming flowers from which he had gathered health and strength, and a sufficient stock of honey to take home with him. "where do you repose for the night?" said he to his friend, "have you no settled place of abode, or do you rest upon the first flower you meet with?" "i generally pass the night under a green leaf, or in the cup of a flower," replied the butterfly, "and may this evening find a place to repose in near _your_ habitation, if you have no objection." "i should be glad of your company within it," returned the bee, "were it large enough to admit us both, but what do you live upon? cannot you taste some of the provision i am going to carry home? you shall be very welcome." the butterfly testified his thanks by a fluttering of his wings; "but i do not particularly relish that food," said he, "and you would perhaps wonder what it is we do eat, for it is no uncommon opinion that we live upon air; however, in our reptile state, we make up for our little eating now; were you to see the devastation we make in the vegetable world, you would be surprised; three or four dozen of us will destroy a bed of cabbages in an hour or two, and we often strip a shrub of all its leaves in the course of a morning." "and do you boast of this?" replied the bee; "surely it is exulting in mischief." "it is our _nature_," returned the thoughtless butterfly; "and what is the mischief, as you call it, compared to that which men are daily doing? do they not destroy us by thousands, whenever they have an opportunity? and why should _you_, of all others, plead for them, who, when you have spent your lives in their service, and procured for them that food which they can obtain from no other quarter, burn and destroy your hives and yourselves too? oh! i have passed one of these monuments of their ungrateful cruelty, and seen the mangled remains of your fellow-creatures till my wings have quite trembled again, and yet you never do them harm; they form your habitation, and encourage you to build in them by pretending to shelter you from all evil, yet after all this fancied kindness, if they think you are too old to labour for them any longer, as a reward for all you have done, they set fire to your houses, and destroy thousands of you in the flames! talk no more of mischief in eating a few cabbages, or devouring the leaves of a tree." "these are shocking truths," replied the bee, "my blood runs cold to think of it, and yet such is my nature that, though i know i am safe from such devastations where i now am, i would rather add my labours to the common stock of my native hive, could i but find the way to return to it, and share the fate of my fellow-labourers, if such a fate awaits them; but who knows that we may not escape? it is not every bee that is thus destroyed." "nature," returned his friend, "has armed you with a defensive weapon with which i think you might soon repel your destroyers: but as for us poor _butterflies_, we can do nothing to defend ourselves." "'tis true," returned the bee, "we have this weapon, and we have often made our enemies fly by using it; but you must know, such is their cunning cowardice, that they will not attack us on equal terms; they must have the covert of the night for their cruel work, and when we are all in our hives, each enclosed in their waxen cell, they begin the horrid massacre; i should feel it more, but that i believe they take as great delight in destroying each other as they do in killing us; for i have heard them rejoicing together that so many of the _enemy_ were slain, and i know they mean their fellow men by _this_ appellation, for they don't _dignify_ us with that title; their great enmity to insects arises from what they destroy; and yet, in one day, they themselves devour more than any of them, but then they think every thing that can be useful to them was only made for that purpose, and no one can say they do not take care to make it fulfill that end, whatever else is left undone." "but the question is, whether they have any right to destroy you, after that is done?" rejoined the butterfly. "a question too hard for me to answer," returned the bee; "but this i know, that we have a right to defend ourselves against them whenever we can; and i know also, that for the kindness you have shown me i'll defend you from their attacks as long as i am able: but we are arrived at my dwelling, let us rest upon this tree while the sun is taking its last peep at the horizon." after refreshing themselves with a little of the honey the bee had brought home, and of which the butterfly just tasted a little, because he would not appear to refuse what was kindly meant, they parted for the night, the bee resolving to travel farther the next day, and, if possible, to find out his old habitation, though not without assuring the butterfly that if he should be so happy as to be re-admitted, it should make no difference in his friendship for him. chap. iii. "and thus a never-ceasing pleasure flows, "or to the human, or the bestial race, "from those ideal charms we all attach to place." local attachment. the next morning our two friends awoke with the sun, and before half my readers are out of their beds, their peregrinations commenced, one in quest of whatever he could turn into something useful, the other to find what was new and entertaining. when they met, the bee was still desirous of finding his old habitation. "but why?" said the butterfly, "surely the little cell you now live in will do very well for the summer; you are in no danger where you are, and have the delightful privilege of calling it all your own." "all this is true," replied the bee, "but what a life am i now leading? adding nothing to the general stock; while all my brethren are busily employed in gathering what will be of equal benefit to each, no, no: there is a pleasure in being thus mutually assistant to others which only those who have experienced it can know; and i am resolved, if possible, to enjoy it again." the butterfly looked surprised, for though capable of that attachment which proceeds from finding an agreeable companion; and with some idea of the services bestowed upon those we love, and which endears the name of friend, he could not imagine that any pleasure could arise from spending his time in labour; but as long as his friend had assured him of the continuance of his regard, he was desirous that he should obtain what he wished, and willingly offered to assist him in the search. during their airy rounds they often stopped to refresh themselves on some favorite flower, and though seldom fixing on the same, and to a casual observer did not appear to be at all connected, they were never out of sight of each other. it was from one of these resting places, in which the bee was delightfully employed extracting sweets from an "extended field of blossomed beans," that the butterfly stretched his wings to a neighbouring garden; here such various beauties met his eyes that he could not help returning to call his friend to enjoy them with him. "such a bed of tulips, i have met with," said he, "whose splendid colours can only be equalled by my wings; pray come, and see what lovely flowers." "have you not yet learnt that there is something more valuable in a flower than its colour?" returned the bee, with a smile; "for my part i would prefer these honeyed beans, though i suppose you would think them hardly worth looking at, but of all other flowers tulips have the least sweetness about them, and are fit only to please the eye of those men and butterflies who judge only by appearance; but though i have seen the former admiring a bed of tulips, i have often observed that if they wish to ornament themselves, or their houses, the flowers which we chiefly prefer are also the objects of their choice! as for these beans, though i believe they admire their smell, men are, as i said before, such destructive creatures, that while they are enjoying what is sweet they are at the same time destroying it; and as they expect something still more valuable from these flowers, they are content to let them remain upon their stalks; but we can have our fill of their sweets, and yet not injure what they will hereafter produce. oh! had i but a hive to go to," continued he, as he stretched his wings to accompany his friend, "how many times should i have gone thither yesterday, and to-day from the cowslips and the beans, and what repeated loads should i have carried home." "surely, surely," thought the idle butterfly, "you need not regret that; to fly hither and thither as you like, with no incumbrance of any kind, and, no care beyond to-morrow, is far better;" so thought the butterfly, and so perhaps think many butterflies of the human race; but he forbore to repeat his sentiments on this subject, for, unconscious to himself, he was awed by the superiority of his friend, while he felt no wish to be of the same opinion. "and so these are the flowers you admire," continues the bee, as they alighted, "and which can only be equalled in beauty by _your_ wings? ah, my dear friend, would not your wings be just as useful if they were not covered with red and purple? look at the plain white ones of numbers of your race, who are now flying around us; _you_ cannot extend your flight farther than _these_; but see, some children are entering the garden, i question if you will not soon have a greater cause to regret the beauty of your wings than to admire it, and that you will be the object of their pursuit as soon as you meet their eyes, while your plainer brethren will pass unregarded." this prediction was soon verified, for no sooner did the little ones perceive this self-admiring butterfly than they all exclaimed, "oh! what a beauty! let us catch it." "if _you_ get on that side of the bed, and _i_ on this," said a boy, who appeared to be the eldest of the party, "i will throw my hat at it, and we shall soon have it in our possession." "not for the world, master henry," said the maid, who accompanied them; "you would destroy those beautiful flowers at once if you did, and your papa would be so angry." "the flowers then are more admired than you are my friend," observed the bee, "for you see the maid will not let them be injured, not even to procure a sight of your still _more_ beautiful wings." "don't laugh at me," replied the butterfly, somewhat mortified; "i am glad, however, that i have found a place of safety; if i take care not to quit this station, they will not be able to get at me." altho' it was his intention to remain there, his young pursuers would not let him be at rest, but with one thing and another so contrived to shake the flowers upon which he settled, that, at last, wearied out with these repeated removals, he took to his wings, and flew to a neighbouring rose-tree. "now, now," cried all the children, "we shall have it; don't let it get upon the tulips again, and we shall certainly catch it." the bee lay all this time in the bell of a hyacinth, not unmindful of his friend, or his pursuers, but thinking his present alarm might be an useful evidence of what he had been saying, and a check to his vanity, he resolved to let him feel a little more of the dangerous effect his much-admired beauty was likely to produce; but after the young folk had given him one or two hasty flights round the garden, he came forward, and appearing in front of all the young ones, soon checked the eagerness of their chace. "a bee, a bee," exclaimed they, "take care, or it will sting you," while the poor trembling butterfly began to take fresh courage on seeing his friend approach; and, seating himself on the branch of an honey-suckle, endeavoured to regain his breath. the oldest boy was now resolved to make one more effort, and creeping slowly to the place, put forth his hand to reach the prize, when the bee, perceiving his intention, again darted before his eyes, and made him retreat. "thank you, thank you, my dear friend," said the poor butterfly, "surely they will not attempt to pursue me any more; you must have sufficiently frightened them." "i'll do something more than frighten them if they do," replied the bee; "they shall feel what it is to enrage one of us;" nor would these children, animated by the presence of each other, give up their chace, till the bee had absolutely fulfilled his threat, by just touching the hand of one of them with his sharp sting: and oh! what a clamour was instantly raised by the whole party for this cruel act, as it was called; the child cried, and the maid declared it was a shame of the _nasty_ bee to sting one who never thought of hurting _him_: while all the others gathered round their _wounded_ brother to express their pity and abhorrence of the deed; and while they retired from the garden to get something to alleviate the smart, our two friends were left to recover themselves and congratulate each other on their safety. "i never was so near being taken in my life, and escaped at last," said the butterfly; "but to _you_, my friend, i am indebted for my present liberty; if you had not exerted yourself in my behalf i must have been in their possession; i tremble at the thought of it, and am completely tired out in the chace they have given me." "now, then, i hope you will acknowledge that your beauty is no real advantage to you," replied the bee, "but till you are recovered i will visit yonder beautiful acasia which seems to court my notice; besides, i am not without a hope that from it i shall see my ardently desired home; i seem to remember its being near it." our airy traveller spoke this with peculiar animation, but on reaching the tree, his pleasure was still higher, for, from thence, he beheld the spot he was in pursuit of; although many hives were near it, he could distinguish his own from all the rest by a thousand little marks known only to those who inhabit it. his heart beat with transport; it appeared to him the abode of peace and plenty, and it was within his _reach_ also; the flower on which he had rested was entirely disregarded, and he stood gazing on the well known spot, "stung with the thoughts of home." the endearments of his mother returned to his mind with double force, nor could he fear being well received by her, and if by her, all the rest he knew dared not use him differently; "i will acknowledge my disobedience to her commands," said he, "and when she knows what i have gone through she will forgive me; i shall again receive her commendations, and repose myself under her mild and equitable government." with these thoughts he could scarcely forbear flying away, and rushing at once into the presence of his friends; but he recollected the poor butterfly, and though there was nothing in their natures which could assimilate, he still remembered that in a great measure he owed his present health and strength to him; "when first we met," continued he, "there was nothing in me to induce his affection; i was poor, sick, and helpless, and yet _he_ was interested for me, and shall i leave him now? no, i will return and tell him what i have seen, and that though for the future i shall reside with more suitable associates, we may still often meet." thus determined, he hastened back, with all the liveliness of joy, to inform his friend, who observed his coming, and the cheerful air with which he approached; "i have seen my hive," cried the bee, without giving him time to make the enquiry, "i have seen it! come, won't you go with me, and at least see the place to which i am going to return, and though i cannot ask you to enter with me, (none but bees being permitted to come in there) i shall never see you when i am out of it without pleasure." "my dear friend," replied the butterfly, "after the kindness you have shewn me this morning, it would be ungrateful not to rejoice in what gives you pleasure; i think i am now able to use my wings again, and will readily accompany you; and though i know i must stand at an humble distance while you enter, yet i shall be anxious to hear how you are received, and whether your old companions will forgive your leaving them." "i have but the displeasure of _one_ to fear," replied the bee, "and if she forgives me, the rest have nothing to do with it, nor have i much to apprehend from that quarter, since the authority of a sovereign is tempered by the affection of a parent." thus conversing they pursued their flight till arriving at a short distance from the well-known hive, "don't you see it?" said the bee, fluttering his wings for joy; "don't you behold the welcome spot?" "i see a number of hives," returned the butterfly, not quite so enraptured as his friend, "but which is yours i cannot tell." "mark the one into which i fly," said the bee, "and then you'll know it." "but when shall i see you again?" enquired the butterfly in a melancholy tone, on seeing his friend preparing for flight; "to-day?" "perhaps not," replied the other; "i may not be permitted to come out again, or i may be indulged with a day's rest, and conversation with my mother, but do not suffer yourself to doubt my friendship for you, because i do not fly out every hour and repeat my professions of it; to-morrow, at farthest, i shall renew my labours for the general good, and then if you like to accompany me in my flights, i shall be glad of your company." with these words he stretched his wings, while the butterfly bade him farewell, and watching his approach and entrance to the hive, resolved to hover round the place in hopes of learning what reception he had met with. as the returning vagrant advanced towards the centre of all his hopes and fears, he felt the latter sensibly encrease, yet he could not but advance; at first he settled on the block upon which the hive was placed, every part of which was perfect in his recollection; he observed no one near, for as it was now the middle of the day, almost all were out, busily employed, except a few, whom he knew were always on the watch to keep out every intruder; at length he ventured within the hive, and immediately all the humming inmates which were then at home flocked around him; some concluded that he had mistaken his hive, while others imagined they could recollect his form and figure. "do you not know me?" said he, "i once belonged to your fraternity, and my heart is still knit towards you." on hearing an unusual murmur the mother queen appeared, with all her attendant train, to enquire who the bold intruder was? the way was cleared for her approach, and a solemn silence prevailed, while the stranger, with unfeigned humility, answered to the question. no sooner did her majesty know her returning child, than in one loud hum she expressed her satisfaction, and this was heard and attended to by all around, and presently the general voice was that he should be re-admitted. "i am not returned unto you sick, or unable to work," replied the delighted bee, after he had expressed his thanks for their generous reception of him; and then related to his attentive and sympathyzing parent all he had gone through since he had so rashly left the hive, whilst the rest waited till the close of the day before they indulged their curiosity by hearing it, nor did he forget to acknowledge that it was to the attention of a butterfly that he owed his life. "a butterfly," returned the queen, whose dignity felt hurt that any of her race should be indebted to so trifling a creature, "sure you must have been sunk very low indeed, to need the assistance of a butterfly." "i have learnt, my dear mother," replied the young one, "that there is no creature, however mean, but may be of service some time or other; the butterfly is well aware of the great difference there is between us." "and sensible, i hope, of the honour done him, in being permitted to assist a bee?" rejoined the mother. this important affair being settled, though not entirely to the satisfaction of the queen, who while she forbore to say more upon the subject, resolved narrowly to watch the conduct of her son, fearing he would gain too much of the frivolity of the butterfly if he long associated with him: and after shewing him a cell in which he might for the future reside, she left him to prepare it for his reception. chap. iv. "think not that treachery can be just; "take not informers' words on trust." gay. as the winged inhabitants flocked towards home, laden with their honeyed store, the return of the wanderer was announced to each; and the labors of the day being ended, they all gathered round him to hear the account of his adventures. in the mean time the butterfly continued without the hive, not unpleasantly situated, as a number of flowers were about the place, had he not been yet in suspense respecting his friend, when, as he was just going to give up all hopes of meeting with him till the next morning, he had the pleasure of seeing him come out upon the block, in company with two or three other bees. "will he speak to me now, that _these_ are with him," thought the butterfly, and he fluttered round the place, half afraid that he should find the promises of his friend forgotten; but not so, the bee, (though perhaps he might feel a little at the opinion he judged would be formed by his present associates on seeing him speaking familiarly to one so much beneath them,) flew towards him, to tell him he had been well received, directing him to a place of safety in which he might pass the night; "to-morrow," said he, "we shall meet again." the butterfly was much pleased at this unexpected interview, and after thanking him for his attention, promised to join him in the morning. the bee then returned to his companions, and the butterfly retired to the place which had been pointed out to him, and from whence he could see the entrance of the hive, and watch the coming of his friend when they were next to meet. i shall now proceed to acquaint my reader with the future travels of our two friends, and without attending to the minute occurrences of each day, enter at once upon those events which more particularly belong to my design. as soon as the sun was sufficiently above the earth, the inhabitants of the hive hastened forth, eager to pursue their daily task- "around, athwart, "thro' the soft air the busy nations fly." and among the first came our young adventurer, whom the butterfly immediately prepared to accompany; though till he saw him a little separated from the others, he did not presume to approach. "how do you do, my friend?" said the bee, as soon as he drew near; "are you inclined for a long flight to-day? i have now a double motive to work hard, having a wish to make up for my lost time, as well as to shew my sense of gratitude for the reception i have met with from the friends i am returned to." "i am willing to accompany you," replied the butterfly, "and am glad to see you in such spirits; but you are already eyeing some of those beautiful flowers, and while you are engaged with them i will visit the nearest cottage, and return before you have finished your task." "that's right," replied the bee, "and tell me if you find the inhabitants as well, or as busily employed, as i am going to be." the butterfly departed, and on entering the window of the humble dwelling, he perceived a woman sweeping out the lower room, "which served them for parlour, kitchen, and hall," and preparing the breakfast; three or four children were entrusted to the care of another somewhat older than themselves, and who was endeavouring to keep the little ones from entering, and interrupting their mother. the butterfly was unnoticed by the woman, but no sooner did the children see it, who (like all others, wanting what is denied them,) were peeping in at the door and enquiring when they might come in, than a little boy begged to enter, promising to catch it in a minute, and his entreaties at last prevailed, though he did not find it quite so easy to take the nimble creature as he had fancied. he had again and again to watch its settling, and to experience disappointment in his endeavour to secure it; while the rest of the little ones were at the door eagerly looking on, and the mother sometimes fretting, and sometimes laughing at his fruitless efforts; when all at once the eldest girl gave notice of her father's approach to breakfast. [illustration] no sooner was this intelligence heard, than the butterfly was suffered to rest in quiet; the mother declared that "nothing was ready;" she scolded the child and blamed herself for being so foolish as to be stopped in the middle of her work by the chacing of a butterfly, and before any thing was in proper order the _master_ entered, who by his rough voice and peremptory manner seemed determined to keep up the authority of that title. while he was grumbling at not finding his breakfast ready, and his children standing silent around the table, the butterfly, happy to escape, extended his wings, and returned to his companion, whom he found still employed at his accustomed task. "well, what discoveries have you made," enquired the bee, "have you seen any one so busy as me?" "_one_ was," replied the butterfly, laughing, "till i put an end to her work; a little humoured brat of a boy was suffered to enter into the midst of it, and hunt me from one side of the room to the other, and this foolish pursuant took the attention of the woman, who stood with the broom in her hand, admiring the dexterity of her aukward cub, i suppose, till the approach of the father was announced; then the scene was entirely changed, the hunt was given over, and she was cross with herself and every one else because she had been interrupted, which after all was her own fault; the man came in still more out of humour, and thus the house which at your first entrance you might have imagined the abode of peace and domestic comfort, was made directly otherwise; and _my harmless_ visit, i dare say, they would say was the cause of it; when to a reasonable observer it would be plain that the whole of his disturbance arose from the wayward fancy of the child, the indulgence of the mother, and the ill temper of the father: however, such is my happy lot, having wings, i could fly away from all their troubles, but those are to be pitied who cannot escape them." "during your absence," said the bee, "i have seen two friends in this garden, who appeared so happy in the society of each other that i am anxious to see more of them, such friendship being rather rare among the human race, and as soon as i have carried home this load of honey, i intend to visit the house i saw them enter." "do, do," replied the butterfly, pleased to find his friend could attend to any thing besides his work, "and while you are thus engaged, i will amuse myself with an old acquaintance or two whom i see yonder." with these words they parted for a little while, promising to meet again in the same place, and to which the bee returned long before the fluttering butterfly, who had flown to a neighbouring field, and there among the daisies and king-cups with which the ground was nearly covered, he continued with his former associates nearly the whole morning, idly chacing each other in airy rounds till he had almost forgot the engagement he had made, and was still less inclined to regret his living an idle life. "i am not born to work," said he, "and if the place i fill in the world is not of such importance as my friend's, as a butterfly i have an equal right to live, and to follow my own inclination;" he therefore returned to meet him without an apology for being behind the time, and on finding him busily employed, and nearly ready to take home another load, "what," said he, "you could not leave your favorite work to make your intended visit? surely you are too intent in gathering that food which i fear you will never be allowed to enjoy?" "you are mistaken," replied the bee, "i have been, and seen the two ladies, but they are no longer friends." oh what fickle creatures these men and women are! young and old, they are all changeable alike. one was sitting at an open window, and the other walking up and down the room apparently much distressed; "what not one word?" said she to the other; "i did not mean to offend you." no answer was returned, and she continued to express her sorrow, which was received with the utmost indifference; at length she made another attempt, and offering her hand to her offended friend, she said, "come, charlotte, will you not be reconciled?" this also was equally disregarded, and the feelings of the poor offender seemed entirely altered; she no longer solicited forgiveness, but left the room, saying, "it is not necessary for me to acknowledge more; you do not treat me like a friend; talk no more of your regard for me." as soon as she was gone the other began singing, as loudly as she could raise her voice, though the words she uttered now, so far from being in unison with her mind, as expressed in her countenance, that i could not help smiling; they were descriptive of content and self-satisfaction, neither of which i think _she_ could at that time feel. on leaving her, and entering another window, i was sorry to see the one i had been interested for in earnest conversation with a third person, who, pitying her dejected and melancholy appearance, asked if she might not attribute it to the ill humour of her friend, and while her mind was thus hurt with the treatment she had received, drew from her a complaint which perhaps she would not have made at any other time. "she does not deserve your regard," said the stranger, "and you give up too much to her;--if you continue to do so, she will by and bye expect you to say or do nothing but as she directs; and her friendship for you can never be real if she requires such subjection." "these are very odd things," observed the butterfly; "we poor insignificant creatures never have any thing of this sort; if we associate together, we do not spend our time in complaining of each other." "i have not done with them yet," returned the bee, "but mean to pay them another visit, and i fancy shall see still more reason to conclude that these wonderful creatures, whom the animal race hold in such respect, are not so steady and constant in their conduct and pursuits as either they, or we, the still meaner insect tribes, are, though i must say those of the latter order are not in so much awe of them. we do not fly from them if they come in our way, but in many things consider them as subservient to us, and that which _they_ look upon as exclusively their own, and which a cat or a dog would not venture to touch, _we_ have most likely made many a meal from before it comes to their table." a few days after this, the bee renewed his visit, as he had proposed, and there was astonished to see the very same third person now engaged with the other lady, and relating to her with many exaggerations all that her offending friend had repeated to her, while smarting under the effect of her ill humour, though all the pains she took to draw it out of her, and the encouragement with which she listened to her complaint, were entirely omitted in the recital. "only think of this," said the butterfly, on hearing an account of his friend's second visit. "is this the use they make of the power of speech, and which they imagine sets them so completely above the animals? surely they had better be without it, than use it to such a purpose; but what will be the end of this? will not the eyes of the two friends be opened, think you? and they will leave the acquaintance of that mean incendiary, who, under such a show of friendship, endeavours to widen the breach between them?" "perhaps not," replied the bee. "their conduct may yet want that consistency; i hope they will be reconciled to each other, but i doubt whether they will give up this perfidious acquaintance, though the more their regard for each other increases, the more must their contempt for her be increased. i question, also, if the tale _she_ has this day told will not rankle in the breast of the hearer for many future years, and whether there will ever again be that mutual confidence in the two friends which once appeared." the next house they saw, the butterfly entered alone, as the bee observed some flowers at a distance which appeared more worthy of his attention. while he was busily employed in extracting their sweets, his friend returned laughing, "oh!" said he, "i wish you had been with me. smile no more at the regard i shew to outward appearance; why there is a young man who is storming and raging about the house, because his neckcloths and shirts are not brought home so nicely as he expected, and he is throwing them from one end of the room to the other, while the poor woman, who has, perhaps, been working hard to make them what they are, stands trembling before him, as if she had committed the greatest trespass in the world. the beauty of my wings if once destroyed, is lost for ever, but these evils, if they are any, are soon remedied; and, at the next house," continued he, "is another instance of the vanity of the sex; _there_ is a boy who has got a new coat just brought home from the taylor's, and because the day is rather lowering, and his father won't let him wear it out, he is determined not to go out at all, and he is now sitting in his own room with the coat on, though there is no one but himself to admire it. i have seen females carry their fondness for dress as far as this," continued he, "but i thought men and boys were above such vanity; i declare i am half ashamed of them." at this moment a heavy shower came on, and the butterfly hastened to the shelter of a large leaf on a cucumber bed, where also the bee was obliged to secure himself, nor could he take home the honey he had gathered till the rain had ceased. on his return, he found the butterfly just ventured from his retreat, and stretching his wings, he was enquiring of one of his own species, "if their colours had received any injury?" the bee heard the enquiry, and though he believed his friend would not have made it had he thought him within hearing, he was not now so inclined to laugh at him as formerly on account of it, "for," said he, "since i have heard such instances of vanity in a race so superior, i can forgive it in a butterfly." on finding that the drops still continued on the flowers, so as to prevent his gathering any thing from them, he determined to return to the hive, and there assist in forming some cells with the wax he had been busy in procuring, though the butterfly was earnest in desiring him to take an afternoon's flight with him, "and enjoy a little pleasure." the bee smiled at what his friend called by that name; "my enjoyment is to be usefully employed," said he, "and to receive my mother's approbation; but as i know this is a pleasure _you_ cannot understand, i would not wish to deprive you of what you can enjoy; go, therefore, and take your fill of it while you may, and to-morrow perhaps we may meet again." his friend departed with this encouragement, yet not able to comprehend why all creatures did not find a pleasure in the same thing, though to the eye of reason such a distinction of enjoyments in the various objects of creation, is an evident token of the wisdom with which they are formed. chap. v. "if chance a mouse came in her sight, "she finely counterfeits a fright, "so sweetly screams if it come near her, "it ravishes all hearts to hear her." swift. the next day the bee had taken home two or three loads before his friend made his appearance, who, when he came, expressed his surprise at finding him where he was. "i have been in such a beautiful conservatory," said he, "and surely i saw _you_ there, almost buried in the heart of a flower; and so intent were you upon your labour, that you would not even answer me when i called; there must certainly have been something very attractive to have kept you there so long, but how you got here before me is what i most wonder at." "i don't understand you," returned the bee, "i have been in no conservatory, the utmost of my flights to-day have been from the hive to this place." "and have you _really_ been no where else?" said the butterfly in astonishment; "why i never saw anything so like you in my life; i concluded that you were so buried in the flower that you did not hear my call, or was unwilling to move, lest you should alarm some ladies and gentlemen who were very near you." "i think i can tell what has deceived you," returned the bee, "you have seen a bee-orchis, as they are called, a flower which bears both the form and resemblance of _our_ species. and so you really took it for _me_?" "if it was _not_ yourself," replied the butterfly, "and you wish to see your _own_ likeness, pray come with me, and behold it; for never did i see one bee so like another, as that flower is like you." "i have known many of our young ones who are not acquainted with it," said the bee, "so deceived by the resemblance, that if they happen to meet with one, they pass it by, thinking, that one of their fellow-laborers is engaged there already; but if you will shew me the spot i will not be so put off." so saying, he followed the butterfly, who was immediately on the wing; and soon arrived at a very large house, one end of which formed the conservatory. the fragrancy of the flowers it contained, the great variety of them, and those of the most delicate nature, made the bee clap his wings for joy. "why, my dear friend," said he, "you have brought me to a treasure-house indeed; a store of sweets, i can hardly forbear returning to call all my companions to share it with me; i am sure there would be work enough for the whole hive were they here." while he was thus expressing his delight, the butterfly was searching for the flower he had noticed before, hardly satisfied, till he had the testimony of his own eye-sight in seeing them together, that his friend had told him the truth; however, when he discovered it, and saw the bee still flying about in admiration, he was obliged to acknowledge he had been wrong. the bee employed himself here for some hours, during which he had gone and returned from the hive several times, bringing with him a few of his companions, who were attracted by the account he gave of this charming place; the butterfly also met with much to amuse him, and continued uninterruptedly to enjoy themselves, till, as the evening advanced, they resolved to visit some other part of the house, and the butterfly led the way to the dining parlour, where some ladies and gentlemen were sitting after dinner, with a variety of fruits and wines before them. the attention of the bee was immediately attracted by a very fine peach one of the ladies had just taken on her plate, and little thinking of the consequence of his temerity, he flew towards it: the lady screamed, and pushed back her chair, while the company eagerly enquired the cause. "oh, a bee!" exclaimed she, "i am frightened to death if i see one." "and i," said another, who sat opposite to her, "shall faint, if it comes near _me_; i really cannot bear it in the room." at this moment the bee, as if desirous of seeing whether she spoke truth or not, flew directly across the table, and alighted on her head. "oh where is it?" said she, jumping off her seat, "i am sure it is on me! dear mr. wippersnap," addressing the gentleman who sat next her, "for goodness sake take it off! what shall i do?" while the other lady sat fanning to recover her alarm, and the rest of the party with anxious looks watched the motions of the bold intruder, the gentleman, proud of his superior courage, "begged them not to be alarmed, for he would destroy it in a moment;" and giving it a gentle touch to drive it from its present station, he began the attack with an open knife he held in his hand, professing that he would cut it asunder at one blow; his blows, however, were not so decisive, for though he aimed several, the bee contrived to escape them all. at this one or two other gentlemen, with more regard to the imaginary feelings of the ladies than to the reality of those belonging to the bee, raised the same weapons in their defence, but all their efforts served only to exasperate the object of their rage, while the butterfly sat trembling under the most cruel apprehensions for his friend's safety. during this alarming battle the ladies were happy to leave the room; and no sooner were they retired than the fight was over, the weapons of war were laid aside, and the enraged bee suffered to rest upon the table, and recruit his strength: his fierce opponents declared they were never so foiled before, till one, less courageous than the rest, wisely, as he thought, turned an empty wine glass over him, and thus was our unfortunate adventurer again in a close confinement. the butterfly was now alarmed for his friend from another cause, and feared the want of air would be too much for him. "cruel monsters," said he to himself, as he observed the gentlemen draw their chairs closer to the table, and filling their glasses appeared determined to suffer no other interruption to their cheerfulness; "do they call themselves humane, who can leave a poor creature in that situation, and after they have cut and slashed at him in such a manner, that if their dexterity had been equal to their will, they would not have left a whole bone in his skin. oh! that i had the sting of a thousand bees, i would use them all to revenge his cause." with these words he fluttered round the table, and viewed his friend (who lay motionless at the bottom of his transparent prison) on every side; "he will certainly die," thought he, "if he is not dead already. oh my friend! would that i could release you! but the attempt would be fruitless." the gentlemen were too agreeably engaged to observe the anxious butterfly, who every time he saw them extend their hands towards the place, hoped some little compassion had touched their breasts, and that they were going to liberate his friend; but no such thing, the evening closed in, and he was yet in confinement, till the tea being announced, the gentlemen jumped up to attend the ladies, and soon after the servants entering to take away the bottle and glasses, give the poor prisoner an opportunity to escape. the window was still open, upon the edge of which sat the expecting butterfly, but it was some time before the bee, who had been insensible the greatest part of the time, could so far recollect himself as to know where he was, or who was waiting for him. on seeing him slowly crawling on the table, the butterfly concluded he was too much hurt to fly, and coming towards him, with the utmost tenderness he said, "oh! my friend, are you not cruelly wounded?" "not so much as i expected," returned the bee, greatly revived at the sight of his old companion. "i am very stiff from the blows i have received, but luckily my wings are not hurt; pray lead the way from this detested spot, and i will follow with the greatest pleasure." with this request the butterfly gladly complied, rejoicing to hear his friend speak so cheerfully, who was no sooner out of the house than he begged to rest upon a neighbouring tree. "you have been very roughly handled," said his friend, "by these _superior_ sort of people; i had hoped better things of them, because they are called so, but i do not find their hearts are better, or their conduct towards us less reprehensible than those of a lower order; but why did you not use your sting, my friend? i think it then would have made even those courageous gentlemen sound a retreat." "i am very careful of extending that," replied the bee, "as it is very seldom we can use it to any advantage without leaving it in the wound, and that in general is fatal to us; a gentle touch is sufficient in our defence, but _here_ it would have had no effect but to enrage them still the more, and i must either have died by their hands, or soon afterwards by losing it; but what a fuss the ladies made at my approach, did they not? did you ever see any thing so foolish, as all to run away from my presence? why many of their fellow-creatures, whom they judge inferior in education and ideas to themselves, would have been ashamed to have acted so." "if you are inclined to put them to flight again," said the butterfly, "i think i see the same party in the room above." "no, i thank you," returned the bee, "i must hasten to the hive as fast as my bruises will let me; they will be quite alarmed at my being out so late, or fancy that my old fondness for wandering is come on again, and i should be sorry that should be their opinion; besides," continued he, shrugging his shoulders, "i have had enough of the company of ladies and gentlemen for to-day, though no doubt i lost much entertaining conversation during my captivity." "i believe not," replied the butterfly, "for my part i heard them say very little else than "the bottle is with you sir," and "let us have another;" and "will you give us a toast, sir?"" "and is it thus these men of _education_ converse together?" replied the bee; "i am astonished at it, but were we to sit and talk of it the whole of the night we should not make them better; we will therefore go home; i have only to say that i am glad i have escaped their malice, and am obliged to you, my friend, for the affection which prompted you to stay for me;" and now extending their wings they soon arrived at the hive, which the bee entered, and accounting for his late return received the congratulations of all his companions on his safety. the butterfly found a resting-place near it, and the next day met his friend with anxious enquiries of "how he found himself?" the bee was still stiff, and felt too much of the ill effects of his last visit to wish to accompany him on another, at present, therefore he remained but just without the hive, and left the butterfly to make 'the voyage of observation' by himself. in the evening, as they again met, he enquired into the result of his rambles. "i am more and more astonished at the weakness of mortals," returned the butterfly, "and am convinced that a _fine lady_ will believe any thing, and will be pleased with the greatest nonsense, if said to her by way of compliment; though i have visited but one house to-day, and that was with one of my old acquaintance, with whom i flew about till we chaced each other into a spacious drawing-room, in which sat a young lady, who was endeavouring to lay the imitation of flowers upon a small table; i believe they call it _painting_, and it was nearly finished; a gentleman sat by her, and seemed to admire every stroke of her pencil, though for my part i could not see any thing so very admirable in it; the colours, to my eye, were put on very roughly, and i could not have thought he would have paid so ill a compliment to her understanding, as to suppose she would have believed him, when on our settling on them after we had sported round the room, he declared that we took them for natural flowers." [illustration] "and did she believe him?" asked the bee. "she smiled," returned the butterfly, "and seemed very much pleased; and it is certain that she did not contradict him, though she soon drove us off again, fearing, i suppose, that we should discover the deception; but we had done that long before, and only fixt ourselves there because it was the nearest place to rest on. after this we flew out, and met with other companions, and i don't know how it was, but the day seemed gone before we were aware; however, we have enjoyed ourselves without interruption, and _you_, i hope, are better able to pursue what affords you pleasure, than when i left you in the morning?" "i am recovering very fast," returned the bee, "and it is quite necessary i should, for i believe a wonderful change is soon to take place in my circumstances, and you must not be surprised if you should not see me in this neighbourhood much longer." "what do you mean?" enquired the butterfly, half alarmed, though he knew not from what cause; "you are not going to hide yourself from me, are you?" "no," returned the bee; "_our_ movements cannot be hid, we shall make noise enough about it, but i am not at liberty to disclose the secrets of the hive; to-morrow, perhaps, if you keep a good look-out, and the weather is fine, you may see what will unravel this mystery; in the meanwhile assure yourself of the continuance of my friendship, and do not think, after the attention i experienced from you last night, and on a former occasion, i can forget you." with this assurance the butterfly suffered his friend to depart without making any farther enquiry, and sheltering himself for the night under a large holly-hock, resolved not to let the sun arise without his awaking to observe the movements of the bee, and his companions; and, if possible, to find out the meaning of what he had heard. chap. vi. "when nought but balm is breathing through the woods "with yellow lustre, bright, that the new tribes "visit the spacious heavens, and look abroad "on nature's common, far as they can see, "or wing their range and pasture." thompson. the next morning all was bustle and activity in the hive at a very early hour, and the butterfly also arose, and shook his wings, determined to let nothing escape his observation which could discover the occasion of it: but though there seemed much noise within, no one came out; and, after waiting a great while, he began to think that nothing particular was intended by what his friend had said, or that some confusion among themselves prevented their putting it in execution. he frisked about among the flowers, yet still contrived to keep the hive in view; till at length he saw a bee advance, whom, from her majestic appearance, he concluded was the queen; a number of attendants immediately followed her; and, among the rest, his friend. she turned as if to take a last look at the home she was about to leave for ever, and on seeing multitudes of its inhabitants flocking out, as fast as the narrow entrance would allow, appeared to glory in the exulting throng; till raising her wings she led the way to seek some other habitation. immediately all the train followed her example, and the air was filled with the numerous retinue; who, by the noise they made, appeared to vie with each other in paying her respect. all were earnest in their endeavours to get near her, and to the eye of the butterfly, who followed at an humble distance, they appeared a formidable phalanx; eager not only to prevent the approach of danger, but that even the eye of a stranger should be fixt upon her. presently a crowd of people, from the neighbouring houses, came running towards them, with pot-lids in their hands, with which, as the whole body were slowly hovering round the trunk of an old tree, they endeavoured to drown their humming noise with a much louder one of their own; and this, from what they said, and their calling for the hive, the butterfly learnt was to make them sooner settle. all this time it would have been difficult to have said who watched their motions most attentively, the men and women, or the butterfly. as soon as her officious attendants would give her an opportunity, her majesty fixt her feet upon a projecting branch, and happy were those who could cling the closest to her. all were now as desirous of fixing with her, as before they were of flying; and when they could no longer see or touch this sole object of their attention, they were still eager to press, and hang upon each other, as if pleased to touch but the back of a bee, who perhaps touched another that had hold of their queen. the noise now ceased, and the bees were suffered to hang, unmolested, for nearly an hour, in a large round cluster; still and motionless, as if no life or power was in them. their proceedings were so entirely new to the butterfly, that, had not his friend been amongst them, he should have wished to see the end; but he saw a man approach, whose face and arms were entirely covered, and placing a new hive under them, he shook the branch till the whole united body fell into it. a cloth was then thrown over them, and he bore it away in triumph. "and will they suffer themselves to be thus taken?" thought his attentive observer, as he eagerly extended his wings to follow the man; "will they be content to remain in that desolate habitation without a cell, or any provision in it? no, no; the man will soon perceive his mistake," continued he, as he saw him place it on a block, which had been before prepared for it, "as soon as they can get their liberty, they will return from whence they came." however, it was himself, and not the man, who was mistaken; on the whole, the bees liked their new abode very well; and it was not till the next day that he saw any of its inhabitants coming out in search of food; when he met his friend, who asked him "if he did not think he had given him notice of something worth seeing?" "i think i see that you have changed for the worse," returned the butterfly; "you have left a full hive with comfortable cells, and plenty of food, for one which is destitute of both!" "we shall soon get this as well stocked as the other," replied the bee; "but did you not see our queen? a sight of her is seldom had; were you not charmed with her majestic appearance?" "upon my word, no," said the butterfly with a smile; "but you must recollect that i am not one of her numerous progeny; and to the eye of a butterfly she is no more than another of her species; but why did you leave your home? is it grown old, and crazy; or does it let the rain in?" "i fancy we understand building better than for that to be the case," answered the bee, somewhat offended; "but we were too full; we encreased so fast that there was not room for us all in one hive. we have therefore chosen another queen, in whom, by the bye, i am astonished that you see nothing to admire; and we young ones are come forth with her, to form another settlement. happy shall we be to contribute to her tranquillity and comfort, and to supply her every want; while she is kind enough to permit us to call her ours, for the present; therefore, you must not expect to see me one moment at leisure; till we have, in some degree, given our abode the appearance of an habitation, we cannot be comfortable; we have already formed a cell for our beloved queen, and a few others for her principal attendants; among which number, i am proud to say, i am; you must excuse me if i now leave you abruptly, as i am on the search for something nice for her to eat." "proud, indeed," thought the butterfly, as he saw his friend hastily depart. "why, i am hardly spoken to now this new queen is come in the way. well," continued he, "i am glad _we_ have no sovereign, in whose service we might spend our lives. our time is our own, and we enjoy it as we like," added he, clapping his wings, and flying off in pursuit of some companion as thoughtless as himself. the next morning he returned very early to the hive in hopes of seeing his old friend, though he did not suppose he would allow him his company for more than a minute. "we can converse together as we fly," said the bee, who advanced to meet him, "but i must fetch some honey for her majesty's breakfast; won't you accompany me? we still go on building very fast, and wax is brought in great abundance for that purpose." "while you are thus employed, i do not expect to have much of your company," said the butterfly, "and have therefore made an agreement with some of my old acquaintance to take an excursion into the country, and enjoy ourselves there for a few days. the summer is passing quickly away, and our lives, supposing no accident cuts us off, must end with it; we must, therefore, frisk while we may." "certainly," replied the bee, "_you_ were made for that purpose, and by the time you return i shall probably be more at liberty; we have a great deal to do, but there is likewise a number of hands, all able and willing to assist;" and directing his friend to find out the hive when he came back, he wished him much pleasure, and thus they parted for a short time, the one to play, and the other to work, though both equally pleased with the pursuit they were about to follow. the butterfly soon after joined his gayer friends, and sailing high in air, they winged their way, to "range the forest's green retreat." "these thro' the tangled wood-walks play, "where no rude urchin paces near, "where sparely peeps the sultry day, "and light dews freshen all the air." thus sported the happy party, uninterruptedly enjoying the live-long day, and resting at night within "the lily's bell!" they skimmed the purple heath, visited the rivers' brink, and each day brought some new pleasure in their view, till at length the weather began to change, a cold wind blew, and there was every appearance of an approaching tempest; and now it was that the butterfly began to think of his friend the bee, and of his warm comfortable hive; though he knew he could not be admitted there, he felt that it must be very pleasant to have such an asylum to retreat to. every one of his fluttering companions were now flying away, each desirous of finding a place of safety for himself, and _he_ still bent upon returning to his more _steady_ friend, endeavoured to gain the way which led to his abode, though the wind was now so powerful that he could scarcely bear against it, or see the way he was taking. at this moment a stage-coach passed him, and though he did not know it would convey him from the place he was then in, he was glad to take the shelter it afforded, and flying in at one of the open windows he soon found a resting-place. after recovering from the disorder and confusion the rough wind had put him into, he had time to examine where he was, and noticed two young ladies, and an officer very gayly drest, apparently confined within this very small space. "what's this?" exclaimed the gentleman; "a butterfly! we want no such intruders here; ladies, are you alarmed? is the creature disagreeable?" "let the poor thing alone," said an elderly man, whom the butterfly had not observed before, "it's as free to live as you are; 'tis true we have _frivolity_ enough in our cargo, but the horses won't feel this addition to it." "it has taken shelter from the storm," said one of the ladies, not at all regarding what he said; "and if it does not settle on _me_ it is welcome to remain." the coachman now got off his box, and opening the door, begged to know if there was room for a young woman, who was on the outside. "it rains hard," said he, "and she will be wet to the skin if she stays there." instead of answering his enquiry the officer, in a low voice, replied thus: "i say, who is this old fellow in the corner? any one of consequence? hey?" "oh bless you, no sir, _he_ won't mind her coming in, if you don't." "mind her coming? no, i suppose not," replied he, "but the ladies are to be consulted; what say you ladies? have you any objection?" they looked at each other as if hesitating for an answer, which the old gentleman observed, and immediately offered to get out, and let her have his place; at this the whole party seemed rather ashamed, and one of the ladies replied, "oh dear no! we only thought her clothes might be wet." "and spoil yours, i suppose?" returned the old gentleman rather roughly, "but i dare say you will have no objection to this young officer's sitting between you, and then she can take his place, and you will be in no danger." this proposal was readily acceded to, and the young woman came in with many thanks, while the gallant gentleman seated between the two ladies declared, that "if he did not incommode them he was the happiest man alive, and only wished that they were going to travel hundreds of miles together." "an enviable situation truly," said the old man, with an air of contempt, and folding his arms, as if preparing to sleep; "i," said one of the ladies, "shall soon be at my journey's end," naming the place at which she was to be set down; "and i," replied the other, "am to go but one mile further." "oh! heavens! and what shall i do then?" returned their admiring beau, "shut up in this place by myself; i shall certainly hang myself if i have an opportunity! what lose such charming companions so soon?" at this the ladies both smiled, and seeing such sort of conversation pleased, he plied them with it very freely, while the old man slept, or pretended so to do, and the young women looked rather inclined to blush for those of her sex who could receive such flattery. when one of the ladies left the coach, the other seemed fearful that their complimenting admirer would hurt himself, in straining his neck to look after her, as she ran through the rain to a house which stood at a little distance from the road. on drawing his head in again, he praised her beauty exceedingly, till fearing he should carry his encomiums too high, so as to offend the other, whose countenance already bespoke an approaching gloom; he dissipated the very appearance of it in a moment, by "begging to know if they were not sisters, their likeness to each other was so great?" this had the desired effect, for though she assured him they were not, yet if her companion was handsome, and they were alike, she must be so likewise. to be handsome is as much as some people desire, thought the butterfly, on observing her face resume a smile, "no wonder that we butterflies should wish it." after some more conversation equally foolish, she also arrived at the place of her destination, and the gentleman, not at all regarding his other companions, again deplored the melancholy situation he should be left in. as soon as the lady was gone, the old gentleman thus addressed him, "young man, i think you have shown your folly whilst you have been attempting to hoax those women; _that's_ the word, is it not?" "poor country girls!" replied the officer, laughing, "how pleased they were; they believed every word i said; they look as if they had never been beyond their own country town, and yet i made one of them think that i supposed she had lived in london all her life." "and where have you lived?" replied the old man, "to learn that there is any wit in making people appear more ridiculous than they really are?" "oh," said the other, "they'll go home and talk of me for days to come; i should not wonder if they expected to see me returning in search of them within a short time, as not being able to live out of their company." the old gentleman then turned to the young woman, who had sat a silent spectator like the butterfly, and bade her take a lesson from what she had seen and heard, not to believe what was said to her; "_you_ may perhaps one day or other meet with an idle fellow," continued he "who may think proper to amuse himself by talking thus, but do not you pay so ill a compliment to your own understanding, as to sit with a simper on your countenance at whatever nonsense he may chuse to utter." the young woman expressed her thanks, while the disconsolate beau sat with his head half out of the window, as if wishing to avoid any farther conversation. the weather seemed now cleared away, the wind and the rain had ceased, and the butterfly began to prepare for flight. on seeing this the old gentleman said, "ah, go, poor harmless creature, i am glad for your sake, and this young woman's, that i have travelled this way to-day, or neither of you would have been admitted." our adventurer would have thanked him if he could, and leaving the window had the pleasure of seeing he was very near the place he wished to be in; he saw some hives at a distance, and among them was his friend's abode, who, on seeing his approach, came to meet him, and to whom the butterfly, after they had expressed their pleasure at again being together, related the adventures he had met with, particularly the way in which he had been brought back, and many were the moralizing remarks occasioned by the recital of what had passed during his ride. "the race of human beings must certainly be degenerated," observed the bee, "since all other creatures were first put under their subjection, and in no other way can i account for the superior conduct, and in many respects the superior wisdom also, of those whom they think so much below them." the butterfly then asked in what state of forwardness the new hive was in, and was happy to learn, that during his absence they had nearly completed the building within it, and that his friend was now ready to accompany him on his flights as usual. chap. vii. "not all that tempts your wandering eyes, "and heedless hearts, is lawful prize, "nor all that glitters gold." gray. in the course of the next day the two friends met again, and while the bee did not forget the more important work of gathering food for the approaching winter, he did not so earnestly pursue it as to make him unmindful of other things. "see here," said he to the butterfly, as they flew towards a house whose open windows seemed to invite their entrance; "let us go in, i think we shall meet with something worth our notice?" the butterfly hastened on, but no sooner had he reached the window than turning back, he winged his flight another way, with much greater speed, calling to his friend to follow him. "what have you seen that has so alarmed you?" enquired the bee, as he hurried after him, "what is in that house so very frightful?" "it belongs to a _naturalist_," replied the butterfly, "and don't you know what detestable creatures these are? had he seen me i should have lost my life in the cruelest manner." "a naturalist!" returned the bee, "i never heard of one, what does he do?" "do?" replied the trembling butterfly, "why, he would tear me limb from joint if i was in his power, and yet endeavour to preserve my life only to try how much he could make me suffer; did you not see how many of my species were pinned up against the walls of his room, whose peculiar form or colour had attracted his attention? he thinks nothing of taking the life of any thing he admires. oh! it turns me sick to think of it; had i flown one inch farther i might have been thus impaled, and _you_ also; no doubt you would not have escaped his observation, and for the sake of your sting, or examining what you carry your honey in, you would have been quickly dispatched; various are the instruments he has got about him, and numberless insects does he daily destroy." "these are detestable creatures indeed," answered the bee; "what can't they be satisfied with viewing our forms as we pass along, but must they pull us to pieces, by way of admiration? i fancy when they have taken the most accurate survey, they could not make either a bee, or a butterfly; it is a pity therefore that they should destroy that life which they can never give. i declare the more i see of these human beings, and think of their cruelty, as well as absurdities, it makes me almost determine to quit the haunts of men, and if it ever should be my lot again to seek another habitation, i would use all my influence with my fellow bees in order to remove to some wild wood where they might never find us." "you would be perfectly right," returned the butterfly; "as for us, if we escape them one summer, we willingly resign our lives at the end of it, and led by instinct seek a place in which we die unlamented, and soon forgotten; but this is not the case with _you_; while you live you are useful, and at your death a whole society feels your loss; but look," continued he, pointing towards a bottle that hung tied to the branch of a fruit-tree, in which were several wasps decoyed thither by the liquid it contained, and dying in the sweets they sought, "there is another instance of their malice, don't you see those poor creatures?" "oh! yes," returned the bee, "and though i am no friend to wasps, who are often wishing to share the fruits of our labour, without having any right to them; and in many things are striving to imitate us, though i believe their chief aim is to do mischief, yet i cannot justify men who use such _mean arts_ to entrap them to their destruction; but what is that i see in yonder window?" continued he with a hurried air, "something that more particularly demands my attention, a bee in distress; and hark, he calls to me for assistance;" so saying, without waiting for the butterfly to accompany him, he flew towards the place, where was a bee nearly drowning in a pot of honey. "and one of my own hive too!" exclaimed he, as he drew nearer; "my dear brother, how came you in such a situation?" "surely we are to see nothing but shocking sights to-day," observed the compassionate butterfly, who had hastily followed his friend, half afraid that something still more terrible had happened, "but," said he, on seeing the struggling captive, "he will not die; 'tis certain he can keep his head above the edge till you have procured more assistance; i fear i am not strong enough to help to pull him out." while he was speaking, his companion had flown to the hive, and with incredible swiftness returned with more of the community, who altogether lent their aid, and after much toil and pains extricated the poor exhausted bee from the ill effects of seeking too large a share of those sweets which only proved so, when moderately enjoyed, 'safe in themselves but dangerous in the excess.' "i only rested on the edge of the pan," said he, as soon as he could speak, "and after an unsuccessful flight was glad to see a store of that which i had been so long searching for in vain; i thought i would just take a sip or two, and perhaps bring home a little of it to the hive." on hearing this one of the oldest of the throng thus addressed him: "know, my brother, that what we make ourselves is only welcome there, and that food for which we labour hardest, is the sweetest to the palate of every industrious bee; idle drones and wandering wasps may sip the honey which others have prepared, but let the danger you have escaped to-day teach you to use the powers nature has given you, and taste the sweets of your own procuring rather than that of others." the trembling bee thanked him for his advice, and promising to follow it, he was escorted home by all the train, where he met with other assistants, who cleared away the clammy substance that still encumbered him, and he was suffered to rest within all that day to recover himself. meanwhile, the butterfly waited without the hive, till his friend returned, and they renewed their flight. nothing particular met their eye till they passed some flies, who were round a piece of horse-flesh, the smell of which discovered where it lay, and its half devoured state shewed the avidity with which these buzzing insects fed upon it. "see," said the bee, "what opposite natures are within the circle of creation. these devouring flies find as much pleasure in eating from this stinking carrion, as from the choicest honey; nay, perhaps _this_ is more agreeable to them, though nothing in which they can thrust their devouring trunks escapes their taste, but with this _delicious morsel_, that really poisons the surrounding air, they are so delighted, that they even chuse it for an habitation likewise. here they lay their eggs, and bring forth their young, and having no trouble to hunt for food for them, they spend their time in flying round it, till their habitation and provision being gone together, they are obliged to seek another residence equally convenient. though you bear the same name, my friend," continued he, "i am witness that you have not their nature." "their nature!" interrupted the butterfly, half offended at being mentioned together, "no! i hope not, or their name either! what, shall the beautiful winged tribe of butterflies be put upon a footing with these carrion-eaters, who live upon what, even in our crawling state, we should reject with disgust. if i may speak my opinion, i think their form, and the noise they make while flying, is more like your race than ours, though alas! in one respect, i feel myself too closely allied to them, that is, i must shortly resign my being; the date of my life will soon be ended; i have felt the chilling blast of the morning air long before you are out of your hive, and if you are not already aware of it, can give you notice that winter is approaching." "indeed," replied the bee, "i have seen some tokens of it myself; the flowers are not in such plenty, and as their faded leaves fall off, no young buds are seen to supply their place; however, such is the use which we have made of the summer, that we are not afraid to look forward to the time when every outward resource shall fail: but, my friend, i fear you are of too delicate a frame to live through the winter, though the place of your retreat be ever so warm; but have you not thought of where you will retire to?" continued he. "a place to die in is easily found," replied the butterfly, "and you must not be surprised if you see me no more; the damps of the night will soon prove fatal, and i know not if i shall survive another." "do not speak so," returned the bee, "how gladly would i afford you an asylum if it was in my power; however, i cannot let you resign your life so easily; green leaves are yet to be found, and now, within our reach, i see a convenient crevice, into which you may creep; _there_ cherish life as long as you can, my friend, and by only venturing out when the sun shines brightly, you may perhaps extend your days beyond their usual period, and have your name recorded, as a butterfly who has survived the summer." "thank your kindness," returned the short-lived insect, "my life has been already lengthened through your means, but you cannot renovate my nature; may yours be extended." "as long as it can be useful," said the bee, interrupting him, "but to you i owe all that i have gathered this summer," added he; "for had it not been for your friendly and compassionate encouragement when first we met, i should have sunk a victim to the consciousness of deserved destruction; say not, therefore, that you have been of no use in the world." "i will not," returned the butterfly, faintly fluttering his wings, as if with his last breath he was desirous of rejoicing it had been in his power to do good. from this time the poor butterfly was still more sensible of the weakness of his frame, and flying towards the place his friend had pointed out, he entered, never to quit it more, "self-buried 'ere he died," for in the morning when the bee visited the spot he was deaf to his voice, and his pitying friend had to lament the sudden change in one he had so very lately seen frisking about in all the gaiety of health and spirits. "poor fly," said he, "thou hast been faithful to me, and has even forgot thy wonted pleasures to afford me assistance; i will not leave thee to the devouring jaws of thy fellow insects, at least thy little body shall be preserved from being so destroyed," and with this resolution he spent one whole day in gathering wax, and stopping up the crevice which contained the remains of his friend--all the return he could now make for his former kindness. after having given this last proof of affection, he returned to the hive, and there in the busy labors of the commonwealth soon forgot the shock which the unexpected death of his airy companion had occasioned. during that winter they were suffered to remain unmolested, and as the ensuing summer approached, (according to the plan he had formed so long ago,) he proposed their taking a farther flight, and seeking a refuge in some solitary wood; "i have seen more of mankind than you have, my friends," said he, "and have observed both their customs and manners; believe me, they are inconsistent fickle creatures; their conduct towards one another shows that they are not to be trusted; much more, then, have _we_ reason to be afraid of them. you very well know it is in our power to live without their assistance; what is it which they procure us but just an empty shell for our habitation? for this they expect our stock of honey, and to obtain it scruple not to take our lives! we have already seen, in the destruction of one or two of our neighbouring hives, the fate which awaits us; but could i persuade all of my species to wing their flight beyond their reach, they might be taught a little more humanity, and would perhaps spare our lives, if we were again in their power. content to share with us what our labours have produced, they might then leave us to die when our exhausted nature fails, and for their own sakes also would not cut us off in the prime of life, and while we have health and strength to add to the stock, which would be as much for their benefit as our own." this speech had the desired effect; the whole community seemed roused by it, and entering into his scheme, on the appointed day not a bee was left behind, but altogether mounting the air they winged their flight far beyond its usual extent, nor could all the clattering of pots and kettles make them settle, till clear of the noise and out of the sight of man they found an habitation for themselves, and under the covert of a thick wood passed the remainder of their days in peaceful industry. the end. w. lewis, printer, paternoster-row, london. transcriber's notes obvious spelling, typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within the text and consultation of external sources. italic text is denoted by _underscores_. changed 'tabart & c[superscript]o.' to 'tabart & co.'; frontispiece moved 'chap vi' heading in chapter summary section from incorrect place to before 'the bees swarm'; pg vii spacing retained in 'every where' and 'every thing'; pg 26 and pg 34 spacing retained in 'well known'; pg 48 spacing retained in 'any thing'; pg 65 et al. added missing end quotes, 'been feeding,' to 'been feeding,"'; pg 28 added missing end quotes, 'no longer friends.' to 'no longer friends."'; pg 67 added missing second end quotes, 'a toast, sir?"' to 'a toast, sir?""'; pg 89 added missing end quotes, 'creature disagreeable?' to 'creature disagreeable?"'; pg 106 added missing start quotes, 'i never' to '"i never'; pg 46 removed bad quotes, 'hurting _him_:"' to 'hurting _him_:'; pg 46 removed bad quotes, '"though you bear' to 'though you bear'; pg 125 added missing end and start quotes, '"oh! said he, i' to '"oh!" said he, "i'; pg 73 typo; changed 'laid' to 'said'; pg 29 typo; changed 'littles' to 'little'; pg 42 typo; changed 'flowers' to 'flower'; pg 47 typo; changed 'gardon' to 'garden'; pg 65 typo; changed 'surservient' to 'subservient'; pg 70 typo; changed 'bee,' to 'bee.'; pg 72 typo; changed 'he weapons' to 'the weapons'; pg 83 archaic use of 'an' before 'h' retained; for example 'an humble'; pg 50 et al. archaic spelling of 'chace', 'chaced' and 'chacing' retained; pg 44 et al. archaic spelling of 'aukward' retained; pg 64 archaic spelling of 'taylor' retained; pg 74 archaic spelling of 'incumbered' and 'incumbrance' retained; one occurrence of 'encumbered' also retained; pg 19 et al. archaic spelling of 'chuse' retained; one occurrence of 'choose' in preface also retained; pg 113 et al. archaic spelling of 'fixt' retained; one occurrence of 'fixed' also retained; pg 92 et al. archaic spelling of 'encrease' and 'encreased' retained; three occurrences of 'increase' etc. also retained; pg 52 et al. archaic spelling of 'gayly drest' retained; pg 106 this ebook was produced by joel erickson, charles franks, juliet sutherland a hive of busy bees effie m. williams table of contents how it happened the sting of the bee bee obedient bee honest bee truthful bee kind bee polite bee gentle bee helpful bee grateful bee loving bee content bee prayerful home again how it happened [illustration: children looking out a window.] "the sun's gone under a cloud," called grandpa cheerily over his shoulder, as he came into the dining room. grandma, following close behind, answered laughingly, "why, my dear, this is the brightest day we've had for two weeks!" "but look at don's face," said grandpa soberly, "and joyce's too, for that matter"--glancing from one to the other. "children, children," said grandma kindly, "do tell us what is wrong." no answer. "only," said daddy at last, "that they are thinking about next summer." grandpa threw back his white head, then, and laughed his loud, hearty laugh. "you little trouble-borrowers," he cried, "worrying about next summer! why, only day before yesterday was christmas; and by the looks of the dolls, and trains, and picture-books lying all over the house--" "but, grandpa," said don in a small voice, trying not to cry, "summer will be here before we know it--you said so this morning yourself; and daddy says he's going north on a fishing trip--" "--and so," added joyce sorrowfully, "don and i can't go to the farm and stay with you as we did last year, and the year before last, and every year since we can remember." joyce looked anxiously from one face to another. daddy's eyes were twinkling. mother looked rather sorry, and so did grandma. but she knew at once, by the look on grandpa's face that _he_ understood. he only nodded his white head wisely. "i see," he said. and some way, after that, joyce felt that it would come out all right. it did. on the last morning that grandpa and grandma were there, daddy said at the breakfast table--quite suddenly, as if he had just thought of it-"mother, suppose we let the children choose for themselves. you and i will go to the lake next summer, and catch the big fish; but if they would be happier on the old farm, why--" "oo-oo-ooh!" cried joyce delightedly. "don, you and i may go to grandpa's house next summer, if we like!" "how do you know?" said don rather crossly. "daddy hasn't said that we could." "why, he said it just now--didn't you, daddy?" "not exactly; but that's what i was going to say," said daddy, smiling into joyce's shining eyes. after that, it wasn't a bit hard to tell grandpa and grandma good-by. "only until next summer," whispered joyce when she kissed grandma for the last time. long months followed, but june came at last. one happy day the children came home and threw their books down on the table; and don raced through the house singing the last song he had learned at school: "school is done! school is done! toss up caps and have a run!" "and now," said mother that night, "we must begin to get ready for our trips. are you sure, children, that you still want to go to grandma's?" "sure!" whooped don, dancing about the room; while joyce answered quietly, "you know, mother, that nothing could ever change my mind." "very well," said mother. "tomorrow we must go shopping, for you will need some new clothes--good, dark colored clothes to work and play in, so grandma won't have to be washing all summer." what fun they had in the days that followed! mother's sewing machine hummed for many hours every day. and at last she got out the little trunk and began to carefully pack away the neatly folded gingham dresses, the blue shirts and overalls, a few toys and other things she knew the children would need. a letter had already been written to grandma, telling her when to meet them at the station. and she had written back, promising to be there at the very minute. when the great day came, the children were so excited they could hardly eat any breakfast. mother wisely remembered that when she packed their lunch-box. the last minute, they ran across the street to tell their playmates good-by. when they came back, daddy had brought the car to the front of the house and was carrying out the little trunk. mother was already waiting in the car. it was getting near train time, so daddy quickly drove off to the station. he bought the children's tickets, had the trunk checked, and then he gave joyce some money to put into the new red purse mother had given her as a parting gift. he slipped a few coins into don's pocket, too, and the little boy rattled and jingled them with delight. how grown-up he felt! the children were very brave, until the train whistled and they knew they must say good-by. joyce could not keep the tears back, as she threw her arms around her mother's neck; but she brushed them away and smiled. "joyce, dear," mother was saying, "i am expecting you to be my good, brave little daughter. take care of don. remember to pray every day--and be sure to write to mother." joyce promised; and then, almost before the children knew what was happening, they were aboard the train, the engine was puffing, the wheels were grinding on the rails, and they were speeding along through the green countryside. joyce was trying very hard to be brave, for don's sake. but a lump _would_ keep coming in her throat, when she thought of mother standing beside the train and waving her handkerchief as it moved away. although joyce was only twelve herself, she really began to feel quite like a mother to eight-year-old don. she must try to help him forget his loneliness. soon they were looking out the window; and what interesting sights were whirling past! first there was a big flock of chickens; then some calves in a meadow, running away from the train in a great fright. a flock of sheep with their little lambs frolicked on a green hillside; and a frisky colt kicked up its heels and darted across the pasture as the train went by. by and by, in her most grown-up way, joyce looked at the watch on her wrist. it was just noon, so she opened the lunch-box; and dainty sandwiches and fruit soon disappeared. but they saved two big slices of mother's good cake--to take to grandma and grandpa. after lunch, the train seemed to creep along rather slowly. but at last it stopped at the station where grandma had promised to meet them. and sure enough, there stood grandpa with his snowy hair and his big broad smile. grandma was waiting nearby in the car. it was late afternoon when they reached the old farmhouse, and grandma soon had supper ready. after supper, joyce helped to clear away the dishes; and then the little trunk was unpacked. grandma was watching keenly, to see if the children were lonely. "now," she said briskly, "it is milking time. run down the lane, children, and let the bars down for the cows to come through the lot; and we will give them a good drink of water." away scampered joyce and don; and soon the cows were standing at the trough and grandpa was pumping water for them. "let us pump!" cried joyce. "fine!" said grandpa--"that will be your job every evening--to water the cows." after that, they watched the foaming milk stream into the shiny pails; and then they all went into the house together. it was almost dark now; two sleepy children said their prayers, and grandma soon had them tucked snugly in bed. the sting of the bee [illustration: the sting of the bee.] "cock-a-doodle-doo!" called don in a shrill voice, dancing into his sister's room. joyce opened her eyes and looked about her. the bright morning sunlight was streaming in through the little pink-and-white curtains. "wh--where am i?" she asked sleepily, seeing don standing there. "where _are_ you?" cried don merrily. "why, on the farm, of course! don't you hear that old rooster telling you to get up? there he is," he added, pulling aside the curtain. "he is stretching himself, and standing on his tiptoes. grandpa says he's saying, 'welcome to the farm, don and joyce!' do hurry and get up! we must go out and help grandpa do the milking." half an hour later, grandma called two hungry children in to breakfast. after that, they were busy and happy all the morning long. joyce helped grandma to wash the dishes and tidy the house, and don followed close at grandpa's heels as he did his morning's work about the farm. he felt very grown-up indeed when a neighbor came by, and grandpa told him he had a "new hand." after dinner, grandma settled down for her afternoon's nap. grandpa went to help a neighbor with some work, and so the children were left alone. they began to run races in the wide grassy space in front of the old farm house. but they made so much noise that soon joyce said, "i'm afraid we will wake grandma, don. we'd better be quiet." "let's go to the orchard," said don. "we can be as noisy as we like there, and she won't even hear us." so away they scampered, to play in the shade of the old apple trees. but grandma's nap was not to last long; for soon she was awakened by a scream from the orchard. hurrying out, she found joyce dancing up and down, with her hand pressed tightly over one eye. don stood watching her with round, frightened eyes. he could not imagine what had happened, to make his sister act like that. but grandma knew. away back in the orchard, grandpa had several hives of bees. joyce had gone too near one of the hives; and a bee had done the rest. grandma did not say much. quietly she took the little girl's hand and led her back to the house. soon joyce was lying on the couch, and grandma was wringing cold water out of a cloth, and gently placing it on her eye. before long the pain was gone; but the eye began to swell, and soon she was not able to see out of it at all. "it's all my fault that we went to the orchard," said don, looking sober. "no, it's mine," said joyce. "i was afraid we would wake grandma." "well," laughed grandma, "i guess it was mine, because i forgot to tell you about the bees." when it was time to get ready for bed that night, grandma bathed the swollen eye again. "i wish there were no bees, grandma," said the little girl suddenly. "why, you like honey, don't you, dear?" asked grandma. "ye-es, i like honey; but i don't like bees--they sting so!" "bees are very interesting and hard-working little creatures," said grandma; "and if they are let alone, they will not harm anyone." "i didn't mean to bother them," said joyce, "but one stung _me_." "that's so," said grandma; "but they have certain rules, and you must have broken one of them. a bee's sting is the only thing she can use to protect the hive against intruders--and the bee that stings you always dies. that's the price she has to pay to do her duty." "oh!" said joyce, "i'm sorry i went too near. but please, grandma, tell me some more about bees." "there are lots of things to learn about them," said grandma. "they live in queer little houses called hives. they have a queen; and if she is stolen, or dies, they will not go on working without her. only one queen can live in each house; when a new queen is about to come out of her cell, the old queen gathers her followers and they swarm. "the queen bee lays the eggs; and when the eggs hatch, the hive is so full of bees that it cannot hold them all. as soon as they find another queen, some of them must move out. "when the bees are swarming, they always take good care of their queen. sometimes they settle on a limb of a tree; and while they are there, they keep their queen covered, so no one can find her. they send out scouts to find a new home; and as soon as it is found, they all move the re. "sometimes grandpa finds the queen, and puts her in the hive. then she makes a sort of drumming noise, and the other bees follow her inside." "was it the queen bee that stung me?" asked joyce. "no, the queen never uses her sting except when in battle with another queen bee; but the other bees take care of her, even if they must die for her sake. there are different kinds of bees in the hive. drone bees cannot sting; and they will not work--they are lazy fellows. in the fall they are all killed, so that during the long winter months they cannot eat the honey which the workers have gathered. "bees are busy all the time. on sunny days, they gather honey; and on cloudy days they make little wax cells in which to store the honey." "that's why they say, 'busy as a bee,'" said joyce. "it means 'busy all the time.' i didn't know there was so much to learn about bees." "i have been thinking about another kind of bee," said grandma. "do they sting, like the bees in the orchard?" asked joyce with a little shiver. "their stings are much sharper," answered grandma, "and the pain lasts much longer. there is a hive full of these bees, and they are always very busy. but it is bedtime now. wait till tomorrow night, and perhaps i shall tell you about one of them." ten minutes later don fell asleep, wondering what the strange sort of bee was like, and hoping it would never sting him as the cross bee had stung joyce. bee obedient "i have something to show you," said grandma after breakfast the next morning. "come with me." "oh, a little calf!" exclaimed don a moment later. "isn't he cute?" cried joyce. "see how wobbly his legs are. what's his name, grandma?" "grandpa says he's not going to bother naming him, when he has two bright grandchildren here on the farm," answered grandma, smiling. "does he mean that _we_ can name him?" asked joyce. "yes," replied grandma, "he means just that." "oh, don," cried joyce, "what shall we call him?" "i think bruno is a nice name," said don. "so do i; we'll call him bruno," agreed joyce. "i wonder if he would let me pet him," said don, gently touching the calf on his small white nose. the little fellow tossed his head and wobbled over to the other side of his mother. the children laughed merrily; and they were so interested in watching the little creature that grandma had to leave them and go back to her work. the hours passed by very quickly and very happily--there were so many new things to do! of course joyce had to write a long letter to mother, telling her about the sting of the bee, the new little calf, and many other interesting things. late in the afternoon the children remembered about the cows, and they thought they would pump the trough full of water ahead of time. it was such fun that they kept on pumping until the trough overflowed, and the ground around it was all muddy. after supper, they let down the bars for the cows to come through. the cows had just finished drinking, when don slipped in the mud and fell backward right into the trough. he kicked and splashed about, trying to get out; and joyce got a good drenching when she tried to help him. grandpa had to come to the rescue, and fish him out; and then they all had a good laugh--even don. the children could not watch the milking that night, because they had to go to the house and put on dry clothes. later in the evening, they reminded grandma that she had promised to tell them a story. they drew their chairs close to hers, and she began: "it was to be a story about a bee, wasn't it? well, this bee has a sharp sting, and it goes very deep." "i hope it will never sting me, then," said joyce. "i hope not," said grandma. "the boy and girl in my story were stung severely; but it was all their own fault, as you shall see. "anna and her brother lived near a pond, and when the cold weather came it was great fun to skate on the ice. oftentimes they would slide across it on their way to school. one morning, as their mother buttoned their coats, she said, 'don't go across the ice this morning, children. it has begun to thaw, and it is dangerous.' "'no, we won't,' they promised. "when they reached the pond, willie said, 'why, see, anna, how hard and thick the ice looks. come on, let's slide across it.' "instantly the bee began to buzz about anna's ears. 'bz-z-z-z-z! don't do it!' said the bee. 'it's dangerous. you promised mother.' "'we'd better not, willie,' said anna quickly. 'we promised mother, you know.' "'but mother'll never know,' said willie. "'but you _promised_,' buzzed the bee again. "'mother thought the ice was thawing,' added willie. 'she won't care, when she knows it isn't. you may do as you like, anna; but i'm going to slide across right now.' "when anna saw her brother starting across the pond, she followed, in spite of the bee. but they had gone only a little way when the ice began to crack, and then to give way under them. "anna turned and hurried back to the bank; but willie had gone too far. she saw him go down in the icy water; and she ran to the road, screaming at the top of her voice. "a man was passing by at that moment. he picked up a board and ran to the pond as fast as he could. and he reached it just in time to save little willie. "dragging the lad up on to the bank, he called loudly for someone to come and help him. two or three men came running; and they worked over willie, until at last he opened his blue eyes and asked faintly, 'where am i?' then they took him home to his mother. "she thanked god for saving the life of her disobedient boy, but the danger was not yet past. for many weeks, willie was a very sick little boy. when at last they carried him downstairs, he lay on the sofa day after day, pale and quiet--sadly changed from the merry, romping willie of other days. the springtime came; but it was a long time before he could go into the woods with anna to hunt for wild flowers or sail his toy boats on the pond. "there was no more school for willie that year. as anna trudged off alone day after day, she seemed to hear again and again the buzzing of the bee about her ears--'bz-z-z-z! you promised mother!' "'i heard it so plainly,' she would say to herself. 'it must have been my conscience. but i wouldn't listen--and i _almost_ lost my brother.'" the old farmhouse kitchen was very quiet for a moment, after grandma had finished her story. nothing was heard but the ticking of the old-fashioned clock. "i'm so glad it didn't happen--_quite_!" said joyce at last. "what was the bee's name, grandma?" "bee obedient," answered grandma. "it has sometimes stung boys and girls so deeply that the hurt has never been healed. "but," said grandma cheerily, "this bee will never bother you, if you listen to its first little buzz." "we will, grandma, we will!" cried the children as they drifted off to the land of dreams. bee honest [illustration] it seemed to don that he had just fallen asleep when he heard grandma's cheery voice calling, "breakfast!" he dressed as quickly as he could; but when he got downstairs, all the others were waiting for him. after breakfast joyce dried the dishes for grandma; and then she helped with the sweeping and dusting. don helped grandpa to grease the wagon and oil some harness; and he handed staples to grandpa, while he mended some broken places in the fence. the children were kept busy until dinner time; but in the afternoon they were free to do anything they liked. today, they decided to play house in the orchard; so they got out some of the things that mother had packed in the little trunk, to fix up their house. but don soon grew tired of that sort of play. "let's play hide-and-seek," he said. "all right," answered joyce. "i'll run and hide, while you count to one hundred." away she ran, and don began to count. just as he said, "ninety-five," she ran to the chicken-house door. it was standing open, so she stepped inside. now there was something in the chicken-house that joyce did not expect to find. one of grandpa's pigs was there, rooting around in the loose straw. the pig was not looking for company; and he was so frightened that he ran toward the door pell-mell. joyce, standing just inside, was in his way; and as he ran against her, she was lifted off her feet and thrown on to his back. mr. piggy dashed wildly out of the chicken-house. just outside the door was a large, shallow pan full of water, which grandma kept there for the chickens. joyce fell off the pig's back into the pan of water; and then she rolled over in the dirt. don stopped counting when he heard her screams, and grandma came hurrying out. poor joyce! what a sight she was! and she was so frightened that it took grandma quite a while to quiet her sobs. but a bath and a change of clothes made the little girl feel quite like herself again. that evening when grandma came up from the milking, she found the children on the porch waiting for another story. "very well," said grandma, "i shall tell you a story tonight about bee honest. "many years ago there lived three little boys--joe, henry, and charles. they all started to school at the same time. for a long while they kept together in their classes; and they were very good friends. "but when they were about fourteen, two of the boys--joe and henry--began to go out nights; and it was always late when they got home. charles stayed at home in the evening and studied his lessons for the next day, as he had always done. "of course, the difference soon showed up in their school work. charles always knew his lessons, while joe and henry fell far behind. "when examination time came, the boys begged charles to help them. "'no,' said charles firmly, 'i will never do anything like that. my mother says that my father wanted me to be honest; and i mean to be.' "'aw,' said henry, 'your father has been dead a long time; and your mother'll never know.' "'i say there's no harm in giving a fellow a lift in his examinations,' grumbled joe. "'it would be cheating,' said charles quietly; 'or helping you to, and that would be just as bad.' and with that he turned to his own work, and began to write diligently. "of course charles passed all his examinations with honors; and of course joe and henry failed. "after that, the boys tormented charles in every way they could. they called him 'mother's honest little darling'; and when they saw him coming they yelled, 'go home and hang on to your mother's apron string.' "mother knew, by charles' sober face, that something had gone wrong. 'what is it, son?' she asked; and charles told her what had happened. she told him how glad she was that he would not do wrong; and how proud his father would be of such a son. "'i shall never be ashamed of you,' she said, 'as long as you are perfectly honest. sometimes you will find it rather hard; but just wait a few years, and you will see that it pays.' "charles had been almost discouraged; but mother's words made him feel quite strong and brave again. the next time he saw the boys, his honest blue eyes looked straight into their faces, unashamed and unafraid. they dropped their eyes, and hurried away as quickly as they could. they did not bother charles again; for the principal had heard of their actions, and had punished them severely. "when school was out, the boys began to think about doing something to earn a little money. henry was passing the drug store one day when he noticed a sign in the window--'boy wanted, apply in person.' he went into the store at once, and asked for the job. "the druggist took him to a little room back of the store. 'here,' he said, 'is a chest of nails and bolts. you may sort them.' "the boy worked for a while, and then he said to himself, 'what a queer job this is!' he went back into the store and said to the druggist, 'if that is all you have for me to do, i don't believe i want the job.' "'very well,' said the druggist, 'that is all i have for you to do just now.' he paid henry for the work he had already done, and the boy went home. "the druggist went back to the little room, and found bolts and nails scattered all over the floor. he put them back in the chest; and then he hung his sign in the window again. "the next day joe passed by and saw the sign; and he too went in and asked for the job. the druggist took him to the little room and showed him the chest of nails, and told him to sort them. "when the boy had worked only a little while, he went back to the druggist and said, 'those rusty old nails are no good. why don't you let me throw them all away? i don't like this kind of job, anyway.' "'all right,' said the druggist; and he paid joe for what he had done, and let him go. as he put the nails and bolts back in the chest he said to himself, 'i am willing to pay more than this to find a really honest boy.' "later joe and henry, sauntering down the street together, saw the same sign in the window--'boy wanted. apply in person.' "'guess he doesn't want a boy very bad,' said joe. 'that's no job--sorting those old rusty things. did you find anything in the chest besides bolts and nails, henry?' "'i'm not telling _everything_ i found,' said henry with a laugh. "joe looked up, puzzled and a little alarmed. 'now i wonder--' he began--but broke off suddenly and started to talk about something else. "a few days later charles passed by the drug store and saw the sign in the window. he went in and told the druggist he would like to have the job. "'are joe and henry friends of yours?' asked the druggist, looking at him sharply. "'oh, no, sir.' replied charles quickly. 'we used to be good friends; but something happened between us that i don't like to tell; and they wouldn't have anything to do with me afterward.' "'i'm glad to hear that,' said the druggist. 'i rather think you're the boy i want.' "for two or three hours charles worked steadily, now and then whistling a snatch of tune. then he went to the druggist and said, 'i have finished the job you gave me. what shall i do next?' "the druggist went to the little room to see how charles had done his work. the boy had found some boxes lying about; and he had placed the bolts in one, the nails in another, and the screws in a third. "'and see what i found!' exclaimed charles. 'it was lying under those old crooked bolts in the bottom of the chest.' and he handed the druggist a five-dollar gold-piece. "the druggist took the money and said with a smile, 'now you may place the bolts and screws back in the chest just as you have them arranged in the boxes.' "after he had done that, charles was sent on a few errands; and then he was dismissed for the day. "a few days later the druggist gave charles a key and said, 'you may come early in the morning and open the store, and do the sweeping and dusting.' "at the end of the first week, when charles received his pay-envelope, he found the five-dollar gold-piece along with the week's wages. "one morning not long afterward, when charles was sweeping the floor, he found a few pennies lying near the counter. he picked them up and laid them on the shelf, and told the druggist about them. another day he found some pennies, a dime, and two nickels. these too he laid on the shelf, telling the druggist where he had found them. "about a month later, when he was sweeping one morning, he found a bright, shiny new dollar. how he did wish he might keep it for himself! "'the druggist would never know it,' whispered a tiny voice. "but just at that instant, bee honest began to buzz around his ears. 'don't forget what mother told you,' said the bee. 'she said she would never be ashamed of you, as long as you were perfectly honest.' "charles turned the shiny dollar over and over in his hand. the bee kept on buzzing--'never do anything that will make your mother ashamed of you. be honest! be honest!' "'yes,' said charles at last, 'i will.' he laid the dollar up on the shelf; and when the druggist came in, he told him about it. "the druggist smiled and patted him on the shoulder. 'you are an honest boy,' was all he said. and at the end of the week, charles found the shiny dollar in his pay-envelope, beside his usual wages. "a few weeks later, the druggist began to give charles large sums of money to take to the bank for him. 'i have found that i can trust you, my boy,' he would say. "charles worked in the store all that summer; and when school opened again, he helped the druggist mornings and evenings. his tired mother did not have to take in so many washings now; for charles always gave her his money at the end of the week. "after he had finished school, the druggist gave him a steady job in the store, with good wages. "'charles,' said the druggist one day, 'do you remember the day you sorted bolts and nails for me?' "'indeed i do,' answered charles. 'how glad i was to find work that day, so i could help my mother a little! and i shall never forget how surprised i was when i found a five-dollar gold-piece at the bottom of the chest.' "'i put it there on purpose,' said the druggist. 'i wanted to find out what sort of boy you were.' "'you did!' exclaimed the astonished boy. "'yes; and when you brought it to me i was pretty sure that i had found an honest boy. but i wanted to be able to trust you with large sums of money, so i tested you still further. i left pennies and nickels and a dime on the floor; and last of all, a dollar. when you picked them all up, and laid them on the shelf, and told me about them--i knew then that i could safely trust you.' "'i should like to ask you,' said charles suddenly--'was there a gold-piece lying in the bottom of that chest when joe and henry sorted the nails, too?' "'yes,' said the druggist, 'each of them found a gold-piece there; and each of them kept it for himself.' "'so you lost ten dollars!' exclaimed charles. "'yes, lost ten dollars hunting for an honest boy. but it was worth it--for i found one at last!'" "is that the end of the story?" asked joyce, as grandma paused. "not quite," said grandpa, who had been listening. "tell them what happened to henry and joe." "oh yes; i must not forget to tell you about them," said grandma. "soon after charles started working for the druggist, henry was caught stealing some things from a department store. he was arrested; but his father paid the fine, so he was allowed to go free. "but his dishonest habits soon got him into trouble again. he broke into a house while the family was away, and stole some money. he was sent to a reformatory for boys; and he had to stay there a long time. after that, he never could keep a job long; for he was so dishonest that no one could depend on him. "joe did not get into so much trouble in his boyhood; but after he became a man he forged a check, and was sent to the penitentiary." "how much better it would have been," said joyce thoughtfully, "if henry and joe had only listened to the bee in the first place." "yes indeed;" said grandma, "i have often thought of that; for i am sure the bee talked to them, as well as to charles." "maybe," said little don softly, "they didn't have a grandma to tell them how to be good." "maybe not," said grandpa, smiling as he rose to take the little fellow in to bed. "didn't they ever change into good men?" asked joyce. "i'm afraid not," answered grandma. "that's the saddest part of the whole story. they felt the sting of the bee as long as they lived." bee truthful [illustration] every day joyce and don went out to meet the mailman; and how glad they were this morning when he brought them a letter from mother! mother and daddy were having a good time at the lake; and there was a picture of daddy smiling at them, as he held up a day's catch of fish. "what a string of fish!" exclaimed grandpa, when they showed it to him. "and what fine big ones they are!" "i wish," said don, "that we could go fishing, grandpa." grandpa whispered something in his ear; and the little fellow began to dance about and clap his hands. "what is it?" asked joyce excitedly. "only that we're going fishing tomorrow," said grandpa. "we'll start out bright and early in the morning, take our lunch, and spend the day at the river." joyce and grandma were busy all morning about the house; and in the afternoon they baked cookies, and got the lunch as nearly ready as they could for the trip. grandpa and don went out to the garden to dig bait. they soon had a can full of worms; and then don found a larger can, and filled that, too. when grandpa said they had enough, don covered the worms with loose dirt and set the cans out in the shed. then they got out the fishing tackle. late in the afternoon, grandma called the children and asked them to catch a chicken for her, so she could get it ready for their picnic lunch. the children asked if they might pick off the feathers. they had watched grandma do it so many times, they thought it would be an easy job. but when they tried it, they found it was not so easy after all. they turned the chicken round and round, picking first in one place and then in another. it took them a long time to get all the feathers off. then grandma cut up the chicken and put it in a crock, and took it to the spring house to keep it cool. "i will fry it in the morning," she said. how quickly the day passed by! it was already time to do the evening chores. grandma was trying to teach the brown and white calf to drink milk from a pail. grandpa was busy in the barn, so she called the children to come and help her. the calf was kept in a lot near the orchard. "i want you to drive him to the corner of the fence for me," said grandma. "then i will try to coax him to drink the milk." but the little creature was not so easy to manage. as soon as they had driven him into the corner, he would back away; and off he would go again, across the lot. after this had happened several times, don said, "just wait, grandma; when we get him into the corner again, i will hold him there." so the next time, he grabbed the calf about the neck and jumped on his back. instantly the calf turned and galloped across the lot. when he reached the farther side, he turned again, and don rolled off on the soft grass. just then, grandpa came to the rescue. he drove the calf to the corner and held him there, while grandma coaxed him to drink from the pail. "we must go to bed early tonight," said grandpa as they started for the house. "we want to reach the river by the time the sun comes up." "but you'll tell us a story first, won't you, grandma?" asked don. "yes," said grandma, as she sank into her comfortable old rocking chair in the kitchen. "about another bee?" asked joyce. "which one?" "bee truthful," answered grandma. "boys and girls who will not listen to him often come to grief--as the boy did that i shall tell you about. "little milton lived on a farm. his father had a number of mules, which he used in plowing his fields. two of the young mules were very ill-tempered. milton's father was very careful to keep the little pigs and calves out of their way, for fear the mules would paw them to death. "when milton was almost nine, a little baby brother came into his home. his name was marion. milton loved the baby dearly, and never grew tired of playing with him. "their father built a fence around the yard. they were careful to keep the gates of the fence closed, so little marion could not wander away; especially after the two ill-tempered mules were put out to pasture in the lot just back of the house. "late one afternoon, milton was helping his father in the back lot. daddy had to go and do something else, so he left the boy to finish the job. "'as soon as you have finished,' said daddy, 'you may go to the house. but be sure to latch the back yard gate.' "daddy did not get home until after dark. 'milton,' he said, 'did you latch the gate when you came in this afternoon?' "milton knew he had forgotten, but he thought to himself, 'if i tell the truth, i shall have to go out and latch the gate now; and i am afraid of the dark.' "aloud, he said, 'yes, daddy, i did.' "'are you sure?' asked daddy. "'yes,' said milton again. "the little boy suddenly heard a bee buzzing in his ears--'tell the truth, milton; tell the truth!' but he said to himself, 'it won't matter if the gate stands open all night; i will latch it the first thing in the morning.' and so he soon forgot all about it. "the next morning, right after breakfast, milton's mother sent him on an errand. marion was still asleep. "'where's marion?' asked milton when he came back. "'he woke a little while ago,' said mother. 'after i gave him his breakfast, i let him go out in the yard to play--it's such a bright morning.' "instantly milton thought of the gate; and he went to look for marion. "a moment later he heard his father cry out in alarm; and looking toward the pasture where the two young mules were kept, he saw little marion just inside the fence. "daddy ran toward the baby as fast as he could; but he was just too late. one of the mules kicked marion, and he fell over in a little heap. the mule, seeing daddy coming, ran toward the other end of the pasture. "daddy picked up the limp little body and carried it to the house. the baby lay so still that at first they thought he was dead. "milton was terribly frightened, and he cried almost all day; for he knew this dreadful thing had happened because he did not latch the back yard gate--and because he had told daddy a lie about it. "poor little marion was taken to the hospital. his spine had been injured, and it was many, many months before he could sit up. and never again was he able to run about like other children. "it was a long time before mother and daddy found out how the baby came to be in the pasture with the mules. but one day, after little marion had been brought home, milton told daddy the whole, sad story. "'i'm very sorry,' said daddy kindly, when he had finished. 'i wish you had told me the truth. i wouldn't have sent you out alone in the dark, son. i would have gone out and latched the gate myself.' "it was almost more than milton could bear, to have his father talk to him so sadly and yet so kindly. the sting of the bee went deeper and deeper, as he watched his pale-faced little brother day after day. always after that, he was careful to listen to the buzzing of little bee truthful." two very sober children said good-night to grandma just as the clock struck half-past eight. bee kind [illustration] "don," said grandma, shaking the little sleeper, "it's time to wake up!" don turned over, rubbed his eyes, and with a deep sigh settled back to sleep. "here, here!" cried grandma, shaking him again. "do you want us to leave you at home all alone? we're going fishing today!" instantly don was wide awake. he bounced out of bed and began to dress as quickly as he could. in five minutes he was in the kitchen; but joyce was there ahead of him, helping grandma to pack the lunch basket. don was so excited that grandma could coax him to eat only a few bites of breakfast. he was the first one in the car, ready to start for the river. the sun was just peeping over the hills, when they drove into a pretty, shady nook on the bank of the river. "this is always a good place to fish," said grandpa. they stopped under a tree whose great, spreading branches leaned far out over the water; and soon they were untying the fishing poles and baiting their hooks. "i'll give a nickel to the one who catches the first fish," said grandpa. suddenly don's cork began to bob up and down in the water. joyce felt a strong pull on her line, too. almost at the same instant each of them lifted a fish from the water. grandpa took the little perch from don's hook, and a catfish from joyce's; and with his big, hearty laugh he gave them each a nickel. the hours passed so quickly that before the children knew it, it was time for lunch. but when grandma spread out the chicken and sandwiches and cookies and lemonade in the shade of the big tree, they found that they were as hungry as bears. after lunch, grandma lay down in the shade and tried to take a nap, while the others went back to their fishing. but the fish did not bite so well as they had done in the morning. they had already caught a great many fish, so they decided to go home early. grandpa had been stringing the fish one by one, as they had caught them; and he had let the line hang down in the water. now, when he lifted it out, the children were delighted to see how many fish they had caught. "that is a longer string of fish than daddy has in the picture!" cried don. "we cannot use so many fish ourselves," said grandpa. "we shall have to share with the neighbors." when they reached home, don helped grandpa to clean the fish. grandpa skinned the catfish, and don scraped the scales from the perch. when they had finished, don had fish scales all over him--even in his hair. but this trouble was all forgotten at supper time, when grandma set a large platter of fish on the table. grandpa said it tasted better than the fried chicken. in the evening, the children came to grandma for their usual story. they sat down on the porch, with the soft summer dusk gathering about them. "i shall tell you a story tonight," began grandma, "about a bee that every child should listen to and obey. its name is bee kind. "james and richard lived near each other, and they were playmates. one day they were flying their kites in a vacant lot, when they saw a dirty little puppy. richard began to stamp his feet and try to scare it; but as he could not chase it away, he threw stones at the poor little thing. "a stone struck the puppy on his head, and hurt him very badly; for he began to turn round and round, whining and howling pitifully. richard laughed, as if he thought it a great joke. "'shame on you!' cried james, 'for treating a poor little puppy like that!' "'you're a sissy,' said richard, 'or you wouldn't care.' "'you may call me what you please,' said james, 'but i shall never hurt a poor little dog that can't help himself. maybe he's lost.' "with that, he lifted the little creature in his arms and carried him home. the puppy's head was bleeding where richard had struck him with the stone. james washed the blood away and gave the little dog something to eat, talking to him kindly and petting him all the while. "when his father came home that evening, he told james that the puppy showed marks of being a very good dog; and that if the owner never came, he might keep him for his own. "james was delighted. he named the dog rex, and at once began to teach him to do all sorts of tricks. rex learned to walk on his hind feet, sit up straight and beg for something to eat, play 'dead dog,' roll over, chase his tail, and run through a hoop. "in a few months, rex had grown to be quite a large dog. by this time, james had taught him how to swim; and when the boy would throw a stick into the water and say, 'go get it, rex,' the dog would bring it back in his mouth. "all the boys in the neighborhood liked rex; and he liked them all-except richard. whenever he came around, the dog would growl and show his teeth. "two years later, one warm saturday afternoon in april, james called rex and started for the pond. oftentimes fishing parties visited this pond, so a number of small boats were tied among the willows fringing the shore. on this particular afternoon, richard and his little brother harry had also gone to the pond; and richard untied one of the boats to take a ride. of course he had no right to use a boat that did not belong to him; but he thought that no one would ever know. "just as james came around a clump of willows, he saw the little boat tip over; and richard and harry fell in, at the deepest place in the pond. james knew they could not swim; so he began to call for help as loudly as he could. rex ran back and forth whining, looking first at james, then at the boys in the water. suddenly a happy thought struck james. pointing to the two boys, he said, 'go get them, rex!' immediately the dog jumped into the water and began to swim toward the boys. he soon had harry's collar between his teeth, and was swimming back to shore. "james helped harry to his feet; and then, pointing to richard, he said, 'go get the other one!' "richard had gone down the second time when rex reached him; but as he came up to the surface of the water, the dog caught him and began to swim back. it was a hard task, as richard was heavier than harry; but at last rex brought him safely to shore. "all this time james had been calling for help; and now several men came running toward the pond. they began working with richard, and after some time he came back to consciousness. "'who got me out of the water?' he asked, as soon as he could speak. "'rex,' answered james. "tears rolled down richard's face as he said brokenly, 'just think! i almost killed him when he was a little puppy! i know one thing--i'll never do such a thing again.' "everybody petted and praised rex for what he had done. richard's father bought a beautiful new collar for him. but although the dog had saved richard's life, he never would have anything to do with him afterward. he could not forget how cruelly the boy had treated him in his puppyhood." "daddy promised to get a puppy for me soon," said don. "i shall name him rex, after the good dog in the story." "and i'm quite sure," said grandma, "that you'll always be as kind to him as james was to rex. but i know a little man that will be asleep in about five minutes. hustle him off to bed, grandpa, or you'll have to carry him upstairs." don said a sleepy good-night; and sure enough, five minutes later he was fast a-sleep. bee polite [illustration] when the children came down to the kitchen in the morning, they found that grandpa had eaten his breakfast, and had gone out to build a pig-pen behind the barn. don hurried out to help him; and joyce went to the spring house to do the churning for grandma. the little girl plunged the dasher into the thick cream, lifted it, and plunged it again, until her arms ached. at last the dasher began to look clean, and tiny particles of golden butter clung to it and she knew that the butter had "come." then she took the butter paddle and the bowl and cooled them in the spring, just as she had seen grandma do. she lifted the butter from the churn with the paddle and began to work it to get the milk out. she had watched grandma do this many times, and it had looked very easy; but she found it quite another thing, when she came to doing it herself. after she had worked for some time, she had a solid roll of butter. she salted it, and worked it some more; and then she called grandma to come and see it. "i could not have made better butter myself!" said grandma. so joyce had something new to write about, in her next letter to mother. after dinner the children went to the orchard to play. they found an ant hill; and it was very interesting to watch the ants as they worked. one ant was carrying a bread crumb several times larger than herself, and the children were watching eagerly. the old turkey gobbler came strutting toward them; but they did not notice. joyce was bending over, watching the industrious little ant, when suddenly the gobbler perched upon her back and began to beat her with his wings. "grandma!" screamed joyce. it was a comical sight that grandma saw when she came to the door. there was joyce, running toward the house, with the gobbler after her, and don coming behind. the gobbler was right at joyce's heels, when suddenly the little girl dodged behind a tree and began to go round and round it, keeping the tree between her and the gobbler. at last don found a stick and chased him away. when grandma had comforted joyce, she explained that it was the little girl's red dress that the gobbler didn't like. joyce declared that she would never wear that dress again while she was on the farm. she never did; and so the gobbler did not bother her any more. at bedtime, the children were ready for their usual story. they clambered up on to the arms of the old rocker on the porch, while grandpa sat down on the step. "what do we hear about tonight?" asked grandpa. "i believe i like to hear the stories as well as don does." "all boys are just alike--big and little," said grandma with a smile. "my story this time is about bee polite." "oh," said don, "i know a little verse about politeness. i learned it at school: "'politeness is to do and say the kindest thing in the kindest way.'" "then politeness means kindness, doesn't it, grandma?" asked joyce. "yes--and more than that," replied grandma. "a polite person is never rude. the story is about two children who were stung by bee polite just once--but they never forgot it. "daisy and dan were twins. when they were babies, their mother took them from their home in the east to live in a far western state. they could not remember their grandmother, who still lived back in the old home town. all they knew about her was what their mother had told them; and she often wrote long letters, and sent them lovely presents. "one day they received a letter from grandma, saying that she was coming to spend a few weeks with them. they could hardly wait for thursday to come when she was to arrive at the station. "the train was due at six o'clock in the evening, and mother promised the twins that they might go to meet grandma. after school she sent them to the store to buy some things for supper, and she gave them ten cents to buy candy. "now there were some children living in the neighborhood who were very rude. for this reason the twins were never allowed to play with them. but today, on their way to the store, they met these children, and all went on together. "they crossed a vacant lot, where there was a pile of crushed rock. near the rock pile, they met an elderly woman carrying a small satchel. she spoke kindly to them; but one of the boys answered her very rudely, and then stuck out his tongue at her. the lady turned to him and said, 'my boy, you need someone to teach you how to be a gentleman.' "'oh, do i?' said the boy roughly. and picking up a stone from the rock pile, he threw it at her. another lad did the same, and still another. "now the twins had been taught to be polite--especially to old people. just now little bee polite began to buzz about them. but when children are in bad company, it is always hard for them to hear the small voice of conscience. for a moment they stood and watched the boys throw rocks at the old lady; and then they began to throw them too. "no matter how hard she tried, daisy could not throw a stone straight. but dan had a better aim, and he threw a rock which struck the old lady's hand. "when the twins reached the store, there were several customers ahead of them; so they had to wait their turn. it was nearing supper time when they came out of the store with their bundles. the rude boys had waited outside for them all that time; and the twins gave them some of their candy. "when daisy and dan reached home, they were much surprised to find a visitor there. it was the old lady whom they had treated so unkindly. mother was crying, as she bathed the hand that had been hurt by dan's rock. "'children,' she said, 'this is your dear grandmother who has come to see you. she came on an earlier train than she expected; and she inquired the way, and walked out from the station alone. some rude children treated her very unkindly on the way. you will have to very good to her, to make up for it.' "'well, well,' said grandma kindly, 'is this daisy and dan? i should never have taken them to be my grandchildren.' "the twins expected her to add, 'so _you_ are the naughty children who threw stones at me.' but she did not say it; and daisy and dan hurried out of the room as quickly as they could. "so the good times the children had expected to have with their grandma were spoiled in the very beginning. after that, whenever they went into the room where she was, they felt very uncomfortable. "'i don't understand why the twins act so strangely,' said mother one day, as she and grandma sat mending together. 'i am really ashamed of them. they had planned to do so many things to make you happy during your visit. but they seem to keep away from you all they can.' "daisy, who was passing outside just under the window, heard every word distinctly. her heart pounded like a hammer, and she held her breath, to hear what grandma would say. "grandma went on mending, without saying a word. 'dear grandma! she won't tell on us for throwing stones at her,' said daisy to herself. 'then i'll tell, that's what i'll do!' she added with a sob. "an instant later, mother was surprised to see the little girl dash into the room with tears running down her cheeks. she threw herself down by the chair and laid her head in her mother's lap. she was crying so hard that for a moment she could not speak. "'there, there, little girl,' said mother, 'what has happened? tell mother all about it.' "then daisy told the whole story. when she had finished, she threw her arms around grandma. "'i'm so sorry, dear grandma!' she cried. "just then grandma looked up and saw dan standing there. he had come in so softly that no one had noticed. "grandma held out her hands to him; and he burst into tears. 'it was my fault, lots more than daisy's,' he sobbed. 'i threw a stone before she did; and besides, it was my stone that hit your hand.' "grandma talked to the twins for a long time, then, in her own quiet way. she told them that children who were in bad company were almost sure to do wrong themselves; and that polite boys and girls usually grew up to be the best men and women. "'i know that such a thing will never happen again,' she said, kissing them both; 'so now it is all forgiven and forgotten.' "but the twins could not forget. two or three weeks later, grandma went home. she still wrote letters and sent presents, just as if nothing had ever happened. but for many years--long after daisy and dan had grown up--every time they thought of their dear grandmother, they felt the sting of their rudeness and cruelty to her." joyce winked the tears out of her eyes, as she threw her arms around her grandma's neck. "i could never treat you like that, dear grandma!" she cried. "neither could i," said dan soberly, kissing her good-night. bee gentle [illustration] in the morning, another letter came from mother. "daddy and i are getting lonesome for you," she wrote. "we're having a better time than mother and daddy are," laughed don. "if they had come with us to grandpa's, they would not have been so lonesome, would they, joyce?" "i should say not!" answered joyce. "the days go by too fast for that; and besides, something is always happening. if it's nothing else, the old turkey gobbler chases me around the tree." don and grandma laughed heartily and joyce joined in. grandma had promised to make some cookies this morning; so with joyce on one side of her and don on the other, she mixed up the dough and rolled it out on the large board. then she got some cutters from the pantry, and cut out the cookies in all sorts of shapes. there were different kinds of animals: a bird for joyce, and a queer little man for don. his eyes, nose, and mouth were made out of raisins; also the buttons on his vest. then she put the cookies in the oven to bake. when they were done and grandma took them out, joyce's bird stuck to the pan and its tail came off. and don's man had grown so fat that he had burst one of the buttons off his vest. a long time ago, when the children's mother had been grandma's little girl, she had lived on this very farm. in those far-off days she had planted a lilac bush and a cluster of prickly pear. grandpa did not like the prickly pear, but he had let it grow all these years because his little girl had planted it. "isn't the grass nice and soft here?" said don. "it feels just like a velvet carpet. watch me turn somersaults on it." with that, he began to turn somersaults, going in the direction of the prickly pear. joyce called to him to be careful, but it was too late; he came down right in the middle of the cactus plant. the long thorns pierced him like sharp needles; and although he tried to be brave, he could not keep back the tears. there was nothing to do but pull out the thorns one by one, and it took grandma quite a while to do that. and although don turned many somersaults afterward, he was always careful to keep away from the prickly pear. when story time came, grandma, gently rocking back and forth, began: "i shall tell you tonight about a bee that it is very necessary to have in the home; and it is also much needed by those who have anything to do with animals. its name is bee gentle. have you ever noticed how gentle grandpa is with all his animals?" "yes, i have noticed it," said joyce. "and the horses love him for it, too. whenever he goes to the pasture, they trot up to him and begin to nose about his pockets." "he usually carries something in his pockets to give them," said grandma. "he has raised all his horses from little colts; and he has always treated them kindly. some men think they must treat animals roughly, to make them obey; but that is not so. "jake and jenny were a brother and sister who loved each other dearly, but they were quite different in disposition. all the animals about the place were afraid of jake, for he treated them roughly, and sometimes beat them. but they loved jenny because she was gentle with them. the dog would follow her about, and the cat would curl up on her lap and purr itself to sleep. when she went to the pasture, the horses would trot up to her and rub their noses on her shoulder. she often gave them lumps of sugar, or other dainties that horses like. no matter how wild or shy they were with others, jenny could always catch them easily. "of all the horses in her father's pasture, jenny loved best a beautiful swift-footed mare called fanny. sometimes she would ride about the country on fanny's back. but as gentle as the mare was with jenny, she was afraid of jake and would not let him catch her in the pasture. "'it would be much better,' jenny would often say to her brother, 'if you would not treat the animals so roughly. see how easily i can handle fanny--just because i am always gentle with her.' "'oh,' jake would answer with a laugh, 'that is all right for a woman, jenny; but a man, you know, must show his authority.' "very early one morning, jake's father came into his room. 'jake,' he said, shaking the boy, 'wake up, son! mother was taken very ill in the night. catch fanny and go for the doctor as quickly as you can.' "the hired man was sleeping in the next room, and he heard what jake's father said. he also got up and dressed, and hurried out to the pasture to help jake catch the mare. "the two were gone quite a while. at last they came back to the house, and jake said, 'i can't catch fanny, father. she has jumped the ditch a dozen times. what shall i do?' "'try again,' said his father. 'i can't leave mother long enough to go to the pasture; and she must have help soon.' "just then jenny came in. 'i will catch fanny for you, father,' she said, and hurried out to the pasture. "'fanny, o fanny!' she called; and the beautiful creature turned her head and trotted toward her. but an instant later, to jenny's surprise, she galloped away across the field. glancing behind her, jenny saw jake and the hired man coming up the lane." "'she sees you coming,' called jenny; 'that's why she won't let me catch her. go back to the house and wait; i'll bring her to you.'" "jake and the man went back; and jenny went further into the pasture, calling, 'fanny, o fanny!' instantly the mare turned and trotted toward her. she came close; and when jenny gave her a lump of sugar, she rubbed her nose against the little girl's shoulder." "quickly she put the bridle on the mare, and led her through the lane to the barn. then she harnessed her and hitched her to the buggy, and called to jake. the boy hurried out, looking rather pale and worried; and as he stepped into the buggy jenny stroked the mare's neck, saying gently, 'now go along, dear fanny, and do your best for mother.'" "fanny rubbed her nose against jenny's shoulder again, as if to say, 'i will, little mistress; you may depend on me.' then as jake lifted the reins, she trotted down the road at a rapid gait." "jake found the doctor just sitting down to breakfast. when he heard the boy's story, he did not stop to eat. he rode right back with jake, and in a short time he was at the mother's bedside. she was indeed very ill. 'if i had been a little later,' said the doctor in a low tone, 'i could have done nothing for her at all.' "when jake heard that, he went into the kitchen, sank down on a chair, and leaning his head on the table, he sobbed like a child. jenny found him there a little later. "she stood there beside him, gently stroking his hair. 'jake,' she said at last, very softly, 'don't cry any more, because god was very kind to us and didn't let it happen. but just think what might have been, if i hadn't been able to catch fanny this morning. don't you think it would pay to always be kind to the animals?' "jake nodded; he could not trust himself to speak. "the sting of little bee gentle went very deep. never again was jake cruel to animals. he tried hard to make friends with fanny; but she would have nothing to do with him. she remembered how roughly he had treated her in the past; and being only a horse, she did not understand that he never would do so again." "how glad jenny must have been," said joyce, "that she had treated fanny kindly! because fanny brought the doctor, the doctor saved her mother's life." "and besides," added grandma softly, "people are always glad when they know they have done right." bee helpful [illustration] "what are you going to do with that rope?" asked don, as grandpa came from the shed with a coil of rope on his arm. "come with me, and you will find out," answered grandpa. "and you may call joyce, too, if you wish." don ran to the house to get joyce, and soon the two came back together. they followed grandpa down the lane toward the pasture where he kept his pigs. the children kept asking him what he intended to do, but he would only answer, "wait and see." grandpa had a good many grown hogs, and ten little pigs. he opened the pasture gate and called to them, and they all came out into the lane, grunting and squealing. then he coaxed them toward the pig-pen that he had been building. he closed the gate, and turning to the children said, "now if you watch me, you will see what i intend to do with the rope." when the children were both safe on the other side of the fence, grandpa climbed into the pig-pen and coiled the rope a number of times in his hands. then he cast it from him, and it fell over one of the little pigs. he drew it in, and the pig was caught. then he lifted him and placed him in the pen. how the little fellow squealed, and how hard the old hogs tried to get to him! some of the larger ones started toward the fence where don and joyce were perched on posts. grandpa laughed to see how quickly the children scrambled down. "now," said grandpa, "you see why i wanted the fence between you and those hogs, don't you? if they could get to you, they might tear you in pieces; for they want to take care of the little pigs." grandpa coiled the rope again, caught another of the little pigs, and then another and another, until all ten of them were in in the pen. then he opened the gate and turned the others back into the pasture. grandpa had caught the pigs so easily--only once or twice had he had to try a second time. "i don't see how you could catch them when they were running away from you," said don. "i couldn't catch them if they were standing still." "perhaps not," said grandpa. "but i can catch you if you try to get away from me. just try it." at that, don began to run as fast as he could; but he had not gone far when he felt the rope slip over his shoulders, and he was lifted off his feet. "what fun!" shouted joyce. "now try it on me." grandpa spent quite a while catching first one and then the other. joyce was the hardest to catch, for after a few times she learned how to dodge the rope. "why did you put those little pigs in the pen?" asked don, following close at his heels. "they are getting in the cornfield," answered grandpa, "and eating too much of my corn." "but can't you keep them out?" asked don. "no," said grandpa; "for when i mend one place in the fence, the little pigs are sure to find another place big enough to squeeze through. so the only way i can keep them out is to pen them up. don, you may carry water for the little pigs--and they will need plenty, too, because it is so warm." that pleased don, and he began at once to fill the trough which grandpa had placed in the pen. that evening, grandpa and grandma and the children sat on the porch, listening to the chirp of the katydids and the call of the whippoorwills. "grandma," said don, "what kind of bee will you tell us about tonight?" "bee sleepy, and go to bed," said grandpa, with a wink at grandma. the children laughed. "no," said don, "i don't want to hear about that bee--not yet." "all right," said grandma, "we'll have our story first; but we must begin right away, because it is almost bedtime. the bee i am thinking about tonight comes often to us all--especially to little children. "once there was a boy named alfred who was the only child in his home. he was very selfish; and often he was determined to have his own way. but he had his good points, too. "alfred lived in the country; and during the christmas holidays, he visited a friend of his who lived in the city. then his friend in turn visited him during the summer vacation. "as soon as his company came, alfred thought it was quite too much for his mother to ask him to help her. he forgot how very ill she had been, and how frail she still was. indeed, it was hard for him to think of anything but having a good time with his friend. "the two boys had planned to spend a certain day at the creek, fishing. of course they were eager to start as early as they could that morning. after they had gathered together everything that they needed for their trip, they went out to the kitchen and found alfred's mother packing a lunch for them. "'alfred,' she said, 'i wish you would help me a little with the work before you go. i am afraid that i shall not be able to do it all alone. would you mind stopping long enough to wash the dishes and clean up the kitchen for me?' "alfred began to pout, but his mother continued, 'i really wish you were not going fishing today. your father will be away all day; and i would rather not be left alone, for i do not feel as well as usual. but i will not keep you, if you will wash the dishes before you go.' "'now, mother,' said alfred angrily, 'why do you ask me to do that, when you know i want to get started early? if i have to wait half the day, i don't care to go at all.' "just then the bee began to buzz about alfred's ears. 'help your mother! help your mother!' it said. but alfred did not pay any attention. 'let the dishes go,' he cried. 'i don't care whether they are ever washed or not.' and picking up the lunch which his mother had packed so nicely for him, he started toward the creek. he did not even look back to say 'good -by.' "the boys found fishing very good that day. they caught a fine string of trout, ate their lunch, and in the middle of the afternoon were ready to start for home. alfred was much pleased with their catch, and on the way home he said over and over, 'won't mother be glad we went fishing today, when she sees our string of trout? she is so fond of trout.' but even while he was saying it, he could not forget the tired look on his mother's face, or the hurt look in her eyes when he had refused to wash the dishes for her. "when the boys reached the house, it seemed strangely quiet. they found the dishes cleared away, and the kitchen neatly swept. alfred's mother was lying on the couch, and she seemed to be resting very comfortably. "'see, mother,' said alfred, 'isn't this a nice string of trout?' "but mother did not answer. alfred spoke to her again. still no answer. he touched her hand then, and found it icy-cold. "then the awful truth dawned upon him--his mother was dead! she had died while he was fishing; but she had done the work that she had asked her boy to do. "all his life, poor alfred felt the sting of the bee that had buzzed about him on that summer morning. what hurt him most deeply was that he would never again have a chance to help his frail little mother who had done so much for him." "i'm so glad," said joyce, "that i still have my mother, and that i can do things for her when she is tired." "it's a sad story, grandma," said little don, "but i'm glad you told it to us. i'm going to remember it always." bee grateful [illustration] another morning came to the farm--another day for the children to roam about the fields and enjoy themselves in god's big, free out-of-doors. how much more pleasant than having to play in their own yard in the city, these hot summer days! in that long-ago time when the children's mother had lived on the farm, grandpa had given her a pony of her own to ride to school in the village. old ned was still on the place. grandpa was always ready to saddle and bridle him, whenever the children wished to go for a ride. today, as the children wandered to the back of the orchard, wishing for something to do, ned stood on the other side of the fence and neighed at them. that gave don an idea. "o joyce!" he cried, "let's ride ned around in the pasture." "without a saddle?" exclaimed joyce. "of course," answered don in his most grown up tone. "why not?" "all right," said joyce a little doubtfully. they went out through the barn lot, leaving the gate open behind them. then, letting down the bars, they soon found themselves in the pasture. joyce led old ned to the fence, holding to his mane. she climbed up on the fence, and then onto the horse's back. don quickly climbed on behind her. in his younger days, ned had been taught a number of tricks, which he still remembered. he would shake hands, and nod his head, and ride up the steps. and when a rider was on his back, if he gripped his knees in ned's sides, the old horse would gallop away as fast as he could. always, before this, the children had ridden with a saddle; and so they had never had to hold fast with their knees. but today joyce knew she would have to hold on tightly, so she pressed her knees hard against old ned's sides. instantly he started to gallop across the pasture. he went up the lane, through the open gate into the barn lot, and on to the watering trough. joyce still held to his mane with all her might, gripping him tightly with her knees. don bounced up and down behind her, with his arms about her waist. when ned reached the watering trough, he stopped. suddenly he lowered his head, and both children slipped off into the trough. it was about half-full of water, and joyce fell in face downward. such sputtering, puffing, and blowing, as they scrambled out of the trough! and there stood old ned, looking at them as if to say, "how did you like your bath?" grandpa came hurrying up to see if they were hurt. he told them that old ned was only doing as he had been taught when he was a colt; and that they could not expect him to do otherwise, if they rode him like that. that evening, as twilight settled down, grandpa and grandma and the children sat on the porch and listened to the lonely call of a whippoorwill from the neighboring woods. "i see the big bear," said don--"and the little bear, too." "what is the milky way, grandma?" asked joyce. "when men look through telescopes they find millions of stars--so close together and so far away that not one star can be seen by the naked eye. the indians used to say it was the path which all indians must travel after they died, to reach the happy hunting grounds." "see how bright the stars are in the dipper!" exclaimed don. "when i was just a little girl," said grandma, "i learned a rhyme about the milky way: "the man in the moon that sails through the sky is known as a gay old skipper. but he made a mistake, when he tried to take a drink of milk from the dipper. "he dipped it into the milky way, and was just prepared to drink it, when the big bear growled, and the little bear growled, and it scared him so that he spilled it." the children liked the queer little rhyme, and said it over until they knew it by heart. at last grandpa said, "i guess it's about time to turn in for tonight." "oh, no," said don--"not till grandma tells us our story." "all right," said grandma; "i shall tell you this time about a little bee called bee grateful. it has a very sharp sting, as you will see. "far away, under sunny italian skies, there is an old, old town by the name of atri. it is built on the side of a steep hill. "a very long time ago, the king of atri bought a great golden-toned bell and hung it in the tower at the market-place. fastened to the bell, there was a long rope that reached almost to the ground. "'we shall call it the bell of justice,' said the king. "he proclaimed a great holiday in atri, and invited everyone to come to the marketplace and see the bell. it shone like gold in the bright sunlight. when the king came riding down the street, the people whispered to one another, 'perhaps he will ring the bell.' "but he did not. instead, he stopped at the foot of the tower and raised his hand. all the whispering and talking stopped; for the people knew that the king was about to speak. "'my good people,' he said, 'this bell belongs to you. no one must ever pull the rope unless he is in trouble. but if any one of you--man, woman, or child--is ever treated unjustly, you may come to the marketplace and ring the bell. the judges will come together and listen to your story; and the one who has done wrong will be punished, whoever he may be. that is why this is called the bell of justice.' "year after year passed by, and the great bell still hung in the tower. many people who were in trouble had rung the bell; and in every case, the judges had been perfectly fair, and had punished the one who had done wrong. "the rope had hung there so long in the sun and rain, and had been pulled by so many hands, that it was almost worn out. some of the strands were untwisted; and it had grown shorter and shorter, until only the tallest man or woman could reach it. "'we must have a new rope,' said the judges at last. 'if a little child should be wronged, he could not reach high enough to ring the bell. that would never do.' "at once the people of atri set about to look for a new rope; but there was none to be found in all the town of atri. they would have to send someone to a country across the mountains to get the rope. but that would take quite a while; and what should they do, while they were waiting? "one man thought of a plan. he ran to his vineyard and came back with a grapevine. then he tied the vine to the rope. "'there!' he said, 'the smallest child will be able to reach it now, and ring the bell'; for the vine, with its leaves and little tendrils, trailed on the ground. "the judges were pleased. 'yes,' they said, 'that will do very well, until we can get a new rope from the country beyond the mountains.' "near the village of atri, higher up on the hillside, there lived an old soldier. when he was a young man, he had traveled in far-distant countries, and had fought in many wars. and he was so brave that his king had made him a knight. "he had had one true and faithful friend all through those hard and dangerous years. it was his horse. many a time the brave steed had saved his master's life. "but now that the knight was an old man, he no longer wished to do brave deeds. he cared now for only one thing: gold, _gold_, gold. he was a miser. "one day, as he passed his barn, he looked in and saw his faithful horse standing in his stall. the poor creature looked almost starved. "'why should i keep that lazy beast any longer?' said the miser to himself. 'his food costs more money than he is worth. i know what i will do. i will turn him out on the hillside, and let him find his own food. if he starves to death--why, he will be out of the way!' "so the brave old horse was turned out to graze as best he could on the rocky hillside. he was sick and lame, and he grew thinner every day; for all he could find was a tiny patch of grass or a thistle now and then. the village dogs barked at him and bit at his heels; and naughty boys threw stones at him. "one hot afternoon, the old horse limped into the market-place of atri. no one was about the streets; for the people were trying to keep as cool as they could in the shelter of their homes. as the horse went picking about trying to find a few blades of grass, suddenly he discovered the long grapevine trailing on the ground at the foot of the tower. the leaves were still green and tender, for it had been placed there only a short time before. "the horse did not know that the bell would ring if he pulled the vine. he only knew that here was a juicy bit of dinner for him, and he was hungry. "he nibbled at the end of the vine; and suddenly, far up in the belfry, the huge bell began to swing back and forth. from its great throat, golden music floated down over the town of atri. it seemed to be saying: "'some--one----has--done----me--wrong! ding--dong----ding--dong!' "the judges put on their robes, and hurried out of their cool homes into the hot streets of the village. who was in trouble, they wondered? "when they reached the market-place, no one was there; but they saw the starving old horse, nibbling at the tender grapevine. "'ho, ho!' cried one, 'it is the miser's brave old steed. he rings the bell to plead for justice.' "'and justice he shall have!' cried another. "'see how thin he is,' said a lad with a kind heart. "by this time, many people had gathered in the market-place. when they saw the old horse, a murmur of astonishment swept through the crowd. "'the miser's steed!' cried one to another. 'he has waited long; but he shall have justice today.' "'i have seen the old horse wandering on the hillside day after day, in search of food,' said an old man. "'and while the noble steed has no shelter,' said his neighbor, 'his master sits at home, counting his gold.' "'bring his master to us!' cried the judges sternly. "and so they brought him. in silence he waited to hear what the judges would say. "'this brave steed of yours,' they said, 'has served you faithfully for many a long year. he has saved your life in times of danger. he has helped you to hoard your bags of gold. therefore, hear your sentence, o miser! half of your gold shall be taken from you, and used to buy food and shelter for your faithful horse.' "the miser hung his head. it made him sad to lose his gold; but the people laughed and shouted, as the old horse was led away to a comfortable stall and a dinner fit for the steed of a king." "hooray!" cried don. "good for the brave old horse! grandpa, i'm so glad you aren't a miser!" he was thinking of old ned, with his sleek, shining black coat. "bedtime!" announced grandma, as she led the way into the house. "good-night, children--and happy dreams to you!" bee loving [illustration] when the children ran down to meet the mailman in the morning, he handed them another letter from mother. she and daddy were going home next friday, she said; and they must be there saturday, to start school on the following monday. "only three more nights to be here," said joyce, taking the letter in to grandma. "i want to go home and see mother and daddy, but i wish i could stay on the farm, too." "and only three more stories about bees," added don. "we must remember them all, joyce, so we can tell them to mother." "what do you want to do today, children?" asked grandma. "after our morning work is done," said joyce, with her most grown-up air, "we must finish weeding the flower-bed." "grandma," called don a little later, "come and see how nice it looks where we pulled the weeds yesterday." grandma stood a moment thoughtfully looking down at the half-weeded bed of flowers. "children," she said suddenly, "if you wanted a flower this morning, where would you pick it--in the part of the bed that is full of weeds, or in that patch over there that you have weeded so nicely?" "i would pick my flower where there aren't any weeds," answered don, wondering why she asked. "i would take that pretty big red one right over there." "and so would i!" declared joyce, pulling up a stubborn weed. "but why wouldn't you take this one?" said grandma, as she parted the weeds and showed another red beauty. "well," answered don, "i s'pose it's just as pretty, but some way the weeds make it look ugly." "that's just what i was thinking about," said grandma. "i have seen children who were like this flower in the weeds. they had beautiful faces; but they let the weeds of disobedience, selfishness, deceit, and pride grow all about them until you could not see their beauty for the ugly weeds. "this garden makes me think of two cousins that i knew once. one was obedient, unselfish, and kind to everybody; and although she did not have a beautiful face, she was loved by all who knew her. the other girl had a beautiful face; but she had such an unlovely disposition that nobody cared for her, and so she was left very much to herself. her beauty, like this lovely flower, was quite hidden by the ugly weeds growing up all around her. "these weeds in the flower-bed were very small in the beginning; but they grew and grew, until now they are taller than the flowers. and the weeds in god's child-gardens are small at first, too. to begin with, there springs up the weed of telling a story that is not quite true. if it is not pulled up at once, soon it grows up into a big ugly lie weed. other weeds--disobedience, selfishness, and unkindness--spring up around it; and soon the beautiful flower is hidden by the tall weeds. and when the master of the garden wants a lovely flower-child to do a kind deed for him, he never thinks of choosing one that is surrounded by weeds." "what a nice story!" exclaimed joyce. "but it wasn't about a bee, grandma." "yes, it was," said don--"don't bee weedy." "but there haven't been any don't bee's in the stories before," said joyce. "besides, i wouldn't call that don't bee weedy; i'd call it bee clean." "that's a good name for it," said grandma. "i hope you'll always keep your lives clean from the weeds that children so often allow to grow up around them." grandma went back to the house, while the children set to work weeding the rest of the flower-bed. they were very careful not to pull up any of the flowers with the weeds. when they had finished, the flower-bed looked beautiful, cleared as it was of all weeds and grasses. "i surely don't want any ugly weeds to grow in _my_ garden, so i shall always listen to bee clean," said joyce softly, as she walked slowly toward the house. "will you make us a kite, grandpa?" asked don after dinner. "yes, do!" cried joyce. "it will be such fun to fly it." "well," said grandpa, "you children hunt around and find some sticks. then ask grandma for some paper and paste and string; and bring them out to the woodshed, and i'll try my hand at making a kite." after it was made, they had to let it lie in the sun for a while, to dry. then they took it out to the pasture. there was a soft breeze blowing, and grandpa said the kite ought to fly. don took the string and ran along with it for quite a distance. the wind lifted it a little; but after it had darted back and forth, it fell on the ground. this happened several times, and at last grandpa said, "it's too bad, children, but my kite won't fly. but i'll see if i can make something else for you." then grandpa took some thin boards and whittled out darts. he took a short stick, and tied a string to it; and then he fitted the string in a notch which he had cut in one end of the dart. he threw the dart up in the air, ever so high. it came down just a few yards from don. the sharp end stuck fast; and there it stood, upright in the ground. don was as much pleased with this as he would have been with a kite that would fly. soon he and joyce were shooting darts into the air, to see whose would go the highest. they had so much fun that the afternoon flew by very fast. it was nearly suppertime when don gathered up the darts and took them to the house with him. he carefully put them away in the little trunk, saying, "i'll show the boys how to throw darts when i get home." that evening, as they sat on the porch in the quiet twilight, they heard the faint tinkle of a cowbell in the distance. they talked a while, and then they sang some songs together. "it's story time, isn't it?" said grandpa by and by. "and who is going to get stung tonight?" he asked, winking at joyce. "i hope _i_ don't," she laughed, remembering the time the bee had stung her on the first day of her visit. "no one shall be stung tonight," said grandma. "i have a very sweet little bee to tell you about. and because the little girl in my story listened to its buzz, it made honey for her all her life. its name is bee loving; and it can do things that nothing else in the world can do. you know people can sometimes be _loved_ into doing things that they could not be persuaded to do in any other way. "gene was a very little girl who had been left alone in the world. she had never seen her father; and her mother had died when she was only two and a half. some kind people had taken care of the little girl when her mother was ill; and when she died, they tried to find her relatives, to ask what should be done with gene. but they could not find any trace of them. "when gene was three, these kind people wanted to go away for a couple of weeks, and they asked a lady to take care of the child while they were gone. the lady was very glad to do this, for she loved little children. and so gene came to stay in the big mansion where the lady, her husband, and grown-up daughter lived. "the lady's husband did not like children very well, and it always annoyed him whenever little gene came near him. she had a sunny disposition and a very sweet smile, and she tried to make friends with the man; but he would not pay any attention to her. "he always read his paper in the morning before he went to work, and in the evening after he came home. little gene would peep up at him under the paper, with her sweetest smile. he would lay the paper down, and walk away; but soon he would come back and pick it up and begin to read again. and in a moment, there little gene would be, peeping up at him again with her lovely smile. "one day when gene had been living in the home about a week, the man was reading his paper and she was peeping under it with her usual smile. suddenly he laid the paper aside and took her in his arms. he kissed her on her forehead, saying tenderly, 'it doesn't matter how hard a man tries to keep from loving you; you just love your way right into his heart.' "gene threw her small arms about his neck, and laid her curly head on his shoulder, saying in her pretty baby way, 'gene woves oo, big man.' "that completely won his heart; and when the two weeks had passed and gene's friends came after her, he did not want to give her up. so he decided to keep her and bring her up as if she had been his own little girl. this also pleased his wife and grown-up daughter very much, for they had loved little gene from the beginning. "gene is grown now, but she still has the same sunny disposition and the same sweet smile, which make her beloved by all who know her. nothing but love could have won for her the beautiful home she has had all these years. and to this day, bee loving is still helping her to win her way through life. the greatest victories are always those that are won through love." "i know someone that i love," said little don, throwing his arms round grandma's neck. "so do i," said joyce as she kissed grandma good-night. bee content [illustration] "listen to the mocking bird!" exclaimed joyce, early the next morning. "it sounds as if he would burst his throat. sometimes his song is loud, and then again he whistles softly, like our canary." as they listened, the bird whistled shrilly, like the cardinal; then he trilled like the canary, and chirped like the sparrow. he gave a call like the hen quail's, and sang a song exactly like the song of the bluebird. then he twittered like a number of smaller birds, sang the song of the robin, and came back to the whistle of the cardinal. "did you ever hear such a wonderful song?" cried joyce. "i could listen to him all day long." "i like to hear him sing in the daytime, too," laughed grandma; "but during the night i don't enjoy it so much. last spring the mocking birds built their nest in the same tree where that little fellow is singing now; and such music, all night long, during the time when they were nesting! it was beautiful, but it kept me awake many an hour when i should have been sleeping. mocking birds usually build their nests near houses, to protect themselves from robbers." "robbers! what kind?" exclaimed don. "sometimes larger birds; and sometimes cats, or snakes. you can always tell when a robber is about, by the fuss the old birds make. last spring i heard a great commotion in that tree, and i went out to see what was the trouble. i looked about for quite a while before i discovered the nest; and all the time, the birds were darting here and there and giving their sharp little cries of distress. when at last i found the nest, i saw a big black snake crawling toward it. i got the garden rake and pulled him loose from the limb; and when he fell to the ground, i killed the cruel thief." joyce stepped out into the yard, to get a better look at the little songster as he sat swinging at the top of the old apple tree. just then he flew across the orchard and down to the creek, alighting among the willows along the bank. that afternoon the children went to the creek, to see if there were any water lilies in bloom. as they neared the clump of willows, don said, "let's be quiet, and see if we can find the mocking bird." so they walked softly, and talked in whispers; but they did not catch a glimpse of the lovely songster. suddenly don stopped and pointed to a big green frog sitting on a lily pad in the middle of the creek. "oh-h-h!" exclaimed joyce. instantly there was a splash, and the frog was gone. there were splashes all around, as other frogs disappeared in the water. the children hid behind the willows, and waited quietly for some time. soon they saw a big green fellow swim toward the lily pad and climb up on it. others began to swim about in the water, and a number of them came out along the bank. suddenly joyce caught sight of something else, which made her forget the frogs. just beyond the spot where the frog sat perched on a lily pad, there was a lovely water lily in bloom. "o don," she whispered, "do you think we can get it?" "i'd rather have the frog than the lily," answered don. "yes, but you can't get him, you know," said joyce. "will you help me to get to the lily?" don nodded, and came out from behind the willows where he had been crouching. instantly there was another splash, and mr. froggie was gone. in a moment there was not a frog to be seen anywhere. to get the lily, the children had to cross the creek and then step out on an old log. the creek was so shallow that they knew there was no danger of drowning, even if they should fall into the water; so joyce steadied the log with her hands, while don stood on it and reached for the lily. it took him some time to get it, for it had a tough stem which was very hard to break. but joyce was so pleased when he handed her the beautiful lily, that he felt repaid for all his trouble. about three o'clock the children found some empty spools and went to the corner of the orchard, and sat down in the cool shade of the lilac bush. soon they were blowing many-colored bubbles and flying them in the air. tabby, grandma's pretty maltese cat, lay curled up in the shade. one of don's bubbles lit on her back, and then burst. by and by another lit on her nose, and burst immediately. the old cat jumped to her feet and began to sneeze. then she sat down and washed her face with her paw, as if to say, "thank you, i'd rather wash my face without any soap." that evening, as they sat on the porch, joyce said a little sadly, "it will not be long now before we shall hear the noisy street cars again, instead of the katydids and whippoorwills. only one more night after this, and we shall be home." "yes," added don--"only two more stories about the bees." he clambered up on to the arm of grandma's rocking chair, while joyce sat down at her feet. "we're ready for our story, grandma," said don. "all right," answered grandma. "i shall tell you this time about a little bee called bee content. its buzz is often heard among children at play, when things happen that no one can help. some will not listen to it, and so they complain and make everyone about them miserable. "willie was a poor boy who lived on a farm. although he had to work hard, helping his father, he always went about whistling or singing. his clothes were old and patched; and he did not have things to play with, as other boys have. but he did not mind being poor, because he had parents who loved him dearly. "one day when willie was working in the field, he looked up and saw a great cloud of dust. a team was running away. the horses were hitched to a buggy; and as they came rushing toward him, the thought flashed into willie's mind that he must try his best to stop them. a short distance down the road, there was a bridge. if the horses should run into the railing,' he thought, 'they would tear the buggy to pieces, and perhaps hurt themselves.' "the boy leaped over the fence, and braced himself; and as the horses came near, he grabbed one by the bridle and held on tightly. this was a very brave thing to do; for if he had missed catching hold, he might have been thrown under the horses' hoofs and trampled to death. his weight swinging on the horse's bridle soon stopped the team. "soon a man came running along the highway; and when he learned what willie had done, he said, 'you are a brave boy. what do i owe you for your trouble?' "willie smiled his friendly smile as he answered, 'i did not stop the horses for pay, sir. i thought of the railing on the bridge; and i was afraid the horses would break the buggy, and hurt themselves.' "noticing that willie's clothes were badly worn, the gentleman said, 'will you not let me give you some money to buy clothes?' "'i have a better pair of shoes than these--and a better suit of clothes, for sundays,' answered willie. 'and these clothes are all right to work in.' "'but you will need some new books for school this fall,' said the gentleman. "'i have some books that were given to me,' replied the lad; 'and mother glued in the loose leaves, so that i can use them very well, thank you.' "'wouldn't you like to have a ball and bat?' "'i made a ball from some old wool that mother gave me,' answered willie; 'and i whittled out a bat which answers the purpose very well.' "the gentleman laid his hand on willie's shoulder, saying kindly, 'my boy, i understand now why you have that smile; for you have learned a secret which few people know--the secret of contentment. i shall have to call you the contented boy.' and with that, he drove away. "a few days later, a large box came to the village, addressed to willie. the express agent sent word out to the farm, and willie's father drove in to the village to get it. "when willie opened the box, he found a large card lying on top on which were written the words: _to the contented boy, from a grateful friend and debtor_. he knew then that the box had come from the man whose team he had stopped a few days before. "it contained a new suit of clothes, some shirts, overalls, stockings, a warm cap and mittens, and a new baseball and bat. when he lifted out the overcoat he felt in the pockets and discovered a five-dollar bill. "how pleased willie was! as he went back to his work in the field, he whistled more cheerily than before. "but that was not all. at christmas time, a wonderful bicycle came from his new friend. you will believe me when i tell you that he was the happiest boy in the country." "that's the best story you have told us yet," said don. "i think willie was a brave boy." "and he deserved everything he got," added grandma; "for he had learned the secret of being content with a very little." bee prayerful [illustration: bee prayerful] another morning came; the morning of the last day joyce and don were to spend on the farm. they followed grandma about the house, eager to do something to help. after the usual work was done, and they had taken turns at the churning, grandma said she would make cookies to pack in their lunch-basket the next day. so she gathered together eggs, sugar, flour, milk, butter, baking powder, and spices. quickly she made the dough and rolled it out on the board. the children stood close to her watching as she cut out the dough in different shapes. she made quite an army of cookie men; and after they were baked, she covered them with icing. she made their eyes out of cinnamon drops; also the buttons down their vests. "aren't they lovely?" cried joyce. "put plenty of them in our lunch-basket tomorrow, won't you, grandma? then we can take some home to mother and daddy." "yes," said grandma, "and there will be enough for your little friends, too." in the afternoon the children's trunk was brought out, and grandma helped them to pack. there were so many things they wanted to take home with them, that this was quite a task. at the last moment, just as grandma was ready to close the trunk, don ran and got the kite that grandpa had made. "maybe daddy will know how to make it fly," he said. but there was no room for it in the trunk, so he had to take it back to the woodshed. "i can put it away in a safe place," he said. "it will be waiting for us when we come back next summer." that evening the children did all they could to help grandpa with the chores. they gathered the eggs, pumped water, filled the wood-box, and did many other things. "you are certainly fine little helpers," said grandpa when they had finished. "when you get home," added grandma with a smile, "you must tell mother and daddy that we need you to help us on the farm." "we will," promised the children with beaming faces. when they had gathered on the porch for their last evening together, joyce stole up to grandma's chair and said softly, "tonight you must tell us the very best bee story that you know." "it couldn't be better than the one about bee content," said don. "i shall tell you about the bee that is perhaps the most important of all," said grandma thoughtfully. "it does wonderful things for those who listen to its buzz; but those who refuse to listen are sure to be sorry afterward. it is called bee prayerful." the children were eager to hear the story, so grandma began at once: "william sutherland was a boy who lived in the state of maryland. when he was thirteen years old, he gave his heart to god and became a christian. after that he would often steal away alone and spend a few minutes talking to god. "when he was fourteen, willie began to work in the bank as an errand boy. the banker soon found that he was honest, and trusted him with large sums of money. one of his errands was to carry the payroll to a mill town several miles away. he made this trip every two weeks; and he always set out in the afternoon, and returned the following morning. "there were no automobiles in those days, and no good roads. william had to ride a pony, leaving the main highway and riding over a trail that had been blazed through the forest. "as he started out one afternoon, his mother said to him, 'son, i'm afraid to have you carry so much money over that lonely trail.' "'oh, there is no reason to worry, mother,' replied the lad cheerfully, as he swung into the saddle. 'you know i have always made the trip safely before.' "'yes,' replied the good woman, 'but i feel fearful today. i shall be praying for you while you are on your way.' "william waved to her, as he turned his pony about and started on his journey. he had placed the payroll in his saddle bags; and as he looked at them he said to himself, 'how glad i am that my master trusts me with so much money.' "he whistled and sang, as he rode along; but as he neared the lonely forest trail, a strange feeling of fear came over him. he reined in his pony and sat still for some time, wondering just what he ought to do. then bee prayerful began to buzz about his ears. he had heard its little voice many times before, and he had learned always to listen and obey. he rode on to the spot where he must leave the highway and set out upon the forest trail; and then he slipped from the saddle and knelt down beside the bushes growing there. "'dear god,' he said aloud, 'i don't know why, but i feel very much afraid. take care of me, as i ride through this lonely place. i believe you will, because you have written in your book, "i will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."' "and as william knelt there, alone with god, all feeling of fear melted away. he arose, mounted his pony, and rode on with a light heart. "the mill men knew he was coming, for they could hear his cheerful whistle before his pony came into view. he gave the payroll to the foreman, spent the night in the little town, and the next forenoon returned safely to his home. "his mother met him at the door. 'son,' she said, 'something peculiar happened to me yesterday while you were away. i was very busy, but a little voice seemed to tell me that i ought to stop my work and pray for you. i felt that you were in danger, and that i should ask god to keep you safe. so i laid my work aside, went into my room and knelt down, and stayed there until i was sure that you were quite safe.' "then william told her how he had felt just before he reached the lonely forest trail, and how he had knelt down among the bushes and asked god to protect him. after that, they often talked about this strange happening, and wondered what it could mean. "william worked in the bank for quite a long while, and then he went away to college. after he had graduated, he became a minister. soon after this, god called away his good mother to her home in heaven. "one day william received a letter stamped with the postmark of a town in a distant state. 'i am very ill,' said the writer, 'and the doctor says i shall never recover. i must see you, as i have something very important to tell you before i am called away to meet my god. please come to me as quickly as possible.' there was no name written at the end of the letter. it was signed, 'a friend.' "william turned the letter over and over in his hand. he knew no one in that faraway place, and for a time he was very much puzzled. then he did as he had been in the habit of doing for many years--he slipped away to spend a few moments alone with god. and a voice in his heart kept saying, 'go; someone is in need, and your work is to minister to every soul who asks for help.' "'but whom shall i ask for, when i arrive?' asked william, still perplexed. and the voice answered, 'only go; god will take care of the rest.' "hastily packing a few things in his traveling bag, william boarded a train and started for the town in the far-distant state. arriving at the end of his journey, he stepped out upon the station platform. he was astonished when a gentleman came up to him and said courteously, 'is this reverend sutherland?' "'yes,' replied the minister, 'i am he.' "'i have been sent to meet you, sir,' said the stranger. 'i have met every train during the past week. will you come with me?' "a few minutes later, he led the minister into a darkened room where a sick man lay. as they tiptoed into the room, he looked up eagerly, and his breath came fast. holding out his hand, he asked in a feeble voice, 'is this reverend sutherland?' "'it is,' said the minister gently, clasping the thin white hand. 'where have i met you before, my friend--and what can i do for you now?' "'you have never met me before,' said the sick man, and his voice sank to a whisper. 'i saw you only once and that was many years ago. but i have kept track of your whereabouts all these years. i have sent for you now, sir, because--i am dying.' "the sick man sank back upon his pillows and rested a moment; then, fixing his large eyes on the minister's face, he went on: "'mr. sutherland, one afternoon many years ago you were entrusted with a large sum of money to take to the foreman of a certain mill. in a wild and lonely spot, you slipped from your saddle and knelt down by some bushes and asked god to protect you. do you remember it?' "'as if it had been yesterday,' said the minister. 'but, my good friend-what do you know about it?' "'far more than you do,' said the sick man sadly. _i heard that prayer_. i was crouching among the bushes nearby, with my rifle pointed at your heart. i had planned to kill you, take the money, and ride away on your pony. but while you were praying something passed between us; i did not know what it was, but i believed that god had sent it to protect you. i sat in those bushes, too weak to pull the trigger, and watched you ride away--perfectly helpless to do any harm to you. but it has haunted me ever since--the thought of what i wanted to do, and what i should have done if god had not answered your prayer. i could not meet god without telling you all this. can you forgive me?' "again william grasped the hand of the dying man, saying in a husky voice, 'my friend, as god has forgiven my sins, i freely forgive you. ask now for god's forgiveness, and be at peace.' "the minister stayed with the man for some time, talking and praying with him; until at last the light shone in his dark soul, and god forgave his sins. "he died soon after that, and william sutherland was asked to preach his funeral sermon. he chose as his text those words from the book of proverbs: 'trust in the lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. in all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.'" the children sat very still for some time, after grandma had finished her story. "i think bee prayerful is the best of all," said joyce at last. "i shall remember that story as long as i live." "i hope you will, dear," said grandma. "no matter where you go--no matter how busy you are--always listen to the gentle buzz of bee prayerful." "we will, grandma," said the children soberly. "and now," said grandma, "it is bedtime for two little folks who will have to be up bright and early in the morning. you know the train leaves at eight o'clock." "good-night, katydids and whippoorwills," murmured don a little drowsily. "we shall come back to hear you sing again next summer." with that, two tired children crept upstairs and tumbled into bed; and very soon they were in the land of dreams. home again [illustration: home again] the sunlight was streaming in at their bedroom windows, when joyce and don awoke the next morning. they dressed quickly, and ran down to watch grandma pack their lunch for the trip home. at the breakfast table, they talked of all the nice times they had had during the past few weeks; and they promised to persuade mother and daddy to come with them to the farm next summer. when everything was ready, grandpa lifted the little trunk to his shoulder and carried it out to the car; and soon they were on their way. when they reached the station grandpa bought the tickets, checked the little trunk, and gave the children a story book to read on the train. dear grandpa and grandma! they always knew just what to do to make the children happy. as the train whistled in the distance, don caught grandpa's hand and held it tight. joyce threw her arms around grandma and whispered, "dear grandma, i love you! and i've had such a happy time!" the train pulled up, and the conductor called, "all aboard!" after grandpa had helped them on to the train, and had gone back to the station platform, the children waved and threw kisses through the window. as the train moved away, they pressed their faces to the window and watched grandpa and grandma as long as they could. but they soon were left behind, the train moved faster, and the little village passed out of sight. happy vacation days on the farm had come to an end. for a few moments the children had to fight to keep back the tears. then joyce opened the book that grandpa had given them, and soon their loneliness was forgotten. there was a story about a little lame dog that came to a man's house one cold winter night and whined about the door. he let it in, bound up its foot, and gave it some food and a comfortable place to sleep. the man liked the dog so well that he decided to keep it. one night, when everyone was asleep, the house caught fire; and the dog awakened the man in time to save the whole family from burning to death. there were stories about cows and horses; and a long, long one about the interesting animals to be seen at the zoo. one story was so funny that when don read it, he burst out laughing; and the other passengers looked at him and smiled. it was about a mischievous monkey at the zoo. one day a gentleman who wore a wig came by, carrying his hat in his hand. the monkey reached through the bars and caught hold of the wig, pulling it off his head. when it was time for lunch, joyce opened the basket that grandma had packed for them. they spread out a napkin on the seat in front of them, and ate their lunch off this "table" in the most grown-up fashion. grandma had tucked in several surprises; and how good the cookie-men tasted! in the middle of the afternoon they began to pass through the suburbs of the city, and soon familiar sights came into view. when the train backed into the station, there stood mother and daddy waiting for them. "o mother," cried joyce with a bear hug, "i've had a good time, but i'm so glad to see you again!" don, big boy that he was, had jumped into daddy's arms. soon the little trunk had been placed in the car, and they were driving toward home. "what did you enjoy most of all, during your vacation?" asked mother, as they were eating supper that evening. "fishing," replied don quickly. joyce did not answer; she sat quite still, with a far-away look in her eyes. "and what did my little girl like best of all?" asked mother at last. "o mother," said joyce, her eyes shining, "i was happy every minute-even when the old turkey gobbler was chasing me around the tree. but what i liked best was to sit out on the porch in the evenings, and listen to the katydids and whippoorwills, and watch the stars come out one by one. and then it was so nice to sit close to grandma's old rocking-chair the children's life of the bee by maurice maeterlinck selected and arranged by alfred sutro and herschel williams illustrated by edward j. detmold new york dodd, mead and company 1919 contents i on the threshold of the hive ii the swarm iii the foundation of the city iv the young queens v the massacre of the males vi the progress of the race illustrations "the black throng issues, or rather pours forth, in a throbbing, quivering stream"--_frontispiece_ in the heart of the flower. "and the bees, forming a circle around the two, will eagerly watch the strange duel" "the queen takes possession together with her servants, guardians and counsellors" the sphinx the life of the bee i on the threshold of the hive i have not yet forgotten the first apiary i saw, where i learned to love the bees. it was many years ago, in a large village of dutch flanders, the sweet and pleasant country that rejoices in brilliant flowers; a country that gladly spreads out before us, as so many pretty toys, her illuminated gables and wagons and towers; her cupboards and clocks that gleam at the end of the passage; her little trees marshaled in line along quays and canal-banks, waiting, one almost might think, for some splendid procession to pass; her boats and her barges with sculptured sterns, her flower-like doors and windows, her spotless dams and many-coloured drawbridges; and her little varnished houses, bright as new pottery, from which bell-shaped dames come forth, all a-glitter with silver and gold, to milk the cows in the white-hedged fields, or spread the linen on flowery lawns that are cut into patterns of oval and lozenge and are most amazingly green. to this spot an aged philosopher had retired, having become a little weary; and here he had built his refuge. his happiness lay all in the beauties of his garden; and best-loved, and visited most often, were the bee-hives. there were twelve of them, twelve domes of straw; and some he had painted a bright pink, and some a clear yellow, but most were a tender blue, for he had noticed the fondness of the bees for this color. these hives stood against the wall of the house, in the angle formed by one of those pleasant and graceful dutch kitchens whose earthenware dresser, all bright with copper and brass, was reflected through the open door on to the peaceful water of the canal. and the water, carrying these familiar images beneath its curtain of poplars, led one's eyes to a calm horizon of meadows and of mills. here, as in all places, the hives lent a new meaning to the flowers and the silence, the balm of the air and the rays of the sun. one seemed to have drawn very near to all that was happiest in nature. one was content to sit down and rest at this radiant cross-road, along which the busy and tuneful bearers of all country perfumes were incessantly passing from dawn until dusk. one heard the musical voice of the garden, whose loveliest hours seemed to rejoice and to sing of their gladness. one came here, to the school of the bees, to be taught how nature is always at work, always scheming and planning; and to learn too the lesson of whole-hearted labor which is always to benefit others. in order to follow, as simply as possible, the life of the bees through the year, we will take a hive that awakes in the spring and duly starts on its labors; and then we shall meet, in their order, all the great events of the bees. these are, first of all, the formation and departure of the swarm; then, the foundation of the new city, the birth and flight of the young queens, the massacre of the males, and, last of all, the return of the sleep of winter. we will try to give the reasons for each event, and to show the laws and habits that bring it about; and so, when we have arrived at the end of the bees' short year, which extends only from april to the last days of september, we shall have gazed on all the mysteries of the palace of honey. before we knock at the door, and let our inquisitive glance travel round, it need merely be said that the hive is composed of a queen, who is the mother of all her people; of thousands of female worker-bees, who are neuters or spinsters; and, finally, of some hundreds of males, who never do any work, and are known as drones. when for the first time we take the cover off a hive we cannot help some feeling of fear, as though we were looking at something not meant for our eyes, something alarming and frightening. we have always thought of the bee as rather a dangerous creature. there is the distressful recollection of its sting, which produces so peculiar a pain that one knows not with what to compare it: a sort of dreadful dryness, as though a flame of the desert had scorched the wounded limb; and one asks oneself whether these daughters of the sun may not have distilled a dazzling poison from their father's rays, in order to defend the treasure which they have gathered during his shining hours. there is no doubt that if some person, who neither knows nor respects the habits of the bee, were suddenly to fling open the hive, this would turn itself immediately into a burning-bush of heroism and fury; but the slight amount of skill needed to deal with the matter can be readily acquired. let but a little smoke be deftly applied, let us be gentle and careful in our movements, and the heavily-armed workers will permit themselves to be robbed without the least thought of using their sting. it is not the fact, as some people have stated, that the bees recognize their owner, nor have they any fear of man; but, when the smoke reaches them, when they become aware of what is happening, so quietly and without any haste or disturbance, they imagine that this is not the attack of an enemy against whom any defense is possible, but that it is some natural catastrophe, to which they will do well to submit. instead of vainly struggling, therefore, their one thought is to safeguard their future; and they rush at once to their reserves of honey, into which they eagerly plunge themselves in order to possess the material for starting a new city immediately, no matter where, should the old one be destroyed or they compelled to abandon it. a person who knows nothing of bees will be a little disappointed the first time he looks into a hive. let us say that it is an observation-hive, made of glass, with black curtains and shutters and only one comb, thus enabling the spectator to study both sides. these hives can be placed in a drawing-room or a library without any inconvenience or danger. the bees that live in the one i have in my study in paris are able--even in that great city--to do their own marketing, as it were--in other words, to find the food they require--and to prosper. you will have been told, when you are shown this little glass box, that it is the home of a most extraordinary activity; that it is governed by a number of wise laws, that it enshrines deep mysteries; and all you will see is a mass of little, reddish groups, somewhat resembling roasted coffee-berries or bunches of raisins, all huddled up against the glass. they look more dead than alive; their movements are slow, and seem confused and without any purpose. we ask ourselves, can these be the dazzling creatures we had seen, but a moment ago, flashing and sparkling as they darted among the pearls and the gold of a thousand wide-open flowers? now, in the darkness, they seem to be shivering; to be numbed, suffocated, so closely are they huddled together. they look as though they were prisoners; or shall we say queens who have lost their throne, who have had their one moment of glory in the midst of their radiant garden, and are now compelled to return to the dingy misery of their poor overcrowded home. it is with them as it is with all the real things in life; they must be studied, and we have to learn how to study them. much is happening inside this mass that seems so inactive, but it will take you some time to grasp it and see it. the truth is that every single creature in the little groups that appear scarcely to move is hard at work, each one at its own particular trade. there is not one of them that knows what it means to be idle; and those, for instance, that seem fast asleep, as they hang in great clusters against the glass, are entrusted with the most mysterious and fatiguing task of all; it is their duty to create the marvelous wax. but we shall tell later, and in its place, precisely what each of the bees is doing; for the moment we will merely point out why it is that the different classes of workers all cluster together so strangely. the fact is that the bee, even more than the ant, is only happy when she is in the midst of a crowd; she can only live in the crowd. when she leaves the hive, which is so densely packed that she has to keep on butting with her head in order to pass, she is out of her element, away from what she loves. she will dive for an instant into flower-filled space, as the swimmer will dive into the sea that is filled with pearls; but, just as the swimmer must come to the surface and breathe the air, so must she, at regular intervals, return and breathe the crowd--or she will die. take her away from her comrades, and however abundant the food may be, however gentle the climate, she will perish in a few days, not of hunger or cold, but merely of loneliness. she needs the crowd, she needs her own city, just as she needs the honey on which she lives. this craving for companionship in some way helps us to understand the nature of the laws that govern the hive. for in these laws the individual bee, the one bee apart from the other, simply does not count. her entire life is sacrifice, and only sacrifice, to the bees as a race; as it were, to the everlasting community, of which she forms part. this, however, has not always been the case, for there is a lower order of bees that prefers to work alone, and very miserably too, sometimes never seeing its young, and at others, like the bumble-bee, living in the midst of its own little family. from these we arrive, through one stage after another, to the almost perfect but pitiless society of our hives, where the individual bee exists only for the republic of which it forms a part, and where that republic itself will at all times be sacrificed in the interests of the immortal city of the future. ii the swarm we will now leave our observation hive, and, in order to get nearer to nature, consider the different events of the swarm as they come to pass in an ordinary hive, which is about ten times larger than the other, and offers entire freedom to the bees. here, then, they have shaken off the sluggishness of winter. the queen started laying her eggs in the very first days of february, and the workers have gone in streams to the willows and nuttrees, the gorse and violets, anemones and lungworts. then spring comes upon the earth, and in the hive honey and pollen abound in cellar and attic, while each day sees the birth of thousands of bees. the overgrown males now all sally forth from their cells, and sun themselves on the combs. so crowded does the city become that hundreds of workers, coming back from the flowers in the evening, will vainly seek shelter within, and will be forced to spend the night on the threshold of the hive, where many will die from the cold. the inhabitants of the hive become restless, and the old queen begins to stir. she feels that there is something to be done; something strange, that she has to do. so far, she has religiously fulfilled her duty as a good mother; but, to her, the accomplishment of this duty will bring no reward. an unknown power threatens her tranquillity; she will soon be forced to quit this city of hers, where she has so long reigned. but this city has been made by her. she is not its queen in the sense in which men use the word. she gives no orders; she obeys, as meekly as the humblest of her subjects, the hidden power that for the present we will call the "spirit of the hive." but she is the mother of the city; its inhabitants are all her children. it is she who has founded it, brought it together out of nothing, triumphed over the uncertainty and poverty of its beginning; it is she who has peopled it; and those who move within its walls--the workers, the males, the larvæ, the nymphs and young princesses--she is the mother of them all. what is this "spirit of the hive"--where is it to be found? it is not like the special instinct that teaches the bird to build its well-planned nest, and then seek other skies when winter threatens. it is not a fixed and unchanging habit; it is not a law that deals with special cases. on the contrary, it deals with all cases; it studies them, watches them--and then gives orders for the right thing to be done--just as a faithful steward might do who had only the interests of his master at heart. it deals unmercifully with the wealth and the happiness, the liberty and the life, of all this winged people; and yet it always acts with judgment and wisdom, as though it were itself directed by some overpowering duty. it is the "spirit of the hive" that decides how many bees shall be born every day, arranging this in accordance with the number of flowers that gladden the country-side. it is the "spirit of the hive" that warns the queen when it is time to depart, that compels her to allow the young princesses to come into the world, although these princesses shall be her own rivals. or perhaps, when the season is on the wane, and the flowers are growing less plentiful, the spirit will instruct the workers to do away with the princesses, so that there may be no chance of disturbance, and work may once again become the sole object of all. the spirit of the hive is prudent and wise, but never niggardly. in the glad summer days of sunshine and plenty it permits three or four hundred males to exist in the hive--pompous, useless, noisy creatures, who are greedy and dirty, vulgar and arrogant; but, one morning when the flowers are beginning to close earlier and open later, the spirit will quietly issue instructions that every male shall be killed. it draws up a sort of time-table for each one of the workers, allotting them tasks in accordance with their age; it selects the nurses who attend to the larvæ, and the ladies of honor who wait on the queen and never by any chance let her out of their sight. it has given the necessary orders to the house-bees who air and warm the hive by fanning their wings, thereby also helping the honey to settle; to the architects, masons, waxworkers and sculptors who form the mysterious curtain and build the combs; to the foragers who sally forth to the flowers in search of the nectar that turns into honey, of the pollen that feeds the larvæ, and of the water and salt required by the youth of the city. it is the spirit of the hive that has chosen the chemists whose business it is to keep the honey sweet and fresh by allowing a drop of formic acid to fall in from the end of their sting; the capsule-makers, who seal up the provision-cells when these are filled; the sweepers, who clean the streets and public places of the hive; and the guards who all day and all night keep watch on the threshold, who question all comers and goers, recognize the young bees as they return from their very first flight, scare away vagabonds, loafers and trespassers, expel all intruders, and, if need be, block up and defend the entrance to the hive. and, last of all, it is the spirit of the hive which decides on the hour at which the bees shall swarm; the hour, that is, when we find a whole people, who have reached the very height of prosperity and power, suddenly abandoning, in favor of the generation that is to follow, all their wealth and their palaces, their homes and the fruits of their labor, content themselves to face the perils and hardships of a journey into a new and distant country. this act will always bring poverty with it and sometimes ruin; and the people who once were so happy are scattered abroad in obedience to a law that they recognize to be greater than their own happiness. these things that happen to the bee are regarded by us in the way we regard most things that happen in the world. we note some of the bees' habits; we say, they do this, and do that, they work in such and such a way, this is how their queens are born; we observe that the workers are all females and that they swarm at a certain time. and having said this, we think that we know them, and ask nothing more. we watch them hastening from flower to flower, we see the constant movement within the hive; and we tell ourselves that we understand all about their life. but the moment that we try to come nearer the truth, to see more clearly, we find puzzling questions confronting us, questions as to what part is played by destiny and what part by will, how much is due to intelligence and how much to nature; difficult questions, these, that are never absent even from the most simple acts of our own daily life. our hive, then, is preparing to swarm, making ready for the great sacrifice to the generation that is to come. in obedience to the order given by the "spirit of the hive," sixty or seventy thousand bees out of the eighty or ninety thousand that form the whole population, will forsake their old city at a given hour. they will not be leaving it at a moment of great unhappiness; they have not suddenly made up their minds to abandon a home that has been rendered miserable by hunger or illness, or ruined by war. no; on the contrary, preparations have for a long time been made, and the hour most favorable for departure patiently awaited. if the hive were poor, or had suffered from storm or robbery; or if some misfortune had befallen the royal family, the bees would not dream of going away. they do this only when everything is at its very best in the hive; at a time when, thanks to the enormous amount of work done in the spring, the immense palace of wax has its 120,000 well-arranged cells overflowing with honey and with the many-colored flour, known as "bees' bread," on which the larvæ are fed. never is the hive more beautiful than on the eve of its great sacrifice. let us try to imagine it for ourselves--not as it appears to the bee, for we cannot tell what it looks like to her, seen through the triple eye on her brow and the six or seven thousand facets of the eyes on her side--but as it would seem to us, were we no bigger than she is. from the height of a dome greater than that of st. peter's at rome waxen walls descend to the ground; and these walls, although they have all been built in the dark, are more perfect, more wonderful, than any that have been erected by human hands. each one, smelling so fresh and so sweet, contains thousands of cells that are stored with provisions; enough, indeed, to feed the whole population for weeks. here, too, are transparent cells filled with the pollen of every flower of spring, making brilliant splashes of red and yellow, of black and mauve. close by, sealed with a seal to be broken only in days of distress, is the honey of april, clearest and most perfumed of all, stored in twenty thousand vats, which look like a long and beautiful embroidery of gold, with borders that hang stiff and rigid. lower down still, the honey of may is maturing, in huge open tanks, that are fanned all the time by watchful, untiring guardians. in the center, in the warmest part of the hive, are the royal nurseries, the domain set apart for the queen and her attendants; here also are about 16,000 cells wherein the eggs repose, 15 or 16,000 chambers occupied by the youthful bees, and 40,000 rooms filled with infants in their cradles, cared for by thousands of nurses. and, last of all, in the most secret and private quarters, are the three, four, six or twelve sealed palaces, vast in size compared with the others, where the growing princesses lie who await their hour; wrapped in a kind of shroud, all of them motionless and pale, and fed in the darkness. the appointed day arrives, the one that has been chosen by the "spirit of the hive"; and a certain part of the population will at once sally forth. in the sleeping city there remain the males, the very young bees that look after the brood-cells, and some thousands of workers who go on gathering honey, guarding the treasure, and keeping up the moral atmosphere of the hive. for it must be understood that each hive has its own moral code; some are admirable in every respect, while others have fallen away sadly from the paths of virtue. a careless bee-keeper will often spoil his people, and cause them to lose respect for the property of others, whereby they will become a danger to all the hives around. they will give up the hundreds of visits to neighboring flowers that are necessary in order to form one drop of honey, and will prefer to force their way into other hives, that are too weak for selfdefense, and to rob these of the fruit of their labors; and it is very difficult to bring back to the paths of duty a hive that shall have become so depraved. all things go to prove that it is not the queen, but the "spirit of the hive," that fixes on the hour for the swarm. this queen of ours, like many a leader among men, is herself compelled to obey commands that are far more important, and far more secret, than those which she gives to her subjects. at break of dawn, or perhaps a night or two before, the word will be given; and scarcely has the sun drunk in the first drops of dew when a most unusual stir may be noticed inside and all around the buzzing hive. sometimes, too, for day after day before the actual swarming takes place, one will find a curious excitement, for which there would seem no cause, that suddenly appears, and as suddenly vanishes, in the golden, gleaming throng. one asks oneself, has a cloud that we cannot see crept across the sky that the bees are watching; or is it their mere sorrow at the thought of leaving? has a council of bees been summoned to consider whether they really must go? of all this we know nothing; we do know that the "spirit of the hive" has no difficulty in letting its message be known to the multitude. certain as it may seem that the bees are able to communicate with each other, we cannot tell whether this is done in our human fashion. it is possible that they themselves do not hear their own song, the murmur that comes to us heavily laden with perfume of honey, the joyous whisper of fairest summer days that the bee-keeper loves so well, the festival song of labor that rises and falls around the hive, and that might almost be the chant of the eager flowers, the voice of the white carnation, the marjoram, and the thyme. certain sounds that the bees put forth, however, can be readily understood by us, sounds that convey anger, sorrow, rejoicing or threats. they have their songs of abundance, when the harvest is plentiful, their psalms of grief and the chorus they chant to the queen; and at the time when she is being chosen the young princesses will send forth long and mysterious warcries.... it is quite possible that the sounds we ourselves make do not reach the bees; in any event these sounds do not seem in the least to disturb them, but are regarded by the bees perhaps as not intended for them, not in their world, and anyhow of no interest. in the same way perhaps we too only hear a very small part of the sounds that the bees produce, and there may be many of which we are ignorant. we soon shall be shown how quickly they contrive to understand each other, and how each one is told precisely the right thing to do, when, for instance, that great honey-thief, the dreadful moth that bears a death's head on its back, forces its way into the hive, humming its own strange song. the news travels quickly from group to group; and from the guards on the threshold to the workers on the most distant combs, the whole population of the hive becomes suddenly alert and eager, and trembles with fear. for a long time it was thought that when these clever bees, usually so prudent and well-advised, left the treasures of their kingdom and sought a future that was so full of uncertainty, they were obeying some foolish impulse, some suggestion that had no especial meaning. it is our habit, when we consider the bees, to say that all that we do not as yet understand is just due to fate, that it happens because it had to happen. but now that we have discovered two or three of the secrets of the hive, we have learned why it is that the bees swarm; the reason being merely that the generation at present in the hive has thought it its duty to sacrifice itself on behalf of the generation that is to come. the fact that this is the case can easily be proved. if the bee-keeper chooses to destroy the young queens in their cells, to enlarge the store-houses and dormitories in the hive, all the restlessness, confusion, the stir and the worry, would at once disappear. the bees would immediately take up their work again and revisit the flowers; the old queen, having no one to fill her place, would give up her great desire for the light of the sun, and decide to remain where she was. all her doubts as to the future being now set at rest, she would peacefully continue her labors, which consist in the laying of two or three thousand eggs a day, as she passes from cell to cell, omitting none, and never pausing to rest. this particular hive, however, that we are now watching, has not been interfered with by man; the bees have been left to do what seemed right to them. on the appointed day then, the beautiful day, whose dawn, still moist with the dew, comes nearer and nearer beneath the trees, approaching with radiant and glowing steps, the bees all become impatient, and feverishly restless. over the whole surface of the golden corridors that divide the walls of the hive, the workers are busily making preparations for the journey. each one will first of all provide herself with honey sufficient for five or six days. from this honey that they carry within them they will distil the wax needed to build the new home. they will take with them also some kind of solid substance with which they will afterwards block up all the holes, strengthen weak places, varnish the walls and shut out the light; for the bees love to work in complete darkness, guiding themselves with their wonderful eyes, or perhaps with their antennæ, or feelers, which very possibly possess some sense, unknown to us, that enables them to triumph over the darkness. this is the most dangerous day in the life of the bee; it is full of the most dreadful possibilities; and the bees are well aware of it. thinking of nothing now but their mighty adventure, they will have no time to visit the gardens and meadows; and to-morrow, and after to-morrow, it may rain, or there may be wind; their wings may be frozen and the flowers refuse to open. they would soon die of hunger; no one would come to help them, and they would seek help from none. for one city knows not the other, and assistance never is given. and even if the bee-keeper place the new hive by the side of the old one, the queen and her cluster of bees would not dream of returning to the safety and wealth of the home they had left, no matter what hardships they might have to endure; and all, one by one, and down to the last of them, would perish of hunger and cold around their unhappy queen rather than go back to the hive where they were born. this is a thing, some people might say, that men would not do; it is a proof that the bee cannot have much intelligence. is this so certain? other creatures may have an intelligence that is different from ours, and produces different results; and yet it does not follow that they are inferior to us. are we so readily able to understand of what the people are thinking whom we see, perhaps, talking behind a closed window or moving about in the street? or let us suppose that an inhabitant of venus or mars were to look down from the top of a mountain, and watch us, who to him would seem mere little black specks, as we come and go in the streets and squares of our towns. would the mere sight of our movements, our buildings, machines and canals, give him any very real idea of ourselves? all he could do, like ourselves as we gaze at the hive, would be to take note of one or two facts that seem very extraordinary. and from these facts he would jump at conclusions that would be just as uncertain as those that it pleases us to form concerning the bee. "what are they aiming at, what are they trying for?" he would wonder, after years and years of patient watching. "i can see nothing that seems to direct their actions. the little things that one day they collect and build up, the next they destroy and scatter. in a great many cases their conduct is quite extraordinary. there are some men, for instance, who seem to do no work and hardly to stir from their place. they can be told from the others by their glossier coat, and also by their being generally fatter. they live in buildings ten or twenty times bigger than those of the workers, very much richer, and full of little ingenious contrivances. they spend a great many hours every day at their meals, of which they take a great number. they appear to be held in high honor by all who come near them; and have numbers of men and women to wait on them, to feed them and look after them. it can only be assumed that these persons must be of the greatest use and service to the country, but i have so far not been able to discover what this service may be. there are others who do nothing but work, and work very hard indeed, in great sheds full of wheels that are always turning round and round, or in dark and dirty hovels, or on small plots of earth that from sunrise to sunset they are always digging and delving. it is certain that this labor must be an offense, and one which is punished. for the persons who are guilty of it are lodged in wretched little houses, in which there is absolutely no comfort at all, and very often no light and no air. they are clothed in some colorless sort of hide. they are so madly fond of the foolish things they are doing that they scarcely allow themselves time to eat or to sleep. in numbers they are to the others as a thousand to one. the curious thing is that, apart from this extraordinary craving for their work--which would seem to be very tiring--they appear to be quite gentle and harmless, and satisfied with the leavings of those who are evidently the guardians, if not the saviors, of the race." whatever we may think about the intelligence of the bee, we must at least admire the way in which it sacrifices itself to the one thing it seems to care for or value--and that is, the future. it is the future of the race, and that only, which directs the bee's actions, its virtues, and even its cruelties. that is its ideal, the one thing it lives for; and where shall we find one that is more sublime, where shall we look for a self-denial that is braver or more complete? it is such a logical little republic, this one of the bees; they reason so clearly, they are so careful and wise; and yet they allow this dream of theirs, this dream that is so uncertain and full of doubt, to master them completely. who shall tell us, oh little people, who are so deeply in earnest, who have fed on the warmth and the light and on all that is purest in nature, on the very soul of the flowers, who shall tell us why you seem to have found the answer to questions that to us are unanswerable still? oh little city, so full of faith, and mystery, and hope, why do your thousands of workers sacrifice themselves so cheerfully? another spring, another summer, would be theirs if only they would not waste their strength so recklessly, if only they would take a little more care of themselves and not work so dreadfully hard; but at the wonderful moment when the flowers are calling to them, the bees forget everything but their work, give themselves up to it whole-heartedly, passionately; with the result that in less than five weeks they are worn out, their wings are broken, their bodies shriveled and covered with wounds. why, we ask ourselves, why do they give up their sleep, the delights of honey, the leisure that their winged brother, the butterfly, enjoys so gaily? it is not because they are hungry. two or three flowers will provide each bee with the nourishment that she requires, and in one hour she will visit two or three hundred, to gather a treasure whose sweetness she never will taste. oh bees, we wonder, why all this toil and suffering? and the answer is that they aim at one thing only, to live, as long as the world itself, in those that come after them. but we are forgetting the hive, where the swarming bees have begun to lose patience; the hive whose black and trembling waves are bubbling and overflowing, like melting copper beneath a hot sun. it is noon, and the heat so great that the trees around appear almost to hold back their leaves, as we hold our breath when something very solemn and wonderful is about to happen. the bees give their honey and sweet-smelling wax to the man who keeps them, but more precious gift still is their summoning him to the gladness of june, to the joy of the beautiful months; for events in which bees take part happen only when skies are pure, at the joyous hours of the year when flowers are brightest. the bees are the soul of the summer, the clock whose hands are marking the moments of plenty; they are the untiring wing on which delicate scents are floating; they are the guide of the quivering sunbeams, the song of the tranquil, gentle air. to see them in their flight recalls to us the many simple joys of the quiet hours of summer; as we look at them, we seem to hear the whisper of the good, kindly heat. to him who has known them and loved them, a summer where there are no bees becomes as sad and as empty as one without flowers or birds. it will startle you just a little, the first time you see the great swarm of a bee-hive. you will be almost afraid to go near it. you will wonder, can these be the same friendly, hard-working bees that you have so often watched in the past? a few minutes ago, perhaps, you may have seen them flocking in from all parts of the country, as busy as little housewives, with no thought beyond household cares. you will have watched them stream into the hive, all out of breath, tired, flurried; you will have seen the young guards at the gate salute them as they passed by. they will have rushed through, to the inner court, and have quickly handed over their harvest of honey to the workers on duty there, exchanging with these the three or four necessary words; or perhaps they will have hastened to the great vats near the brood-cells, and will have emptied the two heavy baskets of honey that hung from their thighs, then going out again without giving a thought to what might be happening in the royal palace, the work-rooms, or the nurseries, where the young bees lie asleep; without for one instant heeding the babble in the public place in front of the gate, the place where the cleaners, when the heat is very great, are accustomed to gather and gossip. but to-day everything is changed. a certain number of workers, it is true, will quietly go off to the fields, as though nothing were happening, and will come back, clean the hive, attend to the brood-cells, and take no part whatever in the general rejoicing. these bees are the ones who are not going away with the queen. they will remain to guard the old home, to look after the nine or ten thousand eggs, the eighteen thousand young bees, and the seven or eight royal princesses who to-day will be forsaken. the order has been given, and is faithfully obeyed; and hardly ever will one of these resigned cinderellas be found in the giddy throng of the swarm. and yet, the temptation must seem very great. it is the festival of honey, the triumph of the race; the one day of joy, of forgetfulness and light-heartedness, the only sunday the bees ever know. it seems, too, to be the one day on which all eat their fill, and revel, to heart's content, in the treasure which they have amassed. they might be prisoners freed at last, suddenly led into a land overflowing with plenty. they cannot contain the joy that is in them. they come and go without aim or purpose; they depart and return, sally forth again to see if the queen is ready; they tease and play about with their sisters, and do anything to pass the time. they fly much higher than usual, and the leaves of the mighty trees round about are all quivering in reply. the bees have left all trouble behind, and all care. they no longer are fierce, suspicious, angry. on this day man can go near them and handle them, can divide the glittering curtain they form as they fly round and round in songful circles. he can take them up in his hand, he can gather them as he would a bunch of grapes; for to-day, in their gladness, possessing nothing, but full of faith in the future, they will submit to everything and injure no one, so long as they be not separated from their queen, on whom that future depends. but the signal has not yet been given. in the hive there is the strangest confusion, a disorder which we are unable to understand. at ordinary times, each bee, as soon as she has returned to the hive, appears to forget her wings; she will do her work, scarcely making a movement, on that particular spot in the hive where her special duties lie. but to-day every bee seems bewitched; they fly in dense circles round and round the smooth walls, like a living jelly stirred by an unseen hand. there are times even when the air inside the hive will become so hot that the wax of which the buildings are made will soften, and twist out of shape. the queen, who till now never has stirred from the center of the comb, is rushing wildly to and fro, in breathless excitement, clambering over the crowd that keeps on turning and turning. is she hastening their departure, or trying to prevent it? is she commanding or imploring? is she the cause of all this emotion, or merely its victim? there would seem reason to believe that the swarming always takes place against the wish of the queen. the workers, her daughters, are extraordinarily good to her, but it is just possible that they have not much faith in her intelligence. they treat her rather like a mother who has seen her best days. their respect for her, their tenderness, is remarkable, and there is nothing they would not do for her. the purest honey is kept for her use. she has guardians who watch over her by day and by night, and get the cells ready in which the eggs are to be laid. she has loving attendants who pet and fondle her, who feed her and clean her. should she meet with the slightest accident, the news will spread quickly from group to group, and the whole people will rush to and fro with loud expressions of sorrow. if she were to be taken away from the hive at a time when the bees had no hope of filling her place, the work of the city would stop in every direction. no one would look after the young; the bees would wander about looking for their mother, many of them leaving the hive. the workers who were building the comb would scatter, the gatherers of honey would no longer visit the flowers, the guards at the gate would give up their post; and the enemies of the hive, who are always watching for a chance to come in and steal, would enter and leave without any one giving a thought to the defense of the treasure which it had taken so long to collect. and poverty, little by little, would creep into the city; and the miserable inhabitants would before long all die of sorrow and hunger, though every flower of summer should be blossoming before them. but if the queen be put back before the bees have suffered too much, before they believe her to be lost forever, they will give her the deepest, most touching welcome. they will flock eagerly round her; excited groups will crawl over each other in their anxiety to see her. they rush to offer her honey, and lead her in triumph back to the royal chamber. and order at once comes back and work starts again, from the comb gatherer of brood-cells to the furthest cells where the reserve honey is stored. and the bees go forth to the flowers, in long black files, to return, in less than three minutes sometimes, with their harvest of nectar and pollen. the streets will be swept, thieves and other enemies driven out, and in the hive will be heard the soft sounds of the strange hymn of rejoicing, which would seem to be the chant that denotes the presence of the queen. a number of instances could be given of the absolute devotion that the workers show for their queen. should a disaster fall on the city; should the hive or the comb collapse; should the bees suffer from hunger, from cold or disease, and die in their thousands, the queen will nearly always be found, alive and safe, beneath the bodies of her faithful daughters. they may be relied on to protect her, and help her to escape; they will keep for her the last drop of honey, the last morsel of food. and be the disaster never so great, they will not lose heart so long as the queen be alive. you may break their comb twenty times in succession, twenty times take from them their young and their food, you will still never succeed in making them despair of the future. though they be starving, and so few in number that they scarcely can conceal their mother from the enemy's gaze, they will set about to start the city again and to provide for what is most pressing. they will quietly accept the new conditions, and divide the work between them in accordance with these conditions; they will take up their labors again with extraordinary patience, and zeal, and intelligence. "i have come across a colony of bees," says langstroth, "that was not sufficiently large to cover a comb of three inches square, and yet they tried to rear a queen. for two whole weeks did these bees cherish their hope. finally, when their number was reduced by a half, their queen was born, but her wings were imperfect, and she was unable to fly. incomplete as she was, her bees did not treat her with less respect. another week, and scarcely a dozen remained alive; a few days more, and the queen had vanished, leaving only a few wretched, inconsolable insects mourning for her on the comb." i have more than once had queens sent to me from italy, for the italian species is stronger, more active and gentler than our own. it is the custom to forward them in small boxes, with holes made in the top so as to let in the air. in these boxes, some food is placed, and the queen put in, together with a certain number of workers, who are selected as far as possible from among the oldest bees in the hive. (the age of the bee can easily be told by its body, which becomes more polished, thinner and almost bald as it grows older; and more particularly by the wings, which the hard work uses and tears.) it is the mission of these worker-bees to feed the queen during the journey, to tend her and guard her. i would frequently find, when the box arrived, that nearly every one of the workers had died. on one occasion, indeed, they had all perished of hunger; but in this instance, as in all others, the queen was alive, unharmed and full of strength. the last of her companions had probably died in the act of presenting the last drop of honey she held in her sac to the queen, who was the emblem of a life more precious and more sacred than her own. it is probably not because of the queen herself, but of the future that she represents, that the bees show so great a devotion. for they are by no means sentimental; and should one of their number return to the hive so badly wounded that she will be unable to work again, they will unmercifully drive her away from the city. but for their mother they always show the same strong attachment. they will recognize her from among all; and even though she be old, crippled and forlorn, the guards at the gate will never allow another queen to enter the hive, however young and much needed she be. when the queen has grown old, the bees will bring up a certain number of royal princesses to take her place. what happens then to the old queen? as to this, we have no certain knowledge; but bee-keepers will occasionally find a magnificent young queen perched on the central comb of the hive, and in some dark corner, hidden away at the back, the haggard old queen who had reigned before her. in cases like this the bees will have to take the greatest care to protect her from the hatred of the powerful newcomer who longs for her death; for queen hates queen so fiercely that, were two to find themselves under the same roof, they would immediately fly at each other. one would like to believe that the bees contrive to provide a shelter for their poor old queen, in some far-away corner of the hive, where she may end her days in peace. but here we are confronted again by one of the thousand mysteries of the city of wax; and we are once more shown that the habits and actions of the bees depend on themselves, and are governed by an intelligence much greater than we are inclined to believe. what would the bees do, if we, by force or by some trick, were to bring a second queen into the city? though their sting is always in readiness, and they make constant use of it in fights among themselves, _they will never draw it against a queen;_ nor will the queen ever draw hers on man, or an animal or any ordinary bee. she will never unsheath her royal weapon--which is curved, instead of being straight, like that of the worker-bee--except only when she is opposed to, and fighting, another queen. if a new queen were brought into the hive, the bees would at once surround her, making a ring with their bodies. they would thus form a sort of living prison in which the captive would be unable to move; and in this prison they would keep her for twenty-four hours, or longer if need be, till the victim shall have died of suffocation or hunger. but if the reigning queen should approach, and seem anxious to attack the stranger, the living walls would at once fly open; and the bees, forming a circle around the two, will eagerly watch the strange duel, in which they themselves will take no part whatever. for it is written that against a queen-bee only another queen may draw her sting. if the fight should last too long, or one of the rivals attempt to escape, then, no matter whether she be the reigning queen or the intruder, she will at once be seized and kept in the living prison until she again shows readiness to attack her foe. the reigning queen will almost always conquer, being emboldened and encouraged perhaps by the knowledge that she is fighting in her own home, with her subjects around her. perhaps too the bees may make some difference in their treatment of the rivals during the period of imprisonment, for their mother seems scarcely to suffer from it at all, while the stranger always appears a little weakened and bruised. we have shown that, if the queen be taken away from the hive, her people will mourn her, and display every sign of the deepest distress. if she be put back, a few hours later, her daughters will hasten joyfully towards her, offering honey; one section will respectfully form a lane for her to pass through, while others, their heads bent low, will move in great semi-circles before her, singing the song of welcome that is only heard at moments of great happiness and solemn devotion. but if a new queen were placed in the hive, instead of the old one, the greatest trouble and disturbance would ensue. the bees would know at once that a trick had been played on them; the impostor would be seized, and immediately confined in the terrible living walls made by their bodies, and held there until she died. she will hardly ever be allowed to come out alive. there are ways, however, of dealing with this hatred of the new-comer; and one of them is to bring her into the hive enclosed in a little cage with iron wires, which is hung between two combs. the door of the cage is made of wax and honey; the bees, after their first display of fury, will gnaw at the wax and honey, thus freeing the prisoner, who will then sometimes be allowed to go unharmed, and be subsequently accepted. there is another way, too, that is used by a bee-master at rottingdean, who imagined that the unfavorable reception of the new queen might in some degree be caused by her own curious behavior. no sooner will she have been put into the hive than she will rush wildly to and fro, vainly trying to hide in one place or another, and generally doing all she can to make the bees suspicious. mr. simmins, the bee-master in question, shuts the queen up for half an hour without any food before putting her into the hive. he then carefully raises a corner of the cover, and drops her on to the top of one of the combs. she seems overjoyed at finding the bees around her, and as she is starving she gladly accepts the food that they offer her. the workers, deceived by her manner, seem to believe that she actually is their old queen who has come back to them, and welcome her joyfully. in this case, therefore, it would seem that huber, and the other experts who declare that the bees can always recognize their own queen, are not entirely right. and there is also this to be said about the affection the bees have for their queen. that affection is real, and certainly exists; but it is certain also that it does not last very long. if you were to put back into the hive a queen who had been away for several days, her daughters would receive her so badly that you would have to snatch her up very quickly, and take her away. the explanation is that the bees will have made their arrangements to replace her, and will have turned a dozen workers'cells into royal cradles, thus providing for a new queen and rendering the future safe. they will therefore have nothing more to do with the old one. the future is the bees' one consideration, and they sacrifice everything to it. as a curious instance, one may mention the way in which they will deal with a mouse, or a slug perhaps, that shall have managed to get into the hive. they will very soon kill the intruder, but then have to consider how they will get rid of the body. if they are unable to drag it out of the hive or tear it to pieces, they will build a perfect waxen tomb round it, which will tower strangely above the ordinary monuments of the city. in one of my hives last year i found three such tombs side by side; they had been made with party-walls, like the cells of the comb, so that no wax should be wasted. the careful grave-diggers had raised these tombs over the remains of three snails that a child had dropped into the hive. generally, in the case of snails, the bees will be satisfied to seal the opening of the shell with wax. but here it seemed that the shells were broken, and the bees had therefore thought it wiser to bury the entire snail; and so that the entrance-hall should not be blocked, they had made a number of galleries, wide enough for the male bees, which are almost twice as big as the workers, to pass through. in districts where the hideous death's-head moth abounds, the bees erect little columns of wax at the entrance of the hive, and place them so closely together that the night-thief cannot pass through. and now to return to our swarming hive, where the bees have already given the signal for flight. and at once, as though with one sudden impulse, every gate in the city is flung open wide; and the black throng issues, or rather pours forth, in a double or treble jet, in a throbbing, quivering stream, that quickly divides and melts into space, where the thousands of beating wings weave a tissue humming with sound. and this for some moments will hover above the hive, rustling like gossamer silk; then, like a veil of gladness, all stirring and quivering, it floats to and fro, from the flowers up to the sky. the radiant mantle will gather together its four sunlit corners; and, like the fairy carpet, will fly across space, steering its straight, direct course to the willow, the pear-tree or lime on which the queen will have settled. around her each wave comes to rest, as though on a golden nail, and from it there hangs the tissue of pearls and of golden wings. and then there is silence once more; and, in an instant, this mighty tumult, this bewildering golden hail that streamed upon every object near, becomes nothing more than a cluster of inoffensive and harmless bees, that wait patiently, in thousands of little motionless groups hanging down from the branch of a tree, for the scouts to return who have gone in search of a place of shelter. this is the first stage of what is known as the "primary swarm," at whose head the old queen is always to be found. the bees will usually settle on the shrub or the tree that is nearest the hive; for the queen, who has spent all her life in the dark and has almost forgotten the use of her wings, is afraid to venture too far. the bee-keeper waits till the great mass of bees is all gathered together; then, having covered his head with a large straw hat (for the most inoffensive bee will think it is caught in a trap if entangled in hair, and will at once use its sting) but, if he be experienced, wearing neither mask nor veil--having taken the precaution only of plunging his arms in cold water up to the elbow--he proceeds to gather the swarm by vigorously shaking, over an inverted hive, the bough from which the bees are hanging. into this hive the cluster will fall just like an over-ripe fruit. or, if the branch be too thick, he can plunge a spoon into the mass, and ladle it out, placing the living spoonfuls wherever it pleases him, as though they were grains of corn. he need have no fear of the bees that are buzzing around him, and settling on his face and hands; and he knows that the swarm will not divide, or grow fierce, will not scatter, or try to escape. this is a day when these strange workers seem to make holiday, and to be full of a faith and a confidence that nothing can shake. they have given up the treasure which they used to guard so preciously; they no longer have enemies. they are harmless because they are happy; though why they are happy we know not, unless it be because they are doing what they feel it is right to do. where the queen has alighted the swarm will remain; and if she goes into the hive, the long black files of the bees will closely follow, as soon as the news shall reach them. most of them will go eagerly in; but many will stay for an instant on the threshold of the new home, and there form themselves into solemn, ceremonious circles, which is their method of celebrating happy events. "they are beating to arms," the french peasants say. the new home will at once be adopted, and its furthest corners explored. its position, its shape, its color, are taken note of and never forgotten by these thousands of eager and faithful little memories, which have also duly recorded the neighboring landmarks; the new city is founded and the thought of it fills the mind and the heart of all its inhabitants; the walls resound with the song that proclaims the royal presence; and work begins. but if the swarm be not gathered by man, its history will not end here. it will cling to the branch of the tree till the scouts return who have been flying in every direction looking for a new home. they will come back one by one, and give an account of their mission. the report of each scout will probably be very carefully considered. one of them, perhaps, will speak favorably of some hollow tree it has seen; another has something to say about a crack in a ruined wall, a hole in a grotto, or an abandoned burrow. sometimes the assembly will stop and weigh matters over till the next morning; but at last the choice is made and agreed to by all. at a given moment the entire mass stirs, divides and sets forth; and then, in one sustained and impetuous flight that this time knows no obstacle, it steers its straight course, over hedges and cornfields, over haystack and lake, over river and village, to its fixed and always far-away goal. it is rarely indeed that this second stage can be followed by man. the swarm returns to nature; and we know not what becomes of it. iii the foundation of the city the bee-keeper has gathered the swarm into his hive; let us now see what they will do. and, first of all, let us not be unmindful of the sacrifice that these fifty thousand workers have made, who, as ronsard says "in a little body bear so brave a heart," and let us, yet again, admire the courage with which they begin their life anew in the desert into which they have fallen. they have forgotten the wealth and magnificence of their native city; they are indifferent to all they have left behind. they give not a thought to the vast store of pollen that they had collected, to the 120 pounds of honey, a quantity, let it be remembered, which is more than twelve times the weight of all the bees in the hive put together, and close on 600,000 times that of the single bee. or you might say that to us it would mean something like 42,000 tons of provisions, a great fleet laden with nourishment more precious than any known to us; for to the bee honey is a kind of liquid life, which it absorbs with almost no waste whatever. here, in the new abode, there is nothing; not a drop of honey, not a morsel of wax; there is nothing to begin on, there is nothing to serve as a starting-point. there is only the dreary emptiness of an enormous building with its bare sides and roof. the smooth and rounded walls enclose only darkness; under the lofty arch is a mere void. but useless regrets are unknown to the bee; at any rate, they are not allowed to interfere with work. and instead of being depressed or moping in a corner, the bee sets to at once, and more energetically than ever. immediately, and without the smallest delay, the tangled mass divides, splits up and forms itself into groups. most of these will proceed, marching abreast in regular columns, like regiments obeying the word of command, and will begin to climb the steep walls of the hive. the first bees to reach the dome will cling to it with the claws of their front legs; those behind will hang on to the ones in front of them, and the next the same, and so on to the end, till long chains have been made that serve as a sort of bridge for the crowd which is ever mounting and mounting. and, by slow degrees, these chains, as the number of bees which form them becomes greater and greater, become a kind of dense, three-cornered curtain. when the the last of the bees has joined itself to this curtain that hangs in the darkness, all movement ceases in the hive; and for long hours this strange cluster will wait, in a stillness so complete as to be almost uncanny, for the mystery of wax to appear. in the meantime, the rest of the bees--those whose business it was to remain below in the hive--have paid not the smallest attention to the others who were forming the curtain, and have made no effort whatever to add themselves to the number. they have been told off to inspect the hive, and to do what is immediately necessary. they start sweeping the floor, and most carefully remove, one by one, every twig, grain of sand, and dead leaf. this satisfactorily accomplished, they will most thoroughly examine and test the floor of the new dwelling. they will fill up every crack and crevice with a kind of raw wax; they will start varnishing the walls, from the top to the bottom. a certain number of guards will be sent to the gate, to take up their post there; and very soon a detachment of workers will go forth to the fields, whence they will come back with their store of pollen. before we raise the folds of the mysterious curtain, let us try to form some idea of the skill and industry shown by the bees in fitting up the new hive to serve their purposes. within the walls there is merely a desert; they must plan out their city, decide where the dwellings shall be; and these must be built as quickly as possible, for the queen is ready to begin to lay her eggs. they must consider the ventilation of these dwellings, and these, too, must be strong and substantial. different buildings will be wanted for the different kinds of food that are to be stored in them; also it is important that they should be handily placed, so that there shall be no difficulty in finding them; and passages and streets must be contrived between the cells and store-houses. and there are many other problems besides, too many indeed to relate, but they have all to be dealt with. bee-keepers provide different kinds of hives for the bees, ranging from the hollow tree, or the earthenware pot, or the familiar bell-shaped dome of straw which we find in our farmers' kitchen-gardens or under their windows, hidden away between masses of sunflowers, phlox and hollyhock, to what may be called the model factory, which is, as it were, the last word of man's ingenuity as applied to the bee. it is a building that will hold more than three hundred pounds of honey, having three or four layers of combs set in a frame which makes it easy to remove or handle the combs and take out the honey; after which, the combs can be put back in their place like a book that we return to the shelf. now let us imagine that one fine day an obedient swarm of bees is lodged in one of these hives. the little insects are expected to be able to find their way about, to make their home there, to accept all these strange things as natural. they have to make up their minds where the winter storehouses shall be, and where the brood-cells; and these last must not be too high or too low, neither too near to or far from the entrance gate. the swarm may very likely just have come from the trunk of a fallen tree, in which there was one long, narrow gallery; it finds itself now in a tower-shaped building, whose ceiling is lost in the gloom. and in the midst of this building is a confused and bewildering network of frames and scaffolding, the like of which the bee never has seen; and all around it are puzzling signs of the impertinent interference of man. but all this makes no difference to the bee; and no case has ever been known of a swarm refusing to do its duty, or of allowing the strangeness of its surroundings to discourage it--except only if the new home should be too much exposed to the weather, or have an offensive smell. and even then they will not give way to despair; they will promptly abandon the place, fly away and seek better fortune a little further off. but if no objection of this kind offers itself in a huge factory of this kind, the bees will calmly go their own way, paying no heed whatever to man's desires or intentions; the frames seem to them of use for their combs, they will readily accept them. this will be more particularly the case if the bee-keeper has artfully surrounded the upper layers of the comb with a little strip of wax; the bees will pick out the wax, and go on with the comb. if this should be covered all over with leaves of foundation-wax, the bees will often be content to deepen and lengthen the cells that have been traced out in the leaves, but will be careful to alter the position of the cells should these not form an absolutely straight line. and thus, in the space of a week, they will be in possession of a city as comfortable and well-built as the one they have left; whereas, in the ordinary way, if all the work had had to be done by them, it would have taken them two or three months to erect the buildings and storehouses out of their own shining wax. sir john lubbock, who has written many interesting books on ants, bees, and wasps, does not believe that the bee has any real intelligence of its own, once it departs from what it has always been accustomed to do. and as a proof of this he mentions an experiment that any one can try for himself. if you put half a dozen bees, and the same number of flies into a bottle, then place the bottle on the table with its foot to the window, you will find that the bees will be quite unable to find their way out, and will go on flinging themselves against the glass, till they die of fatigue and hunger; while the flies will all have escaped, in less than two minutes, through the open neck of the bottle. sir john lubbock concludes from this that the bee cannot reason at all, and that the fly shows more ingenuity in getting out of a difficulty. it is not quite sure, however, that this conclusion is the right one. if you take up the bottle and turn it round and round, holding now the neck and now the foot to the window, you will find that the bees will turn with it, so as always to face the light. it is their love of the light, it is actually because of their intelligence, that they come to grief in this experiment. they feel convinced that the escape from every prison must be there where the light shines clearest. to them glass is a mystery which they have never met with in nature; they cannot understand why they are unable to pass through it, and convinced that there must be a way, they persevere to the end; in fact, it is because of their intelligence that they make these unhappy efforts to discover the secret. the feather-brained flies, on the other hand, to whom the mystery of glass means nothing and who possess no power of thought whatever, merely flutter wildly hither and thither, and end by rushing against the friendly opening that sets them free. as another instance of the bees' lack of intelligence, sir john lubbock quotes a passage from a book written by a great american bee-keeper, mr. langstroth: "as the fly has to feed on many substances in which it might easily be drowned, it has learned to be very prudent, and alights carefully on the edge of a vessel containing liquid food; the bee, on the other hand, plunges in headlong, and very quickly perishes. the sad fate of their companions does not hinder others from madly rushing in in their turn, to share the same miserable end. no one can understand the extent of their folly till he has seen a confectioner's shop which has been besieged by a crowd of hungry bees. i have known thousands to be strained out from a vat of sirup in which they had been drowned; thousands more kept on plunging into the boiling sweets; the floors were covered and the windows completely darkened with bees, some crawling, others flying, and some so bedaubed that they could neither fly nor crawl--not one bee in ten able to carry home its ill-gotten spoil, and yet the air filled with new hosts of thoughtless comers!" it will not do, however, to condemn the bees too hastily; there is something to be said on their side. they are accustomed to live in the midst of nature, which has her own regular laws; and the ways of man are strange and bewildering to them. in the forest, in their ordinary life, the madness which langstroth describes might have come over them if some accident suddenly had destroyed a hive full of honey; but in that case there would have been no fatal glass, no boiling sugar or cloying sirup; there would have been no death or danger other than that to which every animal is exposed while seeking its food. and let us remember too that it was not mere greed, not the bees' own hunger, that caused them to rush so wildly into the boiling vat. it was not for themselves that they plunged into the deadly sugar; they can always feast on honey at home, if they want to. the first thing the bee does when it returns to the hive is to add the honey which it has gathered to the general store; thirty times in an hour perhaps it will bring its offering to the marvelous treasure-house. their labors, therefore, their eagerness, have no selfish motive; they have one desire, and one only, to increase the wealth in the home of their sisters, which is also the home of the future. however, the whole truth must be told. their industry is beyond all praise; their methods, their sacrifice of self, arouse all our admiration; but there is one thing that shocks us somewhat, and that is the indifference with which they regard the misfortunes or death of their comrades. the bee appears to possess two sides to her nature; in the hive, in their home, they all help and care for each other; the union between them, the fellowship, is very close and very true. a thousand bees will sacrifice themselves to avenge an injury done by a stranger to one of their sisters. but outside the hive, away from the home, all this changes; they no longer appear to know one another. if a piece of honeycomb were placed a few steps away from their dwelling, and out of the crowd of bees that would flock to it you were to crush or injure twenty or thirty, the others who had not been attacked would not even turn their head. that strange tongue of theirs, curved like some chinese weapon, would quietly go on licking up the fluid that they regard as more precious than life, and they would pay no heed whatever to the agony, the cries of distress, of their sisters. and when they have sucked the comb dry, they will be so anxious that not one drop shall be lost, that they will even climb over the dead and the dying to lick up the honey these hold in their jaws, and not one sound and unharmed bee will make the slightest effort to help or relieve the victims. the thought that they themselves run any danger does not disturb them; they give no thought to the death that may perhaps await them too. but the fact is that the bees do not know the meaning of fear, and smoke is the one thing in the world that they are afraid of. when they are out of the hive, they are curiously inoffensive. they will avoid anything that comes in their way, they will appear not to notice it, provided always that it does not venture too near. this indulgence, however, this meekness, hides a heart that is very sure of itself, very confident, very reliant. no threat will induce the bee to alter her course; she will never attempt to escape. inside the hive, any danger, whatever it be, will at once be boldly faced. should any living creature, be it ant or bear or man, venture to attack the sacred dwelling, every bee will spring up and defend the home with passionate fury. but we must frankly admit that they show no fellowship outside the hive, and no sympathy, as we understand the word, within it. on the other hand, nowhere in the world shall we discover a more perfect organization of work for the benefit of all, a more amazing devotion to the coming generation. it may be, perhaps, that this very devotion may have caused them to ignore everything else. all their love goes to what lies ahead of them; we give ours to what is around us. and are we so sure that, in our own lives, there are not many things that we do that would seem heartless and cruel to some being who might be watching us as closely as we watch the bees? let us now see what means the bees have of communicating with each other. such means must obviously exist, for it would not be possible for the work of so large a city, work which is so varied and so perfectly organized, to be carried on without them. they must have some method of communication, either by sounds or by some language of touch. this strange sense may perhaps lie in the antennæ, which are little horns, or feelers, containing, in the case of the workers, 12,000 delicate hairs and 5,000 "smell hollows"; with these antennæ they seem to question and understand the darkness. it is evidently not only in their work that the bees are able to communicate with each other, for we know that any news, good or bad, any sudden event, will at once be noised about in the hive; the loss or return of the queen, for instance, the entrance of an enemy, the intrusion of a strange queen, or the discovery of treasure. and each separate incident produces such a different emotion among them, the sounds they make are so essentially varied, that the experienced bee-keeper, listening to the murmur that arises from the hive, can at once and without any difficulty tell what it is that disturbs the multitude that are moving restlessly to and fro in their city. if you would like to have a more definite proof, you have only to watch a bee which shall just have found a few drops of honey on your window-sill or the edge of your table. she will immediately lap it up; and so eagerly that you will have time to put a tiny touch of paint on her belt without disturbing or interrupting her. it is not that she is greedy; she rejoices at the thought that she has found some honey for the hive. as soon as she has filled her sac, she will go, but watch her manner of going; she will not, like the fly, for instance, merely buzz around or make a dart for the window; for a moment or two she will hover about the room, with her back to the light, eagerly fixing in her mind the exact position of the honey. then, and not till then, she will return to the hive, empty her sac into one of the provision-cells; and in three or four minutes you will find her back again, going unhesitatingly to the spot, and making straight for the honey. and so she will come and go, till evening, if need be, as long as a drop remains; and her journeys from the hive to the window, from the window to the hive, will be as regular as clock-work; there will be no interval for rest; there will be no interruption. i will frankly admit that the marked bee often returns alone. are there the same differences among the bees, perhaps, as among ourselves, some of them being gossips, and others not given to talk? when i was trying this experiment once a friend who was with me said that it must be mere selfishness or vanity on the part of the bee that kept her from letting her comrades know of the treasure she had found. but, be this as it may, it will often happen that the lucky bee will bring two or three friends back with her; and i have found this to be the case four times out of ten. one day it was a little italian bee which was the first to find the honey; i marked her belt with a touch of blue paint. when she had gorged herself she flew off, and came back with two of her sisters; these i imprisoned, but did not interfere with her. after her second feast she went forth once more, and this time returned with three friends, whom i again shut away, and kept on doing this for the rest of the afternoon, when, counting my prisoners, i found that she had brought no less than eighteen bees to the feast. one may safely say that the bees will very frequently communicate with each other, even though this is not an invariable rule. american bee-hunters are so sure of the bees possessing this faculty that their methods of searching for nests depend in some measure upon it. "they will take a box of honey," mr. josiah emery writes, "to a field or a wood far away from any tame bees, and then pick up two or three wild ones, and let them fill themselves with the honey. the bees will fly off to their home with the spoil, and soon return with their friends, to whom they have told the glad news. these will again be allowed to drink their fill, and then taken to different points of the compass, and allowed to fly home; the direction of their flight will be carefully noted, and in this way the hunters are able to discover the position of the tree in which the bees have built their nest." it is to be noticed, too, that the bees do not all come together to feed on the honey we have put on the table; there will be several seconds between the different arrivals. we ask ourselves therefore whether the bees are led by, and merely follow the original discoverer, or whether they go independently, having been told by her where it is? experts hold different opinions as to this; in the case of the ant sir john lubbock is satisfied that the ant which finds the treasure merely leads the way and is followed by the others; but the ant, of course, merely crawls along the ground, while the bee's wings throw every avenue open. my study in the country is on the first floor, and rather above the ordinary range of the flight of the bees, except at times when the lime and chestnut trees are in blossom. i took an open honeycomb, and kept it on my table for a week, without its perfume having attracted a single bee. then i went to a glass hive that was close by the house, took an italian bee, brought her in to my study, set her on the comb, and marked while she was feeding. when she had drunk her fill, she flew off and returned to the hive. i followed quickly, saw her crawl over the huddled mass of the bees, plunge her head into an empty cell, disgorge her honey, and then get ready to set forth again. at the entrance of the hive i had placed a glass box, divided by a trap-door into two compartments. the bee flew into this box; and as she was alone, and no other bee seemed to accompany or follow her, i left her there, and then repeated the experiment on twenty bees in succession. by means of the trap, with its two little compartments, i was able in each case to separate the marked bee from the ones that might accompany her, and to keep her a prisoner in one of the little rooms. then i marked all the bees in the other room with paint of a different color, and set them free; i myself returned quickly to my study, to await their arrival. now if the bees which had not visited my study had been able to communicate with the others, and to be told by them precisely where the comb was, with instructions how to get at it, a certain number of them would have found their way to my room. i must frankly admit that, to my disappointment, there was only one that did actually arrive. and i cannot tell even whether this may not have been a mere chance. i went down and released the first bee, and my study soon was invaded by the buzzing crowd to whom she showed the way to the treasure. we need not trouble any further with this unsatisfactory experiment of mine, for there are many other curious circumstances to be noted among the bees which make it quite certain that they can tell each other things that go much further than a mere yes or no. in the hive, for instance, the wonderful way in which they divide up their work, the way in which the work is combined, one bee holding herself in readiness to take the place of another who has finished her own particular job and is waiting for her--these things all prove that they must be able to let each other know. i have often marked bees that went out in the morning collecting food; and found that, in the afternoon, if there was no special abundance of flowers, these same bees would take on another job altogether; would either be fanning and heating the brood-cells, or perhaps adding themselves to the mysterious, motionless curtain in whose midst the sculptors and waxmakers would be at work. in the same way i have found that bees which for one whole day would be gathering nothing but pollen would, on the next, evidently in obedience to some order that had been given, devote themselves entirely to the search for nectar. day after day, the sun will scarcely have risen when the explorers of the dawn return to the hive, which awakes to receive the glad tidings of what is happening on 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." the news is handed in to headquarters, and arrangements are quickly made to divide up the work. five thousand of the strongest and most active will be sent to the lime-trees, while three thousand juniors sally forth to the clover. those who yesterday were gathering nectar will to-day give a rest to their tongues and the glands of their sac, and will bring back red pollen from the mignonette or yellow pollen from the tall lilies; for you will never find a bee gathering or mixing up pollens of a different color or species, and indeed it is one of the special cares of the hive to keep the different-hued pollens apart in separate store-rooms. the workers set out, in long black files, each one flying straight to its own particular task. george de layens stoutly declares that they have been told where to go to, and which flowers they are to visit; that they are aware how much nectar each flower will give, and know its precise value. it is their business to collect the greatest possible amount of honey; and if we watch the different directions in which the bees fly, we will find that they divide themselves up most carefully among the flowers which offer the best chance of a prosperous harvest. as these vary day by day, so will the different orders be given. in the spring, for instance, when the fields are still bare, the bees will flock to the flowers in the woods, and eagerly visit the gorse and the violets, langworts and anemones. but, a few days later, when cabbage and colza are beginning to flower, the bees will turn their attention to these alone, neglecting the woods almost entirely, for all the abundance that still may be found there. they know that the colza and cabbage flowers are richer in honey, and therefore give them the preference; thus deciding, day by day, what plants they shall visit, their one idea being to amass the greatest value of treasure in the least possible time. you may ask, perhaps, what does it matter to us whether the bees have or have not a real intelligence of their own? i think that it matters a very great deal. if we could be quite certain that other creatures beside ourselves are able to think or to reason it would give us something of the emotion that came over robinson crusoe when he saw the print of a human foot on the sandy shore of his island. like him, we should seem less alone. and when we study, when we try to understand, the intelligence of the bees, we are at the same time trying to understand what is the most wonderful thing in ourselves; the power that enables the will to effect its purpose, and overcome obstacles in its way. we will now go on with the story of the hive, take it up where we left it, and lift a fold of the curtain of bees which are hanging, head downwards, from the dome. a curious kind of sweat, as white as snow and airier than the down on the wing of a bird, is beginning to show itself. this is the wax that is forming; but it is unlike the wax that we know; it has no weight, it is amazingly pure, being, as it were, the soul of the honey, which is itself the essence of the flowers. it is very difficult to follow, stage by stage, the manufacture of wax by the swarm, or even the use to which they put it, for all this comes to pass in the very blackest depth of the mass of bees all huddled together. we know that the honey in the sac of the bees that are clinging to each other turns itself into wax, but we have no idea how this is done. all we can tell is that they will stay in this position, never stirring or making the least movement, for eighteen or twenty-four hours, and that the hive becomes so hot that it is almost as though a fire had been lit. and then at last white and transparent scales show themselves at the opening of four little pockets that every bee has underneath its stomach. when the bodies of most of the bees forming the curtain have thus been adorned with ivory tablets, we shall suddenly see one of them detach herself from the crowd, and eagerly, hurriedly, clamber over the backs of the motionless crowd till she has reached the top of the dome. to this she will fix herself firmly, banging away with her head at those of her neighbors who seem to interfere with her movements. then, she will seize with her mouth and her claws one of the scales that hang from her body, and set to work at it like a carpenter planing a soft piece of wood. she will pull it out, flatten it, bend it and roll it, moistening it with her tongue and licking it into shape; and, when at last she has got it to be just what she wanted, she will fix it to the highest point of the dome, thus laying the stone, the foundation, of the new city; for we have here a city that is being built downwards from the sky, and not from the earth upwards, like the cities of men. to this beginning she will add other morsels of wax, which she takes from beneath her belt; and at last, with one final lick of the tongue, one last touch of her feelers, she will go, as suddenly as she came, and disappear among the crowd. another bee will at once take her place, carry on the work from the point where the first has left it; she will go through her own carpentering, just like her sister, and add to or improve the first one's job if she thinks this is called for. and then a third will follow, a fourth and a fifth, all coming from different corners, all eager and earnest, till numbers and numbers have taken their turn, none of them finishing the work but each adding her share to the task in which all combine. a small lump of wax, as yet quite formless, hangs down from the top of the hive. as soon as it is sufficiently thick, we shall see another bee coming out of the mass. this one is very sure of herself, puts on a little side as it were; and she is watched very closely by the eager crowd below. she is one of the sculptors or carvers; she does not make any wax herself, her job being to deal with the material which the others have provided. she marks out the first cell, settles where it shall be; digs into the block for a moment, putting the wax she has taken out from the hole on the borders around it; and then she goes, making way for another, who is impatiently waiting her turn, and will go on with the work that a third will continue, while others close by are digging away at the wax on the opposite side. and very soon we shall be able to see the outline of the new comb. in shape it will be something like our own tongue, if you can imagine this to be made up of little six-sided cells, which all lie back to back. when the first cells have been built, the architects put on the ceiling, and then start building a second row, and a third and a fourth, and so on, gallery on the top of gallery, and the dimensions so carefully worked out that there will always be ample space, when the comb is finished, for the bees to move freely between its walls. it happens, however, sometimes that a mistake has been made; that too much space, or too little, will have been left between the combs. the bees will do the best they can to set matters right; they will slant the one comb that is too near the other, or fill up the space that has been left with a new comb specially shaped. the bees build four different kinds of cells. there are the royal cells, rather like an acorn in shape; the large cells in which the males are reared, and provisions stored when flowers are plentiful; the small cells used as cradles for the workerbees and also as ordinary store-rooms. these last are the most common kind, and about four-fifths of the buildings will be composed of them. then there are also a certain number of what are known as "transition-cells," irregular in shape, which connect the larger cells with the smaller. each cell, with the exception of the transition ones, is worked out absolutely to scale, with extraordinary accuracy. it is a kind of six-sided tube, and two layers of these tubes form the comb. it is in these tubes that the honey is stored; and to prevent it from spilling, the bees tilt the tubes slightly forward. each cell is solidly built, and the position of one to the other has been carefully thought out and arranged. indeed, such wonderful skill and ingenuity is shown in the construction of the cells that it is difficult to believe that instinct alone is sufficient to account for it. the wasps, for instance, also build combs with six-sided cells; but their combs have only one layer of cells, and are not only less regular, but also less substantial; further, the wasps are so wasteful in their manner of working that, to say nothing of the loss of material, they also deprive themselves of about a third of the space that they might have used. some bees again--which are not as civilized as those in our hives--build only one row of rearing-cells and rest their combs on shapeless and extravagant columns of wax. their provision-cells are nothing but great pots, grouped together without any system or order. you could no more compare these nests with the cities of our own honey-bees than you could a village made up of huts with a modern town. the very greatest ingenuity is shown in the construction of the combs, quite apart from the admirable precision of the architecture. thus, for instance, there is a most skillful arrangement of alleys and gangways through and around the comb, which provide short cuts in every direction, allow the air to circulate, and prevent any block of the traffic. the connecting cells again, which join the large cells to the small ones, are so made that their shape can be altered with the least possible delay. there may be different reasons for desiring this alteration: an overflowing harvest may render more store-rooms necessary, or the workers may consider that the population of the hive should not be further increased, or it may be considered advisable that more males should be born. in any of these cases the bees will proceed, with unerring, unhesitating accuracy and precision to make the necessary changes, turning small cells into large, and large into small; and this without any waste of space or material, without allowing a single one of their buildings to become mis-shapen or purposeless, without in any way interfering with the neatness or general harmony of the hive. the swarm whose movements we are following have started building their combs, which are already becoming fit for use. and although, as we look into the hive, we see little happening, there will be no pause, either by day or by night, in the creation of the wax, which will proceed with amazing quickness. the queen has been restlessly pacing to and fro on the borders that shine out gleamingly white in the darkness; and no sooner has the first row of cells been built than she eagerly takes possession, together with her servants, her guardians and counselors--though whether it be she who leads them, or they who direct her, is a matter beyond our knowledge. when the spot has been reached that she, or her retinue, regard as the proper one, she will arch her back, lean forward, and introduce the end of her long spindle-shaped body into one of the cells. her escort form a circle around her, their enormous black eyes watching her every movement; they caress her wings, they feverishly wave their antennæ as though to encourage her, to urge her on, or perhaps to congratulate her. you can always easily tell where the queen is, because around her there will be a kind of starry cockade, something like the oval brooch that our grandmothers used to wear; of this she will be the center. and there is one curious thing that we may note here: the worker-bees never by any chance turn their back to the queen. when she approaches a group they immediately form themselves so as to face her, and walk backwards before her. it is a token of respect or reverence that they never fail to show; it is the unvarying custom. very soon the queen will be passing from cell to cell, busily laying her eggs. she will first peep into the cell to make sure that all is in order, and that she has not been there before. in the meanwhile two or three of her escort will have hastened into the cell which she has just left, in order to see that her work has been properly done, and to care for, and as it were tuck up, the little bluish egg she has laid. from now on right up to the first frosts of autumn the queen will never stop laying; she lays while she is being fed, she even lays in her sleep, if she ever does sleep, which may perhaps seem rather doubtful. it will sometimes happen that the worker-bees, in their eagerness to find room for their honey, will have stored it in some of the vacant cells reserved for the queen; when she comes to these the workers frantically carry away the honey so that she may lay her eggs. if there is a shortage of cells for honey, and this is accumulating very fast, the bees will contrive, as quickly as they can, to get ready a block of large cells for the queen, as these take less time to build. but they are cells for male bees; and when the queen comes to them, she seems vexed; she will lay a few eggs, then stop, move away, and insist on being given the smaller cells that are used for the workers' eggs. her daughters obey; they set to at once and reduce the size of the cells; and the queen, in the meantime, goes back to the cells at which she had started at the very beginning. these will be empty now, for the larvæ will have come to life, leaving their shadowy corner, and will already have spread themselves over the flowers around, glittering in the rays of the sun and quickening the smiling hours; and soon they will sacrifice themselves in their turn to the new generation that now is beginning to take their place in the cradles they have left. the bees all obey the queen; and yet they themselves contrive to direct her movements; for the number of eggs that she lays will be in strict proportion to the food that is given her. she does not take it herself; she is fed like a child by the workers. and if flowers are abundant, so will the food be, and therefore the number of eggs. here we find, as everywhere in life, cause and effect working together in a circle of which one part is always in darkness; the bees, like ourselves, obey the lord of the wheel that is always turning and turning. some little time back i was showing one of my glass hives to a friend, and he was almost startled to see the frantic activity there. each comb seemed alive; on every side there was movement, hurry, bustle, activity; the nurses, incessantly stirring and doing, were busy around the broodcells; the wax-makers were forming their ladders and living gangways; the sculptors, the architects, cleaners, the builders, all were at work, feverishly, restlessly, never pausing for food or sleep; there was constant and pitiless effort among them all, save only in the cradles where lay the larvæ that soon themselves would be taking their turn in this chain of unending duty, which permits of no illness and accords no grave. and my friend, his curiosity soon satisfied, turned away, and in his eyes there were signs of sorrow, and almost of fear. and in good truth, beneath all the gladness that we find in the hive, with its memories of precious jewels of summer--of flowers, of running waters and peaceful skies--beneath all this there dwells a sadness as deep as the eye of man ever has seen. and we, who dimly gaze at these things, we who know that around us, in our own lives, among our own people, there also is sadness, we know too that this has to be, as with all things in nature. and thus it ever shall be, so long as we know not her secret; and yet there are duties all must do, and those duties suffice. and in the meantime let our heart murmur, if it will, "it is sad," but let our reason be content to add "so it must be." iv the young queens let us now leave the new hive, which we find to be already beginning to work as before, and go back to the old one, the mother-city, which the swarm had left. here, at the start, all looks forlorn, and dreary, and empty. two-thirds of the population have gone, have departed forever. but thousands of bees remain; and these, whatever their feelings may be, still are faithful to the duty that lies on them, and have not forgotten what they have to do. they set to work, therefore, and try their best to fill the places of those who have joined the swarm. they start cleaning the city, look to the store-cells and put things in order there, attend to what is necessary in the hive, and despatch their bands of worker-bees to collect fresh food from the flowers. and if the outlook at first appear rather gloomy, there still are signs of hope wherever the eye may turn. one might almost fancy oneself in one of the castles they tell of in fairy-stories, where there are millions of tiny phials along the walls containing the souls of men about to be born. for here, too, are lives that have not yet come to life. on all sides, asleep in their closely-sealed cradles, in their thousands of waxen cells, lie the larvæ, the baby bees, whiter than milk, their arms folded and their head bent forward as they wait for the hour to awake. around them hundreds of bees are dancing and flapping their wings. the object of this seems to be to increase the temperature, and procure the heat that is needed--or perhaps there may be some reason that is still more obscure; for this dance of theirs combines some very extraordinary movements whose meaning no observer has as yet been able to understand. in another few days the lids of these thousands of urns--of which there will be from sixty to eighty thousand in a hive--will break, and two large, earnest black eyes will peer forth, while active jaws will be busily gnawing away at the lid, to enlarge the opening. the nurses at once come running; they help the young bee out of her prison, they clean her and brush her, and with the tip of their tongue they give her the first drop of honey that ushers in the new life. but the bee that has come so strangely from another world is still trembling and pale, and stares wildly around; she has something of the look of a tiny old man who might have been buried alive, and has made his escape from his tomb. she is perfect, however, from head to foot; and she loses no time, but hastens at once to other cells that have not yet opened, and there joins in the dance and starts beating her wings with the others, so that she may help in quickening the birth of her sisters who have not yet come to life. the most arduous labors, however, will at first be spared her. she will not leave the hive till a week has passed since the day of her birth. she will then undertake her first flight, known as the "cleansing-flight," and absorb the air into her lungs, which will fill and expand her body; and thenceforward she becomes the mistress of space. the first flight accomplished, she returns to the hive, and waits yet one week more; and then, with her sisters, who were born the same day as herself, she will for the first time sally forth and visit the flowers. a special emotion, now, will lay hold of her; a kind of shrinking, almost of fear. for it is evident that the bees are afraid; that these daughters of the crowd, of secluded darkness, shrink from the vault of blue, from the infinite loneliness of the light; and their joy is halting, and woven of terror. they cross the threshold, and pause; they depart, they return twenty times. they hover aloft in the air, their heads turned towards their home; they describe great soaring circles, their thirteen thousand eyes taking in, registering and recording, the trees and the fountain, the gate and the walls, the neighboring windows and houses, till at last the outside world becomes familiar to them, and they know that they will be able to find their way back to the hive. it is curious how they are able to accomplish this; to return to a home that they cannot see, that is hidden perhaps by the trees, and that in any event must form so tiny a point in space. put some of them into a box and set them free at a place that is two or three miles from their hive, they will almost invariably succeed in discovering their way home. have they landmarks by which they guide themselves, or do they possess the instinct, the sense of direction, that is common among swallows and pigeons? different experiments that have been made appear to show that this latter is not the case. i have, however, on more than one occasion noticed that the bees seem to pay no attention to the color or shape of the hive. it is rather the platform on which the hive rests that attracts them, the position of the entrance-gate and of the alighting-board. when the winter comes on, a hive may be taken away and put perhaps into some dark cellar where it will remain till the spring; if then it should be set a little to right or to left of its former position on the platform, all the bees, on their first return from visiting the flowers, will steer their straight, direct, unhesitating course to the precise spot which the hive had occupied in the preceding year; and it will only be after much hesitating and groping that they will find the door whose place has now been shifted. and some will be unable to do this, or will be altogether lost. in the old hive thousands of cradles are stirring and the larvæ coming to life; such bustle and movement is there that the solid walls seem to shake. but the city still lacks a queen. in the center of one of the combs you may notice seven or eight curious structures, each one about three or four times as large as the ordinary worker's cell; they look something like the circles and hillocks that we see on the photographs of the moon. these dwellings are surrounded by guards who never leave them, and are always watchful and alert. they know that they are protecting the home of the queen that is to be. in these cells eggs will have been placed by the old queen, or more probably perhaps by one of the workers, before the departure of the swarm; the eggs will have been taken from some cell that was near, and will be exactly the same as those from which the ordinary worker-bee is hatched. and yet the bee that will in due time come out is so unlike the others that she might almost belong to an entirely different race. her life will last four or five years, instead of the six or seven weeks that are the portion of her worker-sister. her body will be twice as long, her color clearer, and more golden; her sting will be curved, and her eyes have only seven or eight thousand facets instead of twelve or thirteen thousand. her brain will be smaller, and she will have no brushes, no pockets in which to secrete the wax, no baskets to gather the pollen. she will not crave for air, or the light of the sun; she will die without once having sipped at a flower. she will spend her life in the darkness, in the midst of an ever-moving crowd; and her one thought, her one idea, will be the constant search for cradles in which she can lay her eggs. it is probable that she will not, twice in her life, look on the light of day; and as a rule she will only once make use of her wings. a week has passed, let us say, since the old queen has gone, at the head of the swarm. the royal princesses who still are asleep in their cots are not all of the same age; for the bees prefer that there should be an interval between the birth of each one. the time of the eldest princess draws near; she is already astir, and has begun eagerly to gnaw at the rounded lid of her cradle, whose walls the workers have already for several hours been thinning, so as to make it easier for her to get out. and at last she thrusts her head through the lid; the workers at once rush eagerly to her, and help her to get clear; they brush her, caress her and clean her, and soon she is able to take her first trembling steps on the comb. at first, her food will be the same as that given to the ordinary workers, but after a very few days she is nourished on the choicest and purest milk, which is known as "royal jelly." the princess, at the moment of birth, is weak and pale; but in a very few minutes she gets her strength, and then a strange restlessness comes over her; she seems to know that other princesses are near, that her kingdom has yet to be won, that close by rivals are hiding; and she eagerly paces the waxen walls in search of her enemies. this is the gravest and most serious moment in the history of the hive. the bees have to consider how many swarms they intend to send out; at times they make mistakes, and leave the mother-city too empty, at times also the swarms themselves are not sufficiently strong. these are matters that the "spirit of the hive" has to settle; it has to decide whether another queen will be required, in addition to the young one who has just come to birth, in order that she may head a swarm in the future. on this decision rests the whole prosperity of the hive; and very rarely will the judgment of the bees go astray. but let us assume that here the spirit of the hive has decided against a second swarm. the young princess, who has just come to life, will be allowed to destroy the rivals who are still asleep in their cradles. she will hasten towards them, and the guard will respectfully make way. she will fling herself furiously on to the first cell she comes across, strip off the wax with teeth and claws, tear away the cocoon and dart her sting into the victim whom she has laid bare. she will stab her to death and then go, with the same passionate fury, to the next cell, and then the next, again uncovering the cradle and killing her rival, till at last, breathless and exhausted, she has destroyed all her sleeping sisters. the watchful circle of bees who surround her have stood by, inactive and calm, and have not interfered; they have merely moved out of her way and have let her indulge her fury; and no sooner has a cell been laid waste than they rush to it, drag out the body, and greedily lap up the precious royal jelly that clings to the sides of the cell. and if the queen should be too weak or too tired to carry out her dreadful purpose to the end, the bees will themselves complete this massacre of the innocent princesses, and the royal race, and their dwellings, will all disappear. this is the terrible hour of the hive. at times it will happen that two queens will come to life together, though this occurrence is rare, as the bees take special pains to prevent it. but should such a case arise, the deadly combat would start the very moment the rivals come out of their cradles. afraid of each other, and yet filled with fury, they attack and retreat, retreat and attack, till at last one of them succeeds in taking her less adroit, or less active, rival by surprise, and in killing her without risk to herself. for the law of the race has demanded one sacrifice only. but let us suppose that the spirit of the hive has decided that there shall be a second swarm. in this case, as before, the queen will advance threateningly towards the royal cells; but instead of finding herself surrounded by obsequious servants, her way will be blocked by a guard of stern and unflinching workers. in her mad fury, she will try to force her way through, or to get round them; but in every direction sentinels have been posted to protect the sleeping princesses. the queen will not be denied; she returns again and again to the charge, puts forth every effort; but each time she will be driven back, hustled even, till at last it begins to dawn upon her that behind these little workers there stands a law that does not yield even to a queen. and at last she goes, and wanders unhappily from comb to comb, giving voice to her thwarted fury in the war-song that every bee-keeper knows well; a note like that of a far-away silver trumpet, and so clear that one may hear it, at evening especially, two or three yards away from the double walls of the hive. this cry, this war-song, has the strangest effect on the workers. it fills them with terror, it has an almost paralyzing influence upon them. when she sends it forth, the guards, who the moment before may have been treating her rather roughly, will at once cease all opposition, and will wait, with bent heads, in meekest submission, till the dreadful song shall have stopped. for two or three days, sometimes even for five, the queen's lament will be heard, the fierce challenge to her well-guarded rivals. and these, in their turn, are coming to life; they are beginning to gnaw at the lids of their cradles. should they emerge from them while the angry queen is still near, with her one desire to destroy them, a mighty confusion would spread itself over the city. but the spirit of the hive has taken its precautions, and the guards have received the necessary instructions. they know exactly what must be done, and when to do it. they are well aware that if the princesses were to come out of their lodging too soon, they would fall into the hands of their furious elder sister, who would destroy them one by one. to avoid this, therefore, the workers keep on adding layers of wax to the cells as fast as the princesses within are stripping it away; so that all their gnawing and eagerness are of no avail, and the captives must bide their time. one of them perhaps will hear the war-cry of her enemy; and although she has not yet come into contact with life, nor knows what a hive may be, she answers the challenge from within the depths of her prison. but her song is different; it is hollow and stifled, for it has to pass through the walls of a tomb; and when night is falling and noises are hushed, while high over all is the silence of the stars, the bee-keeper is able to distinguish, and recognize, this exchange of challenges between the restlessly wandering queen and the young princesses still in their prison. the young queens will have benefited by the long stay in their cradles, for when at last they come out they are big and strong, and able to fly. but this period of waiting has also given strength to the first-born queen, who is now able to face the perils of the voyage. the time has come, therefore, for the second swarm, called the "cast," to depart, with the eldest queen at its head. no sooner has she gone than the workers left in the hive will release one of the princesses from her cradle; she will at once proceed to show the same murderous desires, to send forth the same cries of anger, as her sister had done before her, till at last, after another three or four days, she will leave the hive in her turn, at the head of the third swarm, to build a new home far away. a case has been known where a hive, through its swarms and the swarms of its swarms, was able in a single season to send forth no less than thirty colonies. this excessive eagerness, which is known as "swarming-fever," usually follows a severe winter; and one might almost believe that the bees, always in touch with the secrets of nature, are conscious of the dangers that threaten their race. but at ordinary times, when the seasons have been normal, this "fever" will rarely occur in a strong and well-governed hive; many will swarm only once, and some, indeed, not at all. the second swarm will in any event generally be the last, as the bees will be afraid of unduly impoverishing their city, or it may be that prudence will be urged upon them by the threatening skies. they will then allow the third queen to kill the princesses in their cradles; whereupon the ordinary duties of the hive will at once be resumed, and the bees will have to work harder than ever in order to provide food for the larvæ and generally to replenish the storehouses before the arrival of winter. the second and third swarms will sally forth in the same way as the first, with the difference only that the bees will be fewer in number, and that, owing perhaps to less scouts being available, operations will not be conducted with quite as much prudence and forethought. also, the younger queen will be more active and vigorous than her sister, and will therefore fly much further away, leading the swarm to a considerable distance from the hive. as a consequence, these second and third swarms will have greater difficulties to meet, and their fate will be more uncertain. so all-powerful, however, is the law of the future, that none of these perils will induce the queen to show the least hesitation. the bees of the second and third swarms display the same eagerness, the same enthusiasm, as those of the first; the workers flock round the fierce young queen, as she gropes her way out of her cell, and there is not one of them that shrinks from accompanying her on the voyage where there is so much to lose and so little to gain. why, one asks, do they show this amazing zeal; what makes them so cheerfully abandon all their present happiness? who is it selects from the crowd those who shall stay behind, and dictates who are to go? the exiles would seem to belong to no special class; around the queen who is never to return, veteran foragers jostle tiny worker-bees who will for the first time be facing the dizziness of the skies. we will not attempt to relate the many adventures that these different swarms will encounter. at times, two of them will join forces; at others, two or three of the imprisoned princesses will contrive to join the groups that are forming. the bee-keeper of to-day takes steps to ensure that the second and third swarms shall always return to the mother-hive. in that case, the rival queens will face each other on the comb; the workers will gather around and watch the combat; and, when the stronger has overcome the weaker, they will remove the bodies, forget the past, return to their cells and their storehouses, and resume their peaceful path to the flowers that are awaiting and inviting them. v the massacre of the males if the skies remain pure, the air still warm, and pollen and nectar are plentiful in the flowers, the workers will endure the presence of the males for a brief space longer. the males are gross feeders, untidy in their habits, wasteful and greedy; fat and idle, perfectly content to do nothing but feast and enjoy themselves, they crowd the streets, block up the passages, and are always in the way; they are a nuisance to the workers, whom they treat with a certain good-natured arrogance, apparently never suspecting how scornfully they themselves are regarded, or the deep and ever-growing hatred to which they give rise. they are still happily unconscious of the fate in store for them. careless of what the workers have to do, the males invariably select the snuggest and warmest corners of the hive for their pleasant slumbers; then, having slept their fill, they stroll jauntily to the choicest cells, where the honey smells sweetest, and proceed to satisfy their appetite. from noon till three, when the radiant countryside is a-quiver beneath the blazing stare of a july or august sun, the drones will saunter on to the threshold, and bask lazily there. they are gorgeous to look at; their helmet is made of enormous black pearls, they have doublet of yellowish velvet, two towering plumes and a mantle draped in four folds. they stroll along, very pleased with themselves, full of pomp and pride; they brush past the sentry, hustle the sweepers, and get in the way of the honey-collectors as these return laden with their humble spoil. then one by one, they lazily spread their wings, and sail off to the nearest flower, where they doze till they are awakened by the fresh afternoon breeze. thereupon they return to the hive, with the same pomp and dignified air, sure of themselves and perfectly satisfied; they make straight for the storehouses, and plunge their head up to the neck into the vats of honey, taking in nourishment sufficient to restore their strength that has been exhausted by so much labor; afterwards, with ponderous steps, seeking the pleasant couch and giving themselves up to the good, dreamless slumber that shall fold them in its embrace till it be time for the next meal. but bees are less patient than men; and one morning the long-expected word of command goes through the hive. and there is a sudden transformation: the workers, hitherto so gentle and peaceful, turn into judges, and executioners. we know not whence the dreadful word issues; it may be that endurance has reached its limit, and that indignation and anger have bubbled over. at any rate we find a whole portion of the bee-people giving up their visits to the flowers, and taking on themselves the administration of stern justice. an army of furious workers suddenly attacks the great idle drones, as they lie pleasantly asleep along the honeyed walls, and ruthlessly tear them from their slumbers. the startled drones wake up, and stare round in amazement, convinced at first that they must be dreaming, and the prey of some dreadful nightmare. there must be some shocking mistake; their muddled brains grope like a stagnant pond into which a moonbeam has fallen. their first impulse is to the nearest food-cell, to find comfort and inspiration there. but gone for them are the days of may honey, the essence of lime-trees and the fragrant ambrosia of thyme and sage, of marjoram and white clover; the path that once lay so invitingly open to the tempting reservoirs of sugar and sweets now bristles with a burning-bush of poisonous, flaming stings. the air itself is no longer the same; the dear smell of honey is gone, and in its place only now the terrible odor of poison, of which thousands of tiny drops glisten at the tip of the threatening stings. around them is nothing but fury and hatred; and before the bewildered creatures have begun to realize that there is an end to the happy conditions of the hive, each drone is seized by three or four ministers of justice, who proceed to hack off his wings and antennæ and deftly pass their sword between the rings of his armor. the huge drones are helpless; they have no sting with which to defend themselves; all they can do is to try to escape, or to oppose the mere force of their weight to the blows that rain down. forced on to their back, with their enemies hanging on to them, they will use their powerful claws to shift them from side to side; or, with a mighty effort, will turn round in wild circles, dragging with them the relentless executioners, who never for a moment relax their hold. but exhaustion soon puts an end; and, in a very brief space, their condition is pitiful. the wings of the wretched creatures are torn off, their antennæ severed, their legs hacked in two; and their magnificent eyes, now softened by suffering, reflect only anguish and bitterness. some die at once of their wounds, and are dragged away to distant burialgrounds; others, whose injuries are less, succeed in sheltering themselves in some corner, where they lie, all huddled together, surrounded by guards, till they perish of hunger. many will reach the gate, and escape into space, dragging their tormentors with them; but, towards evening, driven by famine and cold, they return in crowds to the hive and pray for admission. but there they will meet the merciless guard, who will not allow one to pass; and, the next morning, the workers, before they start on their journey to the flowers, will clear the threshold of the corpses that lie strewn on it; and all recollection of the idle race will disappear till the following spring. it will often happen that, when several hives are placed close together, the massacre of the drones will take place on the same day. the richest and best-governed hives are the first to give the signal; smaller and less prosperous cities will follow a few days later. it is only the poorest and weakest colonies that will allow the males to live till the approach of winter. the execution over, work will begin again, although less strenuously, for flowers are growing scarce. the great festivals of the hive, the great tragedies, are over. the autumn honey, that will be needed for the winter, is accumulating within the hospitable walls; and the last reservoirs are sealed with the seal of white, incorruptible wax. building ceases; there are fewer births and more deaths; the nights lengthen and days grow shorter. the rain and the wind, the mists of the morning, the twilight that comes on too soon--these entrap hundreds of workers who never return to the hive; and over this sunshine-loving little people there soon hangs the cold menace of winter. man has already taken for himself his good share of the harvest. every well-conducted hive has presented him with eighty or a hundred pounds of honey; there are some even which will have given twice that quantity, all gathered from the sun-lit flowers that will have been visited a thousand or two times every day. the bee-keeper gives a last look at his hives, upon which slumber now is falling. from the richest he takes some of their store, and distributes it among those that are less well-provided. he covers up the hives, half closes the doors, removes the frames that now are useless, and abandons the bees to their long winter sleep. they huddle together on the central comb, with the queen in the midst of them, attended by her guard. row upon row of bees surround the sealed cells, the last row forming the envelope, as it were; and when these feel the cold stealing over them, they creep into the crowd, and others at once take their places. the whole cluster hangs suspended, clinging on to each other; rising and falling as the cells are gradually emptied of their store of honey. for, contrary to what is generally believed, the life of the bee does not cease in winter; it merely becomes less active. these little lovers of sunshine contrive, through a constant and simultaneous beating of their wings, to maintain in their hive a degree of warmth that shall equal that of a day in spring. and they owe this to the honey, which is itself no more than a ray of heat which has passed through their bodies, and now gives its generous blood to the hive. the bees that are nearest the cells pass it on to their neighbors, and these in their turn to those next them. thus it goes from mouth to mouth through the crowd, till it reaches those furthest away. and this honey, this essence of sunshine and flowers, circulates through the hive until such time as the sun itself, the glorious sun of the spring, shall thrust in its beam through the half-open door, and tell of the violets and anemones that are once more coming to life. the workers will wake, and discover that the sky again is blue in the world, and that the wheel of life has turned, and begun afresh. vi the progress of the race it is as well, before ending this book--as we have ended the story of the hive with the silence that winter brings--to add a few words about the extraordinary industry of the bees. people are apt to say, while admitting that it is very wonderful, that it has always been the same from the very beginning of time. have the bees not, for thousands of years, built their combs, their marvelous combs, in just the same way; these combs that combine the most perfect science of chemist and architect, mathematician and engineer; combs in which it would be impossible for us to suggest a single improvement? where shall we find any instance of progress, of the bees having discovered some new method or change in the old; show us that, and we will gladly admit that the bees, besides their instinct, possess also an intellect worthy of being compared with that of man! this method of reasoning is not without its perils. it is the same kind of "mere common sense" that the people of galileo's time displayed when they refused to believe that the earth revolved in space. "the earth cannot possibly turn," they would say, "for we can see the sun move in the sky, see it rise in the morning and set in the evening. nothing can deceive our eyes." common-sense is all very well; but it is not a sure guide unless it go hand in hand with a certain reflection and judgment. the bees give abundant proof that they are capable of reason. as an instance, we may mention that andrew knight, a wellknown student of insect life, once covered the bark of some diseased trees with a kind of cement which he had made out of turpentine and wax. some time after he noticed that the bees round about were making use of this mixture, which they had tried and adopted; they had found it close to their hive, and appeared to prefer it to their own. as a fact, the science of bee-keeping consists largely in giving the bees the opportunity of developing the spirit of initiative that they undoubtedly possess. thus the bee-keeper, when pollen is scarce and it is important that there should be food for the larvæ, will scatter a quantity of flour near to the hive. this is a substance that the bees, in a state of nature, in their native forests in asia, can never have met with, or known. and yet, if care be taken to tempt them with it--if one or two be placed on the flour, and induced to touch it and try it, they will quickly realize that it more or less resembles the pollen of which they are in need; they will spread the news among their sisters, and we shall soon find every forager-bee hurrying to gather this strange food, and supplying it to the infant-bees in place of the accustomed pollen. it is only during the last hundred years that the bees have been seriously studied by man; only fifty years ago that the movable frames and combs were designed by means of which we were able to watch their movements. need we wonder, then, if our knowledge is still somewhat limited? the bees have existed many thousands of years; we have observed them only for what is relatively a very short time. and if it could be proved that, during that time, no change has taken place in the hive, should we be right in assuming that there had been no change before our first questioning glance? remember that a century is no more than a drop of rain that falls into the river; that a thousand years glide over the history of nature as a single one over the life of man. it is of interest to compare the honey-bee of the hive with the great tribe of "apiens," which includes all the wild bees. we shall discover differences more extraordinary than those that exist among men. but let us merely, for the moment, consider what is known as the domestic bee, of which there are sixteen different kinds, all, the largest as the smallest, exactly alike, except for the slight modifications caused by the climate or the conditions in which they exist. the difference between them, in appearance, is no greater than between an englishman and a russian, a european or a japanese. bees do not, like ourselves, dwell in towns that are open to the sky and exposed to the caprice of rain and storm, but in cities that are entirely covered with a protecting envelope. if they were guided solely by their instinct, they would build their combs in the air. in the indies we find that they do not even seek a hollow tree or a cleft in the rocks. the swarm will hang down from the branch of a tree, and the comb will be lengthened, the queen's eggs laid, provisions stored, with no shelter other than that which the workers' own bodies provide. our northern bees have at times been known to do this, deceived perhaps by a too gentle sky; and swarms have been found living in the center of a bush. but even in the indies this exposure to all weathers is by no means an advantage. so many workers are compelled to remain always on one spot, in order to keep up the heat that is required for those who are molding the wax and rearing the brood, that they are unable to erect more than a single comb; whereas, if they have the least shelter, they will build four or five more, thereby increasing the wealth and population of the hive. and so we find that every species of bee that lives in cold and temperate regions has given up building its hive in exposed places. its intelligence has decided that it is better to select more sheltered spots. but it is none the less true that, in forsaking the open sky that was so dear to them, and seeking shelter in the hollow of a tree or a cave, the bees have been guided by what was at first a daring idea, which came to them through their observation, experience and reasoning. there can be no doubt that they have made great progress. we have already mentioned the intelligence they show in using flour instead of pollen, cement in place of wax. we have seen with what skill they are able to adapt a new building to their requirements, and the amazing cleverness they display in the matter of combs made of foundation wax. they handle these marvelous combs, which are so curiously useful and yet so incomplete, in the most ingenious fashion, and actually contrive to meet interfering man half-way. imagine for a moment that we had for centuries past been building our cities, not with bricks, stones and lime, but with a substance as soft as is the wax secreted by the bees. one day an all-powerful being lifts us into the air and places us in the midst of a fairy city. we recognize that it is made of a substance resembling the wax that we have been using; but, as regards all the rest, we are merely lost and bewildered. we are called upon to make this city suit our requirements. each of the houses in it is so small that our two hands can cover it. we can distinguish the beginnings of thousands of incomplete walls. there are many things that we have never come across before; there are gaps to be filled and joined up with the rest, there are many parts that have to be propped up and supported. we see a chance of getting things right, but around us there is nothing but hardship and danger. some superior intellect, able to guess at most of our desires, has evidently been at work, but has been baffled and confused by the vastness and variety of the necessary details. it becomes our business, therefore, to disentangle this confusion, to induce order where now is disorder; we must find out what this superior intellect wanted us to do; we must build in a few days what would normally have taken us years; we must alter our methods of labor, we must change these in accordance with the work that has already been done. in the meanwhile we must deal with all the problems that arise, we must meet all the difficulties that the superior intellect had not foreseen; we must learn how to make the fullest use of the wonderful opportunities that have been provided. this is more or less what the bees are doing to-day in our modern hives. what one may call the local self-government, the bees' methods of dealing with their own affairs--such as the swarm, for instance, or the treatment of queens--these vary in every hive. syrian hives have been known to produce 120 queens, whereas our own will never rear more than ten or twelve. in one hive in syria 120 dead queen-mothers were found, together with ninety living ones. the bee is capable, too, of altering her ways, should conditions require it; of changing her methods. take one of them to california or australia, and her habits will become quite other than when she was in europe. having discovered that summer always abides in the land and that flowers never are absent, she will, after a time, be content to live from day to day, and gather only honey and pollen sufficient for her immediate requirements; and her observation of the new conditions will teach her that it is not necessary to make provision for the winter. all this she will learn in a year or two; and in fact it becomes necessary for the bee-keeper to deprive her of the fruits of her labor, in order to maintain her activity. similarly it is said that, in the barbadoes, the bees in such hives as are close to the sugar-refineries will entirely cease visiting the flowers, but will gather their store from the vast quantity of sweets that surround them. of wild bees no less than 4500 varieties are known. some naturalists believe that the "prosopis," a little wild bee that is found all over the world, is the original kind from which all the others have sprung. this unfortunate little insect is to our domestic bee more or less what a cave-dweller would be to a highly-civilized man of to-day. you will probably more than once have seen it, hovering over the bushes in a deserted corner of your garden, and it will never have occurred to you that there, fluttering before you, was the first-comer of those to whom we probably owe most of our flowers and plants; for it is a fact that more than a hundred varieties of plants would disappear if they were not regularly visited by the bees. the prosopis is nimble and not unattractive, the french variety being elegantly marked with white over a black background. she leads a miserable life of starvation and solitude. her body is almost bare; she has not the warm and sumptuous fleece of her happier sisters. she has no baskets in which to gather the pollen, no brushes, no towering plumes. with her tiny claws she must scratch away the powder from the cups of the flowers; and she must swallow this powder in order to bring it home. she has no tools to work with, nothing but her tongue, her mouth and her claws; and her tongue is short, her claws are feeble and her jaws without strength. unable to form any wax, to bore holes through wood or dig in the earth, she builds clumsy galleries in the soft pith of dry berries; she puts up a few shapeless cells, and stores these with a little food for the young whom she never will see. and then, having done all this as best she can, she goes off and dies in some hidden corner, as lonely now at the end as she has been through all her poor life. as the bees progress from wildness to civilization, we note that their tongue gradually lengthens, thus enabling more nectar to be drawn from the flowers; hairs and tufts grow and develop, and brushes for collecting the pollen; mandibles and claws become firmer and stronger and the bees acquire the intellect that enables them to make improvements in their dwellings. to relate all the different changes would require a whole volume; i will merely dwell on one or two instances of their development. we have seen the unhappy prosopis living her lonely little life in the midst of this vast and indifferent universe. some of her more civilized sisters, who have tools of their own and are skilled in the use of them, still exist in absolute solitude. if by chance some creature attach itself to them and share their dwelling, it will be an enemy or, more often, what is known as a parasite. for the world of bees contains many strange phantoms; and there are some species which will have a kind of indolent double, a creature exactly similar to the victim it has chosen to live with, save only that its uninterrupted idleness has caused it to lose one by one its implements of labor. it never works, or tries to work, it collects no food itself, but lives on that which is painfully got together by the unfortunate bee on whom it has fastened. little by little, by slow degrees and slow stages, the bees advance in civilization and intellect till we find them dwelling together in the regular life of a city. they have abandoned their solitude, their isolation; their existence, formerly so narrow and incomplete, has now become more assured, more concerned with the existence of those round about them. instead of thinking only of their own offspring, they have learned that they must devote themselves to the race, that they must live and work together in order to make the future sure and safe. there are certain building-bees which dig holes in the earth, and unite in large colonies to construct their nests. between the individual members of the crowd, however, there is no communication and no understanding; they join together in a common task, but each one thinks only of her own particular interest. a little higher up in the scale we come to a race of bees, known as the panurgi, who seem to have recognized the advantage of living and working as one community. they build in the same haphazard fashion as the others, each one digging its own underground chambers, but the entrance is common to all, as is also the gallery which winds from the surface to the different cells below. here we find the idea of fellowship beginning to penetrate into the life of the bee, and it progresses with their civilization. as this increases, their manners and methods soften; what was formerly a mere instinct, due to the fear of cold and hunger, has become an active intelligence, working in the interests of life. the bumble-bees, the great, hairy creatures that are so familiar to us all, so inoffensive although they appear so fierce, begin their life in solitude. in the first days of march the mother-bee, who has survived the winter, will start to construct her nest, either underground or in a bush, according to the species to which she belongs. she is alone in the world, and around her is only the miracle of awakening spring. she chooses a spot that seems favorable; she clears the rubbish away, digs down and builds her cells. into these, which will have no special shape of their own, she will store the honey and pollen that she collects, and here she will lay and hatch her eggs; soon a troop of daughters will surround her, and these will all help in the work within the nest and without. more cells will be added, and the construction of these will be better; the colony grows, and there are signs of some prosperity. the old mother finds herself now at the head of a little kingdom which might serve as the model on which that of our honey-bee was formed. but the model is still in the rough. the good-fortune of the humble-bee never lasts. if they have laws, they do not obey them; the elder bees will at times devour the larvæ, the buildings still are far from perfect and much material has been wasted in putting them up; but the most remarkable and essential difference between the two is that the honey-bees' city will endure forever while the poor shelter that the humble-bees have raised will disappear when the winter comes, its two or three hundred inhabitants all perishing, with the exception of one single female. the others have vanished, and left no trace behind; she, when next spring comes, will begin again, in the same solitude and poverty as her mother before her, and with the same useless result. yet another stage up, and we find a more civilized class of bee, whose organization is as complete as in our own hives. the males of this race, which are known as the "meliponitæ," are not wholly idle, and they help in the secretion of wax. the entrance to the hive is carefully guarded; it has a door that can be closed when nights are cold, and a sort of curtain that will let air in when the heat is oppressive. but still there is not the same good government, the same security and general prosperity, as among the honey-bees. labor is not so well distributed; much less skill is shown in the designing of the city, and the spirit of the hive is not so fully developed. it is only about a hundred and ninety years ago that people first began to study the habits of wild bees; at that time few were known, and although since then many others have been observed, there may be hundreds, possibly thousands, of whom we know very little. it was in the year 1730 that the first book on the subject was published; and the humble-bees, all powdered with gold, that were feasting then on the flowers, were precisely the same, as regards their habits and ways, as those that to-morrow will be noisily buzzing in the woods round about you. a hundred and ninety years, however, are but as the twinkling of an eye; and many lives of men, placed end to end, form but a second in the history of nature. although the highest type of bee-life is found in our domestic hives, it must not be imagined that these reveal no faults. they contain one masterpiece, the six-sided cell, which displays absolute perfection; a perfection that all the geniuses in the world, were they to meet in council, could in no way improve. no living creature, not even man, has achieved in his sphere what the bee has achieved in her own; and if some one from another world were to descend on this globe and to ask what was the most perfect thing that unaided reason had produced here below, we should have to offer the humble comb of honey. but such perfection as the honey-comb reveals is not shown in all the works of the bee. we have already drawn attention to some shortcomings, such as the vast number of males and their persistent idleness, the excessive swarming, the entire absence of pity, and the almost monstrous sacrifice that each individual is called upon to make to the community. to these must be added a curious inclination to store enormous masses of pollen, often far in excess of what is required; with the result that the pollen soon turns rancid and goes solid, blocking up the surface of the comb. of these defects the most serious is the repeated swarming. but here we must bear in mind that for thousands of years the bee has been interfered with by man. from the egyptian of the time of pharaoh down to the peasant of our own day the bee-keeper has always disregarded the desires and the intentions of the bees. the most prosperous hives are those which send out only one swarm after the beginning of summer. they have done their duty; they have safeguarded the future of the swarm, which is composed of so large a number of bees that they will have ample time to erect solid and well-provisioned dwellings before the arrival of autumn. if man had not come in the way, it is clear that these first swarms and their colonies would have been the only ones to survive the hardships of winter, which would have destroyed the others, owing to their weakness and poverty; and the bees would gradually have learned the folly of swarming so frequently, and would have acted accordingly. but it is precisely these prudent, careful hives that man has always destroyed in order to possess himself of the honey which they contained. he allowed only the feeblest colonies to survive; the second or third swarms, which had barely sufficient food to endure through the winter. the result will probably have been that the habit of excessive swarming fastened itself on the bees, in whom, particularly in the black varieties, it is much too general. for some years, however, modern and scientific bee-keeping has done much to correct this dangerous habit; and it is possible, perhaps, that in time the bees themselves will learn to abandon it. as for the other faults which we have noticed, they are probably due to causes unknown to us, that still remain the secrets of the hive. as for the bees' intelligence, their power of reasoning, let every one judge for himself. to me, many actions of theirs appear to prove that they do possess this power; but, were it otherwise, if it could be conclusively established that all that they do is directed by some blind instinct, my interest in them would not be one whit the less. we are taught by them at least that there are many things in nature that we cannot understand and cannot explain, and this induces us to look with more eagerness on the things around us, and is not without its effect on our thoughts and our feelings, and on all that we try to say. and, further, i am not at all sure that our own intellect is the proper tribunal to judge the bees and pass a verdict upon their mistakes. do we not ourselves live in the midst of errors and blunders without being aware of them; and even when aware of them, are we so quick at finding a remedy? the bees might have much to say if they passed us in review, and criticized our world as we do theirs; they would find a good deal to puzzle them in our own reason and moral sense, and would be compelled to admit that we seemed to be governed by principles quite beyond their understanding. i have referred to the way in which man interferes with the bees; and truly they do here provide a most admirable lesson. no matter to what extent their own plans have been thwarted, they will none the less do what they know to be their profound and primitive duty. and as to what this duty may be they are never in doubt. it is written in their tongue, in their mouth, over every organ of their body, that they are in this world to make honey; as it is written in our eyes, our ears, our nerves, in every lobe of our brain, that we have been created to think, to reason, to understand, to improve our sense of justice, our knowledge, to cultivate our soul. the bees know not who will eat the honey they harvest, as we know not who shall profit by the spiritual treasure we gather. as they go from flower to flower absorbing nectar beyond what they or their hive will need, so let us go from thought to thought, forever seeking the truth. and let the knowledge that this is our duty quicken the zeal, the ardor and purity with which our soul turns to the light. the end nuova or the new bee a story for children of five to fifty by vernon kellogg with songs by charlotte kellogg illustrated by milo winter houghton mifflin company boston and new york copyright, 1920, by vernon kellogg and houghton mifflin company all rights reserved to jean who is five [illustration: "nuova, i love you"] prefatory note most of this that i have written about bees is true: what is not, does not pretend to be. some of the true part sounds almost like a description of what human life might in some respects be, if certain social movements of to-day were followed out to their logical extreme. i suppose that in this likeness lies the moral of the book. v. k. contents i. nuova appears 1 ii. nuova's first experiences 7 iii. nuova as nurse 16 iv. nuova sees some other things done 29 v. nuova sees bee moth and gets acquainted with beffa 44 vi. nuova and hero, and the birth of the princess 60 vii. nuova goes outside 78 viii. nuova and hero again, and a battle 93 ix. hero and nuova once more, and the great courting chase 106 x. nuova in the beautiful garden 115 xi. hero finds nuova in the garden 130 xii. the happy ending 142 illustrations "nuova, i love you" _colored frontispiece_ the beginning of a new life for nuova 4 industriously cleaning the floor 12 "i am so tired," replied poor nuova 26 she would like that kind of work 32 "what?" she cried. "well, you really are a stupid bee" 42 "the stupid one! the faithless one!" 48 "drones work? it isn't done, you know" 62 there came slowly forth ... the new princess 74 "beffa, you are sad," said saggia 80 nuova began to clean his wings 96 nuova was among the fallen 104 in the garden 116 beffa settled down comfortably 128 "the princess is lost!" 146 the names of the bees as all the bees of this story are italian bees, they all, except one, have italian names. and they should really be spoken as the italians speak them. besides, they are prettier that way. therefore, a list of them, with the proper way to pronounce them, is given here. _nuova_ (noo-o'va) _uno_ (oo'no) _due_ (doo'ay) _tre_ (tray) _saggia_ (saj'jia) _mela_ (may'la) _cera_ (chay'ra) _fessa_ (fess'sa) _aria_ (ah'ri-a) _principessa_ (prin-chee-pess'sa) _lotta_ (lawt'ta) _nuova_ chapter i _nuova appears_ nuova seemed to be gradually awakening. it would have seemed that way to any one who could have seen her just at this moment, and it seemed that way to nuova herself. it was just as if one were in a comfortable, warm bed, and began to be conscious of a faint light outside and of soft voices and of other subdued sounds. the light and sounds grow stronger and louder, until, with a start, one is really awake, and sees that the light is the sunlight of a beautiful morning coming in at the curtained window, and recognizes the sounds to be those of the household already busy with a new day's work. it was, indeed, an awakening for nuova; but it was more. it was the beginning of a new life for her. until now she had been in a sort of pollywog stage for a bee--a stage in which she had no legs nor wings, and in which she could do nothing for herself at all, not even as much as a pollywog can--and had lain all the time in a long, narrow, six-walled, waxen cell that was bed and room all in one. that is, we might say, she had always so far in her life been in bed. for when she was born in her cell, she was just a tiny white thing, without wings or legs, blind, and quite helpless. really about all she could do was to squirm a little in her horizontal cell, and keep opening her mouth when she was hungry to let somebody know she must be fed. she was immediately taken care of, however, by the nurse bees who kept near the nursery cells all the time except when they had to go to the pantry cells for more food for the babies. this food was flower nectar and pollen that had been brought into the hive by the active forager bees and stored in the pantry cells. the nurses made a sort of very good and nutritious jelly out of it which made nuova grow very fast. after she had been fed in this way for five days, she was many times larger than she had been at first. at the end of this time, however, the nurse bees did what might seem, at first thought, a rather heartless thing. they made a thin cap or cover of wax over the open mouth of nuova's cell, thus shutting her up tight in her bedroom. she was so large that she almost filled her cell, but there was still a little room left, and this the nurses filled, just before putting the waxen cap on the cell, with pollen and nectar mixed. for a few days nuova lay quietly in her dark, sealed-up cell, eating, when hungry, from the lump of pollen and nectar which lay by her side. and then she stopped eating and simply lay there in a sort of trance for several days more. to nuova herself all her life in the cell, from first day to last, must have seemed little more than a sort of dream; a confused dream of not being able to walk or fly, or see or hear, but only to squirm a little, and be hungry and then be fed, and to feel dimly strange growing pains from the rapidly growing legs and wings when they began to come, and of always being rather comfortably warm and sleepy. but this sleeping time had come to an end now; this helpless pollywog stage was finished for nuova. and the light she saw through the big eyes that had grown out on her head, during the last few days in the shut-up cell, was the faint but real light of a new day filtering its way through the crowded hive. and the sounds she heard by means of the many tiny little hearing organs on the long, delicate, sensitive feelers, or antennæ, that had also grown out near her eyes and were connected by fine nerves with her brain, were the humming and murmuring of the thousands of industrious bees of the hive who were already at work at their various duties all around her. nuova's awaking, then, was much more than the mere waking-up after a night's sleeping. it was the waking from a life of doing nothing but lying in bed and sleeping and eating and growing, to a life of taking care of one's self and helping to take care of others; it was the waking from a baby life to real bee life. for nuova was now a full-grown bee, with all the wonderful body and all the wonderful instincts and the high intelligence that we know bees to have. but she was still shut up in her nursery cell. [illustration: the beginning of a new life for nuova] however, to escape from it was not difficult. she could see that the faint light came in strongest through the capped end of the cell. the waxen cap was the thinnest part of the walls of her room, and as nuova's head was already lying close to the cap, it was a simple and easy matter for her to begin biting it away with her two strong, little, trowel-like teeth. in a few moments she had made a little hole in the cap, and the light and sounds came in suddenly much brighter and louder than before, although the light was really not bright at all nor the sounds loud, as we reckon such things. for the inside of a honeybee's house, the hive, is always pretty dark, and the sounds the bees make are not all loud, except occasionally when things are especially exciting and all the bees are buzzing together at once, or when a princess is about to come from her nursery cell and both she and the old queen do a lot of extraordinary trumpeting. but to nuova, biting her way out through the thin wax cap of her cell, having never heard nor seen anything at all through all of her baby life, things seemed very bright and noisy indeed. this, however, instead of frightening her, made her only the more anxious to get out and be a part of this exciting world around her, and so she worked away as fast as she could, until suddenly the hole was large enough for her to crawl out. this she did, feeling, we may imagine, rather strange at using her new legs for the first time, and finding her new wings all folded up and rather damp and heavy. but out she came and, with a long breath or two, she started to walk over the uneven surface of the waxen comb in which her nursery cell was situated. but after only a few steps she felt tired and limp. indeed she _was_ limp, for all the outer part of her body, that was later to be firm and strong, was still rather soft and damp and weak; her legs could not hold her up well yet, and her unexercised muscles needed a little practice to work together just right. so she soon stopped, trembling all over from her unwonted exertion, and let her big eyes gradually take in the strange sight about her. chapter ii _nuova's first experiences_ it was truly a remarkable sight. she found that she was part way up a vertical wall or comb of waxen cells, each of six sides and all lying horizontally in the wall. this wall of cells towered far above her even to the very roof of the hive, and below her it stretched away down to the floor. facing it towered another similar wall of cells, and there was but little more space between the two than was needed for the free movement of the scores, aye, even hundreds of bees that were clambering about over the opposite faces of the walls. in each wall some of the cells were open and some capped over. in the open ones were either baby bees lying on their stomachs with their heads near the opening of the cells, and their mouths opening and shutting in a most comical way, or there was some pollen or honey; or there was nothing at all. the cells with babies in them were those in the middle part of the wall, while around these were the food cells. near the open nursery cells were many capped ones, and nuova saw that some of these caps were being gnawed through from the inside. she knew what that meant; she had just been doing that herself. but also near the open and half-filled pollen and honey cells were other capped ones, and nuova guessed, and quite rightly, that these were filled and sealed-up honey cells. the open pollen cells were pretty to look at because the pollen in them was of different colors, yellow, orange, red, etc., and they made a sort of uneven but attractive color-pattern on the face of the great vertical wall. nuova was a little dizzy at first, with looking up and down the towering wall, and she had to hang on tightly to keep from falling. but she soon grew accustomed to the great heights above and below her, and even began to feel quite at home in her peculiar situation. a pang of hunger came to her as she saw a bee walk up to an open honey cell and take a long drink. she started to walk toward the same cell, when she felt a tug at one of her wings, and heard an impatient voice, evidently addressing her. "here, wait a minute; we haven't got you clean yet; and your wings aren't half dry. don't be in a hurry!" nuova was startled; remember, it was the first bee-talking, or any kind of talking, she had ever heard. yet she understood it perfectly, and understood at once, too, just what was going on. for as she turned her head to see who was speaking, she saw that two nurse bees were most industriously cleaning her body all over, and unfolding and smoothing out her wings, so that they would dry rapidly, and dry all properly spread out. sometimes young bees do not get their wings properly spread before they dry, and then their wings are crumpled up and useless all through their lives. nuova had, indeed, for some time rather vaguely felt this gentle cleaning and wing-spreading operation going on, but at first she had felt so dizzy and faint, and then when she felt better had become so intent on looking up and down the two great walls of wax, with their various cells and the many active bees moving about over them, that she had paid no attention to the gentle rubbing and pulling and stretching. indeed, it was done so gently that unless she had started to walk away, or had accidentally looked around, she might not have known that it was going on at all. it was a performance much like that a just-born kitten goes through at the hands, or rather tongue, of its mother. the pollen and honey, put into her cell when it was capped, had, of course, rather soiled nuova's body and much of her hair was stuck together by it. so like every young bee, just come from its nursery cell, she needed a good cleaning. and she was getting it. without thinking twice about it nuova did a very surprising thing. or rather it was not surprising for a bee to do, but it would have been if one of us, just born, as it were, and without any teaching or practice or chance of hearing any one else first, should do it. for we always call surprising, in bees or other creatures, what would be surprising in us, which is a rather silly way of judging things, but one we are all very much given to. as we think we are the most important kind of creatures on earth--as certainly we are, to ourselves--we think our ways of doing things are the usual or normal or even best ways, and all other ways "surprising." but we shall find, the more we learn about nuova, that bees have their own manner of life and ways of doing things, and one of the most important many differences between their ways and our ways is that they know so many things right off without any learning or practice or imitating of others. they are born knowing how; they do not have to be taught. for example, the surprising thing that nuova did right away, without thinking twice about it, was to begin talking to the two nurse bees who were cleaning her. what nuova said, and what was said to her in return, is of no particular interest to us. it was simply commonplace talk, for nuova's coming out of her cell, her first dizziness, the high walls of cells, the many bees moving about, the spreading-out of nuova's wings and cleaning her body, and even nuova's ability to understand things about her and to begin talking right away--all these were taken for granted in the hive as the most usual things in the world, which therefore needed no special exclaiming or talking about. in fact nuova felt already that, as soon as she was properly clean and dry, she must join the other active bees, who were all busy with the different kinds of work they were doing, and begin work herself. and she felt that she knew just what this first work for her should be. it should be the work of a nurse. and the nurse bees cleaning her seemed to take this for granted too. for one of them soon said: "i think you had better begin on the other side of the comb; there are enough of us on this side already." nuova looked up and down the great comb and then to right and left. the nurse noted this, and added: "you can get around by going either to the top or the bottom, or to either end." nuova thanked her, and decided to crawl down to the bottom, for she could see, far down there, a number of bees moving about industriously cleaning the floor and some others that stood still, apparently on their heads, and kept their wings buzzing like mad. she was not quite sure what this performance meant; and the floor-cleaning, too, seemed a little curious. the fact is that, although bees do seem to know right off about things, they know these things one at a time, as it were; that is, when it is time for them to do a thing, they know pretty well, without any telling, how to do it, but they do not seem to know about other things at the same time. they seem to know things only as the time comes for each special thing to be done. nuova seemed to know that she should begin working as a nurse, and to know how to do the work, for as soon as she started she did just about as well as any of the nurses, but floor-cleaning, and standing on one's head and fanning one's wings like mad, were not things she knew about yet. [illustration: industriously cleaning the floor] she worked her way carefully down to the bottom of the comb and found herself in a very busy place indeed. there was a free place under this comb and under the one opposite to it as well. when she looked under the comb which she had just walked down, she saw a great, low-ceilinged place stretching away in all directions, rather dim and getting darker the farther away it extended, except in one direction. in this direction, however, it was lighter, and the farther the distance the lighter it was. from this lightest part many bees were hurrying toward her with great loads of vari-colored pollen in their pollen baskets, or with their honey sacs filled to overflowing with fresh nectar. they hurried on, paying no attention to any one, and disappeared one by one by climbing up and out of sight, except the few that climbed up the face of either of the combs that towered just over her. these bees she could still watch, and she could see that they carried their loads far up to the open food cells into which they emptied the food they had brought. also she saw other bees, without loads, hurrying along the floor toward the light, and she had a wonderful thrill as she saw them, and something within her urged her to run with them toward the distant light; something inside her that sang of sunshine, blue sky, green grass and bushes, and many-hued fragrant flowers. but something else, even stronger, within her, told her not to go; that her work awaited her close at hand; that she must nurse bee-babies here in the dimly lighted hive. so she turned away from the alluring light with only a glance at the floor-cleaners and the silly bees on their heads with their wings going like mad. so strong within her had grown the feeling that there was just one thing for her now, that she walked under the broad, lower edge of the comb from whose high wall she had descended and came into the bottom of another high space between two other towering walls of waxen cells. chapter iii _nuova as nurse_ when nuova had come into this new high space, she looked up and realized that one of its side walls was simply the other side of the comb in which her nursery cell had been, while the other was that of another comb opposite it, just as she had seen that there was another comb opposite its other side. nuova, seeing this, easily understood that probably this was the arrangement all through the hive, and that the broad and long, low, free space running through the whole hive just above the floor was a space just underneath the lower edges of many great vertical combs standing side by side. which, of course, was true. right away, however, nuova saw that one of the walls above her was incomplete; it did not reach, along its whole length, from the ceiling clear to the floor, but at one end, the end toward the lighter end of the hive, it came down but a little way from the ceiling. clinging to this unfinished part of the wall was a great mass of bees, the upper ones hanging to the free edge of the wall, but the ones below clinging to them and to each other, thus forming a festoon or curtain of bees hanging down from the lower edge of the incomplete wall. many bees in this living curtain were buzzing their wings violently, while others were quiet, with thin sheets or plates of some shining, silver-yellowish substance forming on the under side of their bodies. beneath the lower edge of the bee-curtain there was a broad, free space beyond which the vertical wall of another more distant comb appeared. on the floor in this open space were gathered many bees, most of which appeared to be picking up little pieces of the shining, silver-yellowish substance that had broken off from the bees in the festoon above, and fallen to the floor. as this open space was lighter than the space she had come from, nuova could see everything quite clearly here, and the activity of all the bees and their concentration on whatever they were doing impressed her very much. no one so much as spoke to her; no one spoke to any one else; but every one worked away for dear life. it made her feel that she must get at her own work just as soon as possible. she glanced up the part of the wall that was all finished, and saw toward its middle a group of nurse bees, and a lot of open and capped nursery cells. she could even see, sticking out of some of the open ones, the comical heads of the babies, each with its mouth regularly opening and shutting. and then she heard a song, a gentle lullaby sort of song. it was the nurse bees singing as they worked. this is the song they sang: we watch beside the cradles when the bee-babies sleep; we guard the shining pantries where the bee-milk we keep. and when the countless tiny bee-mouths open wide, we rush with drink and bee-bread and drop them inside. our bread's the daintiest morsel a wee babe could eat; we knead it of soft pollen and flower nectar sweet. when ends our busy bee-day the nurseries we right, then wash our countless bee-mites and tuck them in tight. just try to feed our family, and swiftly you'll see that never were there nurses so busy as we. so she started to climb up to them. just as she had gone a little way up, however, her attention was called to a very active and apparently excited group of bees crowding about a very different sort of cell from the ones that made up all the rest of the comb. this was five or six times as large as any of the others, and not six-sided, but shaped something like a pear with its small end down. it did not lie horizontal in the comb, but vertical, or nearly so, and had a rough, thick wall, and was open at its smaller, lower end. nuova could not see what was in it, for she was already as high or higher than it was, as it was near the lower edge of the comb, its lower end, indeed, being but a little way above the floor. as she hesitated a moment, attracted by the sight of the strange cell and the many excited bees about it, most of whom were nurses, she heard a bee, hurrying away from the cell, say to another hurrying toward it: "how fast the princess is growing!" this did not enlighten nuova much, but the feeling inside of her was now so strong that she must begin work at once that she hurried on up to the nursery cells lying a little way above the curious large cell without trying to find out anything about it. which shows again, of course, how different bees are from us. when nuova got to the nursery cells with their hungry babies she went right to work. she seemed to know just what to do; to go to the pollen and honey cells and drink honey and eat pollen and swallow them, but not too far, and then wait a few minutes, and then give this food up again, all properly mixed, through her mouth right into the open mouths of the hungry babies. and she knew just what babies were ready to have their cells capped with wax--with a nice little lump of food stored inside first, of course--and how to call some bee with a pellet of wax in its mouth to do the capping. she understood at once that the shining, silver-yellowish plates on the bodies of the bees in the festoon at the end of the comb were wax, and that the pieces being picked up by other bees from the floor underneath the festoon were to be used for capping cells, and for making new cells where the vertical wall of comb was still incomplete. all these things, and whatever other new ones came up in the next few days in connection with taking care of the babies, she seemed to understand right away, and indeed she seemed to know how to do all her work without having to reason about it, or to observe and draw conclusions; in fact, without even once really having to think about it at all. and because it was all so simple, and so easy to understand, an extraordinary thing came to pass with nuova; that is, an extraordinary thing for a bee. the thing was that _nuova got tired of her work_! yes, she got tired of it; tired physically, which is not perhaps so extraordinary, for bees sometimes fall dead from being over-tired physically; but she also got tired and impatient of the simplicity and monotony of what she was doing. she got, i suppose we may fairly say, mentally and spiritually tired of it. which happening marks nuova as a bee of a strange and rare kind: a bee that is--is--well, all i can say is, a bee that is different. other bees, if they had known of it, would have called her a "funny" bee, or a "peculiar" bee; or perhaps something worse. indeed, this something worse is just what she was soon called. for nuova, after a few days of this steady care of babies, one hot afternoon--the hive was so set in the garden that it was quite exposed to the sun--nuova, i say, one hot afternoon stopped working, and crawled slowly down past the great pear-shaped cell clear to the lower edge of the comb and there she sat and simply did nothing! pretty soon uno, one of the nurse bees in nuova's group, who had already shown herself to have a rather spiteful nature, noticed that nuova was not working, was not, indeed, to be seen anywhere about the nurse cells. so she touched another nurse bee near her, named due, with her antennæ so as to call her attention, and said in a low voice: "where is nuova?" due looked around, and not seeing nuova, said: "why, where is she?" then both bees touched a third nurse bee, named tre, with their antennæ. she turned around and joined them. "what's the matter?" she said. then looking at the group of nurses, she added: "where is nuova?" "that's it," said uno and due together. "where is nuova? she isn't here--she has stopped working." "exactly," said tre. "i thought she would come to that--i've been noticing her lately. she doesn't seem to like to work." "whoever heard of such a bee!" exclaimed uno and due together. "let us find her," said tre. so all three started to move around over the comb looking for nuova. they made wider and wider journeys from the nursery cells, until uno, who had got down almost to the very bottom of the comb and was quite close to nuova but had not yet seen her, heard a low voice murmuring, "i am so tired." uno turned quickly and saw nuova. she was sitting with her head hanging down on her breast, and she looked very tired and dejected. but that aroused no sympathy in uno, who, together with due and tre, had taken a strong dislike to nuova, feeling in her, some way, a rather different, even a rather superior sort of bee. nuova was so unusually pretty, for one thing. and she had such a lively interest in everything around her. uno, due, and tre, who were bees almost exactly like each other, and like most other bees, felt an instinctive malice toward her, probably based on a certain envy which they did not, however, even admit to themselves. uno quickly called due and tre, and the three stared malevolently at nuova for a moment and then said together, speaking loudly so that the other bees near by could hear: "well, what a bee! to stop work! just think of it!" then uno leaned over her and called to her: "lazy!" and due stepped up to her and said: "loafer!" and tre came up on the other side of her and hissed: "shirk!" then all three, lifting their wings to strike poor nuova, who had sat very still through all this, shrinking from the vicious bees, called out: "we'll teach her!" and then they began to strike her all over with their strong wings. it was going pretty badly with nuova, when an old floor-cleaner named saggia stepping up to the group shouldered off the three angry nurse bees. saggia had noticed at other times that nuova went rather slowly back and forth between the nursery cells and the food cells, but she had a good heart and thought it was because nuova was sick, perhaps, for bees often get ill just as we do. she spoke to nuova rather sharply, but still in a kindly way. "nuova! what are you doing here? you mustn't stop." "but i am so tired," replied poor nuova. "thank you for driving them away," she added. [illustration: "i am so tired," replied poor nuova] "tired, nonsense," said saggia. "that's nothing. of course you are tired. we all are. but what difference does that make? go back to the babies, and keep on with your work." "that is what they all say," cried nuova, bitterly and half angrily. "here am i a full week out of my nursery cell, and i haven't had a bit of rest or fun yet. it is time i began to have some. doesn't any one ever rest or have a good time?" saggia was painfully surprised to hear nuova talk in this manner. she began to fear that nuova's tiredness was not just physical tiredness. she answered her therefore in a strongly reproving manner. "of course nobody rests, and of course every one has a good time. look at them all," and she waved an antenna toward the workers at the nursery cells, "don't you see what a good time they are having? it is having a good time to be always working; always working for each other and for our children." "but they aren't our children," nuova broke in, "yours and mine, that is, nor anybody's but the queen's children. she is the mother of them all. and she keeps on having more. and we have to take care of them all, and all the time." "they _are_ our children," saggia interrupted, speaking very positively and still more reprovingly. "they are the children of the community; the children of the race. it is our race we are working for; the children of the race. think of it!" nuova made a little face. "well, i am tired of the race and the race's children," she said. "i want some children of my own." old saggia was dreadfully shocked by this. and she was terrified on nuova's account for fear some other bees might have heard her. it was, indeed, about as rebellious a thing as a bee can say. "hush, child," said saggia in a whisper. "you mustn't say such things. you mustn't even think them. other bees don't. and you must hurry back to your work before the others miss you." she helped nuova up, and urged her to begin climbing back up to the nurse cells. "if you are tired of taking care of the babies you can do something else next week. you will be old enough then to make wax and build cells or help clean the hive. and then in another week you can go out and gather pollen and nectar from the flowers. but go back now to the babies; the other nurses are looking for you." she urged nuova along again, and this time nuova started up, but she went very reluctantly and slowly. "no," she said, "they pay no attention to me. nobody but you pays any attention to me, except when i stop working. they never notice me when i am hard at work." "why, of course not," replied saggia gently. "why should you be noticed then? that is what we all do all the time; just keep everlastingly at it. that is what makes the bees such a great people. there is something wrong about a bee that doesn't want to work all the time; you mustn't be different from the others. i am afraid you are sick." all the time she was saying this saggia was urging nuova along up the comb toward the nursery cells, and now they had quite reached the group of nurses. as uno, due, and tre saw nuova again they closed in around her so as to strike or pinch her. but saggia kept them off. and nuova slipped into her place again in front of a hungry baby. chapter iv _nuova sees some other things done_ just as nuova took her place again, however, she heard in the distance a joyful singing. it came from the lightest place in the hive, and looking in this direction nuova saw a whole group of nectar gatherers coming along together, half-dancing and turning about, and all singing together in the happiest way possible. this is what they sang: take a peep into the pail, nectar to the brim, carried over down and dale till the ways were dim. on a dawn-ray forth we sped, a thousand wings in tune, by a new-born wind were led down the paths of june. silvery world of buzz and whirr, fragrance on the wing, sod and root and blade astir, sped our garnering. long in nature's honey-room we dipped and drank at will; brushed the purple lilac plume, sipped from thyme and dill. till when evening softly bore over dune and dell, hastened we with golden store home to queen and cell. and then she heard another song, and saw a group of pollen gatherers following the nectar gatherers. and this is what they sang: here's saffron dust and crimson dust, and dust of rarest blue; in lavish nature's pollen mines each mines his favorite hue. some buzzed and burrowed all the morn within a clover hold, till fuzzy backs were powdered fine and thigh-bags bulged with gold. and some delved deep in lily cups, or hung from blossomy bells- the story of their mazy flight the rainbow treasure tells. there's pollen sweet for roof and wall, and more for soft bee-bread; for all, from wondrous mother-queen to bee-mite, must be fed. here's palest pink and lilac dust, and green and brown and blue; in lavish nature's pollen fields each finds his favorite hue. they liked their work, these foragers, that was sure, and nuova felt that she would like that kind of work too. just then mela, one of the pollen gatherers, climbing up the comb where nuova was, with her pollen baskets filled by two great masses of golden yellow pollen, stopped for a moment for breath. nuova stretched her antenna toward mela and touched her, attracting her attention. [illustration: she would like that kind of work.] "oh, mela, tell me about it," she said to her eagerly. "do you hear the birds sing and see the butterflies dance out there? mela, take me with you when you go back." mela was very much astonished to hear a pretty young nurse bee talk to her this way, and she looked first sharply and then rather contemptuously at nuova. "you upstart young thing," she said, "take you out with us? well, i rather think not until you have finished your nursing work. and you are loafing now! well, you will do your work better in the hive or you can never go out at all, that's sure." and uno, due, and tre, who had overheard this conversation, buzzed at her one after another: "lazy! loafer! shirk!" and they tried to strike her once more, but saggia, who had not yet gone down to the floor, again kept them off and whispered rapidly to nuova: "yes, you shall go out some time. but you must be a good bee and do your work in the hive first, nurse the babies, then help make wax and build cells. so go on with your work now. hurry, the soldiers are coming, and they have their stings all ready for loafing bees as well as for wasps and black bees that come to rob us. hurry, hurry!" saggia pushed nuova back into her place, and uno, due, and tre also hurried to their own places as the marching song of the amazons was heard. into the hive and down the long aisles between the great vertical walls of comb they came marching rapidly and brandishing their long, sharp lances all ready for use. this was their song: now fierce black bee and yellow wasp with cunning seek to rush the hive; up warriors, aim the poisoned dart, let no bold hornet pass alive! defenders of the golden stores, swoop down upon the robber band, no foe escapes the amazon spears, for hive and queen we make our stand! as they finished their song the files of the amazons broke up and the soldiers scattered themselves through the hive, although most of them kept in the lighter part near the entrance. in the special quiet that followed the cessation of the song nuova heard a voice calling loudly from a group of bees near the wax-making festoon at the unfinished end of the comb. this group was busily engaged in moulding new cells, using the wax which was being made by the bees in the living festoon. "look here," called the voice, which was that of cera, chief of the cell-builders and wax-makers, "we must have more wax-makers." she waved an antenna toward the festoon. "they can't furnish us wax fast enough. some of you older nurses come here." nuova who had stopped working and stepped a little out from the group of nurses at cera's first words, now started quickly to go over to her. uno, due, and tre all called angrily to her and tried to stop her but nuova easily evaded them and hurried over, with several other nurses following, to cera. "let me make wax," she said eagerly to cera. cera looked at her, then away and to the others. "you! no, you are too young," she said. then more loudly to the others: "more wax-makers, i say, and right away." but nuova insisted. "take me," she urged. "teach me to make wax." cera stared at her. "what a funny bee! teach you! that shows you are not old enough. if you were you would know without any teaching. bees don't have to be taught. they simply know how to do everything they need to when the right time comes for doing it. and if they don't know it is because the right time hasn't come." but nuova still stood squarely in front of her. cera stared at her more and more surprised and more and more angry. "here," she said finally, and very roughly, "keep out of the way. go back to your babies." nuova fluttered her wings angrily and her sensitive antennæ trembled. "i won't," she said. "i won't be nurse any more; i'll make wax or go out for pollen. yes, i'll go out into the garden." then she actually started to run toward the hive entrance, but was promptly stopped by saggia, who had noticed her altercation with cera and had hurried over. cera who had only half heard nuova's angry outburst was nevertheless greatly astonished, and was about to make an indignant reply and to call the attention of the other bees to the audacious little rebel, but the candidates to make wax crowded about her so closely and chattered so distractingly to her that all thought of nuova was, fortunately, immediately driven out of her mind. in the meantime nuova was tugging away from saggia, and had even dragged her a little along toward the entrance. but saggia held fast to one wing, and at the same time talked to her rapidly. "nuova, stop!" she said in a low voice, at the same time glancing back to see if the crowd around cera was noticing them. "you mustn't say such things. bees never do. listen, you can make wax. listen to me, i'll tell you what to do." nuova stopped tugging at the poor old bee, who was getting rather breathless and could hardly go on with her speaking. what she had last said, however, made nuova want to hear more. so as nuova stopped pulling away saggia went on talking. "the first thing the wax-makers do is to go to the pantry cells and eat all the honey and pollen they can. then they all crowd together in close rows like that," pointing to the festoon of wax-makers, "so as to get very warm, and pretty soon the wax begins to come. it comes out in little drops on your wax-plates"--touching one of the ten curious little five-sided plates on the under side of nuova's body--"and hardens right away into a thin sheet of wax on each one of the plates. now all you have to do is to keep quiet and just mix with the others when they go to the food cells to eat and drink. say nothing to any one, and nobody will pay any attention to you, not even cera, as long as you are busy. there, see, they are going," she added, as the group around cera began to break up, some of the bees going back to the babies while others, who had been accepted by cera, moved to the open food cells and began eating pollen greedily and taking long drinks of honey. "slip over among them," said saggia in a whisper, "and stuff yourself. then go when they do to the festoon and hang on to it." nuova was so eager to try this new experience that she hardly paused to thank saggia, although she did let a grateful smile flit over her pretty fresh face as she hurried away. just as she reached the food cells she heard a gentle, rather monotonous singing, and glancing in the direction of the group of cell-builders and wax-makers from which it came she saw that under the direction of cera who had already rejoined her workers, the cell-builders were going through a sort of dance or rhythmic gymnastics, moving their bodies and waving their wings and legs in a sort of exaggerated imitation of moulding and building, and that the wax-makers in the festoon were buzzing their wings to make their bodies warmer and swinging back and forth, and that all of them together were singing a pretty song about their work. this is the song they sang: cling close in living curtain, one thousand swing as one, now ooze the amber jellies- the work has just begun. haste, mould the dainty wax flakes and ply the trowels swift; pat, pat--the floors spread wider; tap, tap--the light walls lift. through all the long hive-twilight, the patterned cell draw true;- tap, tap, with tiny trowel, we've neither nail nor screw. ten thousand honey pantries and rooms for pollen store;- build high the whole bee-city, and still there's need of more. as the song and motion dance ceased, cera called loudly again. this time she wanted cleaners to come. "here," she cried. "cleaners! let a cleaner come. we are getting too much dust on the floor. cleaners! cleaners!" but no one came. cera, looking impatiently about, saw nuova glancing up from the food cell over which she was standing, and motioned to her. "here, you," she said, without seeming to remember that it was with nuova that she had just had a dispute, "you don't seem to be doing much. you run down to those cleaners," pointing to several cleaners on the floor near the great pear-shaped cell, "and tell one to come here right away. look lively, now." nuova, who seemed always ready for a new thing, gladly ran down the comb to the floor and danced happily across it to a bee that was busily cleaning and touched her with her antennæ. as the cleaner looked up nuova said: "cera wants you; they are making too much dust over there." the cleaner straightened up a little and without a word shuffled slowly across to a place just under the festoon and began to clean the floor there. nuova started to follow her, rather dawdling along, for the prospect of hanging motionless in a wax-making festoon was not especially attractive to her, when she was startled by the falling at her feet of a lump of something soft and sticky-looking. she looked up and saw far up on the vertical wall of the comb rising above her a bee peering down at her and the lump. this bee was indeed right up by the roof of the hive. as the bee saw nuova look up she called to her loudly and rather gruffly, "i say, pretty young bee, bring me up that lump of propolis, won't you?" nuova picked up the soft brownish ball in her mouth and climbed quickly up to the top of the comb with it. as she offered it to the waiting bee on the ceiling, she found it sticking to her teeth in a very uncomfortable way. "oh, the sticky stuff," she said in disgust, "and how it tastes and smells!" the bee to whom she was awkwardly trying to give it, whose name was fessa, and who was a crack-filler, replied disgustedly and wonderingly: "oh, the stupid bee. and it smells like what it is. and that's propolis. and when you've worked with it day and night for a week, as you will sometime, you will learn how to handle it, and not be sickened by its smell. it has really a good healthy smell, for it comes from beautiful great pine trees and balsam firs." "oh," cried nuova, "from outdoors? from the garden where the flowers and butterflies are? shan't i go out and get you some?" and she turned as if to start right away. fessa was much astonished, and as she was an irritable bee, she was angry too. "what?" she cried. "well, you really are a stupid bee. go out? you--you silly young thing. don't you know you can't go out until it is time for you to go? and then you'll have to go whether you want to or not. don't you know that bees do things according to custom? you don't do what you like: you like what you do. that's the bee way, you stupid. what kind of bee are you, anyway? here now, hand over that stuff, and go back to your work." and fessa took the last of the propolis from her very roughly. [illustration: "what?" she cried, "well, you really are a stupid bee"] nuova, who did not like to be handled so roughly, and talked to so sharply, was almost in tears. she seemed to be always getting reproved. however, she said rather maliciously to fessa: "well, do you like to work with that sticky stuff? what do you do with it, anyway?" but fessa had already turned back to her work and paid no attention to her. in fact she had already begun, with her two or three other crack-filling companions, to sing a slow, "sticky" sort of song, as they kept stuffing propolis into a crack in the roof. although i cannot give you the strange, monotonous melody of the song, i can give you the words. they were these: we're the soft putty crew, dripping the oozy glue, squeezing our resins through cranny and crack. stuffing with pure cement crevice and chink and rent, where creeping airs have sent warning of bee moth bent on sly attack. yes, we are the safety crew, spreading with trowel true fragrant and golden glue, gumming each crack. chapter v _nuova sees bee moth and gets acquainted with beffa_ as the crack-fillers kept on singing their monotonous song over and over while they worked, and as they paid no attention whatever to nuova, she turned away after a few minutes of listening to them, and stared around her. it was the first time she had been clear up to the roof of the hive and she saw that here, as at the bottom, there was a low, free space for the whole length and breadth of the hive. it was rather dark up here, and very warm and stuffy, for the warm air rising from the body of the hive could not escape, as the propolis workers had filled all of the crevices and cracks in the roof and where the great flat roof-board rested on the vertical sides of the hive. nuova felt glad she was not a crack-filler, and turned to go down to the wax-making group where she belonged, when she saw a curious, dusky-gray creature, not a bee, although with big eyes and long antennæ and wings, which are all things that bees have also. but this creature's body was much slenderer than a bee's, its antennæ very much longer and slenderer, and its wings not only longer, but covered over, as was the body, with myriads of small scales and hairs. these wings were so folded that they covered all the back and most of the sides of the body and trailed out beyond the tip of the body. the creature was walking rapidly and nervously along the broad, upper edge of the comb on which nuova stood, and seemed to be quite at home in the dim light of this space just under the roof. nuova stared at the creature a moment, and then began to approach her. but the creature had stepped quickly over the edge and was now running rapidly down the face of the comb. in this lighter place nuova could see that she was engaged in hiding every here and there small, white eggs that she seemed to carry somewhere in her body. she would dart nervously in one direction and then another, hesitating a moment after each swift movement long enough to drop an egg in an open cell or squeeze it into a crack in the comb. nuova, not being able to catch up with the creature, called loudly to her a couple of times. "who are you? what are you doing?" she cried; but the creature did not reply, but only worked at her egg-hiding the more rapidly. nuova called to her again, this time so loudly that the attention of several bees in the group of nurses was attracted. the minute they saw the creature, they set up a great shouting and began racing after her. "bee moth! bee moth! after her!" they cried. "call the soldiers! amazons! here! here!" nuova was amazed at the uproar, and then she was shocked to see how the amazons and all the bees in fact dashed at the poor bee moth and began to tear her literally to pieces. first her long antennæ and then her wings were torn off and brandished in the air victoriously, and then her delicate body was stung and hacked into bits, and the fragments tossed down to the floor to be picked up and thrown out of the hive by the cleaners. and during all this violent scene, which horrified nuova because, strange as it may seem, she really did not understand the reason for it, all the bees kept up the most excited buzzing and exclaiming. "the villain!" they cried; "when did she get in? has she laid any eggs? how did she get in? who saw her first? where did she lay her eggs?" some began now to peer about for the eggs, while others continued to talk and gesticulate. uno, who had been standing silent for a moment as if in thought, suddenly spoke up loudly, while she looked significantly at nuova. "nuova saw her first," she said; "she called to us." at that several of the bees turned to nuova. "nuova, nuova, saw her first!" they cried. "did she lay any eggs? why didn't you call us sooner? _did_ she lay any eggs, we say?" "why, yes," nuova answered innocently, "a good many; all the way from up there"--indicating the top of the comb--"clear down to--to--" and nuova shuddered so she could not finish. with this the bees burst out into a new, violent excitement, and they seemed to be very angry with poor nuova. "bee moth laid a lot of eggs!" they shouted. "nuova saw her! nuova let her! the stupid one! the faithless one! kill her! kill her!" and they crowded around nuova in a most threatening manner, some trying to strike her, and two or three amazons trying to reach her with their lances. nuova thought her fate was to be that of bee moth's, and it really seemed so for a moment. and then saggia was heard calling loudly. [illustration: "the stupid one! the faithless one!"] "a crack! there must be a _crack_! she must have come in through a crack! she couldn't have come in past the guards at the door." this distracted the attention of the bees from nuova, for at once they all turned toward saggia and began shouting all together: "a crack! there's a crack somewhere! why haven't the crack-fillers found it?" then they all began to crowd toward and clamor at the propolis-workers, who, up on their scaffolding, scowled down on the mob, seemingly unafraid and unexcited. "well," said fessa roughly, "find the crack and we'll fill it. that's all we've got to say. find the crack." "yes, that's right," spoke up saggia loudly. "some of us hunt for the crack, and some hunt for the eggs and break them or throw them out. every one that isn't found and hatches in the hive means danger for us. find them all." at this the bees all began hunting about for the crack and the eggs. every now and then an egg would be found and with a loud shout it would be seized and thrown down to the floor of the hive. nuova, disheveled and still trembling from the fright caused by the attack of the bees on her, crept down to the floor at the side of the hive just under the wax-makers, who had paid no attention to all the hubbub. from here she was looking on at the search for the eggs with astonishment, when saggia, who had been looking anxiously about for her, saw her and came over close to her. "go up and get back into your place in the wax-curtain, and they'll forget all about you," she whispered. "but why didn't you shout out about the bee moth when you first saw her?" "but why should i?" answered nuova blankly and rather bitterly. "she was such a pretty and such an interesting creature." saggia raised her antennæ in astonishment and despair. "nuova, you _are_ a funny bee. you are so different. what _is_ the matter with you anyway? don't you know--but, of course, for some extraordinary reason you don't--that your 'pretty and interesting creature' is one of the most dangerous enemies we have? from any of her eggs that we don't find and break, there will hatch a horrible little grub that will keep hidden in the cracks or dark places in the hive, feeding on the wax of the cells and on the pollen and honey, too, and spinning wherever it goes a terrible, sticky, silken web that catches our feet and wings and interferes with our getting around easily. and if there are enough of the bee moth's grubs they spin so much web that finally we can't carry on our work in the hive at all, and all our babies starve and the queen starves, and the whole community goes to ruin. 'pretty and interesting,' indeed; she is sneaky and despicable, that's what she is. and if you ever see another, rush for her at once and call everybody. being pretty doesn't necessarily mean being good." "yes; but, saggia," said nuova slowly, "if her grubs have to have wax and pollen and honey for food, and if there is nobody but bee moth to get them for them, and she can't, of course, doesn't she rather have to lay her eggs in a bee-hive where, when her grubby babies hatch out, there will be enough food for them? and don't they have to spin the web to keep us bees from killing them as soon as we see them?" saggia stared at her; and then, strange as it may seem, even this old bee began to understand a little that nuova's mind was a bit different from that of the other bees in the hive, and that she had a heart that could be hurt even by the killing of a dangerous enemy of the hive. however, saggia contented herself with repeating, "well, you _are_ a funny bee!" and then she urged nuova again to start up the comb to the group of wax-makers, and went back to see how the search for bee moth's eggs was getting on. just as nuova was about to begin climbing up, she heard a strong, buzzing sound near her and found that she was almost stumbling over a bee that was standing in a most odd position, with its head down and almost touching the floor, and its body lifted up at an angle of forty or fifty degrees, and all of its wings going like mad, although it was not, of course, beating its wings to fly, for it remained constantly in the same position. there were two or three other bees near this one doing the same thing, and farther away, nearer the hive entrance, were two or three more. the wing-buzzing bee nearest nuova, whose name was aria, seemed to be quite vexed with nuova, for she said to her sharply: "look out where you are going, you stupid! are you blind and deaf?" nuova was startled, and rather frightened, too, by the sharp speech, but her curiosity was even stronger than her fear. "good gracious!" she said; "what are you doing?" "what matter to you what i am doing?" said aria, in a thick, "buzzy" voice. "i am doing my work--which is more than you seem to be doing. aren't you bee enough yet to know that each of us has her own appointed work and does it without worrying about what others are doing? if we all do our work, then the whole community gets on all right. so if you will look out for your work, i'll look out for mine." here aria buzzed more energetically than ever for a moment without saying anything. then she began speaking again, "still if you have to be told, you pretty little stupid bee, i'll tell you that i and my companions are ventilating the hive, and if we should stop to loaf and moon about like you, you and all the rest of us would suffocate, that's what you'd do." and she stopped talking. but in a moment she began to sing a curious little song which was partly made up of just buzzing and humming, and partly of words. these were the words of her song, in which all the other ventilating bees joined: buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz; back and forth, back and forth, fanning and stirring and driving and churning; old air we're forcing forth, new air's returning. on our heads all the day; this is the only way we can keep sweet the hive and our dear bees alive. whirr, whirr, whirr, whirr; roundabout, roundabout, living fans ceaselessly driving and churning; foul air we're forcing forth, fresh air's returning. upside down all the day; beating our wings away; so we keep sweet the hive and our dear bees alive. while the ventilating bees were singing and nuova stood idly watching and listening to them, a small, old drone bee with crumpled-up, that is, deformed wings, came, half walking and half comically hopping, down the long aisle between the vertical combs from the back and darker part of the hive. he was humming a song to himself as he came along. beffa was the name of the deformed bee, and he was the jester of the hive, as could be guessed by his hopping way of walking, and by the words of his song. when nuova heard beffa singing, she turned toward him, but did not interrupt him. she was ever so much interested in his appearance, and by his sort of hopping dance which he kept up all the time he was singing, and by the song itself, which told her something about him, but not enough. as he stopped singing, nuova spoke, speaking to herself at first, and then to him. "oh, what a funny bee," she said. "you _are_ a bee, aren't you?" beffa stared at her a moment, then made her a deep, mocking bow and gave a hop or two. "yes, pretty one, which is, of course, to say, stupid one, i be a bee--just as you be, only not just so, for i be doing my work, which i don't see that you be." then he hopped comically about, humming to himself the refrain of his song. no one, however, paid any attention to him except nuova, who exclaimed rather petulantly: "oh, work, work, work; always that word!" "yes," said beffa, mockingly bowing and hopping about her, "but not always that work"; imitating grotesquely for a moment nuova's idle attitude. "do you call that hopping and singing work?" indignantly exclaimed nuova. "why don't you go and nurse babies?" beffa, who was again at his hopping and humming, stopped a moment to stare at her in surprise; then replied, in a sing-song: "i can't, oh, i can't nurse babies." "then make wax," said nuova. "i can't, oh, i can't make wax," hummed beffa. "then build a comb, or fill cracks, or clean the floor, or"--and she pointed to the ventilating bees near them--"ventilate," persisted nuova. "i can't," sang again beffa, "oh, i can't build cells, or fill cracks, or scrub floors, or--" and he broke off suddenly with a sort of catch in his voice. but nuova blindly persisted. "well, then, why don't you go out and gather pollen and bring nectar; out into the sunshine, out into the garden." the poor, deformed bee, now angry, indeed, began jumping up and down violently right in front of nuova, and then suddenly whirled around, bringing his back and crumpled wings fairly in her face. "oh, silly little pretty, pretty little silly!" he cried; "which is to say, blind one, stupid one, heartless one, _would_ i like to go out, out into the warm sunshine, out into the fragrant garden! would i like to go! blind, stupid, brutal one!" when nuova saw the poor, crumpled-up, useless wings, she suddenly understood, and she felt like striking herself in the face as she realized all the stupid, brutal things she had said. "oh, you poor, poor bee!" she cried as she touched beffa caressingly again and again with her antennæ. "i didn't see; i didn't understand; i am so sorry! won't you forgive me? please?" beffa, though partly appeased, was still half angry, and still spoke bitterly. "oh, you _do_ understand now! you _do_ understand why i hop and sing; why i dance for the queen; and why i do anything i can do when i can't do other things; can't do what a drone ought to do, fly wide and high in the great courting chase after the princess. i am glad you understand now. but hush, listen!" he whirled around, facing toward the great pear-shaped cell in the lower center of the comb. "hark! principessa, the new princess, calls. hark!" beffa and nuova stood silent and expectant, facing toward the princess's cell as did all the other bees. there was a tense excitement everywhere. nuova felt that something very important was happening. and then came a strange sound, first faint and low, then louder and shriller. it was the piping of the young princess shut up in her great cell, but ready now to come out. it sent a shiver of excitement through all the bees. ventilators stopped buzzing and wax-makers and comb-builders turned their faces intently toward the sound, and even the crack-fillers, far up at the roof, stopped their work and peered down excitedly. there had come, indeed, one of the most exciting and tense moments that ever come to a bee community. it was the moment that precedes the birth of a new royal bee, a princess who is destined to be the new queen of the hive, or to go out from the hive with many of the workers to establish a new community of her own. again came the shrill piping of the princess in the royal cell. another wave of excitement ran over the hive. and again and again the weird sound came. suddenly the royal nurses began excitedly to plaster wax on the outside of the great cell, especially over its mouth. beffa whispered to nuova: "she is trying to work her way out, but they don't want to let her out yet. see, the drones are coming." and even as he spoke a gay song was heard, in voices very different from any that nuova had yet heard in the hive; and suddenly, as the song grew louder, there came a half-dancing, half-marching file of splendid-looking, robust bees, moving spiritedly directly toward the royal cell. they were a fine-looking lot, these drones, these dandy drones, and nuova had a thrill she had never felt before. she gazed at them entranced. the drones made a half-circle about the cell of the princess and lined up there, strutting and dancing and singing loudly. this is the song they sang: we are the courtiers, the beaux of the hive; of the dandy drones surely you've heard! our wings are a rainbow, our bodies are gold, to soil them would be most absurd. no, we never mix up with the common hive stuff, neither garner, nor plaster, nor clean; 'tis superior far to be just what we are, and do naught but make love to the queen. chapter vi _nuova and hero, and the birth of the princess_ all through their song nuova had given the drones her absorbed attention. she admired them greatly for their fine appearance, and when she learned from their song that they did no work, but had all day only to follow their own sweet will, she became especially interested in them. she was a little puzzled, too, for, from what she had heard from saggia and the others, and from all she had seen, she had come to believe that all bees worked all the time. and here were all these stout-bodied, vigorous bees proudly singing that they loafed all the days through. she was so much interested in this that she approached one end of the line of drones and spoke to the one nearest her. "what a fine time you drones must have," she said. "don't you ever have to do any work?" the drone did not hear her at first and paid no attention to her, but as she repeated her question louder and more insistently, he turned and stared at her amazed. "well, well, bless my eyes!" he said, stammering in his amazement at being addressed by a common worker bee. "bless my eyes! i say, work? work? me work? who ever heard such a question? what sort of a bee are you? who are you, anyway?" he touched the drone next to him to call his attention. "look here, who is this bee?" nuova was nettled by his manner and by what he said. she answered, rather sharply, "well, i'll tell you who i am. i am a bee that works; anyway, i am the kind of a bee that works, like all the others except you, and you" (looking defiantly at the second drone, who was staring insolently at her) "and i want to know why you do not work--you and you others that loaf around all the time and eat what we bring in, and do nothing but sing and dance in the hive, or fly around doing nothing in the garden, and keep all dressed up and just look handsome." the drone was more and more astonished, but he was also a little flattered by her reference to his clothes and appearance. "well, you are a silly little bee," he said; "that's what we are here for. drones work? it isn't done, you know. our business is to love. and singing and dancing and looking handsome, and not getting all dusty with pollen and sticky with wax and dirty with cleaning, is part of it. that's our work; not working, but loving." [illustration: "drones work? it isn't done, you know."] nuova was so astonished by hearing this, and so excited to learn that some bees did not have to work, and also so angry to think that these bees were allowed to live without working, while she was always being told to work, and scolded for resting for even the shortest time, that when she answered him she spoke so loudly as to attract the attention of other bees near her, including saggia, who was moving around near by, cleaning the floor. "so that is what you call your work, is it?" she burst out. "well, i am glad to know there is some kind of bee work besides feeding babies and sweating out wax and filling up cracks and scrubbing up floors. loving, you call it; well, i want to do some of that; show me how." the two drones were stupefied with astonishment by nuova's words, but the one nearest her, to whom she was speaking directly, was rather taken by the audacity of the pretty little bee's demand, and he involuntarily strutted and swaggered a little and eyed her with special attention. he even smiled down at her rather pleasantly, and seemed to be about to speak to her again when saggia and three or four other bees, who had heard her last words and were scandalized to see and hear her talking with the drone, especially in such a manner, bustled up to her. this last unheard-of behavior of nuova was too much for saggia. her patience and sympathy with her were exhausted, and she broke out in a tirade of scolding. "well, i never in my life!" she exclaimed, grasping nuova and jerking her around; "what in the world are you doing and saying? talking to a drone about love! you don't know anything about love. you can't know anything about it. only drones and princesses know what love is, or can know. you are worse than a silly bee; you are a bad bee!" she jerked her again and again; at the same time she went on with her scolding. "well, i wash my hands of you! if you can't be a sensible bee we don't want you! our thinking has all been done for us long, long ago. all we have to do is what custom tells us to. and if you can't behave as the rest of us do, you are useless. here, take her, throw her out of the hive!" again saggia jerked her vigorously, and other bees, especially uno, due, and tre, hustled her and struck at her. a couple of soldiers even came up and began jabbing at her with their lances. poor nuova seemed about to be torn piecemeal, like the bee moth, and turned out of the hive, when one of the drones, who was in the line some little distance from nuova and saggia, was attracted by the uproar. he came over to the group in a lordly and leisurely manner, shouldering his way through the crowd and carelessly driving off the jostling bees. they left nuova reluctantly, casting dark looks and making malevolent gestures toward her as they turned their attention again to the excitement still raging about the cell of the princess. poor nuova, half dead from her ill-treatment, could hardly utter her thanks to her rescuer. in a weak voice she attempted to say something, but finding it too much of an effort she contented herself with looking up gratefully into the face of the newcomer. he looked down at her curiously. "what is the matter with you?" he said, not unkindly. "can you not do as other bees do? what are you--a nurse, a wax-maker, or what? why don't you stick to your work? why don't you do what you are expected to do? are you one of those dreadful creatures they call 'new bees'?" nuova, although still weak and faint from her jostling and fright, was made angry again by these questions. "i do not know what i am," she said, "but i'd rather die than be just a puppet in this hive. is all my life cut out for me, and not according to what i want to do and can do, but just according to rules made by somebody i don't know anything about and who doesn't know anything about me?" she tried to say more, but a faintness came over her, and she staggered a little and would have fallen if the drone had not unconsciously put a wing behind her and supported her. she looked up at him, unable to thank him in words, but expressing her gratitude in her eyes. as she rested this way, leaning heavily against him, she closed her eyes, happy to be protected, and even feeling strange little thrills running over her body that were mysteriously enjoyable. without opening her eyes she murmured: "i am very grateful to you. you are very good." he said nothing, but looked with more and more interest at the sweet-faced little bee beside him. soon she opened her eyes again, and this time a pathetic little smile ran over her face. indeed, it grew to be a roguish smile as an interesting idea formed more and more clearly in her brain. "but you," she said--"aren't you rather breaking bee tradition by helping me? if i am a useless bee, and only in the way, and a trouble to the community, shouldn't you let them sting me and throw me out of the hive? are you" (she smiled again)--"are you, a--new bee, too?" the drone, whose name was hero, and who was truly the handsomest and finest drone in the hive, was first surprised and then a little embarrassed by what nuova was saying. he looked rather fearfully around to see if other bees were observing them and tried gently to take his wing from behind nuova, who, however, on realizing his intention, gave new signs of weakness and leaned more heavily than ever on it. in fact, it must be confessed, she nestled as closely against him, enclosed by his protecting wings, as she could. "no, i am not a new bee," he said, rather stiffly. "i know my duty, and i try to do it." he looked again into his companion's pretty face, and then spoke more gently. "still, i admit that some of our ways are old-fashioned, rather absurd in fact," he said, with a manner and voice growing more and more confidential. "i have often had a curious feeling as if i should like to work." he smiled down at her. "terrible, isn't it? and sometimes it is pretty hard to work up a violent love for a princess you never see until you are just about to dash after her in the great courting chase. still, that's something worth while. one such flight is excitement and exertion enough for a whole life." "have you ever done it?" asked nuova, curiously and even a little enviously. "and did you win?" "yes," said hero, "i have been in one chase. but i was so young my wings were hardly dry and, of course, i didn't win, or i shouldn't be here now. don't you know that the winner always dies in the winning?" "oh, how dreadful!" cried nuova, shocked. "and how silly! to die just as you become king. how is it worth it?" "what!" said hero, surprised, and in a reproving and even stern voice. "not worth while to win in the great courting chase? to prove yourself the fastest and strongest and boldest of all the drones, and to be the consort of the queen, the father of all the queen's children? not worth while dying for? what do i live for but that?" "ah, yes," cried nuova, carried away for the moment by his enthusiasm, "that _is_ something to live for!" suddenly, however, she realized that if hero won in the great chase that was soon to occur--that is, would take place when the princess, already trying to get out of her cell, was really out and ready for her wedding flight--he would really have to die for a bee, so far unseen and unknown, and who had done nothing to deserve such a sacrifice, and who would give her love as well to any other drone as to hero, this handsome and kind new friend. this made her angry and bitter again, and very sad, too, for she was beginning to realize that she liked this beautiful, strong bee much more than she liked saggia or beffa. he was different from all the other bees she knew, and her liking for him was different. she wanted to be with him all the time, and to have him talk to her or even just to look at her. this must be loving, she thought, or part of it, anyway. she began to dislike this princess that was soon to come out of her cell. probably she would be very beautiful. when she thought of that she disliked her more than ever. she could not bear to think of hero's loving her or of her loving hero. she looked keenly at hero, and then spoke to him slowly and cautiously, growing suddenly wise because of her new feeling for him. "but how do you know you will love the new princess?" she said. "is she certain to be beautiful and sweet? and will she certainly love you?" hero looked at her curiously. it was strange how this pretty little bee attracted him. and it was strange that she seemed to have very clearly certain thoughts that were already rather hazily in his own mind. "oh, well," he said musingly, "i shall not see much of her. it is not, in a sense, love for her, but the response to the call of the race, the fulfilling of my duty to our community, that will drive me to my best effort to win her. but, of course, it is love for her, too; that is, so far as there is love at all among bees. we can love only princesses, you know, we drones; that is honey-bee tradition." hero had seen no betrayal of nuova's real feeling in her questions. he only saw in them the expression of her odd, independent way of looking at things and thinking about them. nuova realized this and so became bolder by his blindness. and she was made bitter, too, by hearing this hero of hers repeat that always irritating phrase of "honey-bee tradition." "oh, yes," she exclaimed, "you can only do what your grandfathers and your great-grandfathers did! you must keep your eyes closed and your heart cold and loll and loaf through all your life until they tell you to go and love--love a princess--love her, sight unseen--love her so hard that if you win her you kill yourself! you are not _you_; you are not a bee with a heart and brain and strong body of your own, to live and strive and suffer and succeed after your own way and your own desires, but you are a machine, an automaton, to do what custom has fashioned you to do! you are not a bee; you are a clock-work; big and strong and handsome--and hollow!" hero, amazed at her vehemence and her breaking of all bee tradition, looked at her more and more interestedly. he found a responsive feeling in himself, not only to the ideas expressed by her words, but to her own attractiveness and boldness. "well," he said amazedly, but also sympathetically--"well, you _are_ a silly little bee!" but now the excitement around the princess's cell broke out afresh. she was evidently about to come forth. from inside her cell she piped more loudly and more often than ever. suddenly a loud, answering trumpeting was heard, and beffa came hopping and humming to announce the approach of the old queen. it was the queen who was making the answering trumpeting. she came majestically along toward the cell of the princess with a group of attendant bees about her. these attendants always kept circling slowly, but animatedly, about her, facing toward her, and although constantly shifting and changing places, always maintaining a complete circle around her. every now and then she gave a loud trumpeting, and each time she was answered by a shrill piping from the cell. or perhaps it was the old queen who was defiantly answering the challenges of the princess. all the bees were enormously excited. they moved about constantly, buzzing and grouping in dense masses, now here, now there, but mostly close to the great cell. they were, however, plainly divided in their feeling, for some of the groups were intent on keeping near the queen. all the drones, however, clustered around the princess's cell. only hero, who still stood by the side of nuova a little to one side, had not joined the group of drones which was giving all its attention to the awaited appearance of the princess. none of them paid the slightest attention to the queen. the excitement steadily increased. it was evident that the climax was at hand. suddenly a breathless silence succeeded the buzzing whir. all the bees stood still with eyes fastened on the royal cell, and there came slowly forth from it, with beautiful but cold, set face and slow automatic movement, the new princess. [illustration: there came slowly forth--the new princess] as she stepped clear of her cell, with long, slender body erect, and shining delicate wings already nearly dry and straight, the whole mass of the bees quivered with renewed excitement. she carried a long, shining silver lance which she held point upward and used to support her first rather uncertain steps. the old queen, staring defiantly at the shining princess, seemed to realize that the end of her reign had come. but she lifted her own long lance threateningly in the air and gave out a challenging trumpet call that sounded loud through all the hive. the princess, though obviously not yet in full control of her movements because of her long confinement in the cell, nevertheless faced the threatening old queen with full defiance, and piped back a vigorous answer. the queen seemed to lose all her self-control at this, and stooping a little, and putting her lance in place so that it pointed directly at the princess, started to rush at her. but a mass of bees threw themselves in front of her, blocking her way and pushing her lance up. thwarted in her intention of killing the princess or putting her to flight, the old queen hesitated a moment, and then with a loud cry of "who loves me, follow me to make a new home," she rushed for the opening of the hive followed by a great swarm of worker bees. nuova turned anxiously to hero to see if he were going to follow the old queen from the hive. her own inclination was to go with her, for she detested the haughty, cold-faced new princess, both because of her appearance and insolent manner and because she felt that hero would surely win in the great courting chase and hence become the royal consort of the princess and have to die for her sake. so she timidly touched him with one of her antennæ to attract his attention, which was all being given to the stirring scene before them. "are you going to follow the old queen?" she asked, "or stay with the princess?" hero started, as she spoke, as if awakened from a daze. he looked down at her curiously, as if only half recognizing her. then he turned again to look intently at the princess and the group of drones about her. with a quick turn back to nuova he answered her as if astonished by her question: "i shall stay with the princess of course." then he straightened up proudly and added: "indeed, i think she will be my princess; my queen." he looked toward the princess again, this time eagerly and bending rather toward her as if impatient to go to her. and even as he looked toward her, her eyes, moving slowly and proudly over the whole group of bees who had elected to remain in the hive with her, rested on him, and stopped there. as she saw the handsome drone bending toward her with his eager eyes fixed on her, a slow smile came over her face. it was the first appearance of anything but defiance or cold insolence to which she had yet given expression. both hero and nuova saw it. poor nuova! it was too much for her. she could hardly stand. hero felt her trembling at his side. he turned his face to look down at her, and was astonished and then suddenly touched and even moved to see in her wet eyes the revealed love of this pretty little worker bee for him. he spoke to her half curiously, half tenderly. "and are you going with the old queen, or will you stay here with the princess?" he asked. "stay, stay," whispered nuova, almost sobbing. "i think--she will be--my--queen, also." as she said this she turned away. just then the old queen and the swarm of bees about her rushed from the hive. all the bees remaining began to sing a loud song of gladness and welcome to the princess who was to be their new queen. and they all joined in a mad dance of joy--except nuova, who hid her tear-stained face and limp body behind the nearest great honeycomb. chapter vii _nuova goes outside_ when nuova felt that she could face again the scene near the cell, she left her hiding-place and came slowly out into the open space where she had left hero. he was gone. she knew, without looking, that he was now with the other drones pressing about the cold, proud princess. she looked rather for her old friends saggia and beffa. though saggia had lost all patience with her because she had spoken to the drones, and had punished her, and even given her over to uno, due, tre, and the other bees who disliked her, she still liked saggia and believed that saggia liked her. so she looked around for them. but they were not in the mass about the princess nor in any of the groups which were beginning to take up again the different kinds of work of the hive. nuova noticed some bees going in and out the entrance hole of the hive, and although she knew, by instinct, that she was still too young to leave the hive, yet that strange driving spirit in her, which was always impelling her to do things against bee traditions and custom, urged her to the bright opening. once there she hesitated. the brilliant sunshine outside was blinding to her eyes, accustomed so far only to the half-light of the hive. she had a curious sensation too, half of fear of this unknown world outside, half of fascination to plunge recklessly into it to see and learn the new things there must be in it, and to escape from the automatic, heartless life of the hive, and the latest and bitterest unhappiness this life had just brought to her. as she stood, uncertain, at the edge of the opening, she heard a familiar humming just outside the opening, and at once stepped out. she found herself on a broad platform as wide as the hive and extending forward for what seemed to her a long distance, but which was in reality only a few inches. on either side of the platform and beyond it were grass and flowers and bushes, and still farther away some great trees, all new and wonderful things to her. above was the blue sky, and she heard birds twittering, and far away the song of a woman working in the garden. and it was all very light and fresh and fragrant. nuova liked it. she heard the familiar humming again. she turned her attention to the entrance platform. there were only a few bees on it. a few guards moved easily and half-lazily around, and a few foraging bees were coming and going with loads of pollen and honey or with pollen baskets and honey sacs empty. but suddenly she saw beffa. it was he who was making the familiar humming. with tired, drawn face and with only grimaces for smiles, he was slowly hopping and humming near the front edge of the platform. he often came to a standstill to look with fixed gaze out into the distance. beffa was a sad bee, for his queen had gone and he could not follow her. poor beffa! it made nuova sad, too, to see him. and then she saw saggia, too. she was at one side of the platform with dustpan and brush, and occasionally stooping over to brush up something. she, too, seemed sad and tired. she looked older than nuova had seen her look before. saggia, like beffa, every now and then stood quite still and gazed far away into the garden or sky as if hoping to see again the old queen whom they had lost. saggia and beffa had come close together without noticing each other or nuova, so occupied with their own thoughts were they. but soon saggia noticed beffa and moved up close to him. "beffa, you are sad," said saggia, in a low voice so that only beffa should hear. [illustration: "beffa, you are sad," said saggia] even beffa did not hear her at first, or, at least, he did not heed her. but when saggia repeated what she had said, beffa came out of his reverie with a jerk, and awkwardly made a little hop and grimace. "sad," said he. "great apis forfend. haven't we a shining new princess to our hive; a virgin new princess to wed and be a new queen to us all? why should we mourn for an old queen that's gone? why be sad with a new queen to come? ha-ha," he laughed sardonically and bitterly. "yes, sad," repeated saggia again, still speaking low and significantly, "when we have just lost our old queen who liked her jester, beffa, and even her old floor-cleaner, saggia, who neither of them know whether the new queen will like them or not. oh, sad, sad! ha-ha!" and she half-imitated beffa's sardonic laugh and his hop and grimace. beffa turned and faced saggia squarely, surprised to find wise old saggia troubled and depressed just as he was. after a long, keen look at her, he made a solemn gesture to the distance, and then a mocking bow toward the hive entrance. "the queen has passed: long live the queen!" he exclaimed. several of the guard and forager bees near him heard his cry and called out after him-"the queen has passed: long live the queen!" but one old guard of testy temper added, speaking rather roughly to beffa: "what are you doing here? doesn't the princess laugh at your old tricks? can't you find some new ones?" beffa turned angrily toward the guard, as if to answer sharply, but suddenly checked himself and began capering and humming. then he sang in a bitter voice: "let the guards guard, and the jester jest, let saggia clean, and the new queen wed, let all the bees do all they did, for life is doing what we're bid. oh, life is doing what we're bid. ha-ha!" saggia felt a little anxious on beffa's account, for his song seemed bitter, and she saw that the guard was looking both puzzled and sour as she listened to it. so saggia spoke to her hurriedly. "the odor from our full pantries comes strong from the hives this morning," she said. "i hope it won't attract the black bees." "oh, the black bees," said the guard, superiorly. "let them come. we'll show them how robbers are treated." just as the guard finished speaking, a commotion began on the other side of the platform, and nuova saw a large black-and-yellow-striped creature with a long spear lunging fiercely toward the entrance of the hive. it was a yellow jacket. she knew it at once, because she had heard some of the nurse bees one day talking about these fierce black-and-yellow-banded robbers that sometimes fought their way into the hive to steal honey. the guard near saggia and beffa hurried across the platform brandishing her lance. but already three or four other guards had thrown themselves on the intruder and were beating it back, striking it viciously with their lances. the yellow jacket made a good fight, but the bee amazons were too many for it. it was wounded, began to weaken, and soon was hustled back off the platform and on through the grass behind a near-by bush. the guard who had been talking with saggia came back proudly to her, still brandishing her long lance. "that's the way we do it," she said. "and a yellow jacket is stronger than a black bee." "yes," replied saggia, wagging her old head wisely, "but not stronger than ten black bees, or a hundred, and that is the way _they_ come." as saggia finished speaking, the guards who had driven the yellow jacket away returned boisterously, and joining all the other guards on the platform, formed in a line, and half-marching, half-dancing, went through some military maneuvers. while they were doing this, another lot of guards came out of the hive, and forming in a line opposite them, also went through the martial dance. at the end of it all the guards who had been outside marched into the hive, while the new ones remained outside on the platform. it was the "relief of the guard." all during the guards' dancing and marching, nuova had stood still watching them intently. neither saggia nor beffa had seen her yet. and she was afraid to speak to them for fear of being made to go back into the hive again. she had made up her mind to stay outside. it was all so much more beautiful and exciting out here. she had decided that she would not be a nurse or wax-maker or anything else inside the hive any longer. she wanted to be a forager and be free to go in and out as she liked, and to fly far out into the garden and spend long, sunshiny hours there. just then, however, saggia caught sight of her. it was, indeed, beffa who saw her first. he quietly touched saggia with one of his antennæ and waved the other in nuova's direction. saggia hurried over to her, looking anxiously around her to see if any other bees had noticed nuova. "what are you doing out here?" whispered saggia to her as she reached her side. "who sent you out? it isn't time for a week yet for you to come outside." saggia wanted to be angry with her, but the sight of nuova, so sad and forlorn-looking, and with tear-marks still on her face, was too much for her kind heart. and she really loved nuova very much. indeed, all that nuova had done, and what she had said, had made a strange appeal to the wise old bee. she was almost frightened sometimes to feel that down deep in her heart she not only sympathized with much of nuova's revolt against the rigid traditions and automatic life of the bees, but that she realized that this stifling of all independent action and all personal emotions was not always the way to the highest happiness nor even the wisest conduct for the bees. she shuddered to think that perhaps she, too, was a "new bee." nuova was half-frightened by saggia's discovery of her and by her hard words. but she answered her willfully and defiantly, although with a touch of attractive mischievousness. "nobody sent me out," she said. "i have just decided to be a forager; that's all. while i was in the hive a little while ago a forager came in with two great loads of pollen in her pollen baskets. she was very tired and seemed sick. while she was looking around for an empty cell in which to put her pollen, she suddenly sank down--and--and died." nuova shivered as she said this, and dropped her antennæ down over her eyes for a moment. "ah, yes," said saggia sadly but proudly; "worked herself to death. that is the noble death we have. we die in the harness--working for others, working for the hive. the bees know that death well and honor it." "they may know it well," broke in nuova sharply, "but they do not honor it well. anyway, not by their actions. nobody paid any attention to the poor forager when she was staggering along with her load, and none when she sank down on the floor and died. except pretty soon a couple of cleaners came along and dragged her body away. i suppose they brought it out here and flung it off the platform somewhere. a noble death, well honored, indeed! well, i don't want that kind. i am going to die out in the garden, under a flower." while nuova was speaking, beffa had hopped and hummed his way over to them, and now he broke in with a song, which he sang as he hopped and danced about them. this is what he sang: "work, no play; work all day; a useful life; a usual life; the good bee's way, all day, all day. then die and lie till saggia spy the carrion stuff- a tug; a shove, and the friend you love is gone to grass: ha, ha, alas, is gone to grass. a noble life; a halted breath: the epitaph: 'she worked to death.'" both saggia and nuova listened to beffa and watched him till he had finished singing. they both saw clearly his own unhappiness and his own revolt against the rigor of the bee tradition that demands always the full sacrifice of the individual for the community. saggia realized that beffa, too, was a "new bee." nuova, in the meanwhile, was looking off again into the beautiful garden; at the green grass and bushes; the many-colored flowers; the blue sky and warm, bright sunshine over all. she was enchanted. she drew a long breath of relief and happiness. she turned to saggia. "will they keep me in," she whispered, "if i go back into the hive? if they will, i shan't go," she added positively. saggia looked about again to see if other bees were paying attention to them. none was. "no," she said, speaking in a low voice, "they won't keep you. they won't pay any attention to you as long as you keep busy, coming and going. you can be a honey-gatherer. the honey-flowers are only a little way off, there in the garden. but first you must get acquainted with the outside of the hive and the entrance. look around. see, we are just by the side of this big bush, with that long branch hanging over. you can go out a little way from the platform, then turn around and see how the hive looks from there. then go a little farther and look back again. then go a little way to one side, and then to the other, and notice everything that will help you to find your way back. if you get lost, see if you can't see other honey-gatherers or pollen-foragers flying with full loads; they are returning to the hive; follow them. as to collecting the honey, you will learn that easily; in fact, you will be surprised when you get to the flowers, to find that you already know how. be careful and not get into the poppies that shut up on you, and watch always for the great-crested bee-bird that swoops down on you, and, peck"--saggia exaggeratedly imitated a bird's pecking--"and that is the end. now, be off for your first flight. but not too far--not for the first time." nuova's face shone with eagerness. "oh, thank you, saggia, thank you. you are good to me. you are different from the others. thank you, dearest saggia." nuova started quickly forward toward the edge of the platform. just then beffa, who had been hopping gently about nuova and saggia while they were talking, now hopped and danced along in front of nuova, singing: "the new bee and the old world; flowers are there and butterflies; but ugly toads and big bee-birds, if the old bee thinks she knows, the new bee knows she doesn't. ah, new bee knows the world-old truth, that the old world's ever new." nuova had slowed her steps so that she could hear all of beffa's little song, and as he finished she came up to him and touched him caressingly with one of her antennæ. but beffa shrank from her caress. it meant so much to him, and yet he knew it meant so little to her. he knew nuova liked him; yes, but he knew that he more than liked nuova: he loved her. poor beffa! love! a pitiful, deformed drone that could not fly; that could never be in the great courting chase! and it was only then that the drones loved; and then only a princess that could be loved. what he felt was impossible for a bee to feel; bee tradition told him that; and yet, he knew that he did feel this impossible thing. "beffa, you are good to me too," said nuova to him; "you and saggia are both good to me. and you two are the wisest bees in the hive, for you know that i am not the same as the other bees. no bees are exactly the same, i believe. we can't be all exactly alike, and we can't all like the same things, or think the same way, can we? i wish i could be a queen so that i could have you always for my jester; always by to say funny things and wise things." beffa made a grimace--to hide a sob. and he hopped more grotesquely than ever, while he sang: "ah, well, who knows? new things unheard of may be true, for every day the world is new. ah, well, who knows? ah, well, who knows?" "good-bye, beffa," said nuova. and she stepped to the edge of the platform, and spread her wings for her first flight, her first plunge into the outside world of grass and flowers and butterflies and bee-birds. and just then something happened that postponed this flight. chapter viii _nuova and hero again, and a battle_ just as nuova was about to launch herself into the air, a sudden commotion at the hive opening made her look back. after this look she had no further thought of the garden. what she saw was the group of drones coming out of the hive, with another group of worker bees attendant upon them. these attendants were cleaning the drones' bodies and wings and evidently preparing them for some great event. it was plain to nuova that this was the preparation for the great courting chase. her heart gave a leap, her eyes became misty; she stumbled and almost fell. she was so dizzy that she thought sudden death had struck her. it was only, however, the blow of her heart and mind in realizing that hero--her hero--must be in the group and preparing to leave her forever. he had, in a sense, already left her forever she knew, for he had made his decision--or rather she felt that the cruel bee tradition had made the decision for him--to follow the princess. and if he followed her he could but win. her wonderful, handsome, powerful hero would be easily the successful one in the great courting chase. she ran her eyes anxiously over the group of drones now well out of the entrance and spreading out on the platform. at first she did not see hero. but in a moment she did. he was a little apart from the others, and showed none of the excitement of the other drones. indeed, he seemed to be rather depressed, and was evidently keeping quite by himself. he had not even an attendant with him. nuova saw in this her chance. she turned back from the edge of the platform, merged into the excited crowd, none of the bees paying any attention to her at all, and began to work her way through the press toward hero. just then, however, uno appeared by his side and began to brush his wings. he turned on her with an impatient gesture. surprised and angry, uno made a grimace and left him. a moment later, due, noticing that he had no helper, hurried over to him, but she, also, much to her surprise and chagrin, was treated as uno had been. hero seemed to be in an irritable mood. as the drones and their attendants came farther out, he moved away toward the front of the platform. this brought him rather near nuova, who was able to reach him before any other bee could offer him her services. nuova, unperceived by hero, slipped behind him and began nervously and awkwardly, glancing at the attendants on the other drones for guidance, to clean his wings. soon an awkward tug apprised hero that some one was again trying to attend him, and he turned with an angry movement to drive her off, when he recognized nuova, and arrested his gesture. he stood still, looking at her keenly, and, without a word, let her go on caring for him. she grew even more nervous and awkward. then he smiled gently, and spoke to her in a low voice. [illustration: nuova began to clean his wings] "how do you come to be out here?" he asked. "you weren't sent as an attendant to us. only the older and more experienced bees are given that--honor." he smiled again. "you didn't come out just now?" "no," said nuova almost in a whisper--"no, i was going out for honey." "oh, fine!" said hero. "out into the world already! you must have done your work in the hive very well." "yes," murmured nuova demurely. just then two or three black bees slipped out from behind a bush near the platform, but no one noticed them. "but why don't you go, then?" asked hero. "it is beautiful over there among the flowers." he waved an antenna toward the garden. "and fragrant, and exciting. other kinds of creatures; beetles and grasshoppers and big buzzing flies. some bad ones, too; spiders and giant bee-birds always watching, watching to catch you." nuova shuddered. "but you are not afraid, are you?" hero looked at her keenly. "or are you? do you prefer to stay here in safety and just wait on the drones?" "yes," said nuova slowly, "i prefer to wait on a drone." "i am surprised," said hero sternly and even half-contemptuously. just then nuova made an awkward tug at his wing. he winced. "ouch!" he said; then half-laughed. "your champion will never win principessa if you pull his wings out." as he said this, nuova involuntarily, in response to her feelings, gave an even harder tug at his wings. hero exclaimed again, and half-pulled away from her. he spoke almost angrily. "here, what _are_ you doing?" he cried. then, as he looked into the eager, excited, pretty face of his little attendant, he felt his heart give a curious throb. and when he spoke again it was almost tenderly. "well, you are good to try and help me, anyway. but"--and now he spoke rather moodily--"i don't need much preparing. i can beat any of them"--and he waved contemptuously toward the other drones--"easily, just as i am." poor nuova! he could hardly have said a more discouraging thing to her, or one to hurt her more. she drew back a little and had hard work not to cry. she half-sobbed as she said: "that--is--fine. i am sure--you can." she paused. then she said slowly: "and if you do beat them, are you sure to get--her? are you sure to be able to catch--her?" the excitement on the platform was growing. the drones seemed to be getting impatient, and the attendants worked feverishly at the cleaning and making ready for the wonderful event about to happen. the infection of all this excitement began to seize hero. he had turned his face away from nuova to stare intently at the opening of the hive. it was there, of course, that the princess would soon appear. at nuova's last question he started a little. "eh?" he said rather brusquely. "oh, yes, of course, i can catch her. she will fly faster than we at first, but she can't keep it up as long as we can. she will try to go higher and higher in the air, but that is hard work. that is when we shall catch up with her." he paused, then added, musingly: "it is odd; she is trying her best to get away from us and yet she wants to get caught all the time. she must get caught, you know, or we shouldn't have any queen, and the hive would go all to pieces. the old queen never comes back, of course. the princess is our one chance to have a queen at all." nuova seemed to be thinking hard. something was puzzling her. "but," she asked insistently, "what really does happen if a princess doesn't get caught, or something happens to her. there must be some way to save the community, isn't there?" hero seemed to have lost interest again in nuova and her questionings. he was gazing fixedly at the hive entrance. "oh," he said carelessly, "i don't know. i've heard sometimes that a worker bee can--" he was suddenly interrupted. there was a new and very violent commotion on that side of the platform which the few black bees had approached, unnoticed, a few minutes before. now there was a whole group of them plainly in sight and many others were coming quickly out from behind the bush. a great and angry buzzing was heard from the guards on the platform and cries of "lotta, lotta! the amazons! call lotta! call the amazons! hurry! the black bees! the black bees!" the guards, few as they were in comparison with the oncoming horde of black bees, threw themselves bravely at them, and a moment after lotta and her amazons began issuing pell-mell from the hive entrance. they were met almost immediately by the foremost black bees, who had easily killed or were driving back the few guards, and were making rapid headway over the platform toward the entrance. a few even had passed in through the entrance, but they were driven out again at once by the issuing amazons. in fact, most of the first black bees to gain a foothold on the platform and to push forward to the entrance or into it were killed. but that brought no terror to the others. they pressed on over the dead bodies of their comrades, lunging and striking viciously with their long lances. but lotta and the amazons were fighting fiercely, too. they were making a heroic defense of the hive and its stores. the battle raged with great fury, but for a little while with no apparent advantage to either side. the black bees seemed, on the whole, the more expert and the more furious fighters--they are, indeed, a race of bees famous for their fighting--but lotta's wonderful personal courage and deeds of prowess were a great inspiration to the defenders. she appeared to be everywhere at once, and her shouts of defiance to the enemy and of encouragement to her followers made up in some measure for the feebler strength and less experience of her band. this was so obvious to the black bees that she was soon singled out for special attack by groups of her adversaries. two or three black bees would combine to assail her from different sides, but her lightning movements and dashing bravery had so far saved her even from being touched by an enemy's lance. but just at the moment when nuova had recovered a little from her amazement and terror at this sudden invasion, lotta received her first wound. the fierce black bees were closing around her too closely. nuova felt a violent rage rising within her as she realized that at any cost the black bees were going to kill the leader of the amazons. lotta was staggering, and a half-dozen lances were lunging at her. she stumbled, gave one final shout of defiance--and fell. it was a terrible blow to the amber amazons. they were seized with dismay. they had no one to lead them. they hesitated, gave way here and there, and the black bees with triumphant shouts pressed forward. some of them had even reached the entrance, when a new, shrill battle-cry and call of encouragement to the amber fighters rose above all the noise of the battle. the cry came from nuova. she had watched the whole terrible struggle in a sort of daze; half of terror, half of utter amazement. but when lotta was struck down, the rage rising within her seized her completely, and when the black bees had pressed on over the fallen leader's body with shouts of triumph, she sprang forward, grasped lotta's own lance from her sinking hand, and threw herself with such fury on the rear of the marauders that they had to turn to defend themselves. then it was that she had uttered her first battle-cry. as the amber bees heard it and saw at the same time that some of the black fighters had turned to defend themselves against an attack in the rear, they checked their retreat and began answering back this new shrill call. in the next moment they saw something that filled them all with rejoicing and gave them at once a new courage. nuova, taking a lesson from the method of the attackers, had looked about, even as she leaped into the fight, for the leader of the blacks, and had fought her way fiercely directly toward her. in a moment they were face to face, and in another moment thrusting and parrying in deadly personal combat. but nothing could withstand the vigor and audacity of this rage-maddened new warrior's assault, and the black leader, first contemptuous, then amazed, then terrified, found herself fighting vainly for her life. she managed to strike nuova one or two glancing blows with her lance, but for answer received a thrust fairly through the body, and fell with a great cry of defeat and pain. this it was that filled the despairing amber bees with a new courage and reanimated them to fresh resistance. turning on their attackers, they renewed the battle with an irresistible surge toward nuova, and reaching her and following her lead in but few moments more they had rushed the disheartened black bees off of the platform. they even followed them into the grass, where they killed many of them one by one. then they hurried back with shouts of victory, and ranged themselves in lines for marching and dancing. while the foragers busied themselves with carrying the bodies of the fallen off of the platform, all the amazons marched and danced and sang loud songs of triumph. [illustration: nuova was among the fallen] but nuova was not among them. she was among the fallen. not far from the body of the dead leader of the black bees whom she had so brilliantly overcome, nuova lay huddled. saggia, who had been hustled out of the press and into the entrance of the hive while the battle was going on, now hurried to her fallen friend. beffa, also, came hopping anxiously to her, and hero, who knew now that nuova was no coward, and had, indeed, been seized with a great admiration and at the same time a great solicitude for his extraordinary little worker-bee friend, also hastened to her side and bent over her. other bees, too, came crowding around, and nuova's body would almost have been trampled under foot by the surging crowd if hero had not angrily cleared a little space about her. saggia, who had found already to her great joy that nuova showed no lance wound, but had only been stunned by a glancing blow, was lifting her gently to her feet. and just as hero came to her side, nuova, dazed and faint, first opened her eyes. chapter ix _hero and nuova once more, and the great courting chase_ "my brave little nuova," said saggia, joyfully and tenderly. and beffa hopped happily about, singing softly to her: "for a new bee a new way; from nurse to warrior all in a day. what's for to-morrow? who can say? for the newest bee, the newest way." the other bees about her were all talking confusedly together. "she saved our stores! who is she?" they cried. "she is nuova, the nurse! nuova, the wax-maker! she is nuova, the honey-gatherer! she was not even an amazon! is she hurt? she is killed! she is wounded! what a brave bee!" hero had said nothing yet, but now, as he leaned over her with his face close to hers and her eyes opened slowly, he murmured tenderly, "little nuova!" nuova looked languidly up at him and around at saggia and beffa; then closed her eyes again with a weak but happy smile, and spoke in a low, trembling voice: "she struck me, but i hit her back; i hit her harder." "you killed her, nuova," broke in hero, proudly. "you were wonderful." nuova shuddered. "killed her!" she said sadly. "dreadful! i am sorry." "sorry?" cried saggia. "you silly! you saved us! you won the victory by killing her!" "who was she?" asked nuova, still sadly. "why, the chief of the black bees," said hero, proudly and tenderly. "their greatest fighter! and you, little nuova, alone, killed her." nuova looked up at him thoughtfully. "are you glad?" she asked. hero turned with stupefaction to saggia. she could only lift her hands in amazement. nuova's mental processes were too much for them, although beffa, hopping near, nodded his head wisely to himself. "glad? i glad? of course, you absurd warrior!" said hero. "we are all glad, aren't we?" he asked of the others about. "glad? of course, we are glad! you saved us!" said they all. "well," said nuova, smiling gently, and looking up at hero, "if you are glad, i am glad." and then she let her head sink down again and closed her eyes. while saggia and beffa and hero had been caring for nuova and talking to her, most of the other bees had gradually resumed their normal occupations, the guards moving watchfully about over the platform, the foragers coming and going, and two or three cleaners scrubbing the floor here and there to remove all stains of the battle. but uno, due, and tre had not yet gone back into the hive to resume their nursing work, but with a few other bees had formed a group standing a little way off from the group about nuova. they were whispering and looking and pointing toward nuova. uno finally left her group and came over and joined the bees about nuova. she whispered to a few of them, and finally spoke out loud enough to be generally heard. "nuova was not an amazon," she said. "why should she fight? is this the way of bees?" due and tre shook their heads vigorously and murmured, "no, no." and several other bees of their group shook their heads dubiously. "no," spoke up due, "this is not the bee custom. a good bee does the thing she is set to do. for a nurse to use a lance! no, that is unheard of." "no, no, it isn't done, you know," said a drone near by, wagging his head wisely. "if it hadn't been done, you loafer," cried saggia angrily, "you would have starved to death before we could have refilled our pantries again after the black bees had taken all our food!" "but it is not the bee way," interjected tre; then adding boldly and tauntingly to saggia, "are you a new bee, too?" "no," replied saggia vigorously, "i am an old bee--old enough to have learned a little more than i knew when i was a nurse bee--a loafing nurse bee," she added, looking significantly and hard at uno, due, and tre in turn. they all started guiltily and began to move slowly toward the entrance, but all the time looking back malevolently at saggia and nuova. "it's not the right bee way," they muttered. "it isn't the usual way." several other bees joined them in their muttering and head-shaking. just then, however, a new excitement became manifest at the hive entrance. those drones who had gone back into the hive were issuing now post-haste, while those still outside joined those coming out. to them hastened their attendants, and in a moment all was busy preparation and expectation again. beffa, who had moved over to the entrance as the drones began to come out, now came hopping and humming across the platform toward saggia, nuova, and hero. as he came near he was singing: "she comes; she comes; principessa now would wed; she seeks the sky for marriage-bed. let drones aside their languor fling; bethink the prize; to be a king." hero started up, infected by the excitement and driven by the still potent bee tradition. "she is coming," he murmured, "the princess." all the bees were growing more and more excited. the drones began to form in a line. their attendants worked feverishly at cleaning and preparing them. the other bees cleared a space near the entrance, in front of the drones, whose eagerness was betrayed by their bending forward like runners on the starting-line. hero started forward to take his place at the nearest end of the line. nuova tried to stand, saggia helping her. she tottered as if to fall, but regained her balance. her face was drawn and tears welled from her eyes. she pushed saggia to one side and totteringly followed hero. as he moved to his place, as if in a sort of daze and hypnotized and driven by another will than his, nuova staggered into place behind him, as attendant, and made feeble attempts to brush his wings. he did not seem to see her nor even to realize her presence, but kept his eyes fixed on the entrance. the commotion among the bees increased. all watched incessantly the opening of the hive. suddenly the princess was seen to be coming slowly and proudly out, still cold and set of face, but beautiful in figure and carriage, truly queenly in all her seeming. three or four attendants were busy behind her, brushing her long, slender wings, and removing every speck or stain from her body. the drones all leaned farther forward, their eagerness infecting her. for she became more animated and began spreading out and fluttering her wings. the drones did the same. beffa was hopping about with ridiculous activity and awkwardness, humming inaudible words. suddenly, with a jerk, hero turned his eyes from the princess and let them wander about as if seeking something. they rested on beffa, who in response made motions in his dancing that unmistakably directed hero to look behind him. he did so and saw nuova. he stared fixedly at her a moment. then he leaned toward her and said in a curious, tense, but almost appealing tone, as if he were asking her for advice or help: "the great courting chase is on! a queen is to be won! the prize is to be a king!" nuova called on all her strength, physical and spiritual. "yes, yes," she gasped. "be ready! lean forward! they are starting! you will win!" her voice broke a little. "you can't lose, hero--wonderful hero. you will be king--our king--my king. good-bye!" she stifled a sob. "good luck! good-bye!" she could say no more. she turned her face away from his, sobbing unrestrainedly. saggia, who had come to her side, caught her and supported her just as the princess, with wings outspread and eyes fixed outward and upward, ran quickly to the outer edge of the platform, followed a little way behind by the drones in a group. as the princess reached the platform's edge, she launched herself beautifully into the air and flew swiftly, first straight out and up and then curving gently away to the left. one after another the drones flew after her. nuova gazed fixedly after the following drones. hero's delay with nuova made him the last to spring into the air. but he flew so strongly that it seemed certain that he would quickly make up for this handicap in the great race. indeed, some of the onlooking bees began to call out, "see how hero is gaining! he will surely win! hero will be king!" nuova had strained her gaze after hero until he with all the others had passed from sight far out and up in the bright sky. as she gazed she had lifted on tiptoe and had even spread out her wings as if she would fly after him, but now as he disappeared she collapsed and fell back heavily with closed eyes and a pitiful sob into saggia's supporting embrace. just then beffa came hopping and humming over to them and sang, as if mockingly, but really with sympathetic and comforting meaning: "ha, ha, the sad attendant! her champion is too slow. he'll never win the princess, her kiss he'll never know." chapter x _nuova in the beautiful garden_ when nuova had recovered enough to face squarely the situation in her life and in the life of the hive, she found herself very weak and very sad. above all, she found the thought of going again into the dark hive to work extremely repugnant to her. and almost the first thing she said to saggia, who had remained faithfully by her, supporting and caring for her, was that she would not go back into the hive to nurse or make wax or do anything else that meant staying inside. saggia comforted her by saying that she would not have to work inside. the kindly old bee whispered to her that there was always so much confusion and such change in the hive arrangements whenever a new princess was born, and either she or the old queen went out with many of the workers, that she could easily change her kind of work now without any notice being taken of it. and to confirm this saggia pointed to several of the nurses, among them uno, due, and tre, making one after another the little trial flights that saggia had told nuova to make preparatory to going into the garden out of sight of the hive. these nurses were plainly intending to become foragers. even as saggia and nuova watched them, one after another flew out higher and farther and disappeared into the garden. it was a beautiful garden on the edge of which the hive was set. the owner of the garden was a great lover and student of flowers. he liked bees and beetles and birds, too; all kinds of live things, plant or animal. and no one was ever allowed to kill any creature, little or big, in his garden, so it was full to overflowing with life and animation. birds made their nests in it; squirrels barked in the trees; even moles and gophers made their underground runways unmolested. there were open, sunny grass-plots for playing, and close little copses and coverts for hiding, and great trees for climbing to see out into the still wider world beyond the garden walls. but the garden itself was world enough for most of the creatures that lived in it. there were flowers enough for the bees; seeds and worms enough for the birds; nuts enough for the squirrels. and if some of the happy family in the garden had to live by eating some of the others, still that was the way of life, and the only thing was to hope and try to make sure that the end would not come too soon. [illustration: in the garden] nuova already loved the garden, although so far she had not been in it; at least not been any more in it than standing on the entrance platform of the hive and looking into it from this vantage-ground. but now she was really to go out into it, and sad and tired though she was, she felt a little thrill of happiness as she thought of what she might see over there beyond the near-by bushes, out there among the brilliant flowers and the lush grasses. she turned to saggia gratefully. "good-bye, dear saggia," she said gently. "i am going to go into the garden now. i will make the little flights first as you told me, so as to be able to find my way back to the hive--but, i don't know, saggia, i don't feel like ever coming back to the hive." her eyes filled with tears. "he--he will never come back. he will win, and he will--will die." she shuddered and nearly collapsed again. saggia could say nothing. she believed, too, that hero would win in the great courting chase. and if he won, he would die. it was really, she thought with some anger, a very stupid sort of arrangement; very unfair to the king; to be crowned because he was the finest, strongest, and swiftest drone in the hive, or in any of the other near-by hives whose drones also joined in any courting chase they noticed going on, only to die at once. it was simply not only stupid; it was brutal. she did not like to think of nuova's going off alone into the garden so soon. and she could not put out of her mind the uneasy feeling that nuova would never come back to the hive at all; not even as a forager who might go out and in as she pleased. nuova had too plainly shown that her interest in living was gone, and her surrender to her impulses of the moment was likely at any time to be complete even though it might lead to death itself. saggia decided that she and beffa were needed in the garden. as nuova left her to go to the edge of the platform for her first flights, saggia scurried off in search of beffa. * * * * * a number of bees were busy at a little group of flowers in the garden when one of them, uno, who had just turned around facing the general direction of the hive, suddenly uttered an exclamation. "well, of all things!" she said. "beffa in the garden!" the other bees turned and stared. "and saggia!" exclaimed one of them. "beffa and saggia! beffa in the garden! what can he do here?" beffa, hearing them, released himself from saggia's support, and began to make weak little hoppings and to sing. poor beffa; he was sadly tired, for because of his deformed wings he had had to walk all the way from the hive. and saggia was tired, too, because she had walked with him, and not only that, but had helped him over some of the rougher places. beffa sang: "beffa in the garden; the prisoner in the sun; no queen in the palace; no jesting to be done." he stopped to rest, and saggia went slowly to a flower, where she busied herself putting a little pollen into her pollen baskets. due turned to beffa. "hi, beffa, you can sing and dance for us while we gather pollen and honey. and you can watch for bee-bird to see that he doesn't surprise us. oh, you can be useful. hop, hop, hop-la!" and she made a little hop or two, in mimicry of beffa. tre had been looking sharply at saggia. "and saggia doesn't seem to be doing much," she said, with asperity. "foraging again, is she? that is rather a dangerous business for such an old bee, isn't it?" she said malevolently. "the two-legged man giant that owns this garden likes the two-legged bird giants. he is a brute! he protects the birds! and they eat the insects! he might protect us, rather. brute!" "brute!" cried the other bees. "protect the horrid birds, indeed! sting him if you see him." just then a big blue-bottle fly that had been buzzing about the flowers ventured too near a dark corner lower down in the bush, and was lunged at by a big black spider, which barely missed it. the blue-bottle dashed excitedly away with a tremendous buzzing, and all the bees jumped about nervously a little. beffa began to sing without rising from the ground, just moving his feet as if dancing: "bee-birds in the tree-tops, spiders in the grass; death rides down the sunbeam, death leaps as you pass." "ugh!" said uno. "can't you sing something more cheerful? be funny, can't you?" beffa got up and hopped about a little. then he sang: "out among the flower-cups, dancing in the sun; now a drink of nectar, then another one. brushing up the pollen, hurry 'gainst the gloam, pail and basket over-full, off to hive and home!" all the bees skipped and danced and sang after him: "pail and baskets over-full, off to hive and home!" after singing this refrain several times and dancing happily about a few moments, the bees set at their work again industriously. it was so beautiful and so bright and so warm in the garden that one could not help being happy in it. and yet just then nuova stepped out from behind a flowering bush looking very weary and very sad. saggia, who had been glancing around for her all the time, slipped quickly and quietly over to her without attracting the attention of any of the bees, and before any other one had seen her. saggia led nuova around to the side of the bush where they would be out of sight of the other bees, and then spoke to her in a low tone. "are you all right, nuova?" she asked anxiously. nuova smiled wearily and sadly. "of course, i am all right," she said gently; "who would not be out here in this wonderful world, this golden sunshine, this fragrant air? it's a place to be all right in all the time. i am going to stay here." "stay here? what do you mean?" asked saggia. "simply that, dear saggia," she replied gently, smiling; "stay right here in the warm sun, near the beautiful flowers. do you think i am going back into the dark hive to die like that poor forager and be dragged off and tossed out like a piece of dirty wax?" she shuddered. "no, no; i am going to die out here, and lie in the soft grass under that heliotrope there." saggia spoke anxiously but sternly. "die? die? why do you talk of dying? have you a right to die yet? have you done all you should do for the hive? are you going to shirk your duty? anyway"--and her voice grew more kindly--"do you really want to die? don't you want to do first all the things a bee can do, to nurse--" "i have nursed," nuova interrupted. "and make wax--" saggia went on. "i have made wax," nuova broke in. saggia persisted, "and build cells--" "i have built cells," interrupted nuova again. "and gather honey--" saggia continued. nuova touched a near-by flower. "i am gathering honey," she said. saggia hesitated a moment, then began again. "and--and--" she stammered; then exclaimed suddenly and triumphantly--"and clean floors!" nuova smiled at saggia's anticlimax. "no, i haven't scrubbed the floor yet. i suppose i ought to enjoy that a little before i die. but you see i am not really old enough to have had time for _everything_." "that's it," broke in saggia warmly. "you are not old enough yet. it is nonsense to talk of dying so young. you must live a long time yet. look at me! think how old i am!" nuova smiled again, but grew earnest as she spoke. "it is not how long you live, saggia; it is how much you live. i have not done everything, but i have done most things. you, you dear wise, old, sensible bee, you have done the things calmly one after another as it came time for you to do them. but i have tried everything that was interesting and for only as long as it was. you have lived a long and useful life with much in it. i have lived a short and useless one; but also with much in it. you have lived mostly for others, and have been mostly happy. i have lived mostly for myself, and been mostly unhappy. but that is the way i am, saggia. that is my way of living and really i suppose, my way of being happy; happily unhappy. and, saggia"--and nuova bent close over to her, as if to tell her a secret--"you know, don't you, that if i have missed cleaning floors, i have done something else in place of it; something you haven't done. i have loved! and that is the happiest unhappiness i have had." saggia was truly shocked. "nuova," she exclaimed, "haven't i told you before not to say such things! you have _not_ loved," she added, firmly, "because you _cannot_ love. poor little nuova, you have much to learn yet about bee life." "there is much about it i don't want to learn," muttered nuova. "there is much you must learn," replied saggia sternly, but kindly. "and some of it you must learn now. when i say you cannot love, i mean exactly that; not that you ought not or must not, because other bees do not, but simply that you cannot. bee loving is not just liking and sighing and laughing and dancing and crying, and being always happy and unhappy at once, but it is becoming the mother of babies, many babies, and that only princesses can become. and when they are the mothers of babies, they are queens. in bee land to be a mother is to be a queen, and to be a queen is only to be a mother." nuova was silent. she felt compelled to believe saggia, who surely knew about the life of bees if any one did, and who had always spoken truthfully to her. and yet she had a feeling within her that seemed some way to contradict saggia's knowledge. "well, then, saggia," she said slowly, "i haven't loved, but i have wished to love." and she added in a whisper, "i _want_ to love!" "you cannot love," repeated saggia firmly. "only princesses can love. you should not think of it any more." nuova looked up into the sky. and when she spoke it was as if she were speaking in a dream. "i want to love and i cannot love! only a princess can love. and i am not a princess. what can i do? clean floors?" she turned to saggia and smiled sadly. "no, i cannot clean floors, either," she said softly. "i am an unfortunate sort of bee, saggia, a worthless sort. a new bee, but not new enough to love, and too new to clean floors. just a bee to lie under the heliotrope bush." just then beffa, who had come hopping and gently humming up to them unperceived by either, and who had overheard nuova's last words, began to sing: "a heliotrope or a rose-bush, a pale-blue flower or pink, but a dead bee sees no colors nor smells sweet smells, i think. an old world for old bees, a new world for the new, and, ah, who knows the real truth? the untrue may be true." nuova was delighted, in her sadness, to see beffa again. "beffa, you dear, funny beffa!" she cried. "but how did you get out here in the garden?" "he couldn't come, and so he came. can or cannot, all's a name," sang beffa in reply, hopping about more vigorously than ever. as beffa finished, saggia saw some of the other bees looking scowlingly toward them. she touched nuova with an antenna. "nuova," she said in a low voice, "we must get to work. the other bees are noticing us. we are idling. we must go to work. beffa can sit here in the sunshine and watch us." she moved off toward a flower. nuova looked after her a moment, and then she turned to beffa. "good old saggia," she said. "she is an example of industry, isn't she? but i don't like her to work just because others are noticing us. that makes me want _not_ to work." she stood loitering by him. beffa deliberately stretched himself, with a yawn, and settling down comfortably near a dandelion, he hummed, as if half-asleep already: "some work because others talk; some talk because others work; the wisest bee keeps wisest way, he--goes--to--sleep!" and as he finished he closed his eyes. [illustration: beffa settled down comfortably] nuova saw through beffa's transparent means of sending her off to work, and was as much amused as vexed. "oh," she said, "i much prefer working to talking with bees whose wisdom might put me to sleep, too. good-bye." she made a mocking curtsy and went off slowly to a small group of flowers which was hidden by a large bush from the rest of the bees. as soon as she had started, beffa opened one eye to spy on her, and as she disappeared behind the bush he slowly straightened up, very much awake and evidently strongly possessed by some idea. he let his eyes roam over all of the garden he could see, and he even scanned the air in all directions. apparently not finding what he sought, he remained quiet, but alert, on the flat dandelion leaf. the bees at the flowers worked industriously. the garden was fragrant and quiet in the sun. chapter xi _hero finds nuova in the garden_ saggia had joined a group of foragers at work, among whom were uno and tre. these two bees at first moved away a little as saggia came over, but in their foraging work they gradually came close to her again. pretty soon uno, after glancing toward beffa sitting quietly by the dandelion, spoke to saggia. "the garden is not a place for jesting," she said sharply; "nor for listening to jesting. beffa is not a good example for bees who work." as she said this she looked significantly at saggia, and several of the other bees, overhearing her, smiled maliciously. saggia said nothing at first, but busied herself at her flowers. as she changed, however, from one flower to another one near by, she said quietly: "beffa works harder than most of us." "do you call jesting work?" asked tre indignantly. "i call beffa's work hard work--for beffa; and useful work," saggia replied. "what other hive has a jester, a bee that does no work, that just hops and sings?" demanded uno angrily. "we are more fortunate than other hives," said saggia evenly. "we have a bee who has time to think, and a clever tongue to say what he thinks." no one spoke for a moment, then tre said mechanically, as if repeating by rote: "bees ought not to think; and if they do they ought to keep their thoughts to themselves." then she added maliciously: "i think i learned that from you, saggia." the other bees turned and smiled. "one lives and learns," said saggia, a little confused. "oh, worse yet!" exclaimed uno. "'bees do not learn: they know.' that also is from saggia," she said, turning to the other bees. they all smiled again enjoying saggia's discomfiture. "well," said saggia desperately, "bees do know most things, but--not--everything." just then beffa came hopping toward them hurriedly. he was singing loudly, too, and was evidently much excited about something. as he reached the group of foraging bees he did not stop, but kept hopping right on by them singing loudly as he passed: "hoptoad squats beneath the flower; waits that pleasant fateful hour when honey-bee on food intent comes within his leafy tent; open! shut! poor bee, good-bye; an ugly, horrid way to die!" as the bees heard this, they all became much frightened and excited, skipping about and peering in all directions. "the toad!" they cried. "where? there! i don't see him! where, beffa? beffa, where?" beffa's movements plainly indicated the direction of danger to be toward where he had come from, and the way of safety correspondingly in the direction of his hopping. all the bees, therefore, with much buzzing and jumping about, moved along with the hopping and singing beffa. only saggia seemed a little slow to take alarm or to follow him closely. she watched him curiously, and kept turning to look in the direction from which he had come. she remembered that nuova was back there somewhere, and she could not believe that beffa would leave her in danger in order to warn ever so many other bees. saggia knew well poor beffa's hopeless love for nuova. as a matter of fact, beffa had seen not a toad, but something else, which, under the circumstances of bee life and tradition, was much more extraordinary, and he had come hopping over to lead off the other bees that they might not also see it. what he had seen was something that his keen wits had told him all along he might see: in fact, he had been looking for it all the time since he had been in the garden; it was something that made him happy and unhappy at the same time. it was something that would make nuova the happiest bee in the world, for a little while at least, though it might mean something very dreadful to her in the end. and what could make nuova happy made him happy--even though her happiness should come from seeing somebody else who would almost make her forget that beffa ever lived. what beffa had seen was hero flying slowly down into the garden near where nuova was. it was certain that they would see each other in a moment. in fact, nuova, turning away from the flower which she had been slowly and listlessly rifling of nectar, saw hero just a moment after he alighted. her heart gave a great jump, and her first impulse was to slip away before he could see her; but when she saw how dejected and sad he seemed, she felt a great pity for him and wanted to comfort him. just then he lifted his eyes and saw her. he started, then controlled himself and came to her. "nuova," he said quietly but earnestly; "nuova, i am glad you are here." nuova could hardly speak. she was so tense with excitement, with wonder, with happiness that they were together again. but what had happened? how could this be? "you did not win?" she stammered. "you are not dead?" she stared at him with painful intentness. "i did not go on," said hero slowly and somberly. nuova did not understand. "an accident?" she cried. "you could not fly? your wings were not--" she stopped, alarmed and almost in tears at her thought. "surely i did not hurt them when i--i--pulled them?" hero did not understand clearly what she meant. in fact, he was too intent on the overwhelming fact of what he had just done, of the absolute break he had just made with bee tradition, to think, for the moment, of anything else. "no, no," he said; "i just decided not to go on. i--wanted to come to you." nuova could not realize at once all he meant by these words. the thing clearest in her mind just now was what saggia and all the others had told her so often. she began to speak slowly and almost mechanically as her memory guided her. "but you can't do that," she said. "it--it--isn't done, you know. you _must_ chase the princess; you _must_ win her; and you--you"--she sobbed--"you _must_ die." she stepped toward him, excitedly, with her hands outstretched to urge him on. "go on!" she exclaimed. "go on! start again! you are so much swifter and stronger than the others! you can beat them yet! hurry! fly!" in her excitement and half-crazed exaltation she pressed against him to push him into starting. he held her closely to him for a moment, caressing her gently. but soon she drew violently away, and spoke again with choking voice. "fly!" she said. "go on! go on!" hero shook his head doggedly. "no, i will not go. i cannot go. i never wanted to go. i wanted to come to you. i didn't know you were in the garden. but here you are." in his joy at being with her, he began to dismiss the dark thoughts of his break with bee custom. he looked intently and eagerly at her. "yes, here you are, i have come to you. i have come to tell you that i"--he stumbled a little in his speech, and smiled slightly--"i--am a new bee, too!" nuova laughed happily. then she grew serious and puzzled. "and saggia and beffa," she said. "are we all new bees in this hive?" hero smiled. "uno, due, and tre--" he said. "ugh! horrid bees," said nuova with a grimace. "they would like to kill me." "beasts!" broke in hero, "i'll kill them!" but then he remembered the fact that he had no lance nor by bee tradition could have any. "absurd," he said in disgust. "what a world, where only the women may carry lances and fight and work, and the men are only loafers and lovers, and can only love by tradition, at that. bah! i'd rather be even a human being. they are silly enough, those awkward giants, and can't fly and eat other animals as spiders and snakes do, but their men can work and fight; and they can love whom they like. at least they can if they don't try to be too much like us, as some of them seem to want to be. it's a terrible thing to be a man bee. we have no rights at all!" nuova looked up at him wonderingly. "why, the other drones seem to like to loaf," she said. "anyway, they don't object." "don't object!" exclaimed hero contemptuously. "they don't think; they don't feel! each just does what the others do and all just do what drones have always done." "but how else are we to know what to do," persisted nuova, who had learned her lesson well from saggia, "except by seeing what others do, and being told what the bees before us did?" hero was amazed and disconcerted to hear nuova talk in this way. "why, you talk like saggia!" he said. "what do you mean? haven't you always objected to doing what the others do? haven't you always tried to do what you most wanted to? and haven't you wanted to talk with me? i thought you--liked me." nuova was disconcertingly calm. "oh, yes, i have objected to some things, and i do like to talk with you. and i like you. but all that must not interfere with the work and life of the community. and i am afraid it is interfering. i ought to be getting more honey, and you ought to be flying after the princess." she paused; then she added, determinedly and even severely: "you must go right away. you can catch up with them yet, and beat them, and--and--win her." nuova had grown more excited and earnest as she continued urging him, but her voice broke a little as she uttered the last words. hero, paying too little attention to her manner and reading nothing in it, so seized was he by surprise at nuova's new attitude, was yet doggedly intent on speaking out his own feelings. "no, i am not going after the princess," he declared, speaking almost roughly in his vehemence. "i stopped flying because i wished to, and i came here because i wished to, and i shall talk to you because i wish to. you _must_ hear me! nuova, it is not the princess that i love; it is you." nuova started. "yes, you; just you; all you. i love _you_, nuova." nuova had stood rigidly at first, but then unconsciously swayed a little toward him. then she caught herself and stepped back, all the time staring at him fixedly. he leaned toward her as he finished speaking, but made no other motion. nuova began to speak, still holding herself rigid and staring at him. she spoke in an even, monotonous voice, even mechanically, and as if directed by some foreign influence. "you cannot love me," she said. "you can only love a princess. i cannot love you. i cannot love anybody. there are other things for me to do. i have not cleaned floors; i must clean floors. and you, you must chase princesses, chase princesses, chase--princesses--all--the--time." her voice trailed away into tense silence, and she swayed as if about to fall, but recovered herself, and half-turned as if to move away. hero stepped forward, caught hold of her roughly, and spoke harshly. "you shall not clean floors," he said, "and i will not court the princess." then suddenly he spoke tenderly, "nuova, i love you. saggia says i can't; all of them say i can't; you say i can't. well, i do. that is all. that is the answer. i have never loved a princess and i do love you; i have loved you from the moment i saw you." he spoke more impetuously. "i didn't know what it was at first; now i do. i found out when i started to fly after principessa. i can fly faster than any other drone; yet every one was beating me. i can fly higher than any other bee; but i couldn't rise at all. why? because of _you_, nuova; because i loved _you_, nuova, and could not love principessa. and they say that you cannot love me. saggia says so, does she?--and all of them say so, do they?--and you say so, do you? well, they are all mistaken. just as they are all mistaken about me. i can love _you_, because i _do_. you can love me, because you are going to. you were not an amazon, yet you fought. you are not a princess, but you are going to love. i can teach you; i _will_ teach you." nuova was almost carried away by hero's speech--and her own inclinations. but she still fought blindly and feebly against what she wanted most. "no, no," she stammered; "i must work; i must go; i am only a worker bee; i _cannot_ love; it is all fixed; it has been that way for a long time; _i_ know; saggia knows; _beffa_--" she stopped short, remembering some of beffa's cryptic words. just then beffa's voice was heard. he was coming toward them hopping and singing. chapter xii _the happy ending_ beffa had not been able to hold the foragers any longer away from that part of the garden where nuova and hero were. the flowers here were more abundant and sweeter with honey, and the bees soon forgot their fright of the toad they had not seen--and that beffa had not, either. hero and nuova were still concealed by the bush, behind which they stood, from the returning bees, but it was only a matter of a short time before they would certainly be seen. beffa, therefore, came hopping toward them and singing. he could at least warn them of the approach of the others. so he sang loudly: "ah, well, who knows? ah, well, who knows? the old world for the old bee; the new world for the new; for who may know the real truth? the untrue may be true. ah, well, who knows? ah, well, who knows?" hero turned triumphantly to nuova. "yes, yes, you hear?" he said. "beffa knows. say it; say it. beffa knows: not saggia; not the others; but beffa. they are all blind. they only see what has been, but beffa sees what may be. and you see it, nuova, and i see it. you are a new bee, nuova, and so is beffa, and so am i. and we shall do new things; live a new life. ah, nuova, my little nuova! i love you, and you love me. my little nuova!" nuova could say nothing, do nothing. it was too much. she could only look up through a mist of tears into hero's face and smile happily at him; it was half-smiling, half-crying, but unmistakable to hero for what it truly was; the full revelation of nuova's consent to all he had said. they stood together, silent in their great happiness. and thus uno saw them. uno was the first of the returned foragers to come, in seeking new flowers, around the bush and in sight of them. she stared at them amazed. then, angry and malevolent, she beckoned, without calling out, to her companions to come to her. they crowded up and looked where uno pointed. they were astounded and outraged. uno first spoke up. "they call themselves bees!" she said with scorn and malice. "beasts, rather!" said due similarly. "no, human beings," said tre. "like the daughter of the owner of the garden and her lover. in secret, and against all the customs. shame and scandal!" "drive them out! kill them!" burst out all the other bees, who had come crowding up at the words of uno, due, and tre. "call the amazons! sting them to death! hero, the faithless one! nuova, the silly new bee! hero, our finest drone! nuova, the pretty little nurse! traitors! kill them!" it was a terrible moment for nuova and hero, for death looked them in the face. but they stood quietly side by side realizing their impending fate, yet fearless in their exaltation. neither one spoke. they looked at each other with great eyes shining with love and happiness. death--together--was such a little thing. it was even a thing, under the circumstances, to be courted. there seemed, indeed, nothing else that could be a "happy ending" for nuova and hero's romance. and as the amazons pressed forward with lances set and already almost touching the devoted pair, it seemed to be the inevitable and immediate end. yet, just at the moment when nuova, with one last look of love and joy to hero, turned full toward the shining lance points as if to say, "welcome, sweet death!" something happened. a cry from the air just above them was heard. a messenger bee, greatly excited and almost breathless, was dropping down to them and gasping: "the princess! the princess! the princess is lost! the bee-bird has caught the princess!" the mob about hero and nuova stopped in its attack and stood still, thunderstruck by the news. the messenger dropped to the grass just between the foremost amazons and the pair of lovers, and there collapsed with fatigue and grief. she was caught and supported by saggia and beffa, who had pushed forward out of the crowd at the first cry from the messenger. the horror-stricken bees were dumb for a moment, overwhelmed by the catastrophe. then they began to call out, all speaking confusedly together: "the princess is lost! the bee-bird has killed principessa! our only princess! the old queen gone, the new queen killed! our hive is doomed! we are queenless! no more children in our hive! it is our end!" [illustration: "the princess is lost!"] all the while they were speaking they surged back and forth, turning to each other. they seemed utterly at a loss what to do. none any longer paid any attention to nuova and hero standing there, still silent and motionless together, as if with no more thought of their present momentary escape from the death that was so close to them than they had had for their apparent certain destruction a moment before. saggia had not called out with the other bees. nor had she moved away from her position near hero and nuova, where she was still supporting the messenger. but she had been looking keenly first at the shouting bees and then at nuova and hero. her face was alight with a new thought and strong purpose. as the cries of the bees died down from exhaustion for a moment, she lifted her head and began to speak in a loud, clear voice. "bees," she said, "a terrible thing has happened to us!" some of the bees cried out again in lamentation. saggia paused a moment till there was silence again. then she went on. "but we stand before a wonderful happening that may be our saving." as she said this, she half-turned toward hero and nuova so as to call the attention of the bees to them. as she did this a few bees, notably uno, due, and tre, began to gesture angrily again toward the couple, and to mutter against them. but saggia paid no attention to this, except perhaps to lift her voice a little higher and to speak more rapidly. "i am an old bee," she said, "and know the lore of bees better than any others of you. and i tell you plainly that the death of the princess does not mean that all is lost. i tell you that we have a means of saving our hive. sometimes a bee is born, who is not a princess, but who is of a different sort from the rest of us workers; a bee who can not only work, but _love_; who can love and be loved and be the mother of bees." she turned now swiftly to nuova, stretched out her antennæ and wings dramatically, and spoke as with the voice of an oracle. "nuova is such a bee!" she exclaimed solemnly. "nuova can be a queen for us! she loves hero. do you, nuova?" nuova turned a rapt face up to hero's. "and hero loves nuova. do you, hero?" hero leaned down to nuova and kissed her. saggia turned again to the bees. "that hero loves nuova proves that she can be loved; that nuova loves hero proves that she can be our queen. let nuova, the new bee, be our new queen!" the bees were already buzzing and fluttering about in great excitement again. they were not able to comprehend immediately all that saggia's words implied, but they saw in them a hope for their hive, and some of the bees already began to call out joyously. just then beffa began dancing vigorously and waving his wings and antennæ in triumph and singing loudly and clearly: "bee-bird may yet be beaten; we yet may peal the wedding bell, although our queen is eaten!" then he made a grand whirl which brought him squarely in front of nuova, and with a deep curtsy and elaborate gesture he called out to all the bees, like a herald: "the queen has passed. long live the queen!" and saggia immediately echoed him, also bowing low before nuova: "the queen has passed. long live the queen!" other bees took up the shout, which soon spread to all. beffa beckoned all to follow him in a triumphal march and dance around the amazed and happy pair, and altogether they set up a great song of joy and triumph. nuova and hero were not only saved, but they were become in a second king and queen of the hive. it was breath-taking. they could only look at each other in utter thanksgiving and love. but as beffa, tiring of the exertion of the dance, stopped by the side of nuova, she put out an antenna caressingly to him and then turned to hero. "hero, my king," she said proudly. "hero, our king!" proudly shouted all the bees. and then she turned to beffa. "beffa, my jester," she said lovingly. "beffa, our jester!" shouted all the bees. beffa gave a little hop; then looking up at nuova, he sang: "ah, well, who knows? ah, well, who knows?" the end wild bees, wasps and ants [illustration: plate a. 1. _formica sanguinea, male._ 2. _formica sanguinea, female._ 3. _formica sanguinea, worker._ 4. _mutilla europæa, male._ 5. _mutilla europæa, female._ 6. _cerceris arenaria, female._ 7. _ammophila sabulosa, female._ 8. _crabro cribrarius, male._ 9. _odynerus spinipes, male._ [_front._ wild bees, wasps and ants and other stinging insects by edward saunders f.r.s., f.l.s., etc with numerous illustrations in the text, and four coloured plates by constance a. saunders [illustration] london george routledge & sons, limited new york: e. p. dutton & co. * * * * * {v} preface the object of this little book is to give in as simple a form as possible a short account of some of the british wild bees, wasps, ants, etc., scientifically known as the _hymenoptera aculeata_. of these the non-scientific public rarely recognizes more than the hive bee, the humble bee, the wasp, and the hornet, whereas there are about 400 different kinds to be found in this country, and they can be recognized by any one who is disposed to make a special study of the group. the author has not hesitated to make free use of the experiences of others in regard to the habits of the insects he describes, and he has not thought it necessary in each case to make separate acknowledgment of this. he takes this opportunity of thanking mr. h. donisthorpe and mr. f. w. l. sladen for assistance in the chapters on ants and their lodgers, and humble bees, respectively. {vi} these pages are written only for the non-scientific, as the scientific entomologist will be already familiar with the elementary facts recorded; but it is hoped that they may be of interest to lovers of nature who wish to know a little about the insects they see round them and how they spend their lives. of this knowledge very little exists, as the scraps which have been here brought together evidence. there is an immense field open for research and observation, and the writer of this little book will be very glad if the following pages should encourage any one to take up the subject and add to our present scanty stock of information. edward saunders. st. ann's, woking. * * * * * {vii} contents page the subject in general, 1 the solitary groups, 6 the solitary bees, 9 the cuckoo bees, 14 the fossors, or diggers, 18 the solitary wasps, 24 the social groups, 28 the ants, 31 the social wasps, 35 the humble bees, 39 the bees with bifid tongues, 44 the bees with pointed tongues, 48 leaf-cutting bees, 52 _osmia_ and its habits, 55 a colony of _anthophora_, 61 bees and pollen-collecting, 65 on bees' tongues, and how they suck honey, 72 a dreadful parasite, 77 {viii} amongst the bees at work, 81 ants, their guests, and their lodgers, 88 how can an "aculeate" be recognized?, 92 males and females, 95 the vagaries of colour and structure in the sexes, 100 the distribution, rarity, or abundance of various species, 105 on bees' wings, 110 on breeding aculeates, etc., 113 on colour, 119 the development of insects from the egg, 124 on structure, 132 index, 141 * * * * * {ix} list of illustrations in the text page fig. 1. _bombus_, larva and nymph: after packard 11 " 2. _ammophila_ 22 " 3-4. spines on the tarsi of female _ammophila_ 23 " 5. tubular entrance to hole of wasp 25 " 6. basal segments of ants 33 " 7. rose-leaf partially eaten by bees 52 " 8. tufted hairs of hind leg of _andrena_ 67 " 9. corbicula of humble bee 67 " 10-12. cleaning apparatus of bees 69 " 13-18. hairs of bees, magnified 71 " 19. tongues of bees, magnified 73 " 20. diagram of tongue of bee 75 " 21. _stylops_ 77 " 22. _stylops_ larva in abdominal cavity of bee 78 " 23. antennæ of "keyhole" wasps 101 " 24. legs of male "keyhole" wasps 101 " 25. tibia of male _crabro cribrarius_ 103 " 26. antennæ of male _crabro cribrarius_ 103 " 27. head of male and female _crabro clypeatus_ 103 " 28. parts of the insect 133 * * * * * {xi} description of the coloured plates plate a figs. 1, 2, 3. _formica sanguinea latr._: male, female, and worker. the host of _lomechusa_ (p. 89), also a slave-making species; makes irregular nests of dead leaves, etc., generally against a sloping bank. figs. 4, 5. _mutilla europæa linn._: male and female. one of the few british species of aculeates where the female is wingless; found in sandy places running in the sun. fig. 6. _cerceris arenaria l._: female; burrows in the sand, and provisions its nest with beetles (p. 20). fig. 7. _ammophila sabulosa l._: female; burrows in the sand, provisions its nest with caterpillars, peculiar for its very elongated waist (p. 22). fig. 8. _crabro cribrarius l._: male; peculiar for its paddle-like tibiæ and flattened antennæ (p. 103). fig. 9. _odynerus spinipes l._: male; peculiar for the form of its middle femora, which are cut out almost in two semicircles (p. 101); female makes a tubular entrance to her nest (p. 25). plate b fig. 10.--_colletes succinctus l._: female; lines its cells with a gluey material (p. 44); colonizes in sandy banks; host of _epeolus rufipes_ (fig. 19). {xii} fig. 11. _sphecodes subquadratus smith_: female; cuckoo of a species of _halictus_; female hibernates like its host (p. 17). fig. 12. _halictus lencozonius schr._: burrows in the ground; the host of _sphecodes pilifrons thoms_ (p. 17). fig. 13. _vespa crabro l._: female (the hornet), nests in hollow trees; host of the rare beetle _velleius dilatatus_ (p. 38). fig. 14. _vespa vulgaris l._: female: one of our commonest wasps; nests usually in the ground (p. 35); host of a peculiar beetle (_metoecus paradoxus_) (p. 38) figs. 15, 16. _andrena fulva schr._: male and female; the bee which burrows in lawns, etc. (p. 9); host of _nomada ruficornis var. signata_ (p. 15). fig. 17. _panurgus ursinus gmel._: female; legs loaded with pollen, burrows in hard sandy paths, etc. (p. 49). males sleep curled up amongst the rays of yellow composite flowers. fig. 18. _nomada ruficornis l. var. signata_: cuckoo of _andrena fulva_ (figs. 15 and 16). fig. 19. _epeolus rufipes thoms_: female; cuckoo of _colletes succinctus_ (fig. 10). plate c fig. 20.--_megachile maritima kirby_: female; burrows in the ground, makes its cells of pieces of leaves, which it cuts out with its mandibles; host of _coelioxys conoidea_. figs. 21, 22. _coelioxys conoidea illig_: male and female; cuckoo of _megachile maritima_. fig. 23. burrows of _megachile willughbiella kirby_, in a piece of rotten willow; each burrow originally contained six cells, but two of the left-hand series have been lost. {xiii} plate d figs. 24 and 25. _anthophora pilipes f._: male and female. a spring bee, the male of which may often be seen in gardens, darting from flower to flower (p. 81); while the female collects pollen; it forms large colonies (p. 62). fig. 26. _melecta armata pz._: cuckoo of _anthophora pilipes_. fig. 27. _anthidium manicatum l._: invests its cells with the down off the stems of labiate plants, which it strips off with its mandibles (p. 50). fig. 28. _osmia bicolor schr._: female; nests in snail-shells, which it sometimes covers up with small pieces of grass-stems till a little mound is formed, resembling a diminutive ants' nest (p. 59). fig. 29. _bombus terrestris l._: female. one of the commonest of our humble bees; it nests in the ground. it is the host of _psithyrus vestalis_, which resembles it very closely in colour; it is this species that was exhibited by mr. sladen at the maidstone agricultural hall (p. 41). fig. 30. _bombus lapidarius l._: another common humble bee, also an underground builder; it is the host of _psithyrus rupestris_. fig. 31. _psithyrus rupestris f._: female; the cuckoo of _bombus lapidarius_, which it closely resembles except for the nearly black colour of the wings. * * * * * {1} the subject in general i think i ought here to say why i propose to limit myself to an account of a certain portion only of the hymenoptera. the reason for this, in the first place, is that the section which i have selected is the only one of which i have any special knowledge; it consists of the bees, wasps, ants and sandwasps, four groups which make up the stinging section of the order--or perhaps more accurately, which have poison bags connected with their egg-laying apparatus or _ovipositor_. another reason for their selection lies in their nesting habits; these enable one to get a further insight into their economy and ways than can be obtained from those of almost any other group or order--at any rate they make them comparatively easy to study; one can, so to say, find these little creatures at home, whereas in most orders there seems to be no definite home to which the {2} individuals may be traced; a great advantage also in selecting the stinging groups for study is that they are creatures of the spring and summer, and of the sunshine, so that the weather which tempts them out to their duties is of the kind most agreeable to those who wish to investigate their habits. the habits of the hive bee have not been touched on, as so many excellent treatises have been written on them that any observations here would be superfluous. although these groups are distinguished by their stinging habits, it is only the female that possesses a sting--the male is a most harmless creature and quite incapable of injuring any one. a male wasp or even a male hornet may be handled with absolute impunity, only it is wise to be certain as to the sex of the individual before presuming to play with it too much! a word here may perhaps be said about stinging. people often talk about a gnat stinging or a stinging fly; it may be difficult to define exactly what "to sting" means, but the writer has always considered that a sting is inflicted by the tail end of the creature or a {3} bite by the mouth. a fly or gnat no doubt inserts its proboscis into one's flesh just as a wasp does its sting; but the actions of such opposite parts of the body surely demand distinct names. as we have been alluding to flies it may not be inappropriate to say here that all the creatures we are going to consider have four membranous wings except the worker ants and a very few forms which are comparatively seldom met with. by this character they may at once be known from flies, which have only two membranous wings. the large brown "drone flies", so often seen on the windows of our rooms, especially in autumn, and which most people mistake for hive bees, to which they certainly bear a considerable general resemblance, may be detected at once by wanting the two hind wings of the bee. the "aculeate", or stinging, hymenoptera, are divided into sections and families according to their structure; but the groups which stand out most clearly in regard to their habits are the solitary and social species, the predaceous and non-predaceous and the inquilines or cuckoos. {4} the vast majority of the aculeate hymenoptera are what are called "solitary", i.e. one male and one female alone are interested in the production of the nest; but there are also three "social" groups--the ants, the true wasps, and the humble and hive bees. these are called social because they form communities and all work together towards the maintenance of the nest. in the social species there are two forms of the females--the queens and the workers; these latter have the ovaries imperfectly developed, and in the humble bees and wasps they only differ outwardly from the fully developed females or queens by being smaller. in the ants, however, the workers are wingless, and of a very different form from that of the queen. the rôle of these workers seems to be to do the general work of the nest; they have been known to lay fertile eggs, but the resulting offspring has always been male. between these conditions of solitary and social we know of no actually intermediate stages. we do not seem to see any attempts on the part of solitary bees to become social or vice versâ. the only condition known which {5} could possibly be considered as intermediate is shown in certain species where a number of individuals make their nests close to each other in some particular bank, forming a colony. these colonies are sometimes very extensive, and the burrows of the individual bees very close together; it has also been shown that the burrows sometimes unite--at the same time there seems to be no positive evidence that there is any work done in the colony which could be considered as done for the common good. * * * * * {6} the solitary groups all the solitary kinds appear to feed themselves on vegetable juices, honey, etc., but there is a well-marked division between those who provision the cells of their offspring with insects, either fully developed or in the larval stages, and those who provision them with the pollen of flowers, honey, etc. the theory is that originally all fed their cells with insects, but that by degrees the more progressive found that the food which suited themselves would equally nourish their offspring, and accordingly provided them with vegetable nourishment. we find no intermediate stages. a certain class still goes on feeding on the old principle. the members of this class are known as "_fossors_" or diggers, while those which feed on the new principle are called "_anthophila_" or flower-lovers. these are not very happy names, as many of the _anthophila_ dig out holes for their nests just {7} in the same way as the _fossors_ do, and many of the _fossors_ are found in flowers, apparently enjoying them just as much as a truly anthophilous species would, although no doubt often with the ulterior object of capturing some insect for their young! still these names are known as representing these two sections all over the world, and therefore it is better to keep to them even if they are not as descriptive as one would like them to be. the _fossors_, or "diggers", have all comparatively short and bifid tongues, and have, as a rule, little in the way of hairy covering, and what hairs they have are simple and only in very rare instances branched or feather-like. the hind legs of the females are not modified in any way so as to enable them to collect pollen, their legs are usually long and slender, and they are admirably adapted to their life habits of hunting spiders, insects, etc., for their young. on the other hand, the _anthophila_ or "flower-lovers", are specially adapted for pollen collecting. their tongues vary from a short form like that of some _fossors_ to the long tongues of the humble bees. their hairs are always plumose {8} or branched on some part of the body and the hind legs of the females in most species are provided on the tibia or shin with a special brush on which pollen may be collected. in some of the long-tongued bees, however, this brush occurs on the underside of the body instead of on the tibia. the pollen-collecting arrangements of the different genera of the _anthophila_ and the corresponding organs for cleaning off the pollen again are amongst the most interesting instances of modification and adaptation: some of the more striking of these will be mentioned later on. (see pp. 65 _sqq._) * * * * * {9} the solitary bees the life-history of an ordinary pair of solitary bees is, roughly, as follows: i will take for an example one of the spring species of _andrena_. many people know the little red bee, which for some apparently unaccountable reason suddenly appears in myriads on their lawn or gravel path, throwing up little mounds of finely powdered earth--in this respect being quite different from worm casts, which are formed of wet mould and the particles of which cling together--sometimes causing considerable alarm as to the possible effect on the lawn. these have hatched out from burrows made by their parents in the previous year, the mouths of which have been filled up with earth and therefore are quite invisible till the newly fledged bees gnaw their way out. they, in their turn, are now making fresh burrows for their own broods; possibly they infested some one else's lawn the year before or were only in comparatively small {10} numbers on the lawn under notice and so passed unrecognized. they may safely be left alone, as they never seem to breed many consecutive years in one such locality: probably the treatment of a lawn does not suit them, mowing and rolling upsetting their arrangements. we will now consider these arrangements. the female bee, so soon as she realizes that she is charged with the duty of providing for her future offspring, makes a burrow in the ground, and the earth thrown up from the tunnel forms the little heap which is so observable; this burrow varies in depth from 6 to 12 inches and has short lateral branches; each of these she shapes, more or less, into the form of a cell, provisions it with a small mass of pollen mixed with honey for the maintenance of the larva when hatched, and lays her egg; she then seals up that cell and proceeds to the next, and in this way fills the burrow up until pretty near the surface. the bee caterpillar when hatched is a white grub-like creature which, after devouring the food provided for it, becomes more or less torpid; it then makes its final change of skin, after how long a period is probably uncertain, and appears in the nymph stage. {11} [illustration: fig. 1. bombus, larva and nymph: after packard.] this stage corresponds to the chrysalis of a moth or butterfly, the creature being shortened up and rather more like the perfect insect compacted into the smallest form possible. people are often misled into the idea that the caterpillar forms the chrysalis over its former self, whereas the chrysalis has been all the time forming inside the caterpillar and only shows itself when the final skin is shed; of course some caterpillars spin a cocoon over themselves before they change their skin, but then the true chrysalis is found inside the cocoon. a curious fact connected with the change from the nymph to the perfect insect is that this takes place sometimes as early as august in the year preceding their appearance; so that cells dug up in august may contain fully fledged insects which are not due to appear till april or may of the following year. it is wonderful also how long life can be {12} sustained by these creatures in the "full-fed larva" condition. some years ago i collected a number of pierced bramble stems in order to breed out some of the small "sandwasps" which nest in them. on opening them in may, when the perfect insects are generally ready to appear, i found that several of the larvæ had rather shrunk up and had not changed into nymphs. these i left in the stems, covering them up again, and they appeared as perfect insects in the may of the following year. the account given of the nesting habits of the above _andrena_ of our lawns, etc., is more or less true of nearly all the solitary bees. their methods vary, some burrow in the ground, some in old wood, some in snail shells, some in bramble stems or straws or the hollow stems of various plants, some in holes or crevices in walls, etc., and their methods of building their cells vary exceedingly: all of these are of great interest and some display an ingenuity which is quite surprising. of these special nesting habits some of the most striking will be mentioned later on. before leaving these general remarks on the {13} solitary bees the habits of two genera must be specially noticed, as they differ in an essential point from those of the others. these are known to entomologists under the names of _halictus_ and _sphecodes_. in most species of these the males and females of the new brood are not hatched out till after midsummer, and no work is done for the provisioning of new burrows that autumn; but the female, after having undertaken the duties of maternity, hibernates, i.e. goes back into a burrow and lives there till the next spring, the males dying off before the winter. in the spring the [female] wakes up and does the necessary work for the future brood just as any ordinary spring bee would--but there are no attendant males--the duties of that sex having been performed in the autumn. the larvæ contained in these burrows hatch out after midsummer and therefore never spend a winter in the ground. in this respect they resemble the social bees and wasps, about which more hereafter; in the meanwhile a few words must be said about the cuckoos or inquilines, which are perhaps the most interesting creatures of all. * * * * * {14} the cuckoo bees these cuckoos live at the expense of their hosts. the mother of the industrial brood makes her cell and provisions it, and lays her egg. the cuckoo bee manages to enter also and lay her egg in the same cell, the usual result being that the cuckoo devours most of the food instead of the rightful offspring, which gradually gets starved and dies, the cuckoo appearing in its place; but there have been cases, how frequent they are is difficult to say, in which both offsprings have emerged. the whole problem of the relationships between host and cuckoo is most interesting. in some cases the cuckoos are so like their hosts that it is difficult to tell one from the other, in others they are so unlike that it is difficult to trace any resemblance between them. there are a great number of different kinds of cuckoos, and most of them select a special host to associate {15} with, and are never found except with that species. there are, however, cases of cuckoos which visit the nests of more than one host, and cases of hosts which are visited by several kinds of cuckoos. in the short-tongued bees, with the exception of _halictus_ and _sphecodes_, the cuckoos are quite unlike their hosts both in form and colour. in the _andrenas_ (the lawn bee being one of them) the hosts are clothed with reddish, or brown and black, hairs, and are of a more or less stout build (pl. b, 15, 16). the cuckoos are elegant in shape, almost devoid of hairs, and most of them are striped with yellow or brown across the body so that they present a wasp-like appearance (pl. b, 18). species more unlike one another than host and cuckoo one could hardly imagine; still this stranger seems to get access to the nest of its host without opposition. in a colony of _andrena_ one may see the cuckoos (which rejoice in the name of _nomada_ or wanderers) flying about among the females of the industrious bee, and no alarm or concern appears to be felt by the latter. as we go up in the scale of bees, i.e. towards the more specialized, and arrive at those with longer tongues, the {16} cuckoos are found as a rule to resemble their hosts more closely, both in colour and structure, and when we reach the social genus _bombus_ (i.e. the humble bees) we find the cuckoos so like their hosts (pl. d, 30, 31) that even entomologists of experience mistake one for the other. _apis_ (the hive bee) has no cuckoo. it seems to be theoretically probable that both cuckoo and host once originated from common parents; this is suggested by the similarity of structure of certain parts of both host and cuckoo, even in cases where they are otherwise most dissimilar. _andrena_ and _nomada_, for instance, which are very unlike, as stated above, agree in both having very feeble stings and in possessing three conspicuous spines on the upper and posterior edge of the orbit of the larva. also, although _andrena_ the host has a short tongue, and _nomada_, its cuckoo, a long one, the appendages (_labial palpi_) of the latter's tongue are framed on the same plan as those of the tongue of _andrena_, and are quite unlike those of the other long-tongued bees. on the other hand, the cuckoos of the social species resemble them so closely in structure as well as {17} appearance that it is more necessary to search for points of difference than of similarity. there is only one case known of a cuckoo wasp, and that resembles its host even more closely than do the cuckoos of the humble bees. all these points certainly suggest the probability that the social bees and wasps and their cuckoos adopted different habits at a much more recent date than the solitary species, and therefore have not had so much time to become differentiated in structure. the only short-tongued bees which have cuckoos of similar structure are the species of _halictus_ (pl. b, 12); their cuckoos, _sphecodes_ (pl. b, 11), are closely allied to them, but then _halictus_ and _sphecodes_ are most peculiar genera; although short-tongued, their females spend the winter in the earth, as do the social bees and wasps (see p. 13), and they colonize largely, which may prove to be a step towards socialism. * * * * * {18} the fossors or diggers in many respects the insects of this section adopt the same methods as the solitary bees so far as the construction of their nests is concerned, but the food brought home for their offspring is animal instead of vegetable. in order to supply their larvæ with "fresh meat" these little creatures, when they have captured a suitable prey, sting it in such a way that it becomes paralyzed, but does not die; after provisioning a cell with the necessary number of these paralytics, the mother lays her egg on one of them or amongst them, and closes up the cell. in consequence of this wonderful maternal instinct, foresight, or whatever the faculty may be, the larva when hatched finds fresh food ready for consumption. the various species provision their nests with different kinds of foods, and some appear to be most fastidious in their selection, and are said never to err in choosing {19} species of some particular family, thereby displaying a discernment worthy of any advanced entomologist. some provision their cells with beetles, some with grasshoppers, others with spiders, caterpillars, plant lice, etc. the strength possessed by the female fossor must be proportionately enormous, as she can bring back to her burrow, after paralyzing them, insects many times her own size. it is a most interesting sight to see the excitement and flurry of the captor as it tries to drag along some huge prey to its nest. i remember seeing one dragging along a good-sized caterpillar, of a noctuid moth, over rather rough ground: the poor creature had a difficult job; it had to go backwards itself, and pull the body of the caterpillar, after it--its behaviour was very much like that of an ant which has a large burden; at times it would loose its hold of it and try it from some other quarter; however, by degrees, by pulling and tugging, the prey was safely brought home, but the force expended must have been very great. many species, however, hunt insects of much smaller size than themselves, and it is those which take a fancy to grasshoppers and {20} caterpillars which seem to be the most doughty in deeds of force. one, a very rare kind in this country, sets its affection especially on the honey bee as a prey; the two insects are about equal in size, but the hive bee must be a dangerous foe to attack, and one would have thought as likely to sting its captor as its captor would be to sting it; also one would imagine that a hive bee, unless thoroughly paralyzed, would be a dangerous subject for a juvenile larva to commence making a meal upon! but whether the venture ever turns out unsatisfactorily there are no data to show, so far as i am aware. the larvæ must vary very much in their tastes; one can imagine that a nice juicy caterpillar, or even a good fat grasshopper, may be appetizing and easily assimilated, but one can equally fancy that the larvæ, who wake up to find their food consisting of small hard beetles, may feel more or less resentment against their parents' ideas of dainties for the young! still they seem to thrive on it, and come out eventually as exact likenesses of their parents. a large number of the fossors inhabit dry sandy wastes, such as the dunes along the sea coast at deal, lowestoft, {21} etc.; many of these, when they leave their burrows, throw up some sand over the hole so as completely to cover it; how these insects find the spot again after a lengthy chase after spiders or other prey is a marvel; and yet those who have observed carefully say that they come home from long distances with unerring precision. no sense of which we have any knowledge, however accentuated, seems to explain this. to be able to arrive back at a home in an extensive arid sandy plain, where no outward sign indicates its whereabouts, must surely require perception of a different nature from any of those with which we are endowed. some fossors are subject to the depredations of cuckoos, just as the solitary bees are, but their cuckoos are rarely of aculeate origin. the only ones which i have had any opportunity of studying are the species which nest in bramble stems. the cuckoos which associate with them are some of the smaller jewel flies and _ichneumons_: the habits of both these differ from those of the aculeate cuckoos, the jewel flies devouring the larva of the aculeate and the _ichneumon_ laying its eggs in it. the fossors {22} [illustration: fig. 2.] vary exceedingly in size, shape and colour. our largest species are about an inch long and our smallest about the eighth of an inch, nearly all having the body where it joins the thorax constricted into a very narrow waist; this is sometimes of considerable length. in one genus known to entomologists by the name _ammophila_ (fig. 2) or "lover of the sand", the waist is practically the longest part of the body, so that looking at one sideways as it flies along, one could almost be deceived into thinking that there were two insects, one following the other (cf. pl. a, fig. 7). in colour, there seem to be three dominant schemes: black (cf. pl. b, fig. 17); black with a red band across the body (cf. pl. a, fig. 7); and black banded with yellow, like a wasp (cf. pl. a, figs. 6 and 8, etc.) in some the yellow bands may not be complete, and appear only as spots on each side of the body segments, or the red band may be almost obliterated, or the black species may {23} [illustration: fig. 3.] [illustration: fig. 4.] be more or less variegated with yellow spots on the head and thorax, but as a general rule all our species fall into one or other of these colour schemes. the females of some of our sand frequenting species have beautiful combs on their front feet, each joint of the tarsi having one or more long spines on its external side (figs. 3 and 4). these are of importance to them in their burrowing, as they enable them to move with one kick of their front leg a considerable amount of the dry sand in which they make their nests. although sandy commons, etc., are the resort of many fossors, others may be found burrowing in wood or in hard pathways or banks; in fact, like most other insects, some of their members may be found almost anywhere. * * * * * {24} the solitary wasps the ordinary wasps are acquaintances of every one, but the solitary or keyhole wasps are not so well known, although they are far from uncommon. they are little narrow black insects striped across the body with yellow, belonging to the genus _odynerus_ (pl. a, 9), and might hardly be recognized as belonging to the same family as the true or social wasps. still they have considerable powers of stinging, and fold their wings lengthwise when at rest like their larger relatives. i dare say some people may have noticed that a wasp's wing sometimes assumes a narrow straight form, quite unlike what it is when expanded. this is due to the wasp being able to fold its wing lengthwise like a fan. the wasp tribe are, so far as i know, the only stinging hymenoptera which have this power. [illustration: fig. 5.] they make their nests of mud, etc., in crevices of walls, in banks, in plant stems, and often {25} in most inconvenient places, such as keyholes, etc. some of the solitary wasps have a very curious habit of making a tubular entrance to their hole. these may sometimes be seen projecting from sandy banks. the tube is composed of a series of little pellets of mud, which the wasp by degrees, with the help of its mouth secretions, sticks together till a sort of openwork curved tube of sometimes an inch long is formed (fig. 5). this curve is directed downwards, so that the wasp has to creep up it before reaching the actual orifice of the nest. it looks as if the first shower of rain would wash the whole structure away, and i have very little doubt that it often does so. the object of these tubes is difficult to appreciate. there is a bee on the continent which makes straight chimneys above its holes, so as to raise the entrance above the surrounding herbage; possibly these solitary wasps once required {26} their tubes also for some such purpose, and have continued on truly conservative lines to build them long after all usefulness has passed away from the habit; anyhow they are very interesting and beautiful structures. i have found the tubes of one of our rarer species projecting perpendicularly out of the level sand, but even then the tubes were curved over at the end, so that the wasp had to go up and down again before entering its actual hole. the rev. f. d. morice in 1906 found the tubes of the same species in numbers projecting from the walls of an old stuccoed cottage situated close to the locality where i found mine, so it is evident that more than one situation suits its requirements. the solitary wasps provision their cells with caterpillars, stinging them in the same way as the fossors do. one very peculiar genus, of one species only in this country, has its body much narrowed at the waist by reason of the constricted form of the basal segment; it makes a little round nest of clay which it suspends from a twig of heather or other plant. this species is rarely met with except on the heathery commons of surrey, hants, dorset, etc. the {27} solitary wasps are subject to the attacks of cuckoos belonging to the jewel fly or _chrysis_ tribe; these behave differently from those belonging to the aculeate groups, as their larvæ do not eat the food laid up for the wasp, but wait till the wasp larva has finished feeding up, and then devour it. unlike as these cuckoos are to their hosts in their brilliant metallic coloration, etc., they have structural characters curiously like theirs, so that even here a common parentage in bygone generations may be reasonably suspected. at present, however, they are placed, except by a few systematists, in quite distinct families of the hymenoptera. in general form these solitary wasps resemble the fossors more than the bees; they have mostly short tongues (i think all our british ones have), and their hairs are simple or more or less spirally twisted. * * * * * {28} the social groups the social bees are certainly the most highly specialized of the _anthophila_, and the social wasps of the _diploptera_ or insects with folded wings. the ants occupy a less definite position: they would seem to be the outcome of specialization among the fossors, only they feed their young with vegetable juices and not with animal as the latter do. they are always kept as a separate tribe under the name _heterogyna_, but for our purposes the better known word "ant" will suffice. the hive bee and the social wasps are the only british hymenoptera which adopt the hexagonal cell-formation in their nests, the bee fashioning its cells in wax, the wasps and hornet in masticated wood or paper. the formation of ants' nests is far less regular, being composed of irregular passages, called galleries, and open spaces, no doubt built on a plan, but probably {29} in respect of plan no two nests are exactly alike. the humble bees again differ from either in their nesting habits: the female in the spring seeks out a mouse's nest or other suitable foundation of moss, etc., in or on the surface of the ground, according to the species. this she lines with wax, deposits a heap of pollen, and lays her eggs in it. she also makes waxen cells for honey, but these are not hexagonal and symmetrical as are those of the hive bee, but are more like little pots, and are known as "honey pots". it must be borne in mind that the economic arrangements of the wasps and humble bees only last for a single season, whereas those of the ant and hive bee exist for many years. in consequence of this the swarming habits belong exclusively to the ants and hive bee. that of the hive bee is well known to all, and most people must have observed the swarms of male and female ants which fill the air on some sultry summer or autumn evening. thousands of these must perish, but a certain number of the females accept the responsibility of starting a fresh nest, and so the ant population is kept up. {30} it will be seen from these remarks that the three social groups are very distinct in their methods of nest making, and have really very little in common except the social habit. the humble bees have their cuckoos; one species of wasp has a cuckoo, and there is a possible case of a cuckoo amongst the continental ants, but this has not yet been observed in this country. the ants harbour so many species of insects in their nests besides their own family that it is difficult to form an idea as to whether the case in question is at all analogous to that of host and cuckoo in the other aculeates or not. * * * * * {31} the ants these little creatures are probably the most intelligent of all the insects--and yet at times they seem to wander about almost aimlessly. a worker may be found with an insect or something which it is eagerly dragging along and drops probably from fear. it appears anxious to regain its hold of it, but goes about in all sorts of wrong directions before it again finds it, it may be to make sure its enemy is clear away before it resumes operations, but the effect to the ordinary onlooker is one of sheer incapacity--at the same time the wonderful habits of the tribe, the way in which they keep plant lice for their larvæ, their methods of carrying each other, their nest-building, and the slave-making instincts of some of the species, show an intelligence surpassed by no other family of insects. their nests are formed in very various ways: the same species even will sometimes nest under a stone and sometimes make ant hills; some {32} of the large species make their nests of huge heaps of fir needles, and number 400 to 500 thousand in one nest--others live in quite small communities, nesting in bramble stems, old rotten wood, moss, etc. one little species, rare with us, lives in the walls of other ants' nests, just as mice live in the walls of our houses; another quite small species lives apparently on friendly terms with the common large red or horse ant, and may be found running about amongst them, on and in their nests, but, so far as i know, nothing is known as to how its young are reared. there is a curious division in the family between the ants that have true stings and those which have not. the large ants of our fir woods can bite and are able to eject poison through the apical opening of the body into the wound they create, but these as well as the larger and smaller black ants and some others have the sting undeveloped, whereas some of our small species have a sting which they can use with considerable effect; this difference in habit is accompanied by a difference in the structure in the basal segments of the body. in the stingless species the basal segment is reduced {33} [illustration: fig. 6] to a flat upright transverse scale (fig. 6, 1); in the stinging ants two segments at the base are reduced to nodes (fig. 6, 3). there is an exception in the case of one little rare genus, _ponera_, which has only the basal abdominal segment reduced to a scale although a much thicker scale than in the others (fig. 6, 2), and yet which has a distinct sting. these arrangements give the body very free movement so that the tail can be bent forward till it reaches the head. another curious distinction between the stingers and non-stingers is that the larvæ of the former spin cocoons and those of the latter do not; the larvæ of _formica fusca_ occasionally do not do so, but they are an exception to the rule. cocoon spinning seems to involve the larvæ in some difficulties, as without the help of the worker ants they are often unable to extract themselves from their prison. this is a condition which does not, i believe, exist in other groups. in the stingless ants there is a curious difference in habit between the {34} species of the genus _formica_, where, according to forel, the workers do not follow in line over unknown ground, and frequently carry one another, the one carried being rolled up under the head of the other, and the species of _lasius_, where the workers follow one another in line, but never carry each other. among the stinging ants another method of carrying occurs in certain genera. the porter seizes the one she wishes to carry by the external edge of one of her mandibles and then throws her over her back, so that she lies along the back of her porter with her ventral aspect uppermost and her legs and antennæ folded as in the nymph state. neither of these methods sounds very comfortable, but then probably an ant's idea of comfort and our own may be very different. lord avebury, in his _ants, bees and wasps_, tells us that he has known a male of _myrmica ruginodis_ live for nine months, although no doubt, as he says, they generally die almost immediately, and he has known queen ants to live for seven years, and workers, which he had in his nest, for six years. * * * * * {35} the social wasps of these we have only seven different kinds, and with the exception of the hornet they are all very much alike. one often hears people say that they have seen such a large wasp that they think it must have been a hornet, but no one who has ever seen a hornet could mistake a wasp for one. a hornet is _red-brown_ with yellow markings (pl. b, 13), a wasp is _black_ and yellow, and altogether a less formidable-looking creature (pl. b, 14). even a queen wasp is not so large as a small worker hornet. the hornet nests in hollow trees, our three commoner wasps nest, as a rule, in the ground, but occasionally in outhouses, under roofs, etc. one of the others as a rule makes its nest in shrubs, but occasionally in the ground, another always nests in a bush or shrub, preferring a gooseberry or currant bush, and the only remaining one is a cuckoo of one of the ground species. the gooseberry-bush {36} wasp is not a common species in the south, but in the midlands and north it is abundant. wasps will eat most things, but are especially fond of syrups and sweets. one species, _vespa sylvestris_, which seldom enters our houses, is very partial to the flowers of _scrophularia_ (figwort). one rarely finds a plant of this in full blossom without finding its attendant wasps. i have seen other species of wasps also visiting it, but _sylvestris_ is practically sure to be there. the diet which wasps provide for their larvæ is probably a mixed one, but consists largely of insects. dr. ormerod says that a microscopic examination of the contents of a larval stomach shows "the mass to consist of scales, hairs and other fragments of insects, hairs of vegetables and other substances less easy of recognition." [illustration: plate b. 10. _colletes succinctus_, _female._ 11. _sphecodes subquadratus_, _female._ 12. _halictus leucozonius_, _female._ 13. _vespa crabro_, _female._ 14. _vespa vulgaris_, _female._ 15. _andrena fulva_, _male._ 16. _andrena fulva_, _female._ 17. _panurgus banksianus_, _female._ 18. _nomada ruficornis_, _var. signata_, _female._ 19. _epeolus rufipes_, _female._ [_face p. 36._ ] {37} wasps do not store honey in their nest; the papery nature of their cells would make such storage impossible. i dare say some of my readers will have noticed wasps sitting in the sun on a wooden paling busily engaged apparently eating something--they are really pulling off little fibres of wood which they chew up into a substance fitted for the walls of their cells; they will also chew paper, and the experiment has been tried of giving them coloured papers, which resulted in stripes of colour appearing in their nests. the different species vary somewhat in the architecture of their nests; but they are built very much on the same general plan. the population of some underground nests is very large. the rev. g. a. crawshay estimated the number in a large nest of _vespa vulgaris_, which he took on september 20, 1904, at about 12,000; of these he actually counted, including eggs and larvæ, 11,370, and estimated the rest as having left the nest and escaped, so that anyhow the computation cannot be far wrong. this, however, was probably a very large nest. the cuckoo wasp (_vespa austriaca_), formerly known as _v. arborea_, is an associate of _vespa rufa_; its habits had been suspected for a long time, but mr. robson set all doubts at rest by finding the nymphs of the cuckoo in the actual nest of _rufa_. it is a rare species in the south, but far from uncommon as one goes north, and also in ireland, where the relationship of the host and cuckoo have been {38} carefully studied by prof. carpenter and mr. pack beresford. _vespa vulgaris_ has a beetle parasite, but this is somewhat of a rarity. this creature _metoecus paradoxus_ lays its egg in the cell of the wasp, and enters the body of the larva, eventually entirely devouring it. the hornet also has a beetle associate, but this is a great rarity. it is a large black species of the "devil's coach horse" or "cock tail" tribe (_velleius dilatatus_), but in what relation it stands to the hornet beyond inhabiting its nest is not known. * * * * * {39} the humble bees of these beautiful creatures we have thirteen kinds in this country. their velvety clothing and bright colours make them the favourites of most people. they are most industrious and may be seen on the wing from early morning often till quite late on summer evenings, whereas the solitary bees do not, as a rule, commence work till nine or ten in the morning, except in very hot weather, and generally retire about four or five p.m. there is an idea prevalent that humble bees do not sting, but this is fallacious. they can sting pretty severely, but i do not think they are so ready to use their defensive weapon as a wasp or hive bee is. the length of the tongue in these creatures makes them of great value to the farmer and gardener, as they can fertilize the red clover and probably other flowers which require a longer tongue to reach the nectary than is possessed by the hive bee. {40} in new zealand, when first the red clover was introduced from this country, it was found impossible to fertilize it, and humble bees had to be sent out. now they are established there its fertilization is carried on quite successfully. the humble bees are divided into two natural groups, the underground species, i.e. those that make a subterranean nest, and the carder bees, as they have been called, which make a nest on the surface of the ground. the former live in much larger communities and are far more aggressive and pugnacious than the latter. they also feed their young, according to mr. f. w. l. sladen, of ripple court, in a different way. the carder bees "form little pockets or pouches of wax at the side of a wax-covered mass of growing larvæ into which the workers drop the pellets of pollen direct from their hind tibiæ. the pollen storers, on the contrary, store the newly gathered pollen in waxen cells, made for the purpose, or in old cocoons, specially set apart to receive it, from which it is taken and given to the larvæ mixed with honey through the mouths of the nurse-bees as required." as the author remarks, the methods of the underground {41} species more resemble those of the hive bee than do those of the carder bees. mr. sladen has made many experiments in trying to domesticate humble bees, and succeeded so far with _bombus terrestris_ (pl. d, 29, our common black and yellow banded species with a tawny tail) as to get it to breed in captivity, and in 1899 was able to show nests in full work at the maidstone agricultural show, the bees coming in and out of the building to their nest. an interesting case of one of the carder bees (_bombus agrorum_) is recorded by f. smith. it invaded a wren's nest, heaping up its pollen, etc., amongst the eggs of the bird, till the parent bird was forced to desert the nest. the underground species are more subject to the attacks of cuckoos than the carder bees. altogether the humble bees afford an excellent subject for study, as they appear to be amenable to treatment, and to any one who could give time and careful attention to them many interesting problems connected with them and not yet understood might have light thrown upon them. dead humble bees are often found in numbers in a mutilated state, under lime trees. these {42} have been caught after they have filled themselves with honey, and become torpid in consequence, by the great tomtit and possibly other birds. the bird pecks a hole in the insect's thorax, enjoys the honey it has eaten and then drops the quivering body which falls to the ground. i once had the opportunity of seeing this slaughter going on, and was able to detect the great tomtit as the murderer. in colour the humble bees vary remarkably, the variation occurring chiefly in the females. this variation is not so noticeable in this country, although in many species even here the variability is very great, but when we trace a common species such as _terrestris_, which varies very little here, over a large area such as the palæarctic region its liveries are so diverse that its females have been treated as belonging to many different species. in the siberian district its yellow bands become of a pale, almost whitish or straw colour, and the whole appearance of the insect is altered. if, instead of going north, we go to the mediterranean region we find a large, fine form tolerably common, with bright yellow hairs on the legs. in corsica {43} again we find a quite different form; entirely black except for the bright red hairs on the apex of the body, and bright red tibiæ, clothed with red hairs. in the canaries another coloration occurs: the whole insect is black with the exception of the apex of the body which is clothed with white hairs; but in all these the male varies comparatively little. in the siberian and canary forms it resembles the female, but in the others it varies very little from some varieties we find here. a rather similar series of varieties occurs in _bombus hortorum_, another species little liable to variation here. in italy and south-east europe a form with entirely black body and black wings occurs, and in corsica a black form with reddish hairs on the apical segments. the male keeps throughout very constant to its normal coloration. the tendency to vary towards an entirely black form seems to exist in nearly all the species, although in britain black varieties of some are very rare. * * * * * {44} the bees with bifid tongues in this country we have only two genera in which the tongue is bifid at the apex, and on this account they are kept together as close allies in our classification. they are, however, very different in general appearance. one of these groups is called _colletes_, on account of its habit of lining its cells with a gluey material, the other, _prosopis_, on account of the markings on the face. the various kinds of _colletes_ are densely clothed on the head and thorax with brownish hairs, and the segments of the body have whitish bands composed of a dense, tight-fitting, duvet of hairs (pl. b, 10). there is in this country only one exception, a large insect like a hive bee, but rarely met with, its headquarters being the wallasey sandhills near liverpool, and other localities in lancashire. all the species tend to colonize; some building in huge colonies {45} in sandy cuttings, etc. they are preyed upon by a pretty little cuckoo bee called _epeolus_ (pl. b, 19), which is black, ornamented with brownish red and whitish spots. one of our best known species, _colletes fodiens_, can often be found in abundance on the heads of ragwort along the sea-coast in july. the other genus _prosopis_ is outwardly entirely unlike _colletes_: its species are nearly all very small coal-black insects, with scarcely any noticeable hairs, rather unusually narrow and cylindrical in form; they emit a peculiar, agreeably scented fluid when handled; in the males the face is almost always white or yellow, in the females there is generally a yellow spot on each side near the eye. these little creatures are especially fond of burrowing in bramble stems. they like those which have been cut off in trimming the hedges, because in them the pith is exposed and they can burrow their way into it without gnawing through the wood. if any one, going along a hedge which has been trimmed, containing a lot of brambles, in the autumn or winter, would examine the cut-off ends they would soon find some with holes in them. these {46} may be the work of _prosopis_, but there are other bees and fossors which also burrow in this way. so the stems should be brought home and opened. then the _prosopis_ cells may be known by the fine membranous pellicle which surrounds them, but possibly even then a little jewel-bee cuckoo may be found in possession of the cell, instead of the rightful owner. when these little bees emerge they are generally to be found on wild mignonette, bramble flowers or those of the wild parsley tribe. some are very common, others of great rarity. the males of this genus seem to have a peculiar tendency to develop eccentricities in the shape of the first joint of the antennæ, or feelers, some having it expanded and concave, others rounded but thickened towards the apex; in only one british species, _p. cornuta_, does the female show any special peculiarity of form, but in this the face is produced on each side between the eyes into a distinct horn-shaped process. in the females there is scarcely any indication of pollen brush, and for this reason they used to be considered as possessors of cuckoo instincts, but there is now no doubt of their industrious habits; but {47} there is no other genus of industrious bees in this country, with the exception of _ceratina_, with so little specialization for pollen collecting. * * * * * {48} the bees with pointed tongues all the genera, except the two mentioned in the last chapter, belong to this section, which comprises a variety of very different styles of bees, beginning with the short spear-shape-tongued species and ascending to the long-tongued species, which are considered to culminate in the hive bee. the habits of these genera vary very greatly in some respects; special notice has been or will be given of _halictus_ (pl. b, 12) and _sphecodes_ (b, 11), _andrena_ (b, 15, 16), _nomada_ (b, 18) and the other cuckoos, _osmia_ (d, 28) and _anthophora_ (d, 24, 25) and the leaf-cutting bees, but there are several other genera which deserve a passing notice, although their habits are not so peculiar as those of the specially selected ones. _cilissa_, which is a very close ally of _andrena_, is peculiar in having the hairs of the tongue erect and arranged almost in bottle-brush fashion. its habits are much like those of {49} _andrena_. _dasypoda_, so called on account of the enormously long hairs of the pollen brushes of the legs in the female, is one of our most beautiful bees; it is of moderate size, a little more than half an inch long, with a brown haired thorax, and a black body with white apical bands on the segments; the hind legs are rather unusually long and the brush is composed of very long bright fulvous hairs, and when the bee returns home laden with pollen it is, as f. smith says, "sufficiently singular to attract the attention of the most apathetic observer." it burrows in sandy places much after the fashion of _andrena_, etc. the male is a different looking insect, entirely covered with yellowish hairs. _panurgus_ (pl. b, 17) is a curious genus of coal-black bees, whose females have bright yellow pollen brushes on their hind legs; they visit yellow composite flowers and the males often sleep curled up amongst their rays; they are most active bees, and burrow generally in hard pathways. i was watching a large colony of one of the species near chobham in the end of june--they were burrowing in a gravel path, under which the soil was of a black sandy nature; the path was scattered all over with little black {50} hillocks of sand, and seemed alive with bees. it was showery weather, and occasionally the hillocks were washed nearly flat and a lot of sand must have entered their burrows--however, as soon as the sun came out again they cleaned out their holes and returned to their work. _panurgus_ is most businesslike in its pollen collecting; it flies in a rapid headlong way into a flower, and seems to do its best to bury itself, with a remarkable amount of action as if it was in a great hurry, and often bustles out of it again almost immediately and goes on to the next. its methods suggest that it does more work in five minutes than any other bee would do in ten. another genus, _anthidium_ (pl. d, 27), this time one of the long-tongued bees, is peculiar in having the male larger than the female. both sexes are black, variegated with yellow markings and spots, but the male is more ornate in this respect than the female and also has a peculiarly shaped body, which is unusually flat, curving downwards towards the apex, which is armed with five teeth, two bent ones on the sixth segment and three on the seventh. the female collects pollen on the underside of its body and collects the {51} down off the stems of various plants, especially those of the dead nettle or "labiate" tribe, with which it invests its cells. i cannot do better than quote the following from f. smith: "this is the social bee which white in his history of selbourne has so well described in the following words: 'there is a sort of wild bee frequenting the garden campion for the sake of its tomentum, which probably it turns to some purpose in the business of nidification. it is very pleasant to see with what address it strips off the pubes running from the top to the bottom of a branch and shaving it bare with the dexterity of a hoop shaver; when it has got a vast bundle, almost as large as itself, it flies away, holding it secure between its chin and fore legs.'" * * * * * {52} leaf-cutting bees [illustration: fig. 7.] these are amongst the specially interesting of the bees in their habits. they are dull-brown coloured creatures rather like a stout hive bee in form (pl. c, 20). they all collect pollen on the underside of their body. they burrow either in decayed wood or in the ground, but they make their cells of pieces of leaves which they cut off from rose bushes or other plants; these cells when completed are wonderful works of art. probably some of my readers may have noticed rose leaves with semicircular pieces cut out of them, and often with almost circular ones; this is the work of the leaf cutter (fig. 7). [illustration: plate c. 20. _megachile maritima_, _female_. 21. _coelioxys conoidea_, _male_. 22. _coelioxys conoidea_, _female_. 23. _nest of megachile willughbiella._ [_face p. 52._ ] {53} she alights on a leaf, holds on to the edge of the piece she wants to cut off with her legs, and then cuts it out by means of her jaws, or mandibles; as soon as it is cut free she uses her wings and so prevents herself from falling, and goes off with the cut off piece safely held under her body by her legs. i have frequently seen bees flying home with their leafy burden, and once or twice i have seen them cutting the pieces out. they cut round the piece they select with great rapidity--the marvel is that they can arrange so exactly as not to fall when the last attachment is removed. the pieces they cut have to be of several shapes in order to build up the cell they require; some are more or less lozenge shaped, some almost circular; the cells they make are somewhat thimble-shaped. the lozenge-shaped pieces are used to build up the sides and lower end of the cell, and the circular pieces to close it in with at the top; it is all cemented together with a gluey substance excreted by the bee. the burrows of the leaf-cutters are made, as stated above, either in the ground or in rotten wood. i have never had a subterranean nest to examine, but have had several nests in rotten wood under my notice, one of which is now before me (pl. c, 23). it is in a piece of very {54} soft willow, almost in a touchwood condition. so that by carefully cutting away the wood i have been able to expose the whole series of cells. two distinct burrows run almost parallel to each other; both of them are slightly curved and each has contained six cells; these are about half an inch long, and they fit one over another in the tube as closely as possible so as to look like two long thick green worms. each cell is composed of many pieces of leaf, and the final plug which closes the cell is often made of several rounds of leaf one over the other. the amount of labour taken by the mother bee to make these cells must be enormous. the cells are provisioned like those of any other solitary bee with pollen, etc., and the egg is laid upon it. most of the leaf-cutters have their attendant cuckoos, which are rather smaller than themselves, of a deep black with white bands on the sides of the body. the female has a very pointed tail, and the male's body ends in a series of spine-like projections (pl. c, 21, 22). * * * * * {55} osmia and its habits i have tried as much as possible to avoid scientific names, but the misfortune is that there are hardly any popular names in use which can be attached for certain to any particular species, and unless this can be done it is of no use using vague names like the "carpenter bee", the "mason bee", etc. there are many carpenter bees and many mason bees, and though their habits may be alike in this one particular they differ among themselves in the way they use their tools, and it is necessary to know which one we are talking about. it is a common thing to hear people inveighing against latin names, etc., but they forget that there are no english ones in use, and what is more important, that greek and latin names are common property to all nations, so that we can all know what we are talking about, whereas if we call an insect by an english name and the russians {56} call it by a russian name, the difficulty of coming to a mutual understanding is very great. this is only an aside to justify the use of classical names. i quite feel that for popular use in this country a good series of english names might be useful, but we have not got one, and it would require a great deal of care and thought to frame a nomenclature which would really be useable by the persons who require it. i have made these remarks here because _osmia_ is a genus whose members vary very much in their habits, and some species of which, like sensible beings, adapt their habits to their surroundings, so that no name such as carpenter bee, etc., would apply to all the species, or, as a rule, even to one. _osmia rufa_ especially adopts several methods of nesting. this little bee is clothed more or less all over with yellowish hairs; it is compact in shape like all the other species of _osmia_, and like them collects its pollen on the underside of the body. it may sometimes be seen flying up and down the walls of a house looking for a crevice to build in, but it is not the least particular as to where to form its cells. in one memorable case the female selected a flute {57} which had been left in a garden-arbour. the bee constructed fourteen cells in the tube of the instrument, commencing its first cell a quarter of an inch below the mouthhole. the flute is preserved in the natural history museum at south kensington. at other times this species burrows in the ground, at others it makes its cells in crevices of old walls; it has been known to build in a lock, and is said sometimes to inhabit snail shells. other species of _osmia_ almost always burrow in banks, but in no case does a habit seem to be uniformly adopted by a species. one well known and rare species, _osmia leucomelana_, is a regular bramble-stick species, tunnelling down the pith in the centre of the stalks, but i once found it to my surprise in fair numbers nesting in a sandy bank. other species again, as a rule, select snail shells to build in; they find an old disused shell lying about in some sheltered place and adapt it to their purposes, commencing their cells singly in the narrow whorls of the shell and side by side as they approach its mouth, i.e. if the shell be a wide-mouthed one like the common garden snail (_helix aspersa_). f. smith, who gives a very interesting account of these {58} creatures in his _catalogue of british hymenoptera in the british museum_, mentions a case where the bee finding the larger whorls of the shell too wide constructed two cells across the whorl. another very interesting case given by smith is of a nest of many cells of the rare _osmia inermis_ (which in his days was known as _osmia parietina_). a slab of stone, 10 inches by 6, was brought to him with 230 cocoons of this _osmia_ attached to its under side; when found in the month of november, 1849, about a third of them were empty; in march of the following year a few males made their appearance and shortly afterwards a few females, and they continued to come out at intervals till the end of june, at which time he had 35 cocoons still unopened; in 1851 some more emerged, and he opened one or two of the closed ones and found that they still contained living larvæ; he closed them up again, and in april, 1852, examined them and found the larvæ still alive; at the end of may they changed to pupæ and appeared as perfect insects, the result being that some of the specimens were at least three years before reaching maturity. {59} there is a nest of yet another style adopted by one of our species (_osmia xanthomelana_). this is formed of a series of pitcher-shaped cells made of mud, constructed at the roots of grass. the species which makes it is rare and seems to have its headquarters on the coasts of wales, although it has occurred in the isle of wight and elsewhere. this species also is not constant in its habits, as it has been known to make its cells underground. a very curious habit was noticed some years ago by mr. vincent r. perkins in another species of this genus (_osmia bicolor_; pl. d, 28); the species nests in the ground or in snail shells, but, in the case under his observation, mr. perkins found that the little bees covered up all the snail shells in which they had built their cells with short pieces of "bents" so as to make a little hillock over each about two or three inches in height, somewhat resembling a miniature nest of _formica rufa_, the large horse ant, each mound containing hundreds of pieces. this is the only record i know of this habit, which must entail a large amount of labour for the bee. these varying habits in the same species {60} show pretty clearly that these little creatures are not driven by any blind instinct in the adoption of their methods of nest building: they appear to have a distinct power of choice and adaptation according to their environment, unless of course it can be shown that the offspring of, say, a snail shell inhabitant follows its parents' habits, and that that of a ground borer does the same--but even that would not explain the case given by f. smith, and quoted above, where an _osmia_ had filled up the whorls of a shell and then, finding the final whorl too large, placed two cells horizontally to fill it: that seems to indicate distinct design on the part of the bee and would be hard to explain as due to instinct. unfortunately, with the exception of a very few, the species of _osmia_ are rare in this country, so that few opportunities are available for studying their habits, which are certainly amongst the most interesting of any genus. [illustration: plate d. 24. _anthophora pilipes, male._ 25. _anthophora pilipes, female._ 26. _melecta armata, female._ 27. _anthidium manicatum, female._ 28. _osmia bicolor, female._ 29. _bombus terrestris, female._ 30. _bombus lapidarius. female._ 31. _psithyrus rupestris, female._ [_face p. 61._ ] {61} a colony of anthophora _anthophora pilipes_ (pl. d, 24, 25), one of our early spring bees, often forms enormous colonies. i have sometimes seen sandpits in which the sides were riddled all over with holes of this species, and where the insects were in such numbers that a distinct hum was audible from the vibration of their wings. in such colonies one is sure to detect some of their cuckoo associates, _melecta armata_ (pl. d, 26). they are deep black bees, much of the same size as their hosts but with more pointed tails and with a small spot of snow-white hairs on the side of each segment of the body; like other cuckoos they sail about in a more demure way than their hosts, but a more lively scene than a large colony of _anthophora_ can hardly be found. the _anthophora_ provisions its cells with honey and pollen, and its egg in consequence floats on the top--the {62} number of cells varies from five or six up to ten or eleven. _anthophora pilipes_ has a very close relative in _anthophora retusa_, which also forms large colonies, but it is as a rule less common. these two species are exceedingly alike, in fact it requires some skill on the part of the observer to differentiate their females. they are both black and clothed with black hairs, and both have yellow pollen-brushes, but in _retusa_ the hairs are shorter and not quite of such a deep black as those of _pilipes_, and the spurs of the tibiæ are pale, whereas in _pilipes_ they are black. the males, however, differ widely, although much alike in colour; in _pilipes_ the feet of the middle pair of legs are clothed with enormously long hairs, the basal joint has a dense fringe of black hairs in front and some long black hairs behind (see pl. d, fig. 24); in _retusa_ the basal joint of the middle pair of feet have a fan-shaped fringe of black hairs, and the rest of the joints are clothed with longer hairs, but not long enough to be specially noticeable. _a. retusa_ is visited by the same cuckoo as _a. pilipes_ and also by its rare ally _melecta luctuosa_, which only differs from _armata_ {63} (pl. d, 26) in the larger and squarer spots of the body and various small structural characters hardly appreciable except by specialists. the anthophoras have other parasites besides their cuckoos; one is a beetle, which, however, is rare, and which lays its egg in the _anthophora_ cells; the other is a very minute member of the hymenopterous family, whose larva when hatched feeds upon the larva of the bee. notwithstanding these disadvantages both species are abundant, although _retusa_ is more local than _pilipes_. a very interesting fact connected with this genus has just been communicated to me by the rev. f. d. morice. john ray, who lived in the seventeenth century, mentions in his book _historia insectorum_ (published posthumously in 1710), p. 243, that a large colony of a bee, which from his description was clearly an _anthophora_, as he specially calls attention to the great difference between the males and females, inhabited a certain locality at kilby near "hill morton" in northamptonshire. mr. morice, who for many years resided at rugby, knew hillmorton, as it is now spelled, well, and tells me that a large colony of _anthophora_ was in that same locality when he knew it only {64} a few years ago. of course there is no proof that it has been there throughout the intervening period, but there seems to be no reason to doubt it, and if so it is a most interesting case of a persistent colony. * * * * * {65} bees and pollen-collecting bees whether solitary or social enter flowers for the sake of the honey in their nectaries and the pollen on their anthers. in some cases the flowers automatically deposit pollen on the bees during the operation, which enables them to fertilize other flowers of the same species, but the pollen which the bee requires for its own use has to be worked for and collected on organs specially adapted for the purpose. these vary very much in the different families and genera; they exist only in the females, and, if the males get covered with pollen, as they often do, it is probably more by chance than purpose, and it is doubtful if it is of any value to the brood, although no doubt useful in fertilizing other flowers. all our bees, as has been pointed out before, are clothed more or less with branched or feather-like hairs, which would appear to be admirably adapted for the collecting of pollen. {66} at the same time some species which have their bodies clothed with branched hairs have simple or spirally grooved hairs on the collecting organ--others collect on very much branched hairs--so that there seems to be no exact relationship between the plumosity of the hairs and their utility in collecting. the collecting brushes are either on the hind legs or, as in some cases, on the ventral surface of the body. in a female _andrena_, the hind leg has a tuft of curled hairs near the base of the leg, and a more or less heavy brush on the outside of the tibia or shin (fig. 8). when a female returns after a collecting expedition these specially hairy regions are a mass of pollen grains, and the "beautiful yellow legs", so often remarked upon in some bees, are not always due to the colour of the hairs but to that of the grains of pollen adhering to them. the genera which collect on the under surface of the body have to visit flowers where the anthers lie in such a position that they can transfer the pollen on to it; the pea flower tribe are favourites with them, and also the _compositæ_. all this section have long tongues so that they are able to reach the nectaries of {67} [illustration: fig. 8.] [illustration: fig. 9.] plants with long tubular flowers. in visiting these the pollen is often deposited on the back of the bee; this it is able to transfer to its under side by means of the brushes on its feet or tarsi. the arrangements of the humble bees for pollen gathering are altogether different from those mentioned above. they have the hind shin outwardly shining and rather concave, with a series of long curved hairs running down each side of it and partly curving over it, so that they carry their mass of pollen in a sort of basket, scientifically called the "corbicula" (fig. 9); this would be impossible if the pollen were gathered dry, as it is by most of the solitary bees, so the bee moistens it on the flower with the nectar she has been sucking so as to make it sticky, and then transfers it into her basket by means of her foot brushes. the pollen therefore on the hind leg of a humble bee is all in one mass and can be {68} removed as such. when the bee reaches her nest this must of course save her the trouble which the solitary bee must have of cleaning off all the separate grains of pollen which are mixed up among the hairs. a word or two may be convenient here on the combs and cleaning apparatus of bees. any one who has watched a bee clean itself will have noticed that the front legs work more or less horizontally--a bee will lower its head and bring its front leg over it with a curved motion--and that it will clean the sides of the face with a sort of shaving-like action, also that the antennæ are apparently pulled through the foot-joint in a remarkable way, often many times in succession. now the foot of a bee consists of five joints, and is clothed with bristly looking hairs. if these hairs be examined through a microscope they will be found to be more or less razor-shaped, having a thick back and a dilated wing or knife-like blade (fig. 10). in some the blade is of some width, and the edge is evidently very sharp: these hairs or spines no doubt do the cleaning work, and admirably adapted they are to the purpose. the antennæ-cleaner {69} [illustration: fig. 10.] [illustration: fig. 11.] [illustration: fig. 12.] (it may possibly be used for other purposes too) is a still more wonderful adaptation; in the basal joint of the foot there is a semicircular incision, which, when examined under the microscope, is seen to be a small toothed comb. the foot itself fits into the tibia or shin, and at the apex of the latter is a modified spine which is dilated on one side into a wing, or knife-like blade; this shuts down on to the semicircular comb, and the insect by passing the antennæ between the two can clean off anything which may have stuck to it (fig. 11). when we come to examine the other legs we find that the inner surface of their tibiæ and tarsi, i.e. that which is nearest the body, is clothed with hairs which have the points dilated and spade-like (fig. 12), which {70} allowing for the different action of the hind legs makes them just as good cleaners as the razors of the front pair; the spurs at the apex of the tibiæ, which are known as the _calcaria_, are also doubtless useful for cleaning purposes, and this is specially suggested by the beautiful saw-like form which they assume in some species; although there is no actual semicircular comb in the first joint of the tarsi, yet there can be little doubt that the spur and this joint in conjunction can act as a cleaning organ very much in the same way as the more elaborate arrangement in the front legs. any one who has the opportunity of examining the hairs of bees under a microscope will be amply repaid for the trouble in noticing the beautiful shapes and structures which these organs assume. (figs. 13-18; 17 showing pollen grains adhering.) at one time, when i was specially examining bee hairs, i shaved the various parts of a large number of species and mounted their hairs dry in microscopic slides, merely securing the cover glass with liquid glue; this was twenty years ago, and many are still quite good. it may seem a difficult operation to shave a bee, but {71} the hairs come off very easily, and with a sharp dissecting knife for a razor as many hairs as one wants are almost immediately at one's disposal. [illustration: fig. 13.] [illustration: fig. 14.] [illustration: fig. 15.] [illustration: fig. 16.] [illustration: fig. 17.] [illustration: fig. 18.] * * * * * {72} on bees' tongues, and how they suck honey in order to understand how a bee sucks honey it will be necessary to go into some rather careful details as to the construction of its tongue and mouth organs. these i will make as short and simple as i can, but the apparatus is a very complicated one, and it will be impossible to describe it without a good deal of technical phraseology. the tongue has always been considered such an important feature in a bee's structure that it has been made the chief basis of their classification. on this subject i will only say that there are three principal types of tongues--a short bifid tongue (fig. 19, 3[1]), resembling those of the fossors; a short pointed one, shaped somewhat like a spear head (fig. 19, 2, 2a); and a long parallel-sided, ribbon-like tongue (fig. 19, 1, 1a). the bees are classified on what is considered to be an {73} ascending scale, beginning with the bifid-tongued species, through those with the short spear shaped tongues to the higher forms, which have this organ elongate and parallel-sided. [illustration: fig. 19.] the tongue is the central organ of an elaborate combination of mouth parts, which i will now try to explain. if we turn a bee's head over and look at its underside we shall find a deep cavity, filled up with the base of this combination which fits into it. if we extend the tongue (a humble bee is a good subject on account of its large size, fig. 20) so as to draw its base out of the cavity, we shall find that in the edge of each side of the cavity there is articulated a short rod (20, a), more or less dilated at its apex, called {74} the _stipes_; on the flattened ends of these rods there swings a joint shaped something like the "merrythought" bone of a chicken, called the _lora_ or reins (20, b), to the central angle of which are suspended the pieces of the apparatus which terminate in the tongue. this v-shaped joint can swing over on its feet, and can therefore lie either between the _stipites_ or rods with its angle pointing towards the tail of the bee, or in the opposite direction with its angle projecting beyond them and pointing forwards. it will at once be seen that by this turn of the v the tongue can be projected a distance equivalent to twice the length of the v. this v-shaped joint varies much in the length of its arms, which are much longer in the long-tongued than in the short-tongued bees. when we examine the parts that are suspended from this joint, we shall find that the actual tongue is separated from it by two distinct pieces; the first (i.e. that next to the _lora_) a short joint (the _submentum_, 20, c), the second (the _mentum_, 20, d) a long semi-cylindrical joint which holds as in a trough the softer parts at the base of the tongue. from the apex of the _mentum_ {75} project three organs; the central one is the actual tongue (or _ligula_, 20, e), and on each side are the organs which are called the _labial palpi_ (20, f); these in the long-tongued bees more or less fold over the base of the tongue and protect it. there are two other large and important mouth parts called the _maxillæ_ (20, g); these articulate on to the flattened apices of the _cardines_, outside the articulation of the feet of the _lora_, and extend on each side of the _mentum_; they also have flattened blades sheathing, when closed, the whole of the _mentum_ above, as well as the base of the tongue. [illustration: fig. 20.] so far we have been looking at the back of the head and mouth parts; if we now look at the front we shall see the _maxillæ_; if we open these we shall see the tongue lying between the {76} labial palpi, and at the base of the tongue we shall see two little sheaths called the _paraglossæ_; above these the softer parts lying in the trough of the _mentum_; from the base of the _mentum_, connecting with the _maxillæ_, there extends a membrane which entirely invests the spaces between the bases of these organs and extends up to the mouth. a membrane also extends between the _stipites_ and _lora_, and closes the cavity at the back of the head. the back of the tongue in the act of sucking can be formed into a tube through which, partly, probably by capillary action, partly by the pumping action caused by the dilating and contracting of certain parts of the mechanism, the liquid food is drawn up into the æsophagus. this, i believe, has been shown to be the principle on which all bees, shortor long-tongued, suck up their honey. the subject could be treated at much greater length, and many other structures connected with the mouth parts discussed, but more minute details are unnecessary in an elementary work such as this, and i have therefore limited myself to a description of the broad principles of the process. * * * * * {77} a dreadful parasite [illustration: fig. 21.] of all the evils to which bee flesh is heir, there can hardly be any so terrible as the effects of the parasite _stylops_ on the species of _andrena_ and _halictus_ which it attacks. this very extraordinary creature, which is now considered to be a beetle, lives during the early stages of both sexes in the body of the bee, which it enters when the bee is in the larval state. its head protrudes like a minute flat seed between the body segments (fig. 21), and so is visible externally, but the rest of the creature, which is a grub-like larva, rests amongst the intestines of the bee; the female matures in the bee's body and never leaves it. the male, however, when mature, escapes, leaving the {78} [illustration: fig. 22. stylops larva in abdominal cavity: after perez.] great hole which he inhabited open; he is provided with wings, and i have more than once caught one flying in the open--but to return to our afflicted bee. this may be attacked in either sex, and by one to five of the parasites. i have specimens myself with four parasites in them, and a case of five has been recorded. mr. r. c. l. perkins, writing on this subject, says: "on removing the integument dorsally from the bee, the large body of the female parasite will be seen lying above the viscera, often almost entirely concealing them". if this is the condition of a bee nourishing only one parasite, i must leave it to my readers to imagine the state of the poor wretch who is supporting five! the outward appearance of one with several parasites is generally much distorted; the abdomen is very much inflated, and the poor creature is unable to fly any {79} distance, and can only crawl about, or perhaps take short flights of a foot or so. the effects, however, seem to be very different in different cases. i have caught _andrenas_ with two _stylops_ in them, flying about as usual and apparently none the worse for their inmates. probably the position the parasite occupies may make a great difference in its effects on the bee. the most notable effect produced by _stylops_ is the alteration in the structure and colour of certain of the bee's characteristic features. in _andrena_ the males differ very considerably from the females both in form and colouring. they have no pollen-brushes on their legs, and in some few species the face above the mouth is white, whereas in the female it is black. now the effect of the parasite seems to be to unsex as it were its victims so far as their outward appearance is concerned. this is no doubt due to the internal effects it has on the larva of the bee. anyhow, if a female is attacked, in most cases the pollen-brush is much reduced, the face tends to become more hairy, and, if it be the female of a white-faced male, spots of white are often produced on the face. on the other hand, {80} if it be a male subject, the hairiness of the face is diminished, the white colour is often reduced or absent, and the hairiness of the legs is increased. before the effects of the parasite were recognized, several new species were described simply on specimens of unusual appearance in consequence of its presence. these effects, however, like the effects produced on the activity of the bee, vary exceedingly in extent. on some the parasite seems to have no effect, in others the alteration in appearance is very great. this, again, is probably due to the position of the parasites and to the pressure they exert on the reproductive organs of the body in the larval state. * * * * * {81} amongst the bees at work now i feel sure many will be thinking "it is all very well to talk about all these solitary and social bees, but i never see them. i certainly know a humble bee with a white tail and another with a red tail, and a wasp, and perhaps a hornet, but i never notice any others." the reason for this, no doubt, is that people are not as a rule observant, and even if they notice a creature one moment they probably forget all about it the next. if any one goes out on a bright spring morning, late in march or early in april, about 11 o'clock, into a garden well stocked with flowers, it will not, i think, be many minutes before an insect darts on the wing along some border, and, if attention be paid to the flowers, a little black hairy bee with yellow legs, like a small humble bee, will be seen diligently at work sucking honey from one of them. the darting bee, which is of a brownish red colour, gradually {82} fading to grey after a few days' exposure to the sun, is the male, and the black one the female. the male rarely settles, but flies about courting the female. often two or three males may be seen dodging and crossing each other in their flight. the name of this bee is _anthophora_. it is quite a harbinger of spring, and i mention it especially as it so forces itself on one's attention, and there are few who will not meet with it without going especially on its quest. another opportunity of seeing several kinds of solitary bees flying together may be secured by standing on a sunny day in front of a sallow bush in full blossom, i mean what is commonly called "palm." its catkins, when the anthers are out and covered with yellow pollen, are most attractive to all kinds of bees, humble bees, hive bees, and solitary bees, and any one who can manage to watch a sallow bush for some time will realize that there are many kinds of bees at work. of course it is difficult, without special knowledge, to recognize which are bees and which are flies amongst the many which are coming and going, but the yellow-pollened legs of the female bees will generally betray them, as well {83} as their steadier flight. a fly turns about more rapidly than a bee, and sits down much more abruptly. bees are very captious about the weather; they do not like an east wind and are, apparently, very sensitive to coming wet. i have often gone out on a bright morning and been surprised to find nothing stirring, and then clouds have come up and proved the wisdom of the bees in staying at home. they also fly very little in cloudy weather, especially in the early spring, when the temperature is reduced by cloud below their fancy. one may be watching a sallow bush and see dozens of insects flying about. a cloud shadows it, and almost immediately they disappear, to appear again as suddenly with the return of the sun's rays. it is interesting to watch bees at work collecting pollen, etc., but if any one wishes to study them at home, their nesting haunts must, of course, be visited. these are so various that it is impossible to point them all out, but the best locality to select is a sandy bank facing south. in june or july such a bank is often alive with bees, sand-wasps, etc.; here, again, we want sunshine or the bees will stay in their holes. {84} even when dull, however, it is a very interesting spot, and we can notice the numbers of holes bored in the bank, and their different sizes and shapes; most of them are round, but some sandwasps make very irregular holes. if we look closely at some of the holes we shall see something closing the aperture, and, if we are too inquisitive, that something will disappear down the hole like lightning; it is the face of the owner of the burrow waiting to come out for the first ray of sunshine, but the owner is very timid and it will be some minutes before she puts her face so near danger again. in most of the sandwasps the face is clothed with bright silvery, or sometimes golden, hairs, and it is a very pretty sight to see these little silvery faces peering out of their burrows. again, one may sometimes notice a little stream of sand emerging from a hole; this is from some bee who is enlarging her domain or clearing out some of the sand which occasionally falls in. in some cases this ejection of sand is done with a great deal of action: the sand comes streaming out and then the bee follows, quite up to the mouth of the passage, kicking out the sand as hard as it can. {85} the moment, however, that the sun comes out the whole bank is full of life; and just as in the case of the sallow bush, one wonders where it has all been during the shadow. bees will now be seen flying home laden with pollen; they will pause at the opening of their burrow and then disappear suddenly into its depths. in a very short time they will reappear quite clean and ready for another journey. their cleaning apparatus must be wonderfully well adapted to its purpose. i have often had to remove the pollen from a bee's leg to see what colour the hairs are, and it takes some time even to brush enough of it off to ascertain this, and yet the natural cleaning process seems to take no time in comparison. but to return to our bank, numbers of bees will be seen coursing up and down and hardly ever settling; these are males paying what attention they can to any females who have time to attend to them, and often falling foul of other males intent on similar pursuits. if one has good luck in the choice of one's bank an elegant wasp-like creature may occasionally be seen amongst the others; this is one of the cuckoos. the flight of all the cuckoo bees is peculiar; it is much {86} quieter and slower than that of the hosts, and a cuckoo may easily be seen solemnly flying up and down the bank, over the various holes, no doubt watching for the proper opportunity to enter one, and deposit its egg in it. this deliberate flight seems a curious habit in a creature which one would think would wish to escape detection. if it seemed to inspire fear in the mind of its host it would be different, but they appear to fly about together unconcerned at each other's presence, and the cuckoo sails along demurely and imposes on its hosts' labours without any apparent resentment on the latter's part; both seem to accept their relationship as a matter of course. another very interesting frequenter of sandy banks is a pretty little stout sandwasp, about a quarter of an inch long, called _oxybelus_. it has a very bright silvery face which shines most brilliantly in the sun, and the body has a row of white spots on each side, and it brings flies back to its nest. it is very active and common, and may often be seen with its fly going back to its hole. there is a rare species of the same genus, which is clothed all over with silvery hairs, and this in some places, curiously {87} enough, selects as its victim a fly which is also coated with silver. there are, of course, many other inhabitants in such a bank as this. there are sure to be ants, which are always interesting to watch, and probably now and then a _pompilus_ will appear on the scene. these exceedingly lively creatures which run at a very rapid pace, vibrating their wings as they go, and taking short flights between the runs, are on the hunt for spiders. they will be seen to forage amongst any grass or herbage there may be on the bank, and if they can only secure a spider it is stung and paralyzed and carried off at once to the nest. of course every sand bank will not yield a great number of insects, but some, especially in sandy districts like woking, oxshott, and other parts of the surrey commons, and the new forest, simply teem with life--and would repay any one for hours of watching and observation. * * * * * {88} ants, their guests and their lodgers the number of insects of different kinds which live in ants' nests, either as scavengers, stray visitors who have found a lodging for the moment, as guests carefully taken care of and appreciated by the ants, or as lodgers, either tolerated or hostile to their hosts and persecuted, and parasites, is very great. the most interesting of these from the ordinary observer's point of view are the true guests and the lodgers. the true guests are carefully attended to by the ants; they include such insects as the _aphides_ or plant lice, and others which the ants use as "cows" to secure the saccharine juices which they can obtain from them, and also certain strange beetles which have tufts of golden hairs on their body, which the ants lick--on account of what e. wasmann[2] calls the etherealized oil {89} given off by them. these beetles are fairly numerous and belong to several quite distinct families; the one which perhaps is amongst the most interesting is a creature called _lomechusa strumosa_. this insect has rather an interesting history in connexion with our british fauna. it used to be considered as an indigenous insect, but so many years passed without any one finding it, that the old records were suspected as doubtful, and it was removed from the list of british species. in 1906, however, it was rediscovered near woking in a nest of _formica sanguinea_ (pl. a, 1, 2, 3), one of the large red ants, by mr. h. donisthorpe. the life-history of _lomechusa_ is a very curious one: it is taken great care of by the ants, and its larvæ are even placed by them with their own, on which it feeds. its numbers are kept down apparently by the overzeal of the ants to take care of them. the ants bring their own pupæ up frequently to obtain light and air and with them it brings up the _lomechusa_ pupæ--this seems not to suit the latter and results in the death of many of them. it is a most interesting case of how a due balance can be maintained, and what might prove an enemy {90} kept in his proper place by kind intentions. there are also in ants' nests what dr. wasmann calls "tolerated lodgers"; these are mostly creatures which are supposed to escape the notice of the ants, either by their small size or by their slow, lethargic, or on the other hand very rapid movements--these in many cases act as scavengers, living on the dead bodies of insects, etc., brought in by the ants. the hostile lodgers are real enemies to the ants and devour their brood, and in consequence they are always at war with each other. these creatures generally resemble the ants considerably in form and colour and especially in their movements. besides these lodgers there are numerous parasites of the ants, such as mites, etc., so that an ant colony is a very wonderful mixture of diverse inhabitants. the distinctions given above as to the habits of the various lodgers are not always kept up, as, in some, two or more of these habits are combined. the whole study of ants and their guests is a most fascinating one: many of the latter are great rarities and much sought after by collectors. unfortunately, the great {91} drawback in collecting them is the havoc caused to the nests of the ants. these structures have been the result of enormous labour on the part of these little creatures, and one cannot regard their destruction without sincere regret. i think any one who, when collecting beetles, disturbs a large nest of the little garden ant (_lasius niger_) or the little yellow ant (_lasius flavus_) by turning over a stone, as the writer has often done himself, must have experienced a like regret at having broken up all the beautiful passages and galleries which the ants have constructed so carefully. * * * * * {92} how can an "aculeate" be recognized? this is not an easy question to answer. we cannot make hard and fast definitions which will determine exactly what belongs to this group and what to that; there are always some intermediate forms which present themselves and make our classification unsatisfactory, but, i think, for all purposes of practical observation in the field we may say that if we find a creature with four membranous wings, burrowing in the ground or making a nest in any way, it is an aculeate or stinger. also, that if we find a hairy-bodied insect with four clear wings collecting pollen or sucking nectar from a flower it is a bee. there are, of course, characters by which the stinging groups can be known almost for certain, but there is no single one which can be given to recognize them by. {93} they are known by a combination of many, and these are frequently small structural details which do not appeal to the field observer; in fact, which are unappreciable except under magnification. one of the chief difficulties experienced by an observer who is not versed in classification is to avoid being deceived by various flies, which in many cases greatly resemble bees, and especially wasps or the wasp-like fossors. they may mostly be known by their flight, and, when they settle, by their behaviour. a fly is more sudden in its movements--those wasp-like flies, for instance, which poise themselves in the air and appear quite stationary but dart off in a second when approached, betray themselves at once by their alertness. _anthophora_ and _saropoda_ poise in the air and dart somewhat after the same fashion, but they never remain poised for long, and do not get away from their position so rapidly. also, a fly when it settles remains quiet, whereas an aculeate if in a flower sets to work collecting pollen, or if basking in the sun on a leaf rarely rests for many seconds without moving in some way. on a flower, if an insect is seen quietly sitting with its head away from the centre of the {94} flower, it is almost certain to be a fly. most of the little bees (_halicti_) which visit dandelions and such like "composites" fly in to them with some rapidity, attack them sideways, and move round the "flower", no doubt getting pollen from each floret in succession and with a businesslike action about it all, which is very different from the behaviour of any fly. the flies which really closely resemble bees in their flight are those which lay their eggs in the burrows of various bees and sandwasps. they are really deceptive. last summer on the sandhills at southbourne, near bournemouth, i again and again was deceived by a small fly with a red belt across its body, thinking it was a red-bodied sandwasp. these it really only resembles on the wing. after having been taken in once or twice one felt ashamed of oneself for not recognizing it. the flies also which associate with the humble bees are often coloured very much like them, and could easily be mistaken for small specimens of the bees were it not for their behaviour and wings, which show a dark spot on the upper margin, not existing in the wing of the bee. * * * * * {95} males and females these differ from each other very greatly in many cases. eccentricity in structure almost always occurs in the male; excess of coloration usually in the female. in size the male is generally the smaller and the less robustly built of the two. among the pollen-collectors, the male is usually less densely clothed with hairs than the [female]. in the fossors this rule is rather reversed, but in that section neither sex is densely clothed with hairs as are most of the pollenigerous bees. the male has normally thirteen joints in its antennæ, and the female only twelve. there are exceptions to this rule amongst the ants and in certain fossors of the genus _crabro_, some species of which have the antennæ considerably distorted, and have two joints welded apparently into one. another distinction between the sexes is that the male has seven dorsal segments {96} of the body exposed to view, and the female only six. in the males of some of those bees which collect pollen on the underside of the body, the body above terminates with the sixth segment. this is because the seventh is turned over on to the underside, and faces downwards, its apex pointing towards the head. this arrangement of course leaves less room for the regular ventral segments, and the usual apical segments are in consequence "telescoped" up under the fourth, so that the apical opening of the body lies on its underside between the fourth ventral and the inverted seventh dorsal segments. this very curious structure occurs only in those bees whose females collect pollen on the underside, and the reason of it is to me quite inexplicable. the females of a few of the fossors are destitute of wings; but in this country we have no wingless males, except in the case of one little ant (_formicoxenus_); this lives in the nest of the common large red ant, and its male can hardly be known from the worker except by the number of joints in the antennæ and the absence of a sting. in the cases where the female is wingless, the male as a rule is much the larger of the two sexes. {97} there are few more puzzling questions than those which arise over these eccentricities of structure; they seem to have no relation to any habits of the creatures' lives so far as we can judge, neither can one suggest any useful purpose which they can serve. in some groups the males of all the species seem built on one regular plan--in others the males of each species seem to vie with the next as to what eccentricity of structure in antennæ or legs or apex of the body it can exhibit. in numbers, the males probably considerably exceed the females, and are far more frequently met with, as they seem to be less particular as to weather, and not being intent on obtaining food for their offspring they fly about more casually, and certainly are more in evidence generally. the great difference in structure, etc., between the males and females makes the work of pairing the sexes very difficult, especially in those genera where the males and females appear together only for a few weeks, as is the case in _halictus_ and _sphecodes_. if one visits a locality in the spring one may catch any number of females of _halictus_, but no males appear till the late {98} summer or autumn, and, unless one visits the same spot again when both sexes are out, it is impossible to associate males and females. i have at the present moment in my collection several males, which, being in doubt about myself, i have communicated to continental authorities, who have returned them to me as possibly the male of so and so! and we shall have to remain in uncertainty about them till some one happens to take both sexes together, when the mystery will be solved. in time of appearance the males always precede the females--in burrows, such as those of the leaf-cutting bees, etc., it may seem puzzling as to how this is arranged, as one cell is placed over the other so that those lower down in the tube cannot pass those higher up. this difficulty is got over by the arrangement that the first eggs laid by the mother bee are female and the last male, so that those at the top belong to this latter sex; these emerge as soon as the warmth of the sun is great enough to energize them sufficiently to break through their cell covering, when they emerge and wait for the appearance of their females. the males of {99} some species of _andrena_ seem to take great pleasure in flying rapidly up and down hedgerows, hardly ever settling, and apparently far away from their females, which are probably pollen collecting in dandelions or some such flowers in the neighbourhood. * * * * * {100} the vagaries of colour and structure in the sexes as a rule the male is rather smaller and especially slenderer than the female, but there are notable exceptions; in one genus of the fossors, _myrmosa_ for instance, the male is many times larger than the female. in this case the male is winged and the female is wingless. also, if there is a difference in brightness of coloration between the sexes, as a rule the male is duller than the female--this is especially the case among the bees--but if there is any eccentricity in the form of the limbs it is almost sure to occur in the male, and i think one would not go far wrong in saying that when peculiar features occur in the female, the reason for them is more or less apparent, whereas for the eccentricities of the male there really often seems to be no assignable cause. these male eccentricities are often exceedingly marked. a very good {101} [illustration: fig. 23.] [illustration: fig. 24.] example of them occurs among the small "keyhole" wasps. all the british species are practically alike in coloration. they may vary in having a greater or less number of yellow bands on the body, but otherwise their distinctions rest on structure. in the females the antennæ are slightly thickened towards the apex, but otherwise they are simple. the males, however, are divided into three quite distinct groups. in the first of these, the end joints of the antennæ are rolled up in more or less of a spiral (fig. 23, 2); in the second, the apical joint is turned sharply back like a hook (fig. 23, 1); in the third, the end joints of the antennæ are simple and more or less like those of the female. now if we examine the legs of the males in the first group we shall find still greater peculiarities; in two of our species there is a long yellow spine at the extreme base of the middle leg on the little joint by which it articulates on to the body (fig. 24, 2), and a curious pencil of hairs {102} on each side of the mouth. in two others, the femora, or thighs of the middle legs, are cut into two deep somewhat semicircular incisions (fig. 24, 1)--a most curious character; but here again the females have no corresponding peculiarities. there seems to be no explanation known for these vagaries, and yet one feels that there must be some object served by them. if we turn to the bees we shall find that in many species the face of the male is white to a greater or less extent, whereas that character is very rare in the female. the front feet are produced into a wide flattened form in some, in others the middle legs are extraordinarily developed, and provided with tufts of hairs, etc. another form of male development lies in the form of the head. this is sometimes very much enlarged--often varying considerably in this respect in specimens of the same species; there is often a projecting tooth or spine on the mandible or jaw at its base, or frequently on the cheek just above it. then in the fossors the males of the genus _crabro_ break out into numerous eccentricities; in some, two or more of the joints of the antennæ are soldered together and curved or cut out into {103} curious forms (fig. 26); in others the front shin or tibia is formed like a concave shield or shell (fig. 25), and all the joints of that leg more or less distorted; in another male (a rather doubtful native which has not been taken in this country for fifty years) the head is narrowed behind into an almost ridiculously small neck, being quite triangular in form, viewed from above, with the eyes projecting from its anterior angles (fig. 27, 1), the female head being of normal form (fig. 27, 2). [illustration: fig. 25.] [illustration: fig. 26.] [illustration: fig. 27.] in the males of several species of fossors and bees the eyes are enormously developed, joining one another on the top of the head. this condition occurs also in the drone of the hive bee. the male of _astatus_, which has this character, has also a peculiar habit. it sits basking in the sun on some bare sandy spot, and when disturbed makes a sort of circular detour and pitches down again exactly on the spot from which it started up. an {104} increased length of the antennæ is another male characteristic. this is carried to an extraordinary development in what is called the "long horned bee"; this bee, which is pretty common in some places, has antennæ which, when directed backwards, are almost as long as its body--the female has quite an ordinary pair. another set of male characters which are of great value to systematists lies in the hidden apical segments of the underside; although these are hidden, being telescoped up inside the segments which close the apical opening of the body, they often assume most curious and beautiful forms, and are characters whereby the males of a species may be determined with certainty when the females defy all one's endeavours to discover their identity. * * * * * {105} the distribution, rarity, or abundance of various species there are few points about which we know less than the causes of distribution and rarity, although there are certain tolerably well recognized laws which govern the occurrence of some species in certain localities. what i mean is that marshy spots, say salt marshes for instance, attract certain beetles and bugs which are never found except in such places; certain kinds of flowers attract bees which never appear to visit any others, but these localities and kinds of flowers occur often at great distances from each other, and why--given a certain flower you probably find a certain bee peculiar to it; or given a certain kind of marsh you probably find a certain beetle, although the localities may be hundreds of miles apart--i think still awaits explanation. i will give an example with which i am personally well acquainted. {106} there is a rare little bee (_macropis labiata_) which at one time was looked upon as an extreme rarity, having only occurred three or four times in this country. mr. f. enoch, comparatively lately, took a fair number on the flowers of the greater loose-strife (_lysimachia vulgaris_) along the canal at woking; now that its food-plant is known, it has occurred in several other places in numbers, and no doubt wherever the _lysimachia_ is abundant _macropis_ will probably occur, but how the little creature has been distributed over the places where this plant occurs, which are often far distant from each other, seems to me to be an unsolved problem. then there is another puzzling point, and that is the extreme rarity of certain insects. no doubt in many cases this is due to ignorance of their habits, as it has frequently happened that species once considered of great rarity have occurred in abundance when their habits have been discovered, as in the case of _macropis_, but there are some cases which do not seem to be explainable in this way. i will again give an example which has been specially under my own observation. _dufourea vulgaris_, a little black bee, {107} which certainly might not be recognized from its outward appearance, as there are many which very closely resemble it, is still one of our greatest rarities, only three british examples having been recorded. the first was taken by sir sidney saunders at chewton, hants, on the twelfth of august, 1879; this was a male; the second, a female, was taken by mr. t. r. billups at woking, on the first of august, 1881; and the third by myself at chobham (about four miles from woking) on the first of august, 1891. i believe in all cases these were taken on yellow composite flowers. the flight and behaviour of the male i caught were so peculiar, as it wriggled itself into the flower, that i knew at once i had caught a rarity, and remarked to my companions that i believed i had got a _dufourea_. i also hazarded the remark that it was "ten years since it had been taken." when i got home and looked up the former record it was ten years to a day. now there are few places in england that have been better worked for the bee tribe than the woking, chobham, and weybridge neighbourhood; it has been worked by experienced men who would see a difference {108} in the flight of an insect directly. the late mr. f. smith, in his day our leading authority, the rev. f. d. morice, than whom no one has probably worked the neighbourhood more thoroughly, mr. t. r. billups, mr. e. b. nevinson, and the late mr. a. beaumont, have all been over the ground again and again, and yet only these two _dufoureas_! and these taken four miles apart. here again is a problem which is very perplexing! what part in nature does this little rarity play? no doubt like everything else it has its duties, and its corner to fill, but beyond that one can suggest nothing. other bees are often exceedingly abundant in one season and very rare the next, or they will entirely desert a locality where they have been abundant, and move somewhere else--the occasional scarceness is due probably to continued wet weather, which often appears to kill the larvæ. cold winters seem to have no injurious effect, although at one time they were thought to determine the scarcity or otherwise of the bees of the following summer. it has, i think, been clearly shown that larvæ can stand almost any amount of cold, although they succumb to {109} the effects of mildew produced by wet, but there is often no apparent reason why a well established colony should migrate to quite new pastures. sometimes the proximity of new buildings or the digging up of ground may disturb them, but i know of colonies that have gone from where i knew them a comparatively few years ago, and where i can detect no change likely to have affected them. on the other hand there are colonies which one has known all one's life and which still go on as strongly or more strongly than ever--the case quoted under _anthophora_, p. 63, shows what persistence there can be in some. * * * * * {110} on bees' wings the bees and the other stinging groups have four wings like all the _hymenoptera_. these wings are almost always clear and transparent, at any rate amongst the british species, there being only one exception which i can call to mind in the female of the cuckoo of our large red-tailed humble-bee, which has the wings blackish; also they are never spotted, as in some flies. the hind or lower wings unite with the upper by a series of very beautiful hooks which extend along their upper margin and fix on to the posterior edge of the front wing, which is folded back on itself so as to receive them; in flight the two wings are united, but when at rest they separate; these hooks are beautiful objects under a microscope; their numbers vary; and in some cases this variation is useful in distinguishing closely allied species from one another. the hum of a bee is caused, to a great extent, by {111} the vibration of the wings, but it has been shown that a loud buzzing noise can be emitted by bees which have lost their wings; this proceeds from the spiracles or holes in the outer covering of the creature through which it breathes. it is therefore not always easy to say how much of the hum is caused by wing vibration and how much by the action of the spiracles. some, in fact most, of our solitary bees are almost silent in flight, and their note can be heard only when large numbers are flying together; others have a very peculiar shrill hum, by which even the species can almost be recognized. in bright, hot, sunny weather their flight is more rapid and their note attains a higher pitch. the bees with the highest pitched hum with which i am acquainted are the two smaller species of _anthophora_ and _saropoda bimaculata_. in early spring, when it is hot in the sunshine and cold when a cloud covers the sun, it is no unusual thing to see a bee drop to the ground. the cold seems to paralyze altogether their powers of flight. when at rest a bee folds its wings along the sides of its back, but only in the wasp tribe is there the arrangement for them to be {112} folded longitudinally. the shape of the wings varies very little, but the arrangement and number of their cells vary considerably. there are some very interesting genera in which the neuration of some of the cells is so slightly indicated that they are hardly visible, and can be seen only when the wing is held in certain lights; these faintly indicated cells are nearly always those towards the apex of the wing, the neuration of the basal part of the wing being as strong as in the other genera. there are a few moths in this country which very much resemble, both in the colour of their bodies and their clear wings, the wasp tribe, but they may be known by the brown band of scales at the apex of the wings and also by the absence of the narrow waist, which exists in all the stinging tribes. the only wingless forms which we know are to be found amongst the ants and the fossors, and as a rule are females, but in a few cases in the ants, and in some foreign species of the genus _mutilla_, the male is apterous also. * * * * * {113} on breeding aculeates, etc. any one who wishes to study the life-histories of these insects, and has leisure to do so, can easily obtain various larvæ by digging for them in suitable places. if, for instance, during the summer, bees, etc., have been noticed entering holes in a certain bank or sandy spot, their larvæ or nymphs can be got in the autumn by digging down for about a foot in the direction of the holes, and if they be brought home and put into glass-top boxes they will generally emerge at their right time without giving any further trouble; it must, however, be remembered that the grubs are very soft and tender skinned, and it is better to avoid handling them if possible; they should be moved with a small soft camel-hair pencil, and it is well to put something soft at the bottom of the box so that if they fall in they will not be damaged. if the wood-boring {114} species are being collected, care must of course be taken in splitting the wood; most of these make a pupa case over themselves, and are in that respect easier to deal with. a label should be put in each box to show where the larvæ, etc., were found. an old rotten stump of a tree will often produce a good number of species. then there are the bramble-stem borers; these can be left in the stems. i have generally found it convenient, after arriving home, to split the stems down, to see if there are any living creatures in them, and, if there are, to close them up again, and, tie a little very fine net or gauze bag over the top of each stem; in this way one can find out exactly what insects come from what stem, and determine the cuckoos (if any) which belong to each. as the season advances towards may, it is well to give all the larvæ, etc., an occasional glimpse of the sun; they should not be left in the sun long enough for them to get dried up too much, but the sun is a very important factor in tempting them to emerge; naked larvæ and nymphs, in glass-top boxes, should be treated very carefully in this respect, as they are deprived of their {115} natural surroundings, in which the actual sunshine would never reach them--it would be better to place them in a sunny room, screened off from the actual rays of the sun, so that its warmth only would be felt. if they do not emerge the first year, it should not be taken for granted that they are dead, as very likely they will appear in the following spring. i have bred leaf-cutting bees several times with great success, and others i know have been successful with many species. the fear is to get them dried up too much; it is therefore not desirable to keep them in a very hot room. when first the insects emerge, their hairs are often more or less matted together, and they should be put in the sun in a larger box, so that they can crawl about and clean themselves; portions also of the skin in which they have been enveloped frequently adhere to them for some little time, but as a rule, unless the creature be too weak, these are very soon cleaned off. breeding is a fascinating amusement, but it requires a great deal of attention when the emerging season begins, as the boxes want constant watching, or the insects will emerge unnoticed, and, if not given proper {116} air and sunshine, may die without cleaning themselves properly. if it is desired to preserve the specimens, they should be killed either with cyanide of potassium, ether, or chloroform. if the first of these agents is used, a piece of about the size of a small hazel nut should be put at the bottom of a bottle (for collecting purposes, an ordinary "coleoptera bottle", which can be obtained from any naturalist's shop, is the most convenient) and should be kept down by a wad of blotting paper, well pressed down upon it; this prevents the cyanide, as it liquifies, from wetting the hairs, etc., of the insects. over this a piece of white paper should be placed; this will get stained at once when there is much damp, and should then be changed. the objections to cyanide are its very poisonous nature, and the stiffness which is caused by its use to the specimens killed by it, and also its tendency to turn yellow colours red. i always use it myself as i think it is preferable to the other insecticides, notwithstanding its demerits, but then i do not extend the legs and wings of my specimens, but simply leave them in whatever position they happen to {117} die. ether is a very favourite method of killing with many; a few drops in a bottle with some paper in it is sufficient to last for some hours; it however soon evaporates in hot weather, and it is necessary to carry a small phial of it in one's pocket to replenish the supply when exhausted; this makes one smell of ether perpetually, which is more than i can stand. but the insects killed in this way are beautifully supple, and, for those who wish to set their captures as they would _lepidoptera_, it is an excellent medium, i.e. if they don't mind its smell; it has also the benefit of not affecting colour. chloroform acts much as ether does. when killed, i strongly recommend collectors to pin their specimens through the thorax with a very fine pin (those used for micro-lepidoptera are the best), and then to pin this through a narrow strip of card, mounted on a long stout pin; in this way the insect can be moved about by the strong pin, and the thorax of the insect itself is not destroyed, as it often is in the case of the smaller species by the use of thicker pins. the cards should be cut as small as possible; they need not be more than a quarter of an inch long. the insect {118} should be pinned at right angles to the long axis of the card, and the long pin should be inserted on the right-hand side of the insect so as not quite to touch it. in this way the insects look quite as neat as if they were pinned direct. locality labels, etc., should be affixed to the long pin, and the insects should be stored in cabinets or boxes. * * * * * {119} on colour there is but little tendency towards brilliant coloration amongst our native aculeates. no doubt our comparatively high latitude accounts for this to some extent, as also the fact that the aculeates do not, as a rule, elsewhere assume great brilliancy. even in the tropics and other warm regions, where bright green, blue or coppery coloured species occur, they are comparatively few in number. in this country metallic colours are to be found in less than a dozen species, and in most of these it exists only as a tinge. amongst our ants and wasps it does not exist at all, unless the slight bronziness of the typical form of _formica fusca_ be so considered. the fossors can exhibit only a bluish tint in _mutilla europæa_ (pl. a, 4, 5), and a slight bronzy tinge in two of quite the smallest species, _miscophus maritimus_ and the [male] of _crabro albilabris_. the bees can do a little better; five species of _halictus_ have a distinctly {120} bronzy head and thorax, and in three the bronzy colour extends to the abdomen; there is also another with a very dull green tinge on the thorax; besides these there is a little bright blue bee, _ceratina_ (unfortunately a great rarity in this country) and two or three species of _osmia_, showing more or less tendency to bronziness, and one which is distinctly bluish; but, considering our indigenous species number nearly 400, this is a very small, and compared with other countries i should think an abnormally small, proportion. species with bodies banded like a wasp's are much more abundant--no less than eighty of our native kinds having this style of coloration. the bands may be reduced to lateral spots, but such cases, i think, are only modifications of the banded scheme. black species with a more or less pronounced red band across the body number about seventy, and a general testaceous or yellowish colour occurs in a few ants, but not elsewhere among the british aculeates. nearly all the rest are black or dark brown so far as the actual surface of the body is concerned; but amongst the bees {121} there is often a dense clothing of coloured hairs sometimes so dense that the surface of the body may be rendered invisible. these coloured hairs may be distributed into brilliant bands, as in the humble bees, or they may be uniformly black, as in some of their varieties and in the females of the spring species of _anthophora_ (pl. d, 25), or entirely red as in _andrena fulva_ (pl. b, 16), or black on the thorax and red on the abdomen as in _osmia bicolor_ (pl. d, 28), or vice versâ as in _andrena thoracica_, etc., but the most usual condition is that where the hairs form more or less pale bands along the joints of the segments, either immediately above or below them or both; sometimes these bands are very obscurely indicated, and visible only in certain positions. at others they are vividly white; to a certain extent this banded condition recalls the waspy coloration. the hairs, however, of the bands are rarely yellow, but as a rule greyish or white, or of a grade of colour slightly paler than those of the disc. there are some rather interesting points which arise out of this rough analysis. among the bees, all the species which have a waspy coloration are cuckoos, with only one exception (_anthidium_) {122} (pl. d, 27), as are also nearly all those which have red bands. with the exception of the males of three species of _halictus_, and both sexes of three or four species of _andrena_, all the red-banded forms belong to the genus _sphecodes_ (pl. b, 11), which is a cuckoo genus. the red coloration occurs chiefly on nearly naked surfaces; this is specially noticeable in those bees which have two varieties, such as _andrena rosæ_, one dull coloured and the other red-banded: in these cases the dull form is hairy and the red nearly naked. the greatest proportionate number of banded species occurs amongst the fossors, and these are seldom clothed with hairs to any extent. these bands seem to me probably to depend a good deal on retarded development. dark and hairy bands, both as a rule, follow the joints of the segments, as stated above. i only say as a rule, as there are many where the banding does not follow this principle, but in far the larger majority the bands, whether of dark colour or hairs, are apical. as the segments overlap at the joints it is evident that their discs would tend to mature more rapidly than the overlapping bases and apices, {123} and the longer period spent in hardening and drying of the overlapping parts would favour the development of dark pigment and of hairs. many species have the extreme apices of the segments pale, but with the apical integument so very thin, often looking nearly transparent and membranous, that its development would be very rapid. again, in the case of red coloration, the red generally occurs on the discs of the segments, the apices and sides often being dark, and in cases where in one species both black and banded forms occur, with intermediate varieties, the last remnant of red colour is generally situated in the centre of the segment. by far the gayest effect is displayed by our humble bees, and, but for them and a few of the species of _andrena_ and the wasp-coloured species, our aculeates would be a very sombre lot. * * * * * {124} the development of insects from the egg although this and the following chapter may not be interesting to all my readers, i think it is only right to add some remarks on the structure and classification of insects, so that any one who wishes to follow up the subject may gather a few general ideas which may induce them to take up some technical and scientific work in which they will get fuller and more exact data on the difficulties which are involved in such simple questions as "what is an insect?" "how are the different orders of insects distinguished from each other?" "what is a species?" etc. to realize the characters of an insect in its perfect or "imago" state, we may for the moment forget what often seems to be its most important features, and which are frequently its most extensive parts, viz. its limbs or {125} appendages; by limbs are meant its wings, legs, horns or antennæ, jaws or mandibles, etc.: strip these all off, and we have a limbless trunk, which many would not recognize as belonging to an insect at all; still this limbless trunk possesses characters which assert its insect nature, as it may be known from other limbless trunks by being divided into three parts by two great transverse divisions; in most insects these are extremely well marked, and in all they have a very real existence. the parts thus divided off are known by the names of head, thorax, and abdomen. anybody knows how easy it is to break off the head or body of a dried insect. now the head or body breaks off at one of these divisions, and it is this partitioning of the body into three sections which makes one of the strongest characters in the definition of an insect. the three parts, thus divided off, each possesses special functions in the life of the creature. in the head are contained the principal organs of sense and brain; in the thorax, the organs of locomotion; and in the body those of digestion, reproduction, etc. this division into three parts does not however {126} always hold good in the early stages of the insect's life, and we must remember that the creature commences life on leaving the egg, and not merely on its emergence from the chrysalis, so that we have to reckon with caterpillars, grubs and all sorts of curious immature forms in our conceptions of an insect. these early stages do not as a rule interest the public much, but it is well to bear in mind that the "perfect insect" stage is reached by some insects along apparently a very different road from that travelled by others. some leave the egg as caterpillars or grubs, and after various changes of skin become apparently lifeless chrysalids, from which they emerge as perfect insects. others leave the egg as diminutive likenesses of their parents, and run or hop about much as they do, attaining the perfect insect stage simply by a series of changes of skin, without any definite quiescent or chrysalis condition. the observation, therefore, which one often hears that insects never grow, has to be taken with caution; all insects grow in their early stages, but it is an obvious truth that insects do not {127} grow after they attain the imago or "perfect insect" condition. a small fly will never become a large fly, nor a small beetle a large beetle. this is only because we do not recognize their caterpillars or grubs as flies and beetles; but a grasshopper we know grows, because its early stages are of the same general form as the perfect insect, and we see the little ones hopping about in some places, and if we visit the same place later on we notice that they have grown, but as soon as they cast their last skin and obtain the free use of their wings, growth ceases, as it does in a fly or a beetle or in any other insect. it must not be supposed that the limbs of insects are of no value in their identification. we only removed them in order to emphasize the great importance of the character derived from the regional constrictions of the body, which is considered to be certainly one of the most, if not the most, important of any. besides this character every perfect insect should have six legs, four wings, and various appendages on the head, such as antennæ, mandibles, maxillæ, labium, etc.; some of these may be so modified as hardly to {128} be recognizable, but they are hardly ever absent altogether; for instance, the two fore wings of a beetle are modified into what are called wing cases, and fold over its back, protecting the two hind wings, which are more or less membranous, as are those of a bee. they have not the functions of locomotive organs, and are used in flight as poisers. again in the case of a fly, the hind wings seem to be absent, but they are considered to be represented by two little projecting organs which look like large headed pins or nails, but which are quite useless for locomotive purposes. the organs of the mouth are especially liable to modification, and on these the older authors used to frame their classification. insects were divided by them, primarily, into two great divisions, viz. those which had a biting and those which had a sucking mouth; treated in this way, the following orders fall into the division with biting mouths:-_coleoptera_, or beetles; _hymenoptera_, or bees, wasps, ants, etc.; _orthoptera_ and _neuroptera_, which include the grasshoppers, earwigs, cockroaches, dragonflies, may flies, etc. {129} and into the division with sucking mouths:-_lepidoptera_, or butterflies and moths; _diptera_ or flies, gnats, etc.; _hemiptera_, or bugs, including the plant-lice, etc. these divisions, however, have not been found to be very satisfactory, although very simple when dealing only with the perfect insect stage. in the first place, being framed on this stage only, they are not always applicable to the earlier phases of the insect's life--for instance, although a butterfly or moth has a sucking proboscis, their caterpillars have strong biting jaws, as any gardener well knows. also bees, wasps, etc., rather upset the arrangement, as they have not only a sucking mouth but also strong biting jaws. this system of classification has therefore been discarded by most entomologists in favour of that based on the difference between those insects which pass through the distinctive stages of caterpillar and chrysalis on the one hand, and those which emerge from the egg as diminutive likenesses of their parents on the other. in this arrangement, the _coleoptera_, _hymenoptera_, _lepidoptera_, _diptera_ and _neuroptera_, fall into the {130} first division, or _heteromorphæ_ as they are called; and the _hemiptera_ and _orthoptera_ into the second or _homomorphæ_. the dragonflies are the only slightly discordant elements in this arrangement, as, although their larvæ have six legs and walk about under the water and never assume an actual chrysalis condition, still they can hardly be said to resemble their gorgeously coloured parents which fly about so majestically over our ponds, etc.; still this is only one of the many cases which show that nature cannot be held down by any of the arbitrary rules we make for her classification. the _hymenoptera_ are therefore characterized and distinguished from other insects by having both a biting and sucking mouth, four clear wings, and by passing through the distinctive liveries of caterpillar or grub, and chrysalis or nymph. it is with this order only with which we have been dealing. to distinguish the aculeate section from the many other forms of the _hymenoptera_ is too complex a task to undertake here, but the presence of a narrow waist between the thorax and the body, the number of joints in the antennæ never exceeding thirteen in {131} the male, twelve in the female, and the presence of a sting capable of ejecting poison in this latter sex, are the most prominent features by which the aculeates may be recognized. * * * * * {132} on structure although in the foregoing chapter a little has been said on this subject, there is a great deal more that a student should learn about the general form of these creatures. they begin life as white or nearly colourless grubs, which, after various changes of skin, assume what is called the nymph or pupa stage, during which a change occurs, believed to be peculiar to the _hymenoptera_; the fifth segment of the larval body is transferred to the mass which is called the thorax, so that a portion of what looks like thorax is really the first segment of the abdomen. continental writers call this portion sometimes the first abdominal segment and sometimes the median segment, but newman gave it a definite name, the "propodeum", and the most convenient method seems to be to call it so, and treat it as a part of the thorax, calling the first or basal segment of the abdomen {133} that which immediately follows the regional constriction, which occurs between the propodeum and the abdomen. [illustration] fig. 28. _a_ head. _a_^1 antennæ. _a_^2 ocelli. _a_^3 compound eyes. _b_^1 prothorax. _b_^2 scutum of mesothorax. _b_^3 scutellum of mesothorax. _b_^4 post-scutellum of metathorax. _b_^5 propodeum. _c_^1 _c_^2, etc., segments of abdomen. legs. _d_^1 coxa. _d_^2 trochanter. _d_^3 femur. _d_^4 tibia. _d_^5 tarsi. _d_^6 calcaria or spurs. _d_^7 unguiculi or claws. _d_^8 pulvillus. _e_ front wing. 1 costal nervure. 2 post costal nervure. 3 median nervure. 4 posterior nervure. 5 basal nervure. 6 cubital nervure. 10 1st recurrent nervure. 11 2nd recurrent nervure. _f._ hind wing. 7 anterior nervure. 8 median nervure. 9 posterior nervure. cells. _a_ marginal. _b_ upper basal. _c_ lower basal. _d_ 1st submarginal. _e_ 2nd submarginal. _f_ 3rd submarginal. _g_ 1st discoidal. _h_ 2nd discoidal. _i_ 3rd discoidal. _j_ 1st apical. _k_ 2nd apical. {134} the perfect insect when it emerges has therefore a head, a thorax of four segments, and an abdomen of seven visible dorsal segments in the male, and of six in the female. the [male] has six ventral segments exposed, and often the apex of the eighth, which is frequently elongate, the seventh being almost always short and hidden; the eighth dorsal segment can be discovered hidden under the seventh, but it is very rarely exposed. the head (_a_) bears numerous appendages; a pair of antennæ (_a_^1), usually of thirteen joints in the male and of twelve in the female; two compound eyes (_a_^3), composed of many facets; three simple eyes (or ocelli) (_a_^2), which are situated on its vertex; two _mandibles_; two _maxillæ_, bearing _palpi_ on each side, of a varying number of joints; and a _labium_, or tongue, which also bears at its base two four-jointed palpi (cf. fig. 20). the thorax, as we are considering it, consists of four segments--the _prothorax_ (_b_^1), which bears the two front legs; the _mesothorax_ (_b_^2), which bears the intermediate pair of legs and the anterior pair of wings; and the _metathorax_ (_b_^3), which bears the posterior pair of wings and the hind legs. the {135} propodeum has no appendages. the mesothorax above has two parts, a larger portion in front called by some the _scutum_ (_b_^2), and a smaller portion behind called the _scutellum_ (_b_^3). these are separated from each other by a transverse impression, and the scutellum is often raised into a sort of little shield; behind this is another little elevation called the _post-scutellum_ (_b_^4); this is really the dorsal apex of the metathorax, and behind this lies the _propodeum_ (_b_^5). each leg is composed of various parts, and articulates into a cavity of the thorax called the _acetabulum_. the first two joints of the leg, the _coxa_ (_d_^1) and the _trochanter_ (_d_^2), are very short; then follows the _femur_ or thigh (_d_^3); then the _tibia_ or shin (_d_^4); and finally the _tarsi_ (_d_^5), which compose the foot. at the apex of the _tibia_ are usually two spines called the _calcaria_ (_d_^6). the _tarsi_ are five-jointed, the joints following each other in a linear arrangement, and in the _anthophila_ the basal joint is more or less dilated; the apical joint bears two claws (_unguiculi_, _d_^7) which are sometimes toothed, and between them, in some genera, there is what is called a _pulvillus_ (_d_^8) or cushion; this is very large and dilated in some of the fossors. {136} the wing neuration is always rather troublesome, as various authors use different names for the veins and cells. to begin with the anterior wing (_e_), there are four nerves which start from the base and run horizontally; the first of these, which forms the anterior margin of the wing, is called the _costal nervure_ (1); immediately below this, and running almost parallel to it with scarcely any space between them, is the _post-costal nervure_ (2); these end in the _stigma_ (_s_), a dark in-crassation towards the apex of the wing; from the stigma a nerve, curving first downwards and then up to the anterior margin of the wing, encloses the _marginal cell_ (_a_). below the _post-costal_ nervure, and situated about the centre of the wing, is the third longitudinal nervure called the _median nervure_ (3); behind this again runs the _posterior nervure_ (4), and behind that the actual margin of the wing which is not provided with a protecting nervure, but is only folded back so as to receive the hooks of the posterior wing. across the wing at, roughly, about a third of its length from the body runs the _basal nervure_ (5); this extends in a somewhat zigzag line from the _post-costal_ to the _posterior nervure_ crossing the _median_, and {137} thereby enclosing two cells, the _upper basal cell_ (_b_) and the _lower basal cell_ (_c_). from the centre of the apical nerve of each of these cells extends a longitudinal nervure; the upper of these runs out nearly to the apical margin of the wing and is called the _cubital nervure_ (6); this is united to the nervure of the _marginal cell_ by one, two, or three cross nervures, enclosing thereby one, two, or three cells called the first (_d_), second (_e_), and third (_f_) _submarginal cells_. the nervure from the lower basal cell is a short one, as it is met by a cross nervure called the first _recurrent nervure_ (10), which runs from the _cubital_ to the _posterior_, thereby enclosing two cells, the first (_g_) and second (_h_) _discoidal_. the _second recurrent_ (11) leaves the _cubital_ nearer the apex of the wing than the first, meeting a nervure which, springing from the outer posterior angle of the second discoidal, closes the third discoidal (_i_), and, curving slightly upwards, nearly reaches the apical margin of the wing. beyond the second recurrent, and behind this last nervure which we have been talking about, are two spaces not actually enclosed, but called the _first_ (_j_) _and second_ (_k_) _apical cells_. the posterior wings have very few cells. {138} like the anterior pair they have three longitudinal nervures; the _anterior_ (7), which runs close and parallel to the anterior nerveless margin, and often touches it at about half the length of the wing; the _median_ (8) and _posterior_ (9) run in diverging lines from the base towards the exterior margin of the wing, the anterior and median nervures being almost always joined by a cross nervure, and the median usually united to the posterior by a cross or curved nervure. the actual base of the anterior wing is covered by a little convex somewhat shell-like cap, called the _tegula_ (_t_). the abdomen is composed of a series of segments in linear arrangement (_c_^1 _c_^2, etc.). these call for no special remark, beyond what has been said in the chapter on males and females, but those who wish to investigate the very interesting questions connected with the terminal segments of these creatures should consult some more technical work.[3] the arrangements of the mouth parts and of the apical segments of the hymenoptera afford perhaps the most important structural {139} characters of the order, but they involve an amount of dissection and study which can only be undertaken by those who are inclined to give themselves up to this subject as a speciality. * * * * * {141} index abdomen, 125 acetabulum, 135 ammophila, 22 andrena, 9, 12, 15, 48, 77, 79, 122, 139 -fulva, 121 -rosæ, 138 -thoracica, 121 antennæ, 101, 103, 134 anthidium, 50, 121 anthophila, 6 anthophora, 48, 61, 82, 93, 109, 111, 121 -pilipes, 61 -retusa, 62 ants, 28, 31, 88 aphides, 88 apis, 16 astatus, 103 banded bodies, 120 beetles, 20 biting, 3, 32 black species, 120 bombus, 16 -terrestris, 41, 42 brain, 125 bramble stems, 12 breeding, 113 broods, 13 burrows, 9 calcaria, 70, 135 carder bees, 40 cardines, 75 carpenter bee, 55 caterpillar, 19, 20 cells, 10, 12, 28, 29, 40, 58 -hexagonal, 28 -pitcher-shaped, 58 -waxen, 29, 40 ceratina, 47, 128 chimneys, 25 chloroform, 118 chrysis, 27 cilissa, 48 cleaning hairs, 68 clover fertilization, 39 cockroaches, 128 cocoons, 33, 58 coleoptera, 128, 129 colletes, 44 colonies, 5, 63 colour, 100 colour schemes, 22 combs, 23, 68, 69 corbicula, 67 coxæ, 135 crabro, 95, 102 -albilabris, 119 cuckoos, 3, 14, 30, 54 -flight of, 85 cyanide, 116 dasypoda, 48 development, 124 digestion, 125 diggers, 6, 7 {142} diptera, 129 distribution, 105 domestication, 41 drone flies, 3 dufourea, 106 earwigs, 128 english names, 55 epeolus, 45 ether, 117 eyes, 134 females, 95 femur, 135 figwort, 36 figure of insect, 133 flies, 3, 129 flower lovers, 6 flute, 57 food, 6, 28 foot, 135 formica, 34, 59 -fusca, 119 -sanguinea, 89 formicoxenus, 96 fossors, 6, 7 galleries, 28 grasshoppers, 19, 128 growth, 126 guests of ants, 89 hairs, 65, 71 halictus, 13, 15, 17, 77, 94, 97, 119, 122 head, 125 hemiptera, 129, 130 heterogyna, 28, 31 heteromorphæ, 130 hive bee, 2, 16 homing instinct, 21 homomorphæ, 130 honey pots, 29 hornets, 35 humble bees, 39 -mutilated, 41 hymenoptera, 128, 129 ichneumons, 21 inquilines, 3 jewel flies, 21, 27 keyhole wasps, 101 killing bottles, 126 knife-like hairs, 68 labels, 118 labial palpi, 5 labium, 127, 134 larva, 11, 13 lasius niger, 91 -flavus, 91 latin names, 55 lawn bee, 9 leaf-cutting bees, 52 lepidoptera, 129 ligula, 75, 134 limbs, 125, 127 locomotion, 125 lodgers with ants, 89 lomechusa, 89 long-horned bee, 104 lora, 74 lysimachia, 106 macropis, 106 males, 95 male wasp, 2 -hornet, 2 mandibles, 127, 129 mason bee, 55 maxillæ, 75, 127, 134 mayflies, 128 {143} melecta armata, 61 -luctuosa, 62 mentum, 74 metoecus paradoxus, 38 mimicking flies, 94 miscophus, 119 moss, 29 mouse's nest, 29 mouth, 128 mutilla, 112, 119 myrmica, 34 myrmosa, 100 nests, 24, 26, 31, 35, 45, 49 -in bramble stems, 45 -humble bees, 40 -of leaves, 53 -of paper, 37 -in wren's nest, 41 neuration, 136 -figure and explanation of, 133 neuroptera, 128, 129 nodes, 33 nomada, 15, 48 non-predaceous hymenoptera, 3 nymph, 11 odynerus, 24 orthoptera, 128, 130 osmia, 48, 56, 120 -bicolor, 59, 121 -inermis, 58 -leucomelana, 57 -parietina, 58 -rufa, 56 ovaries, 4 ovipositer, 1 oxybelus, 86 palm, 82 palpi, 134 panurgus, 49 paper, 37 paraglossæ, 76 paralytics, 18 plant lice, 19 poison bags, 1 pollen collecting, 65 pompilus, 87 ponera, 33 porterage, 34 post-scutellum, 135 predaceous species, 3 preservation, 116 propodeum, 132, 135 prosopis, 44, 46 -cornuta, 47 pulvillus, 135 queens, 4 rarity, 105 ray, john, 63 sallows, 82 sandy bank, 83 saropoda, 93, 111 scale, 33 scrophularia, 36 scutellum, 135 scutum, 135 segments, 96 setting, 117 sexual structure, 100 shin, 135 snail shells, 12, 57 social species, 3, 4, 28 solitary species, 3, 4, 6 spade-like hairs, 69 sphecodes, 13, 15, 17, 48, 97, 122 spiders, 19 stinging, 2, 38 stings, 2, 32 stipes, 74 {144} straws, 12 structure, 132 stylops, 77 submentum, 74 swarming, 29 tarsi, 135 tegula, 133, 138 thigh, 135 thorax, 125, 129 tibia, 135 tomtit, 42 tongues, 15, 39, 44, 49, 66, 72 trochanter, 135 tubular entrance, 25 unguiculi, 135 vagaries of structure, 104 velleius dilatatus, 38 vespa sylvestris, 36 walls, 12 wasps, social, 35 -solitary, 24 waspy coloration, 120, 121 wings, 110 -cells, 112, 133 -folded, 24, 28 -hooks, 110 -nervures, 133 workers, 4 wrens' nests, 41 yellow-coloured species, 120 * * * * * notes [1] in this case, only the actual tongue (or _ligula_) and its _paraglossæ_ are figured. [2] _the guests of ants and termites_, by e. wasmann, s. j., translated by h. donisthorpe, f.z.s. (_ent. record_, vol. xii., 1900.) [3] cf. _transactions of the entomological society of london_, 1884, p. 251 et seq.: hymenoptera aculeate of the british islands, etc. [illustration] http://www.archive.org/details/adventuresofmaya00bons or http://www.archive.org/details/adventuresofmaya00bonsiala the adventures of maya the bee [illustration: "won't you come in?"] the adventures of maya the bee by waldemar bonsels illustrated by homer boss [publisher's device] new york thomas seltzer 1922 copyright, 1922, by thomas seltzer, inc. all rights reserved printed in the united states of america the translation of this book was made by adele szold seltzer the poems were done into english by arthur guiterman contents chapter page i. first flight 1 ii. the house of the rose 14 iii. the lake 25 iv. effie and bobbie 43 v. the acrobat 60 vi. puck 72 vii. in the toils 87 viii. the bug and the butterfly 104 ix. the lost leg 113 x. the wonders of the night 133 xi. with the sprite 153 xii. alois, ladybird and poet 163 xiii. the fortress 172 xiv. the sentinel 182 xv. the warning 194 xvi. the battle 204 xvii. the queen's friend 218 list of colored illustrations "won't you come in?" frontispiece facing page maya lifted her wings, buzzed farewell to the lake, and flew inland 42 a human being in miniature was coming up out of the iris 146 the queen came without her court, attended only by her aide and two ladies-in-waiting 200 [illustration] chapter i first flight the elderly lady-bee who helped the baby-bee maya when she awoke to life and slipped from her cell was called cassandra and commanded great respect in the hive. those were exciting days. a rebellion had broken out in the nation of bees, which the queen was unable to suppress. while the experienced cassandra wiped maya's large bright eyes and tried as best she could to arrange her delicate wings, the big hive hummed and buzzed like a threatening thunderstorm, and the baby-bee found it very warm and said so to her companion. cassandra looked about troubled, without replying. it astonished her that the child so soon found something to criticize. but really the child was right: the heat and the pushing and crowding were almost unbearable. maya saw an endless succession of bees go by in such swarming haste that sometimes one climbed up and over another, or several rolled past together clotted in a ball. once the queen-bee approached. cassandra and maya were jostled aside. a drone, a friendly young fellow of immaculate appearance, came to their assistance. he nodded to maya and stroked the shining hairs on his breast rather nervously with his foreleg. (the bees use their forelegs as arms and hands.) "the crash will come," he said to cassandra. "the revolutionists will leave the city. a new queen has already been proclaimed." cassandra scarcely noticed him. she did not even thank him for his help, and maya felt keenly conscious that the old lady was not a bit nice to the young gentleman. the child was a little afraid to ask questions, the impressions were coming so thick and fast; they threatened to overwhelm her. the general excitement got into her blood, and she set up a fine, distinct buzzing. "what do you mean by that?" said cassandra. "isn't there noise enough as it is?" maya subsided at once, and looked at cassandra questioningly. "come here, child, we'll see if we cannot quiet down a bit." cassandra took maya by her gleaming wings, which were still soft and new and marvelously transparent, and shoved her into an almost deserted corner beside a few honeycombs filled with honey. maya stood still and held on to one of the cells. "it smells delicious here," she observed. her remark seemed to fluster the old lady again. "you must learn to wait, child," she replied. "i have brought up several hundred young bees this spring and given them lessons for their first flight, but i haven't come across another one that was as pert and forward as you are. you seem to be an exceptional nature." maya blushed and stuck the two dainty fingers of her hand in her mouth. "exceptional nature--what is an exceptional nature?" she asked shyly. "oh, _that's_ not nice," cried cassandra, referring not to maya's question, which she had scarcely heeded, but to the child's sticking her fingers in her mouth. "now, listen. listen very carefully to what i am going to tell you. i can devote only a short time to you. other baby-bees have already slipped out, and the only helper i have on this floor is turka, and turka is dreadfully overworked and for the last few days has been complaining of a buzzing in her ears. sit down here." maya obeyed, with great brown eyes fastened on her teacher. "the first rule that a young bee must learn," said cassandra, and sighed, "is that every bee, in whatever it thinks and does, must be like the other bees and must always have the good of all in mind. in our order of society, which we have held to be the right one from time immemorial and which couldn't have been better preserved than it has been, this rule is the one fundamental basis for the well-being of the state. to-morrow you will fly out of the hive, an older bee will accompany you. at first you will be allowed to fly only short stretches and you will have to observe everything, very carefully, so that you can find your way back home again. your companion will show you the hundred flowers and blossoms that yield the best nectar. you'll have to learn them by heart. this is something no bee can escape doing.-here, you may as well learn the first line right away--clover and honeysuckle. repeat it. say 'clover and honeysuckle.'" "i can't," said little maya. "it's awfully hard. i'll see the flowers later anyway." cassandra opened her old eyes wide and shook her head. "you'll come to a bad end," she sighed. "i can foresee that already." "am i supposed later on to gather nectar all day long?" asked maya. cassandra fetched a deep sigh and gazed at the baby-bee seriously and sadly. she seemed to be thinking of her own toilsome life--toil from beginning to end, nothing but toil. then she spoke in a changed voice, with a loving look in her eyes for the child. "my dear little maya, there will be other things in your life--the sunshine, lofty green trees, flowery heaths, lakes of silver, rushing, glistening waterways, the heavens blue and radiant, and perhaps even human beings, the highest and most perfect of nature's creations. because of all these glories your work will become a joy. just think--all that lies ahead of you, dear heart. you have good reason to be happy." "i'm so glad," said maya, "that's what i want to be." cassandra smiled kindly. in that instant--why, she did not know--she conceived a peculiar affection for the little bee, such as she could not recall ever having felt for any child-bee before. and that, probably, is how it came about that she told maya more than a bee usually hears on the first day of its life. she gave her various special bits of advice, warned her against the dangers of the wicked world, and named the bees' most dangerous enemies. at the end she spoke long of human beings, and implanted the first love for them in the child's heart and the germ of a great longing to know them. "be polite and agreeable to every insect you meet," she said in conclusion, "then you will learn more from them than i have told you to-day. but beware of the wasps and hornets. the hornets are our most formidable enemy, and the wickedest, and the wasps are a useless tribe of thieves, without home or religion. we are a stronger, more powerful nation, while they steal and murder wherever they can. you may use your sting upon insects, to defend yourself and inspire respect, but if you insert it in a warm-blooded animal, especially a human being, you will die, because it will remain sticking in the skin and will break off. so do not sting warm-blooded creatures except in dire need, and then do it without flinching or fear of death. for it is to our courage as well as our wisdom that we bees owe the universal respect and esteem in which we are held. and now good-by, maya dear. good luck to you. be faithful to your people and your queen." the little bee nodded yes, and returned her old monitor's kiss and embrace. she went to bed in a flutter of secret joy and excitement and could scarcely fall asleep from curiosity. for the next day she was to know the great, wide world, the sun, the sky and the flowers. meanwhile the bee-city had quieted down. a large part of the younger bees had now left the kingdom to found a new city; but for a long time the droning of the great swarm could be heard outside in the sunlight. it was not from arrogance or evil intent against the queen that these had quitted; it was because the population had grown to such a size that there was no longer room for all the inhabitants, and it was impossible to store a sufficient food-supply of honey to feed them all over the winter. you see, according to a government treaty of long standing, a large part of the honey gathered in summer had to be delivered up to human beings, who in return assured the welfare of the bee-state, provided for the peace and safety of the bees, and gave them shelter against the cold in winter. "the sun has risen!" the joyous call sounding in maya's ears awoke her out of sleep the next morning. she jumped up and joined a lady working-bee. "delighted," said the lady cordially. "you may fly with me." at the gate, where there was a great pushing and crowding, they were held up by the sentinels, one of whom gave maya the password without which no bee was admitted into the city. "be sure to remember it," he said, "and good luck to you." outside the city gates, a flood of sunlight assailed the little bee, a brilliance of green and gold, so rich and warm and resplendent that she had to close her eyes, not knowing what to say or do from sheer delight. "magnificent! it really is," she said to her companion. "do we fly into that?" "right ahead!" answered the lady-bee. maya raised her little head and moved her pretty new wings. suddenly she felt the flying-board on which she had been sitting sink down, while the ground seemed to be gliding away behind, and the large green domes of the tree-tops seemed to be coming toward her. her eyes sparkled, her heart rejoiced. "i am flying," she cried. "it cannot be anything else. what i am doing must be flying. why, it's splendid, perfectly splendid!" "yes, you're flying," said the lady-bee, who had difficulty in keeping up with the child. "those are linden-trees, those toward which we are flying, the lindens in our castle park. you can always tell where our city is by those lindens. but you're flying so fast, maya." "fast?" said maya. "how can one fly fast enough? oh, how sweet the sunshine smells!" "no," replied her companion, who was rather out of breath, "it's not the sunshine, it's the flowers that smell.-but please, don't go so fast, else i'll drop behind. besides, at this pace you won't observe things and be able to find your way back." but little maya transported by the sunshine and the joy of living, did not hear. she felt as though she were darting like an arrow through a green-shimmering sea of light, to greater and greater splendor. the bright flowers seemed to call to her, the still, sunlit distances lured her on, and the blue sky blessed her joyous young flight. "never again will it be as beautiful as it is to-day," she thought. "i _can't_ turn back. i can't think of anything except the sun." beneath her the gay pictures kept changing, the peaceful landscape slid by slowly, in broad stretches. "the sun must be all of gold," thought the baby-bee. coming to a large garden, which seemed to rest in blossoming clouds of cherry-tree, hawthorn, and lilacs, she let herself down to earth, dead-tired, and dropped in a bed of red tulips, where she held on to one of the big flowers. with a great sigh of bliss she pressed herself against the blossom-wall and looked up to the deep blue of the sky through the gleaming edges of the flowers. "oh, how beautiful it is out here in the great world, a thousand times more beautiful than in the dark hive. i'll never go back there again to carry honey or make wax. no, indeed, i'll never do that. i want to see and know the world in bloom. i am not like the other bees, my heart is meant for pleasure and surprises, experiences and adventures. i will not be afraid of any dangers. haven't i got strength and courage and a sting?" she laughed, bubbling over with delight, and took a deep draught of nectar out of the flower of the tulip. "grand," she thought. "it's glorious to be alive." ah, if little maya had had an inkling of the many dangers and hardships that lay ahead of her, she would certainly have thought twice. but never dreaming of such things, she stuck to her resolve. soon tiredness overcame her, and she fell asleep. when she awoke, the sun was gone, twilight lay upon the land. a bit of alarm, after all. maya's heart went a little faster. hesitatingly she crept out of the flower, which was about to close up for the night, and hid herself away under a leaf high up in the top of an old tree, where she went to sleep, thinking in the utmost confidence: "i'm not afraid. i won't be afraid right at the very start. the sun is coming round again; that's certain; cassandra said so. the thing to do is to go to sleep quietly and sleep well." [illustration] [illustration] chapter ii the house of the rose by the time maya awoke, it was full daylight. she felt a little chilly under her big green leaf, and stiff in her limbs, so that her first movements were slow and clumsy. clinging to a vein of the leaf she let her wings quiver and vibrate, to limber them up and shake off the dust; then she smoothed her fair hair, wiped her large eyes clean, and crept, warily, down to the edge of the leaf, where she paused and looked around. the glory and the glow of the morning sun were dazzling. though maya's resting-place still lay in cool shadow, the leaves overhead shone like green gold. "oh, you glorious world," thought the little bee. slowly, one by one, the experiences of the previous day came back to her--all the beauties she had seen and all the risks she had run. she remained firm in her resolve not to return to the hive. to be sure, when she thought of cassandra, her heart beat fast, though it was not very likely that cassandra would ever find her.-no, no, to her there was no joy in forever having to fly in and out of the hive, carrying honey and making wax. this was clear, once and for all. she wanted to be happy and free and enjoy life in her own way. come what might, she would take the consequences. thus lightly thought maya, the truth being that she had no real idea of the things that lay in store for her. afar off in the sunshine something glimmered red. a lurking impatience seized the little bee. moreover, she felt hungry. so, courageously, with a loud joyous buzz, she swung out of her hiding-place into the clear, glistening air and the warm sunlight, and made straight for the red patch that seemed to nod and beckon. when she drew near she smelled a perfume so sweet that it almost robbed her of her senses, and she was hardly able to reach the large red flower. she let herself down on the outermost of its curved petals and clung to it tightly. at the gentle tipping of the petal a shining silver sphere almost as big as herself, came rolling toward her, transparent and gleaming in all the colors of the rainbow. maya was dreadfully frightened, yet fascinated too by the splendor of the cool silver sphere, which rolled by her, balanced on the edge of the petal, leapt into the sunshine, and fell down in the grass. oh, oh! the beautiful ball had shivered into a score of wee pearls. maya uttered a little cry of terror. but the tiny round fragments made such a bright, lively glitter in the grass, and ran down the blades in such twinkling, sparkling little drops like diamonds in the lamplight, that she was reassured. she turned towards the inside of the calix. a beetle, a little smaller than herself, with brown wing-sheaths and a black breastplate, was sitting at the entrance. he kept his place unperturbed, and looked at her seriously, though by no means unamiably. maya bowed politely. "did the ball belong to you?" she asked, and receiving no reply added: "i am very sorry i threw it down." "do you mean the dewdrop?" smiled the beetle, rather superior. "you needn't worry about that. i had taken a drink already and my wife never drinks water, she has kidney trouble.-what are you doing here?" "what is this wonderful flower?" asked maya, not answering the beetle's question. "would you be good enough to tell me its name?" remembering cassandra's advice she was as polite as possible. the beetle moved his shiny head in his dorsal plate, a thing he could do easily without the least discomfort, as his head fitted in perfectly and glided back and forth without a click. "you seem to be only of yesterday?" he said, and laughed--not so very politely. altogether there was something about him that struck maya as unrefined. the bees had more culture and better manners. yet he seemed to be a good-natured fellow, because, seeing maya's blush of embarrassment, he softened to her childish ignorance. "it's a rose," he explained indulgently. "so now you know.-we moved in four days ago, and since we moved in, it has flourished wonderfully under our care.-won't you come in?" maya hesitated, then conquered her misgivings and took a few steps forward. he pressed aside a bright petal, maya entered, and she and the beetle walked beside each other through the narrow chambers with their subdued light and fragrant walls. "what a charming home!" exclaimed maya, genuinely taken with the place. "the perfume is positively intoxicating." maya's admiration pleased the beetle. "it takes wisdom to know where to live," he said, and smiled good-naturedly. "'tell me where you live and i'll tell you what you're worth,' says an old adage.-would you like some nectar?" "oh," maya burst out, "i'd love some." the beetle nodded and disappeared behind one of the walls. maya looked about. she was happy. she pressed her cheeks and little hands against the dainty red hangings and took deep breaths of the delicious perfume, in an ecstasy of delight at being permitted to stop in such a beautiful dwelling. "it certainly is a great joy to be alive," she thought. "and there's no comparison between the dingy, crowded stories in which the bees live and work and this house. the very quiet here is splendid." suddenly there was a loud sound of scolding behind the walls. it was the beetle growling excitedly in great anger. he seemed to be hustling and pushing someone along roughly, and maya caught the following, in a clear, piping voice full of fright and mortification. "of course, because i'm alone, you dare to lay hands on me. but wait and see what you get when i bring my associates along. you are a ruffian. very well, i am going. but remember, i called you a ruffian. you'll never forget _that_." the stranger's emphatic tone, so sharp and vicious, frightened maya dreadfully. in a few moments she heard the sound of someone running out. the beetle returned and sullenly flung down some nectar. "an outrage," he said. "you can't escape those vermin anywhere. they don't allow you a moment's peace." maya was so hungry she forgot to thank him and took a mouthful of nectar and chewed, while the beetle wiped the perspiration from his forehead and slightly loosened his upper armor so as to catch his breath. "who was that?" mumbled maya, with her mouth still full. "please empty your mouth--finish chewing and swallowing your nectar. one can't understand a word you say." maya obeyed, but the excited owner of the house gave her no time to repeat her question. "it was an ant," he burst out angrily. "do those ants think we save and store up hour after hour only for them! the idea of going right into the pantry without a how-do-you-do or a by-your-leave! it makes me furious. if i didn't realize that the ill-mannered creatures actually didn't know better, i wouldn't hesitate a second to call them--thieves!" at this he suddenly remembered his own manners. "i beg your pardon," he said, turning to maya, "i forgot to introduce myself. my name is peter, of the family of rose-beetles." "my name is maya," said the little bee shyly. "i am delighted to make your acquaintance." she looked at peter closely; he was bowing repeatedly, and spreading his feelers like two little brown fans. that pleased maya immensely. "you have the most fascinating feelers," she said, "simply sweet...." "well, yes," observed peter, flattered, "people do think a lot of them. would you like to see the other side?" "if i may." the rose-beetle turned his fan-shaped feelers to one side and let a ray of sunlight glide over them. "great, don't you think?" he asked. "i shouldn't have thought anything like them possible," rejoined maya. "my own feelers are very plain." "well, yes," observed peter, "to each his own. by way of compensation you certainly have beautiful eyes, and the color of your body, the gold of your body, is not to be sneezed at." maya beamed. peter was the first person to tell her she had any good looks. life was great. she was happy as a lark, and helped herself to some more nectar. "an excellent quality of honey," she remarked. "take some more," said peter, rather amazed by his little guest's appetite. "rose-juice of the first vintage. one has to be careful and not spoil one's stomach. there's some dew left, too, if you're thirsty." "thank you so much," said maya. "i'd like to fly now, if you will permit me." the rose-beetle laughed. "flying, always flying," he said. "it's in the blood of you bees. i don't understand such a restless way of living. there's some advantage in staying in one place, too, don't you think?" peter courteously held the red curtain aside. "i'll go as far as our observation petal with you," he said. "it makes an excellent place to fly from." "oh, thank you," said maya, "i can fly from anywhere." "that's where you have the advantage over me," replied peter. "i have some difficulty in unfolding my lower wings." he shook her hand and held the last curtain aside for her. "oh, the blue sky!" rejoiced maya. "good-by." "so long," called peter, remaining on the top petal to see maya rise rapidly straight up to the sky in the golden sunlight and the clear, pure air of the morning. with a sigh he returned, pensive, to his cool rose-dwelling, for though it was still early he was feeling rather warm. he sang his morning song to himself, and it hummed in the red sheen of the petals and the radiance of the spring day that slowly mounted and spread over the blossoming earth. gold and green are field and tree, warm in summer's glow; all is bright and fair to see while the roses blow. what or why the world may be who can guess or know? all my world is glad and free while the roses blow. brief, they say, my time of glee; with the roses i go; yes, but life is good to me while the roses blow. [illustration] [illustration] chapter iii the lake "dear me," thought maya, after she had flown off, "oh, dear me, i forgot to ask mr. peter about human beings. a gentleman of his wide experience could certainly have told me about them. but perhaps i'll meet one myself to-day." full of high spirits and in a happy mood of adventure, she let her bright eyes rove over the wide landscape that lay spread out below in all its summer splendor. she came to a large garden gleaming with a thousand colors. on her way she met many insects, who sang out greetings, and wished her a pleasant journey and a good harvest.-but every time she met a bee, her heart went pit-a-pat. after all she felt a little guilty to be idle, and was afraid of coming upon acquaintances. soon, however, she saw that the bees paid not the slightest attention to her. then all of a sudden the world seemed to turn upside down. the heavens shone _below_ her, in endless depths. at first she was dreadfully frightened; she thought she had flown too far up and lost her way in the sky. but presently she noticed that the trees were mirrored on the edge of the terrestrial sky, and to her entrancement she realized that she was looking at a great serene basin of water which lay blue and clear in the peaceful morning. she let herself down close to the surface. there was her image flying in reflection, the lovely gold of her body shining at her from the water, her bright wings glittering like clear glass. and she observed that she held her little legs properly against her body, as cassandra had taught her to do. "it's bliss to be flying over the surface of water like this. it is, really," she thought. big fish and little fish swam about in the clear element, or seemed to float idly. maya took good care not to go too close; she knew there was danger to bees from the race of fishes. on the opposite shore she was attracted by the water-lilies and the rushes, the water-lilies with their large round leaves lying outspread on the water like green plates, and the rushes with their sun-warmed, reedy stalks. she picked out a leaf well-concealed under the tall blades of the rushes. it lay in almost total shade, except for two round spots like gold coins; the rushes swayed above in the full sunlight. "glorious," said the little bee, "perfectly glorious." she began to tidy herself. putting both arms up behind her head she pulled it forward as if to tear it off, but was careful not to pull too hard, just enough to scrape away the dust; then, with her little hind legs, she stroked and dragged down her wing-sheaths, which sprang back in position looking beautifully bright and glossy. just as she had completed her toilet a small steely blue-bottle came and alighted on the leaf beside her. he looked at her in surprise. "what are you doing here on my leaf?" he demanded. maya was startled. "is there any objection to a person's just resting here a moment or two?" maya remembered cassandra's telling her that the nation of bees commanded great respect in the insect world. now she was going to see if it was true; she was going to see if she, maya, could compel respect. nevertheless her heart beat a little faster because her tone had been very loud and peremptory. but actually the blue-bottle was frightened. he showed it plainly. when he saw that maya wasn't going to let anyone lay down the law to her he backed down. with a surly buzz he swung himself on to a blade that curved above maya's leaf, and said in a much politer tone, talking down to her out of the sunshine: "you ought to be working. as a bee you certainly ought. but if you want to rest, all right. i'll wait here." "there are plenty of leaves," observed maya. "all rented," said the blue-bottle. "now-a-days one is happy to be able to call a piece of ground one's own. if my predecessor hadn't been snapped up by a frog two days ago, i should still be without a proper place to live in. it's not very pleasant to have to hunt up a different lodging every night. not everyone has such a well-ordered state as you bees. but permit me to introduce myself. my name is jack christopher." maya was silent with terror, thinking how awful it must be to fall into the clutches of a frog. "are there many frogs in the lake?" she asked and drew to the very middle of the leaf so as not to be seen from the water. the blue-bottle laughed. "you are giving yourself unnecessary trouble," he jeered. "the frog can see you from below when the sun shines, because then the leaf is transparent. he sees you sitting on my leaf, perfectly." beset by the awful idea that maybe a big frog was squatting right under her leaf staring at her with his bulging hungry eyes, maya was about to fly off when something dreadful happened, something for which she was totally unprepared. in the confusion of the first moment she could not make out just exactly what _was_ happening. she only heard a loud rustling like the wind in dry leaves, then a singing whistle, a loud angry hunter's cry. and a fine, transparent shadow glided over her leaf. now she saw--saw fully, and her heart stood still in terror. a great, glittering dragon-fly had caught hold of poor jack christopher and held him tight in its large, fangs, sharp as a knife. the blade of the rush bent low beneath their weight. maya could see them hovering above her and also mirrored in the clear water below. jack's screams tore her heart. without thinking, she cried: "let the blue-bottle go, at once, whoever you are. you have no right to interfere with people's habits. you have no right to be so arbitrary." the dragon-fly released jack from its fangs, but still held him fast with its arms, and turned its head toward maya. she was fearfully frightened by its large, grave eyes and vicious pincers, but the glittering of its body and wings fascinated her. they flashed like glass and water and precious stones. the horrifying thing was its huge size. how could she have been so bold? she was all a-tremble. "why, what's the matter, child?" the dragon-fly's tone, surprisingly, was quite friendly. "let him go," cried maya, and tears came into her eyes. "his name is jack christopher." the dragon-fly smiled. "why, little one?" it said, putting on an interested air, though most condescending. maya stammered helplessly: "oh, he's such a nice, elegant gentleman, and he's never done you any harm so far as i know." the dragon-fly regarded jack christopher contemplatively. "yes, he _is_ a dear little fellow," it replied tenderly and--bit jack's head off. maya thought she was losing her senses. for a long time she couldn't utter a sound. in horror she listened to the munching and crunching above her as the body of jack christopher the blue-bottle was being dismembered. "don't put on so," said the dragon-fly with its mouth full, chewing. "your sensitiveness doesn't impress me. are you bees any better? what do you do? evidently you are very young still and haven't looked about in your own house. when the massacre of the drones takes place in the summer, the rest of the world is no less shocked and horrified, and _i_ think with greater justification." maya asked: "have you finished up there?" she did not dare to raise her eyes. "one leg still left," replied the dragon-fly. "do please swallow it. then i'll answer you," cried maya, who knew that the drones in the hive _had_ to be killed off in the summer, and was provoked by the dragon-fly's stupidity. "but don't you dare to come a step closer. if you do i'll use my sting on you." little maya had really lost her temper. it was the first time she had mentioned her sting and the first time she felt glad that she possessed the weapon. the dragon-fly threw her a wicked glance. it had finished its meal and sat with its head slightly ducked, fixing maya with its eyes and looking like a beast of prey about to pounce. the little bee was quite calm now. where she got her courage from she couldn't have told, but she was no longer afraid. she set up a very fine clear buzzing as she had once heard a sentinel do when a wasp came near the entrance of the hive. the dragon-fly said slowly and threateningly: "dragon-flies live on the best terms with the nation of bees." "very sensible in them," flashed maya. "do you mean to insinuate that i am afraid of you--i of you?" with a jerk the dragon-fly let go of the rush, which sprang back into its former position, and flew off with a whirr and sparkle of its wings, straight down to the surface of the water, where it made a superb appearance reflected in the mirror of the lake. you'd have thought there were two dragon-flies. both moved their crystal wings so swiftly and finely that it seemed as though a brilliant sheen of silver were streaming around them. maya quite forgot her grief over poor jack christopher and all sense of her own danger. "how lovely! how lovely!" she cried enthusiastically, clapping her hands. "do you mean me?" the dragon-fly spoke in astonishment, but quickly added: "yes, i must admit i am fairly presentable. yesterday i was flying along the brook, and you should have heard some human beings who were lying on the bank rave over me." "human beings!" exclaimed maya. "oh my, did you see human beings?" "of course," answered the dragon-fly. "but you'll be very interested to know my name, i'm sure. my name is loveydear, of the order odonata, of the family libellulidã¦." "oh, do tell me about human beings," implored maya, after she had introduced herself. the dragon-fly seemed won over. she seated herself on the leaf beside maya. and the little bee let her, knowing miss loveydear would be careful not to come too close. "have human beings a sting?" she asked. "good gracious, what would they do with a sting! no, they have worse weapons against us, and they are very dangerous. there isn't a soul who isn't afraid of them, especially of the little ones whose two legs show--the boys." "do they try to catch you?" asked maya, breathless with excitement. "yes, can't you understand why?" miss loveydear glanced at her wings. "i have seldom met a human being who hasn't tried to catch me." "but why?" asked maya in a tremor. "you see," said miss loveydear, with a modest smirk and a drooping, sidewise glance, "there's something attractive about us dragon-flies. that's the only reason i know. some members of our family who let themselves be caught went through the cruellest tortures and finally died." "were they eaten up?" "no, no, not exactly that," said miss loveydear comfortingly. "so far as is known, man does not feed on dragon-flies. but sometimes he has murderous desires, a lust for killing, which will probably never be explained. you may not believe it, but cases have actually occurred of the so-called boy-men catching dragon-flies and pulling off their legs and wings for pure pleasure. you doubt it, don't you?" "of course i doubt it," cried maya indignantly. miss loveydear shrugged her glistening shoulders. her face looked old with knowledge. "oh," she said after a pause, grieving and pale, "if only one could speak of these things openly. i had a brother who gave promise of a splendid future, only, i'm sorry to say, he was a little reckless and dreadfully curious. a boy once threw a net over him, a net fastened to a long pole.-who would dream of a thing like that? tell me. would you?" "no," said the little bee, "never. i should never have thought of such a thing." the dragon-fly looked at her. "a black cord was tied round his waist between his wings, so that he could fly, but not fly away, not escape. each time my brother thought he had got his liberty, he would be jerked back horribly within the boy's reach." maya shook her head. "you don't dare even think of it," she whispered. "if a day passes when i don't think of it," said the dragon-fly, "i am sure to dream of it. one misfortune followed another. my brother soon died." miss loveydear heaved a deep sigh. "what did he die of?" asked maya, in genuine sympathy. miss loveydear could not reply at once. great tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks. "he was stuck in a pocket," she sobbed. "no one can stand being stuck in a pocket." "but what is a pocket?" maya could hardly take in so many new and awful things all at once. "a pocket," miss loveydear explained, "is a store-room that men have in their outer hide.-and what else do you think was in the pocket when my brother was stuck into it? oh, the dreadful company in which my poor brother had to draw his last breath! you'll never guess!" "no," said maya, all in a quiver, "no, i don't think i can.-honey, perhaps?" "not likely," observed miss loveydear with an air of mingled importance and distress. "you'll seldom find honey in the pockets of human beings. i'll tell you.-a frog was in the pocket, and a pen-knife, and a carrot. well?" "horrible," whispered maya.-"what _is_ a pen-knife?" "a pen-knife, in a way, is a human being's sting, an artificial one. they are denied a sting by nature, so they try to imitate it.-the frog, thank goodness, was nearing his end. one eye was gone, one leg was broken, and his lower jaw was dislocated. yet, for all that, the moment my brother was stuck in the pocket he hissed at him out of his crooked mouth: "'as soon as i am well, i will swallow you.' "with his remaining eye he glared at my brother, and in the half-light of the prison you can imagine what an effect the look he gave him must have had--fearful!-then something even more horrible happened. the pocket was suddenly shaken, my brother was pressed against the dying frog and his wings stuck to its cold, wet body. he went off in a faint.-oh, the misery of it! there are no words to describe it." "how did you find all this out?" maya was so horrified she could scarcely frame the question. "i'll tell you," replied miss loveydear. "after a while the boy got hungry and dug into his pocket for the carrot. it was under my brother and the frog, and the boy threw them away first.-i heard my brother's cry for help, and found him lying beside the frog on the grass. i reached him only in time to hear the whole story before he breathed his last. he put his arms round my neck and kissed me farewell. then he died--bravely and without complaining, like a little hero. when his crushed wings had given their last quiver, i laid an oak leaf over his body and went to look for a sprig of forget-me-nots to put upon his grave. 'sleep well, my little brother,' i cried, and flew off in the quiet of the evening. i flew toward the two red suns, the one in the sky and the one in the lake. no one has ever felt as sad and solemn as i did then.-have you ever had a sorrow in your life? perhaps you'll tell me about it some other time." "no," said maya. "as a matter of fact, until now i have always been happy." "you may thank your lucky stars," said miss loveydear with a note of disappointment in her voice. maya asked about the frog. "oh, _him_," said miss loveydear. "he, it is presumed, met with the end he deserved. the hard-heartedness of him, to frighten a dying person! when i found him on the grass beside my brother, he was trying to get away. but on account of his broken leg and one eye gone, all he could do was hop round in a circle and hop round in a circle. he looked too comical for words. 'the stork'll soon get ye,' i called to him as i flew away." "poor frog!" said little maya. "poor frog! poor frog indeed! that's going too far. pitying a frog. the idea! to feel sorry for a frog is like clipping your own wings. you seem to have no principles." "perhaps. but it's hard for me to see _any_ one suffer." "oh"--miss loveydear comforted her--"that's because you're so young. you'll learn to bear it in time. cheerio, my dear.-but i must be getting into the sunshine. it's pretty cold here. good-by!" a faint rustle and the gleam of a thousand colors, lovely pale colors like the glints in running water and clear gems. miss loveydear swung through the green rushes out over the surface of the water. maya heard her singing in the sunshine. she stood and listened. it was a fine song, with something of the melancholy sweetness of a folksong, and it filled the little bee's heart with mingled happiness and sadness. softly flows the lovely stream touched by morning's rosy gleam through the alders darted, where the rushes bend and sway, where the water-lilies say "we are golden-hearted!" warm the scent the west-wind brings, bright the sun upon my wings, joy among the flowers! though my life may not be long, golden summer, take my song! thanks for perfect hours! "listen!" a white butterfly called to its friend. "listen to the song of the dragon-fly." the light creatures rocked close to maya, and rocked away again into the radiant blue day. then maya also lifted her wings, buzzed farewell to the silvery lake, and flew inland. [illustration] [illustration] chapter iv effie and bobbie when maya awoke the next morning in the corolla of a blue canterbury bell, she heard a fine, faint rustling in the air and felt her blossom-bed quiver as from a tiny, furtive tap-tapping. through the open corolla came a damp whiff of grass and earth, and the air was quite chill. in some apprehension, she took a little pollen from the yellow stamens, scrupulously performed her toilet, then, warily, picking her steps, ventured to the outer edge of the drooping blossom. it was raining! a fine cool rain was coming down with a light plash, covering everything all round with millions of bright silver pearls, which clung to the leaves and flowers, rolled down the green paths of the blades of grass, and refreshed the brown soil. what a change in the world! it was the first time in the child-bee's young life that she had seen rain. it filled her with wonder; it delighted her. yet she was a little troubled. she remembered cassandra's warning never to fly abroad in the rain. it must be difficult, she realized, to move your wings when the drops beat them down. and the cold really hurt, and she missed the quiet golden sunshine that gladdened the earth and made it a place free from all care. it seemed to be very early still. the animal life in the grass was just beginning. from the concealment of her lofty bluebell maya commanded a splendid view of the social life coming awake beneath. watching it she forgot, for the moment, her anxiety and mounting homesickness. it was too amusing for anything to be safe in a hiding-place, high up, and look down on the doings of the grass-dwellers below. slowly, however, her thoughts went back--back to the home she had left, to the bee-state, and to the protection of its close solidarity. there, on this rainy day, the bees would be sitting together, glad of the day of rest, doing a little construction here and there on the cells, or feeding the larvã¦. yet, on the whole, the hive was very quiet and sunday-like when it rained. only, sometimes messengers would fly out to see how the weather was and from what quarter the wind was blowing. the queen would go about her kingdom from story to story, testing things, bestowing a word of praise or blame, laying an egg here and there, and bringing happiness with her royal presence wherever she went. she might pat one of the younger bees on the head to show her approval of what it had already done, or she might ask it about its new experiences. how delighted a bee would be to catch a glance or receive a gracious word from the queen! oh, thought maya, how happy it made you to be able to count yourself one in a community like that, to feel that everybody respected you, and you had the powerful protection of the state. here, out in the world, lonely and exposed, she ran great risks of her life. she was cold, too. and supposing the rain were to keep up! what would she do, how could she find something to eat? there was scarcely any honey-juice in the canterbury bell, and the pollen would soon give out. for the first time maya realized how necessary the sunshine is for a life of vagabondage. hardly anyone would set out on adventure, she thought, if it weren't for the sunshine. the very recollection of it was cheering, and she glowed with secret pride that she had had the daring to start life on her own hook. the number of things she had already seen and experienced! more, ever so much more, than the other bees were likely to know in a whole lifetime. experience was the most precious thing in life, worth any sacrifice, she thought. a troop of migrating ants were passing by, and singing as they marched through the cool forest of grass. they seemed to be in a hurry. their crisp morning song, in rhythm with their march, touched the little bee's heart with melancholy. few our days on earth shall be, fast the moments flit; first-class robbers such as we do not care a bit! they were extraordinarily well armed and looked saucy, bold and dangerous. the song died away under the leaves of the coltsfoot. but some mischief seemed to have been done there. a rough, hoarse voice sounded, and the small leaves of a young dandelion were energetically thrust aside. maya saw a corpulent blue beetle push its way out. it looked like a half-sphere of dark metal, shimmering with lights of blue and green and occasional black. it may have been two or even three times her size. its hard sheath looked as though nothing could destroy it, and its deep voice positively frightened you. the song of the soldiers, apparently, had roused him out of sleep. he was cross. his hair was still rumpled, and he rubbed the sleep out of his cunning little blue eyes. "make way, _i'm_ coming. make way." he seemed to think that people should step aside at the mere announcement of his approach. "thank the lord i'm not in his way," thought maya, feeling very safe in her high, swaying nook of concealment. nevertheless her heart went pit-a-pat, and she withdrew a little deeper into the flower-bell. the beetle moved with a clumsy lurch through the wet grass, presenting a not exactly elegant appearance. directly under maya's blossom was a withered leaf. here he stopped, shoved the leaf aside, and made a step backward. maya saw a hole in the ground. "well," she thought, all a-gog with curiosity, "the things there _are_ in the world. i never thought of such a thing. life's not long enough for all there is to see." she kept very quiet. the only sound was the soft pelting of the rain. then she heard the beetle calling down the hole: "if you want to go hunting with me, you'll have to make up your mind to get right up. it's already bright daylight." he was feeling so very superior for having waked up first that it was hard for him to be pleasant. a few moments passed before the answer came. then maya heard a thin, chirping voice rise out of the hole. "for goodness' sake, do close the door up there. it's raining in." the beetle obeyed. he stood in an expectant attitude, his head cocked a little to one side, and squinted through the crack. "please hurry," he grumbled. maya was tense with eagerness to see what sort of a creature would come out of the hole. she crept so far out on the edge of the blossom that a drop of rain fell on her shoulder, and gave her a start. she wiped herself dry. below her the withered leaf heaved; a brown insect crept out, slowly. maya thought it was the queerest specimen she had ever seen. it had a plump body, set on extremely thin, slow-moving legs, and a fearfully thick head, with little upright feelers. it looked flustered. "good morning, effie dear." the beetle went slim with politeness. he was all politeness, and his body seemed really slim. "how did you sleep? how did you sleep, my precious--my all?" effie took his hand rather stonily. "it can't be, bobbie," she said. "i can't go with you. we're creating too much talk." poor bobbie looked quite alarmed. "i don't understand," he stammered. "i don't understand.-is our new-found happiness to be wrecked by such nonsense? effie, think--think the thing over. what do _you_ care _what_ people say? you have your hole, you can creep into it whenever you like, and if you go down far enough, you won't hear a syllable." effie smiled a sad, superior smile. "bobbie, you don't understand. i have my own views in the matter.-besides, there's something else. you have been exceedingly indelicate. you took advantage of my ignorance. you let me think you were a rose-beetle and yesterday the snail told me you are a tumble-bug. a considerable difference! he saw you engaged in--well, doing something i don't care to mention. i'm sure you will now admit that i must take back my word." bobbie was stunned. when he recovered from the shock he burst out angrily: "no, i _don't_ understand. i can't understand. i want to be loved for myself, and not for my business." "if only it weren't dung," said effie offishly, "anything but dung, i shouldn't be so particular.-and please remember, i'm a young widow who lost her husband only three days ago under the most tragic circumstances--he was gobbled up by the shrewmouse--and it isn't proper for me to be gadding about. a young widow should lead a life of complete retirement. so--good-by." pop into her hole went effie, as though a puff of wind had blown her away. maya would never have thought it possible that anyone could dive into the ground as fast as that. effie was gone, and bobbie stared in blank bewilderment down the empty dark opening, looking so utterly stupid that maya had to laugh. finally he roused, and shook his small round head in angry distress. his feelers drooped dismally like two rain-soaked fans. "people now-a-days no longer appreciate fineness of character and respectability," he sighed. "effie is heartless. i didn't dare admit it to myself, but she is, she's absolutely heartless. but even if she hasn't got the _right feelings_, she ought to have the _good sense_ to be my wife." maya saw the tears come to his eyes, and her heart was seized with pity. but the next instant bobbie stirred. he wiped the tears away and crept cautiously behind a small mound of earth, which his friend had probably shoveled out of her dwelling. a little flesh-colored earthworm was coming along through the grass. it had the queerest way of propelling itself, by first making itself long and thin, then short and thick. its cylinder of a body consisted of nothing but delicate rings that pushed and groped forward noiselessly. suddenly, startling maya, bobbie made one step out of his hiding-place, caught hold of the worm, bit it in two, and began calmly to eat the one half, heedless of its desperate wriggling or the wriggling of the other half in the grass. it was a tiny little worm. "patience," said bobbie, "it will soon be over." but while he chewed, his thoughts seemed to revert to effie, his effie, whom he had lost forever and aye, and great tears rolled down his cheeks. maya pitied him from the bottom of her heart. "dear me," she thought, "there certainly is a lot of sadness in the world." at that moment she saw the half of the worm which bobbie had set aside, making a hasty departure. "did you _ever_ see the like!" she cried, surprised into such a loud tone that bobbie looked around wondering where the sound had come from. "make way!" he called. "but i'm not in your way," said maya. "where are you then? you must be somewhere." "up here. up above you. in the bluebell." "i believe you, but i'm no grasshopper. i can't turn my head up far enough to see you. why did you scream?" "the half of the worm is running away." "yes," said bobbie, looking after the retreating fraction, "the creatures are very lively.-i've lost my appetite." with that he threw away the remnant which he was still holding in his hand, and this worm portion also retreated, in the other direction. maya was completely puzzled. but bobbie seemed to be familiar with this peculiarity of worms. "don't suppose that i always eat worms," he remarked. "you see, you don't find roses everywhere." "tell the little one at least which way its other half ran," cried maya in great excitement. bobbie shook his head gravely. "those whom fate has rent asunder, let no man join together again," he observed.-"who are you?" "maya, of the nation of bees." "i'm glad to hear it. i have nothing against the bees.-why are you sitting about? bees don't usually sit about. have you been sitting there long?" "i slept here." "indeed!" there was a note of suspicion in bobbie's voice. "i hope you slept well, _very_ well. did you just wake up?" "yes," said maya, who had shrewdly guessed that bobbie would not like her having overheard his conversation with effie, the cricket, and did not want to hurt his feelings again. bobbie ran hither and thither trying to look up and see maya. "wait," he said. "if i raise myself on my hind legs and lean against that blade of grass i'll be able to see you, and you'll be able to look into my eyes. you want to, don't you?" "why, i do indeed. i'd like to very much." bobbie found a suitable prop, the stem of a buttercup. the flower tipped a little to one side so that maya could see him perfectly as he raised himself on his hind legs and looked up at her. she thought he had a nice, dear, friendly face--but not so very young any more and cheeks rather too plump. he bowed, setting the buttercup a-rocking, and introduced himself: "bobbie, of the family of rose-beetles." maya had to laugh to herself. she knew very well he was not a rose-beetle; he was a dung-beetle. but she passed the matter over in silence, not caring to mortify him. "don't you mind the rain?" she asked. "oh, no. i'm accustomed to the rain--from the roses, you know. it's usually raining there." maya thought to herself: "after all i must punish him a little for his brazen lies. he's so frightfully vain." "bobbie," she said with a sly smile, "what sort of a hole is that one there, under the leaf?" bobbie started. "a hole? a hole, did you say? there are very many holes round here. it's probably just an ordinary hole. you have no idea how many holes there are in the ground." bobbie had hardly uttered the last word when something dreadful happened. in his eagerness to appear indifferent he had lost his balance and toppled over. maya heard a despairing shriek, and the next instant saw the beetle lying flat on his back in the grass, his arms and legs waving pitifully in the air. "i'm done for," he wailed, "i'm done for. i can't get back on my feet again. i'll never be able to get back on my feet again. i'll die. i'll die in this position. have you ever heard of a worse fate!" he carried on so that he did not hear maya trying to comfort him. and he kept making efforts to touch the ground with his feet. but each time he'd painfully get hold of a bit of earth, it would give way, and he'd fall over again on his high half-sphere of a back. the case looked really desperate, and maya was honestly concerned; he was already quite pale in the face and his cries were heart-rending. "i can't stand it, i can't stand this position," he yelled. "at least turn your head away. don't torture a dying man with your inquisitive stares.-if only i could reach a blade of grass, or the stem of the buttercup. you can't hold on to the air. nobody can do that. nobody can hold on to the air." maya's heart was quivering with pity. "wait," she cried, "i'll try to turn you over. if i try very hard i am bound to succeed. but bobbie, _bobbie_, dear man, don't yell like that. listen to me. if i bend a blade of grass over and reach the tip of it to you, will you be able to use it and save yourself?" bobbie had no ears for her suggestion. frightened out of his senses, he did nothing but kick and scream. so little maya, in spite of the rain, flew out of her cover over to a slim green blade of grass beside bobbie, and clung to it near the tip. it bent under her weight and sank directly above bobbie's wriggling limbs. maya gave a little cry of delight. "catch hold of it," she called. bobbie felt something tickle his face and quickly grabbed at it, first with one hand, then with the other, and finally with his legs, which had splendid sharp claws, two each. bit by bit he drew himself along the blade until he reached the base, where it was thicker and stronger, and he was able to turn himself over on it. he heaved a tremendous sigh of relief. "good god!" he exclaimed. "that was awful. but for my presence of mind i should have fallen a victim to your talkativeness." "are you feeling better?" asked maya. bobbie clutched his forehead. "thanks, thanks. when this dizziness passes, i'll tell you all about it." but maya never got the answer to her question. a field-sparrow came hopping through the grass in search of insects, and the little bee pressed herself close to the ground and kept very quiet until the bird had gone. when she looked around for bobbie he had disappeared. so she too made off; for the rain had stopped and the day was clear and warm. [illustration] [illustration] chapter v the acrobat oh, what a day! the dew had fallen early in the morning, and when the sun rose and cast its slanting beams across the forest of grass, there was such a sparkling and glistening and gleaming that you didn't know what to say or do for sheer ecstasy, it was so beautiful, so beautiful! the moment maya awoke, glad sounds greeted her from all round. some came out of the trees, from the throats of the birds, the dreaded creatures who could yet produce such exquisite song; other happy calls came out of the air, from flying insects, or out of the grass and the bushes, from bugs and flies, big ones and little ones. maya had made it very comfortable for herself in a hole in a tree. it was safe and dry, and stayed warm the greater part of the night because the sun shone on the entrance all day long. once, early in the morning, she had heard a woodpecker rat-a-tat-tatting on the bark of the trunk, and had lost no time getting away. the drumming of a woodpecker is as terrifying to a little insect in the bark of a tree as the breaking open of our shutters by a burglar would be to us. but at night she was safe in her lofty nook. at night no creatures came prying. she had sealed up part of the entrance with wax, leaving just space enough to slip in and out; and in a cranny in the back of the hole, where it was dark and cool, she had stored a little honey against rainy days. this morning she swung herself out into the sunshine with a cry of delight, all anticipation as to what the fresh, lovely day might bring. she sailed straight through the golden air, looking like a brisk dot driven by the wind. "i am going to meet a human being to-day," she cried. "i feel sure i am. on days like this human beings must certainly be out in the open air enjoying nature." never had she met so many insects. there was a coming and going and all sorts of doings; the air was alive with a humming and a laughing and glad little cries. you had to join in, you just _had_ to join in. after a while maya let herself down into a forest of grass, where all sorts of plants and flowers were growing. the highest were the white tufts of yarrow and butterfly-weed--the flaming milkweed that drew you like a magnet. she took a sip of nectar from some clover and was about to fly off again when she saw a perfect droll of a beast perched on a blade of grass curving above her flower. she was thoroughly scared--he was such a lean green monster--but then her interest was tremendously aroused, and she remained sitting still, as though rooted to the spot, and stared straight at him. at first glance you'd have thought he had horns. looking closer you saw it was his oddly protuberant forehead that gave this impression. two long, long feelers fine as the finest thread grew out of his brows, and his body was the slimmest imaginable, and green all over, even to his eyes. he had dainty forelegs and thin, inconspicuous wings that couldn't be very practical, maya thought. oddest of all were his great hindlegs, which stuck up over his body like two jointed stilts. his sly, saucy expression was contradicted by the look of astonishment in his eyes, and you couldn't say there was any meanness in his eyes either. no, rather a lot of good humor. "well, mademoiselle," he said to maya, evidently annoyed by her surprised expression, "never seen a grasshopper before? or are you laying eggs?" "the idea!" cried maya in shocked accents. "it wouldn't occur to me. even if i could, i wouldn't. it would be usurping the sacred duties of our queen. i wouldn't do such a foolish thing." the grasshopper ducked his head and made such a funny face that maya had to laugh out loud in spite of her chagrin. "mademoiselle," he began, then had to laugh himself, and said: "you're a case! you're a case!" the fellow's behavior made maya impatient. "why do you laugh?" she asked in a not altogether friendly tone. "you can't be serious expecting me to lay eggs, especially out here on the grass." there was a snap. "hoppety-hop," said the grasshopper, and was gone. maya was utterly non-plussed. without the help of his wings he had swung himself up in the air in a tremendous curve. foolhardiness bordering on madness, she thought. but there he was again. from where, she couldn't tell, but there he was, beside her, on a leaf of her clover. he looked her up and down, all round, before and behind. "no," he said then, pertly, "you certainly can't lay eggs. you're not equipped for it. you haven't got a borer." "what--borer?" maya covered herself with her wings and turned so that the stranger could see nothing but her face. "borer, that's what i said.-don't fall off your base, mademoiselle.-you're a wasp, aren't you?" to be called a wasp! nothing worse could happen to little maya. "i _never_!" she cried. "hoppety-hop," answered he, and was off again. "the fellow makes me nervous," she thought, and decided to fly away. she couldn't remember ever having been so insulted in her life. what a disgrace to be mistaken for a wasp, one of those useless wasps, those tramps, those common thieves! it really was infuriating. but there he was again! "mademoiselle," he called and turned round part way, so that his long hindlegs looked like the hands of a clock standing at five minutes before half-past seven, "mademoiselle, you must excuse me for interrupting our conversation now and then. but suddenly i'm seized. i must hop. i can't help it, i must hop, no matter where. can't you hop, too?" he smiled a smile that drew his mouth from ear to ear. maya couldn't keep from laughing. "can you?" said the grasshopper, and nodded encouragingly. "who _are_ you?" asked maya. "you're terribly exciting." "why, everybody knows who i am," said the green oddity, and grinned almost beyond the limits of his jaws. maya never could make out whether he spoke in fun or in earnest. "i'm a stranger in these parts," she replied pleasantly, "else i'm sure i'd know you.-but please note that i belong to the family of bees, and am positively not a wasp." "my goodness," said the grasshopper, "one and the same thing." maya couldn't utter a sound, she was so excited. "you're uneducated," she burst out at length. "take a good look at a wasp once." "why should i?" answered the green one. "what good would it do if i observed differences that exist only in people's imagination? you, a bee, fly round in the air, sting everything you come across, and can't hop. exactly the same with a wasp. so where's the difference? hoppety-hop!" and he was gone. "but now i am going to fly away," thought maya. there he was again. "mademoiselle," he called, "there's going to be a hopping-match to-morrow. it will be held in the reverend sinpeck's garden. would you care to have a complimentary ticket and watch the games? my old woman has two left over. she'll trade you one for a compliment. i expect to break the record." "i'm not interested in hopping acrobatics," said maya in some disgust. "a person who flies has _higher_ interests." the grasshopper grinned a grin you could almost hear. "don't think _too_ highly of yourself, my dear young lady. most creatures in this world can fly, but only a very, very few can hop. you don't understand other people's interests. you have no vision. even human beings would like a high elegant hop. the other day i saw the reverend sinpeck hop a yard up into the air to impress a little snake that slid across his road. his contempt for anything that couldn't hop was so great that he threw away his pipe. and reverends, you know, cannot live without their pipes. i have known grasshoppers--members of my own family--who could hop to a height three hundred times their length. _now_ you're impressed. you haven't a word to say. and you're inwardly regretting the remarks you made and the remarks you intended to make. three hundred times their own length! just imagine. even the elephant, the largest animal in the world, can't hop as high as that. well? you're not saying anything. didn't i tell you you wouldn't have anything to say?" "but how _can_ i say anything if you don't give me a chance?" "all right, then, talk," said the grasshopper pleasantly. "hoppety-hop." he was gone. maya had to laugh in spite of her irritation. the fellow had certainly furnished her with a strange experience. buffoon though he was, still she had to admire his wide information and worldly wisdom; and though she could not agree with his views of hopping, she was amazed by all the new things he had taught her in their brief conversation. if he had been more reliable she would have been only too glad to ask him questions about a number of different things. it occurred to her that often people who are least equipped to profit by experiences are the very ones who have them. he knew the names of human beings. did he, then, understand their language? if he came back, she'd ask him. and she'd also ask him what he thought of trying to go near a human being or of entering a human being's house. "mademoiselle!" a blade of grass beside maya was set swaying. "goodness gracious! where do you keep coming from?" "the surroundings." "but do tell, do you hop out into the world just so, without knowing where you mean to land?" "of course. why not? can _you_ read the future? no one can. only the tree-toad, but he never tells." "the things you know! wonderful, simply wonderful!-do you understand the language of human beings?" "that's a difficult question to answer, mademoiselle, because it hasn't been proved as yet whether human beings have a language. sometimes they utter sounds by which they seem to reach an understanding with each other--but such awful sounds! so unmelodious! like nothing else in nature that i know of. however, there's one thing you must allow them: they do seem to try to make their voices pleasanter. once i saw two boys take a blade of grass between their thumbs and blow on it. the result was a whistle which may be compared with the chirping of a cricket, though far inferior in quality of tone, far inferior. however, human beings make an honest effort.-is there anything else you'd like to ask? i know a thing or two." he grinned his almost-audible grin. but the next time he hopped off, maya waited for him in vain. she looked about in the grass and the flowers; he was nowhere to be seen. [illustration] [illustration] chapter vi puck maya, drowsy with the noonday heat, flew leisurely past the glare on the bushes in the garden, into the cool, broad-leaved shelter of a great chestnut-tree. on the trodden sward in the shade under the tree stood chairs and tables, evidently for an out-door meal. a short distance away gleamed the red-tiled roof of a peasant's cottage, with thin blue columns of smoke curling up from the chimneys. now at last, thought maya, she was bound to see a human being. had she not reached the very heart of his realm? the tree must be his property, and the curious wooden contrivances in the shade below must belong to his hive. something buzzed; a fly alighted on the leaf beside her. it ran up and down the green veining in little jerks. you couldn't see its legs move, and it seemed to be sliding about excitedly. then it flew from one finger of the broad leaf to another, but so quickly and unexpectedly that you might have thought it hadn't flown but hopped. evidently it was looking for the most comfortable place on the leaf. every now and then, in the suddennest way, it would swing itself up in the air a short space and buzz vehemently, as though something dreadfully untoward had occurred, or as though it were animated by some tremendous purpose. then it would drop back to the leaf, as if nothing had happened, and resume its jerky racing up and down. lastly, it would sit quite still, like a rigid image. maya watched its antics in the sunshine, then approached it and said politely: "how do you do? welcome to my leaf. you are a fly, are you not?" "what else do you take me for?" said the little one. "my name is puck. i am very busy. do you want to drive me away?" "why, not at all. i am glad to make your acquaintance." "i believe you," was all puck said, and with that he tried to pull his head off. "mercy!" cried maya. "i must do this. you don't understand. it's something you know nothing about," puck rejoined calmly, and slid his legs over his wings till they curved round the tip of his body. "i'm more than a fly," he added with some pride. "i'm a housefly. i flew out here for the fresh air." "how interesting!" exclaimed maya gleefully. "then you must know all about human beings." "as well as the pockets of my trousers," puck threw out disdainfully. "i sit on them every day. didn't you know _that_? i thought you bees were so _clever_. you pretend to be at any rate." "my name is maya," said the little bee rather shyly. where the other insects got their self-assurance, to say nothing of their insolence, she couldn't understand. "thanks for the information. whatever your name, you're a simpleton." puck sat there tilted like a cannon in position to be fired off, his head and breast thrust upward, the hind tip of his body resting on the leaf. suddenly he ducked his head and squatted down, so that he looked as if he had no legs. "you've got to watch out and be careful," he said. "that's the most important thing of all." but an angry wave of resentment was surging in little maya. the insult puck had offered her was too much. without really knowing what made her do it, she pounced on him quick as lightning, caught him by the collar and held him tight. "i will teach you to be polite to a bee," she cried. puck set up an awful howl. "don't sting me," he screamed. "it's the only thing you can do, but it's killing. please remove the back of your body. that's where your sting is. and let me go, please let me go, if you possibly can. i'll do anything you say. can't you understand a joke, a mere joke? everybody knows that you bees are the most respected of all insects, and the most powerful, and the most numerous. only don't kill me, please don't. there won't be any bringing me back to life. good god! no one appreciates my humor!" "very well," said maya with a touch of contempt in her heart, "i'll let you live on condition that you tell me everything you know about human beings." "gladly," cried puck. "i'd have told you anyhow. but please let me go now." maya released him. she had stopped caring. her respect for the fly and any confidence she might have had in him were gone. of what value could the experiences of so low, so vulgar a creature be to serious-minded people? she would have to find out about human beings for herself. the lesson, however, had not been wasted. puck was much more endurable now. scolding and growling he set himself to rights. he smoothed down his feelers and wings and the minute hairs on his black body--which were fearfully rumpled; for the girl-bee had laid on good and hard--and concluded the operation by running his proboscis in and out several times--something new to maya. "out of joint, completely out of joint!" he muttered in a pained tone. "comes of your excited way of doing things. look. see for yourself. the sucking-disk at the end of my proboscis looks like a twisted pewter plate." "have you a sucking-disk?" asked maya. "goodness gracious, of course!-now tell me. what do you want to know about human beings?-never mind about my proboscis being out of joint. it'll be all right.-i think i had best tell you a few things from my own life. you see, i grew up among human beings, so you'll hear just what you want to know." "you grew up among human beings?" "of course. it was in the corner of their room that my mother laid the egg from which i came. i made my first attempts to walk on their window-shades, and i tested the strength of my wings by flying from schiller to goethe." "what are schiller and goethe?" "statues," explained puck, very superior, "statues of two men who seem to have distinguished themselves. they stand under the mirror, one on the right hand and one on the left hand, and nobody pays any attention to them." "what's a mirror? and why do the statues stand under the mirror?" "a mirror is good for seeing your belly when you crawl on it. it's very amusing. when human beings go up to a mirror, they either put their hands up to their hair, or pull at their beards. when they are alone, they smile into the mirror, but if somebody else is in the room they look very serious. what the purpose of it is, i could never make out. seems to be some useless game of theirs. i myself, when i was still a child, suffered a good deal from the mirror. i'd fly into it and of course be thrown back violently." maya plied puck with more questions about the mirror, which he found very difficult to answer. "here," he said at last, "you've certainly flown over the smooth surface of water, haven't you? well, a mirror is something like it, only hard and upright." the little fly, seeing that maya listened most respectfully and attentively to the tale of his experiences, became a good deal pleasanter in his manners. and as for maya's opinion of puck, although she didn't believe everything he told her, still she was sorry she had thought so slightingly of him earlier in their meeting. "often people are far more sensible than we take them to be at first," she told herself. puck went on with his story. "it took a long time for me to get to understand their language. now at last i know what they want. it isn't much, because they usually say the same thing every day." "i can scarcely believe it," said maya. "why, they have so many interests, and think so many things, and do so many things. cassandra told me that they build cities so big that you can't fly round them in one day, towers as high as the nuptial flight of our queen, houses that float on the water, and houses that glide across the country on two narrow silver paths and go faster than birds." "wait a moment!" said puck energetically. "who is cassandra? who is she, if i may make so bold as to ask? well?" "oh, she was my teacher." "teacher!" repeated puck contemptuously. "probably also a bee. who but a bee would overestimate human beings like that? your miss cassandra, or whatever her name is, doesn't know her history. those cities and towers and other human devices you speak of are none of them any good to us. who would take such an impractical view of the world as you do? if you don't accept the premise that the earth is dominated by the flies, that the flies are the most widespread and most important race on earth, you'll scarcely get a real knowledge of the world." puck took a few excited zigzag turns on the leaf and pulled at his head, to maya's intense concern. however, the little bee had observed by this time that there wasn't much sense to be got out of his head any way. "do you know how you can tell i am right?" asked puck, rubbing his hands together as if to tie them in a knot. "count the number of people and the number of flies in any room. the result will surprise you." "you may be right. but that's not the point." "do you think i was born this year?" puck demanded all of a sudden. "i don't know." "i passed through a winter," puck announced, all pride. "my experiences date back to the ice age. in a sense they take me _through_ the ice age. that's why i'm here--i'm here to recuperate." "whatever else you may be, you certainly are spunky," remarked maya. "i should say so," exclaimed puck, and made an airy leap out into the sunshine. "the flies are the boldest race in creation. we never run away unless it is better to run away, and then we always come back.-have you ever sat on a human being?" "no," said maya, looking at the fly distrustfully out of the corner of her eye. she still didn't know quite what to make of him. "no, i'm not interested in sitting on human beings." "ah, dear child, that's because you don't know what it is. if ever you had seen the fun i have with the man at home, you'd turn green with envy. i'll tell you.-in my room there lives an elderly man who cherishes the color of his nose by means of a peculiar drink, which he keeps hidden in the corner cupboard. it has a sweet, intoxicating smell. when he goes to get it he smiles, and his eyes grow small. he takes a little glass, and he looks up to the ceiling while he drinks, to see if i am there. i nod down to him, and he passes his hand over his forehead, nose and mouth to show me where i am to sit later on. then he blinks, and opens his mouth as wide as he can, and pulls down the shade to keep the afternoon sun from bothering us. finally he lays himself down on a something called a sofa, and in a short while begins to make dull snuffling sounds. i suppose he thinks the sounds are beautiful. we'll talk about them some other time. they are man's slumber song. for me they are the sign that i am to come down. the first thing i do is to take my portion from the glass, which he left for me. there's something tremendously stimulating about a drop like that. i understand human beings. then i fly over and take my place on the forehead of the sleeping man. the forehead lies between the nose and the hair and serves for thinking. you can tell it does from the long furrows that go from right to left. they must move whenever a man thinks if something worth while is to result from his thinking. the forehead also shows if human beings are annoyed. but then the folds run up and down, and a round cavity forms over the nose. as soon as i settle on his forehead and begin to run to and fro in the furrows, the man makes a snatch in the air with his hands. he thinks i'm somewhere in the air. that's because i'm sitting on his think-furrows, and he can't work out so quickly where i really am. at last he does. he mutters and jabs at me. now then, miss maya, or whatever your name is, now then, you've got to have your wits about you. i see the hand coming, but i wait until the last moment, then i fly nimbly to one side, sit down, and watch him feel to see if i am still there.-we kept the game up often for a full half hour. you have no idea what a lot of endurance the man has. finally he jumps up and pours out a string of words which show how ungrateful he is. well, what of it? a noble soul seeks no reward. i'm already up on the ceiling listening to his ungrateful outburst." "i can't say i particularly like it," observed maya. "isn't it rather useless?" "do you expect me to erect a honeycomb on his nose?" exclaimed puck. "you have no sense of humor, dear girl. what do _you_ do that's useful?" little maya went red all over, but quickly collected herself to hide her embarrassment from puck. "the time is coming," she flashed, "when i shall do something big and splendid, and good and useful too. but first i want to see what is going on in the world. deep down in my heart i feel that the time is coming." as maya spoke she felt a hot tide of hope and enthusiasm flood her being. puck seemed not to realize how serious she was, and how deeply stirred. he zigzagged about in his flurried way for a while, then asked: "you don't happen to have any honey with you, do you, my dear?" "i'm so sorry," replied maya. "i'd gladly let you have some, especially after you've entertained me so pleasantly, but i really haven't got any with me.-may i ask you one more question?" "shoot," said puck. "i'll answer, i'll always answer." "i'd like to know how i could get into a human being's house." "fly in," said puck sagaciously. "but how, without running into danger?" "wait until a window is opened. but be sure to find the way out again. once you're inside, if you can't find the window, the best thing to do is to fly toward the light. you'll always find plenty of windows in every house. you need only notice where the sun shines through. are you going already?" "yes," replied maya, holding out her hand. "i have some things to attend to. good-by. i hope you quite recover from the effects of the ice age." and with her fine confident buzz that yet sounded slightly anxious, little maya raised her gleaming wings and flew out into the sunshine across to the flowery meadows to cull a little nourishment. puck looked after her, and carefully meditated what might still be said. then he observed thoughtfully: "well, now. well, well.-why not?" [illustration] [illustration] chapter vii in the toils after her meeting with puck the fly maya was not in a particularly happy frame of mind. she could not bring herself to believe that he was right in everything he had said about human beings, or right in his relations to them. she had formed an entirely different conception--a much finer, lovelier picture, and she fought against letting her mind harbor low or ridiculous ideas of mankind. yet she was still afraid to enter a human dwelling. how was she to know whether or not the owner would like it? and she wouldn't for all the world make herself a burden to anyone. her thoughts went back once more to the things cassandra had told her. "they are good and wise," cassandra had said. "they are strong and powerful, but they never abuse their power. on the contrary, wherever they go they bring order and prosperity. we bees, knowing they are friendly to us, put ourselves under their protection and share our honey with them. they leave us enough for the winter, they provide us with shelter against the cold, and guard us against the hosts of our enemies among the animals. there are few creatures in the world who have entered into such a relation of friendship and voluntary service with human beings. among the insects you will often hear voices raised to speak evil of man. don't listen to them. if a foolish tribe of bees ever returns to the wild and tries to do without human beings, it soon perishes. there are too many beasts that hanker for our honey, and often a whole bee-city--all its buildings, all its inhabitants--has been ruthlessly destroyed, merely because a senseless animal wanted to satisfy its greed for honey." that is what cassandra had told maya about human beings, and until maya had convinced herself of the contrary, she wanted to keep this belief in them. it was now afternoon. the sun was dropping behind the fruit trees in a large vegetable garden through which maya was flying. the trees were long past flowering, but the little bee still remembered them in the shining glory of countless blossoms, whiter than light, lovely, pure, and exquisite against the blue of the heavens. the delicious perfume, the gleam and the shimmer--oh, she'd never forget the rapture of it as long as she lived. as she flew she thought of how all that beauty would come again, and her heart expanded with delight in the glory of the great world in which she was permitted to live. at the end of the garden shone the starry tufts of the jasmine--delicate yellow faces set in a wreath of pure white--sweet perfume wafted to maya on the soft wings of the breeze. and weren't there still some trees in bloom? wasn't it the season for lindens? maya thought delightedly of the big serious lindens, whose tops held the red glow of the setting sun to the very last. she flew in among the stems of the blackberry vines, which were putting forth green berries and yielding blossoms at the same time. as she mounted again to reach the jasmine, something strange to the touch suddenly laid itself across her forehead and shoulders, and just as quickly covered her wings. it was the queerest sensation, as if her wings were crippled and she were suddenly restrained in her flight, and were falling, helplessly falling. a secret, wicked force seemed to be holding her feelers, her legs, her wings in invisible captivity. but she did not fall. though she could no longer move her wings, she still hung in the air rocking, caught by a marvelously yielding softness and delicacy, raised a little, lowered a little, tossed here, tossed there, like a loose leaf in a faint breeze. maya was troubled, but not as yet actually terrified. why should she be? there was no pain nor real discomfort of any sort. simply that it was so peculiar, so very peculiar, and something bad seemed to be lurking in the background. she must get on. if she tried very hard, she could, assuredly. but now she saw a thread across her breast, an elastic silvery thread finer than the finest silk. she clutched at it quickly, in a cold wave of terror. it clung to her hand; it wouldn't shake off. and there ran another silver thread over her shoulders. it drew itself across her wings and tied them together--her wings were powerless. and there, and there! everywhere in the air and above her body--those bright, glittering, gluey threads! maya screamed with horror. now she knew! oh--oh, now she knew! she was in a spider's web. her terrified shrieks rang out in the silent dome of the summer day, where the sunshine touched the green of the leaves into gold, and insects flitted to and fro, and birds swooped gaily from tree to tree. nearby, the jasmine sent its perfume into the air--the jasmine she had wanted to reach. now all was over. a small bluish butterfly, with brown dots gleaming like copper on its wings, came flying very close. "oh, you poor soul," it cried, hearing maya's screams and seeing her desperate plight. "may your death be an easy one, lovely child. i cannot help you. some day, perhaps this very night, i shall meet with the same fate. but meanwhile life is still lovely for me. good-by. don't forget the sunshine in the deep sleep of death." and the blue butterfly rocked away, drugged by the sunshine and the flowers and its own joy of living. the tears streamed from maya's eyes; she lost her last shred of self-control. she tossed her captive body to and fro, and buzzed as loud as she could, and screamed for help--from whom she did not know. but the more she tossed the tighter she enmeshed herself in the web. now, in her great agony, cassandra's warnings went through her mind: "beware of the spider and its web. if we bees fall into the spider's power we suffer the most gruesome death. the spider is heartless and tricky, and once it has a person in its toils, it never lets him go." in a great flare of mortal terror maya made one huge desperate effort. somewhere one of the long, heavier suspension threads snapped. maya felt it break, yet at the same time she sensed the awful doom of the cobweb. this was, that the more one struggled in it, the more effectively and dangerously it worked. she gave up, in complete exhaustion. at that moment she saw the spider herself--very near, under a blackberry leaf. at sight of the great monster, silent and serious, crouching there as if ready to pounce, maya's horror was indescribable. the wicked shining eyes were fastened on the little bee in sinister, cold-blooded patience. maya gave one loud shriek. this was the worst agony of all. death itself could look no worse than that grey, hairy monster with her mean fangs and the raised legs supporting her fat body like a scaffolding. she would come rushing upon her, and then all would be over. now a dreadful fury of anger came upon maya, such as she had never felt before. forgetting her great agony, intent only upon one thing--selling her life as dearly as possible--she uttered her clear, alarming battle-cry, which all beasts knew and dreaded. "you will pay for your cunning with death," she shouted at the spider. "just come and try to kill me, you'll find out what a bee can do." the spider did not budge. she really was uncanny and must have terrified bigger creatures than little maya. strong in her anger, maya now made another violent, desperate effort. snap! one of the long suspension threads above her broke. the web was probably meant for flies and gnats, not for such large insects as bees. but maya got herself only more entangled. in one gliding motion the spider drew quite close to maya. she swung by her nimble legs upon a single thread with her body hanging straight downward. "what right have you to break my net?" she rasped at maya. "what are you doing here? isn't the world big enough for you? why do you disturb a peaceful recluse?" that was not what maya had expected to hear. most certainly not. "i didn't mean to," she cried, quivering with glad hope. ugly as the spider was, still she did not seem to intend any harm. "i didn't see your web and i got tangled in it. i'm so sorry. please pardon me." the spider drew nearer. "you're a funny little body," she said, letting go of the thread first with one leg, then with the other. the delicate thread shook. how wonderful that it could support the great creature. "oh, do help me out of this," begged maya, "i should be so grateful." "that's what i came here for," said the spider, and smiled strangely. for all her smiling she looked mean and deceitful. "your tossing and tugging spoils the whole web. keep quiet one second, and i will set you free." "oh, thanks! ever so many thanks!" cried maya. the spider was now right beside her. she examined the web carefully to see how securely maya was entangled. "how about your sting?" she asked. ugh, how mean and horrid she looked! maya fairly shivered with disgust at the thought that she was going to touch her, but replied as pleasantly as she could: "don't trouble about my sting. i will draw it in, and nobody can hurt himself on it then." "i should hope not," said the spider. "now, then, look out! keep quiet. too bad for my web." maya remained still. suddenly she felt herself being whirled round and round on the same spot, till she got dizzy and sick and had to close her eyes.-but what was that? she opened her eyes quickly. horrors! she was completely enmeshed in a fresh sticky thread which the spider must have had with her. "my god!" cried little maya softly, in a quivering voice. that was all she said. now she saw how tricky the spider had been; now she was really caught beyond release; now there was absolutely no chance of escape. she could no longer move any part of her body. the end was near. her fury of anger was gone, there was only a great sadness in her heart. "i didn't know there was such meanness and wickedness in the world," she thought. "the deep night of death is upon me. good-by, dear bright sun. good-by, my dear friend-bees. why did i leave you? a happy life to you. i must die." the spider sat wary, a little to one side. she was still afraid of maya's sting. "well?" she jeered. "how are you feeling, little girl?" maya was too proud to answer the false creature. she merely said, after a while when she felt she couldn't bear any more: "please kill me right away." "really!" said the spider, tying a few torn threads together. "really! do you take me to be as big a dunce as yourself? you're going to die anyhow, if you're kept hanging long enough, and that's the time for me to suck the blood out of you--when you can't sting. too bad, though, that you can't see how dreadfully you've damaged my lovely web. then you'd realize that you deserve to die." she dropped down to the ground, laid the end of the newly spun thread about a stone, and pulled it in tight. then she ran up again, caught hold of the thread by which little enmeshed maya hung, and dragged her captive along. "you're going into the shade, my dear," she said, "so that you shall not dry up out here in the sunshine. besides, hanging here you're like a scarecrow, you'll frighten away other nice little mortals who don't watch where they're going. and sometimes the sparrows come and rob my web.-to let you know with whom you're dealing, my name is thekla, of the family of cross-spiders. you needn't tell me your name. it makes no difference. you're a fat bit, and you'll taste just as tender and juicy by any name." so little maya hung in the shade of the blackberry vine, close to the ground, completely at the mercy of the cruel spider, who intended her to die by slow starvation. hanging with her little head downward--a fearful position to be in--she soon felt she would not last many more minutes. she whimpered softly, and her cries for help grew feebler and feebler. who was there to hear? her folk at home knew nothing of this catastrophe, so _they_ couldn't come hurrying to her rescue. suddenly down, in the grass, she heard some one growling: "make way! _i'm_ coming." maya's agonized heart began to beat stormily. she recognized the voice of bobbie, the dung-beetle. "bobbie," she called, as loud as she could, "bobbie, dear bobbie!" "make way! _i'm_ coming." "but i'm not in your way, bobbie," cried maya. "oh dear, i'm hanging over your head. the spider has caught me." "who are you?" asked bobbie. "so many people know me. you know they do, don't you?" "i am maya--maya, the bee. oh please, please help me!" "maya? maya?-ah, now i remember. you made my acquaintance several weeks ago.-the deuce! you _are_ in a bad way, if i must say so myself. you certainly do need my help. as i happen to have a few moments' time, i won't refuse." "oh, bobbie, can you tear these threads?" "tear those threads! do you mean to insult me?" bobbie slapped the muscles of his arm. "look, little girl. hard as steel. no match for _that_ in strength. i can do more than smash a few cobwebs. you'll see something that'll make you open your eyes." bobbie crawled up on the leaf, caught hold of the thread by which maya was hanging, clung to it, then let go of the leaf. the thread broke, and they both fell to the ground. "that's only the beginning," said bobbie.-"but maya, you're trembling. my dear child, you poor little girl, how pale you are! now who would be so afraid of death? you must look death calmly in the face as i do. so. i'll unwrap you now." maya could not utter a syllable. bright tears of joy ran down her cheeks. she was to be free again, fly again in the sunshine, wherever she wished. she was to live. but then she saw the spider coming down the blackberry vine. "bobbie," she screamed, "the spider's coming." bobbie went on unperturbed, merely laughing to himself. he really was an extraordinarily strong insect. "she'll think twice before she comes nearer," he said. but there! the vile voice rasped above them: "robbers! help! i'm being robbed. you fat lump, what are you doing with my prey?" "don't excite yourself, madam," said bobbie. "i have a right, haven't i, to talk to my friend. if you say another word to displease me, i'll tear your whole web to shreds. well? why so silent all of a sudden?" "i am defeated," said the spider. "that has nothing to do with the case," observed bobbie. "now you'd better be getting away from here." the spider cast a look at bobbie full of hate and venom; but glancing up at her web she reconsidered, and turned away slowly, furious, scolding and growling under her breath. fangs and stings were of no avail. they wouldn't even leave a mark on armor such as bobbie wore. with violent denunciations against the injustice in the world, the spider hid herself away inside a withered leaf, from which she could spy out and watch over her web. meanwhile bobbie finished the unwrapping of maya. he tore the network and released her legs and wings. the rest she could do herself. she preened herself happily. but she had to go slow, because she was still weak from fright. "you must forget what you have been through," said bobbie. "then you'll stop trembling. now see if you can fly. try." maya lifted herself with a little buzz. her wings worked splendidly, and to her intense joy she felt that no part of her body had been injured. she flew slowly up to the jasmine flowers, drank avidly of their abundant scented honey-juice, and returned to bobbie, who had left the blackberry vines and was sitting in the grass. "i thank you with my whole heart and soul," said maya, deeply moved and happy in her regained freedom. "thanks are in place," observed bobbie. "but that's the way i always am--always doing something for other people. now fly away. i'd advise you to lay your head on your pillow early to-night. have you far to go?" "no," said maya. "only a short way. i live at the edge of the beech-woods. good-by, bobbie, i'll never forget you, never, never, so long as i live. good-by." [illustration] [illustration] chapter viii the bug and the butterfly her adventure with the spider gave maya something to think about. she made up her mind to be more cautious in the future, not to rush into things so recklessly. cassandra's prudent warnings about the greatest dangers that threaten the bees, were enough to give one pause; and there were all sorts of other possibilities, and the world was such a big place--oh, there was a good deal to make a little bee stop and think. it was in the evening particularly, when twilight fell and the little bee was all by herself, that one consideration after another stirred her mind. but the next morning, if the sun shone, she usually forgot half the things that had bothered her the night before, and allowed her eagerness for experiences to drive her out again into the gay whirl of life. one day she met a very curious creature. it was angular and flat as a pancake, but had a rather neat design on its sheath; and whether its sheath were wings or what, you couldn't really tell. the odd little monster sat absolutely still on the shaded leaf of a raspberry bush, its eyes half closed, apparently sunk in meditation. the scent of the raspberries spread around it deliciously. maya wanted to find out what sort of an animal it was. she flew to the next-door leaf and said how-do-you-do. the stranger made no reply. "how do you do, again?" and maya gave its leaf a little tap. the flat object peeled one eye open, turned it on maya, and said: "a bee. the world is full of bees," and closed its eye again. "unique," thought maya, and determined to get at the stranger's secret. for now it excited her curiosity more than ever, as people often do who pay no attention to us. she tried honey. "i have plenty of honey," she said. "may i offer you some?" the stranger opened its one eye and regarded maya contemplatively a moment or two. "what is it going to say this time?" maya wondered. this time there was no answer at all. the one eye merely closed again, and the stranger sat quite still, tight on the leaf, so that you couldn't see its legs and you'd have thought it had been pressed down flat with a thumb. maya realized, of course, that the stranger wanted to ignore her, but--you know how it is--you don't like being snubbed, especially if you haven't found out what you wanted to find out. it makes you feel so cheap. "whoever you are," cried maya, "permit me to inform you that insects are in the habit of greeting each other, especially when one of them happens to be a bee." the bug sat on without budging. it did not so much as open its one eye again. "it's ill," thought maya. "how horrid to be ill on a lovely day like this. that's why it's staying in the shade, too." she flew over to the bug's leaf and sat down beside it. "aren't you feeling well?" she asked, so very friendly. at this the funny creature began to move away. "move" is the only word to use, because it didn't walk, or run, or fly, or hop. it went as if shoved by an invisible hand. "it hasn't any legs. that's why it's so cross," thought maya. when it reached the stem of the leaf it stopped a second, moved on again, and, to her astonishment, maya saw that it had left behind a little brown drop. "how _very_ singular," she thought--and clapped her hand to her nose and held it tight shut. the veriest stench came from the little brown drop. maya almost fainted. she flew away as fast as she could and seated herself on a raspberry, where she held on to her nose and shivered with disgust and excitement. "serves you right," someone above her called, and laughed. "why take up with a stink-bug?" "don't laugh!" cried maya. she looked up. a white butterfly had alighted overhead on a slender, swaying branch of the raspberry bush, and was slowly opening and closing its broad wings--slowly, softly, silently, happy in the sunshine--black corners to its wings, round black marks in the centre of each wing, four round black marks in all. ah, how beautiful, how beautiful! maya forgot her vexation. and she was glad, too, to talk to the butterfly. she had never made the acquaintance of one before even though she had met a great many. "oh," she said, "you probably are right to laugh. was that a stink-bug?" "it was," he replied, still smiling. "the sort of person to keep away from. you're probably very young still?" "well," observed maya, "i shouldn't say i was--exactly. i've been through a great deal. but that was the first specimen of the kind i had ever come across. can you imagine doing such a thing?" the butterfly had to laugh again. "you see," he explained, "stink-bugs like to keep to themselves. they are not very popular, so they use the odoriferous drop to make people take notice of them. we'd probably soon forget the fact of their existence if it were not for the drop: it serves as a reminder. and they want to be remembered, no matter how." "how lovely, how exquisitely lovely your wings are," said maya. "so delicate and white. may i introduce myself? maya, of the nation of bees." the butterfly laid his wings together to look like only one wing standing straight up in the air. he gave a slight bow. "fred," he said laconically. maya couldn't gaze her fill. "fly a little," she asked. "shall i fly away?" "oh no. i just want to see your great white wings move in the blue air. but never mind. i can wait till later. where do you live?" "nowhere specially. a settled home is too much of a nuisance. life didn't get to be really delightful until i turned into a butterfly. before that, while i was still a caterpillar, i couldn't leave the cabbage the livelong day, and all one did was eat and squabble." "just what do you mean?" asked maya, mystified. "i used to be a caterpillar," explained fred. "never!" cried maya. "now, now, now," said fred, pointing both feelers straight at maya. "everyone knows a butterfly is first a caterpillar. even human beings know it." maya was utterly perplexed. could such a thing be? "you must really explain more clearly," she said. "i couldn't accept what you say just so, could i? you wouldn't expect me to." the butterfly perched beside the little bee on the slender swaying branch of the raspberry bush, and they rocked together in the morning wind. he told her how he had begun life as a caterpillar and then, one day, when he had shed his last caterpillar skin, he came out a pupa or chrysalis. "at the end of a few weeks," he continued, "i woke up out of my dark sleep and broke through the wrappings or pupa-case. i can't tell you, maya, what a feeling comes over you when, after a time like that, you suddenly see the sun again. i felt as though i were melting in a warm golden ocean, and i loved my life so that my heart began to pound." "i understand," said maya, "i understand. i felt the same way the first time i left our humdrum city and flew out into the bright scented world of blossoms." the little bee was silent a while, thinking of her first flight.-but then she wanted to know how the butterfly's large wings could grow in the small space of the pupa-case. fred explained. "the wings are delicately folded together like the petals of a flower in the bud. when the weather is bright and warm, the flower must open, it cannot help itself, and its petals unfold. so with my wings, they were folded up, then unfolded. no one can resist the sun when it shines." "no, no--one cannot--one cannot resist the sunshine." maya mused, watching the butterfly as he perched in the golden light of the morning, pure white against the blue sky. "people often charge us with being frivolous," said fred. "we're really happy--just that--just happy. you wouldn't believe how seriously i sometimes think about life." "tell me what all you think." "oh," said fred, "i think about the future. it's very interesting to think about the future.-but i should like to fly now. the meadows on the hillside are full of yarrow and canterbury bells; everything's in bloom. i'd like to be there, you know." this maya understood, she understood it well, and they said good-by and flew away in different directions, the white butterfly rocking silently as if wafted by the gentle wind, little maya with that uneasy zoom-zoom of the bees which we hear upon the flowers on fair days and which we always recall when we think of the summer. [illustration] [illustration] chapter ix the lost leg near the hole where maya had set herself up for the summer lived a family of bark-boring beetles. fridolin, the father, was an earnest, industrious man who wanted many children and took immense pains to bring up a large family. he had done very well: he had fifty energetic sons to fill him with pride and high hopes. each had dug his own meandering little tunnel in the bark of the pine-tree and all were getting on and were comfortably settled. "my wife," fridolin said to maya, after they had known each other some time, "has arranged things so that none of my sons interferes with the others. they are not even acquainted; each goes his own way." maya knew that human beings were none too fond of fridolin and his people, though she herself liked him and liked his opinions and had found no reason to avoid him. in the morning before the sun arose and the woods were still asleep, she would hear his fine tapping and boring. it sounded like a delicate trickling, or as if the tree were breathing in its sleep. later she would see the thin brown dust that he had emptied out of his corridor. once he came at an early hour, as he often did, to wish her good-morning and ask if she had slept well. "not flying to-day?" he inquired. "no, it's too windy." it was windy. the wind rushed and roared and flung the branches into a mad tumult. the leaves looked ready to fly away. after each great gust the sky would brighten, and in the pale light the trees seemed balder. the pine in which maya and fridolin lived shrieked with the voices of the wind as in a fury of anger and excitement. fridolin sighed. "i worked all night," he told maya, "all night. but what can you do? you've got to do _some_thing to get _some_where. and i'm not altogether satisfied with this pine; i should have tackled a fir-tree." he wiped his brow and smiled in self-pity. "how are your children?" asked maya pleasantly. "thank you," said fridolin, "thank you for your interest. but"--he hesitated--"but i don't supervise the way i used to. still, i have reason to believe they are all doing well." as he sat there, a little brown man with slightly curtailed wing-sheaths and a breastplate that looked like a head too large for its body, maya thought he was almost comical; but she knew he was a dangerous beetle who could do immense harm to the mighty trees of the forest, and if his tribe attacked a tree in numbers then the green needles were doomed, the tree would turn sear and die. it was utterly without defenses against the little marauders who destroyed the bark and the sap-wood. and the sap-wood is necessary to the life of a tree because it carries the sap up to the very tips of the branches. there were stories of how whole forests had fallen victims to the race of boring-beetles. maya looked at fridolin reflectively; she was awed into solemnity at the thought of the great power these little creatures possessed and of how important they could become. fridolin sighed and said in a worried tone: "ah, life would be beautiful if there were no woodpeckers." maya nodded. "yes, indeed, you're right. the woodpecker gobbles up every insect he sees." "if it were only that," observed fridolin, "if it were only that he got the careless people who fool around on the outside, on the bark, i'd say, 'very well, a woodpecker must live too.' but it seems all wrong that the bird should follow us right into our corridors into the remotest corners of our homes." "but he can't. he's too big, isn't he?" fridolin looked at maya with an air of grave importance, lifting his brows and shaking his head two or three times. it seemed to please him that he knew something she didn't know. "too big? what difference does his size make? no, my dear, it's not his size we are afraid of; it's his tongue." maya made big eyes. fridolin told her about the woodpecker's tongue: that it was long and thin, and round as a worm, and barbed and sticky. "he can stretch his tongue out ten times my length," cried the bark-beetle, flourishing his arm. "you think: 'now--now he has reached the limit, he can't make it the tiniest bit longer.' but no, he goes on stretching and stretching it. he pokes it deep into all the cracks and crevices of the bark, on the chance that he'll find somebody sitting there. he even pushes it into our passageways--actually, into our corridors and chambers. things stick to it, and that's the way he pulls us out of our homes." "i am not a coward," said maya, "i don't think i am, but what you say makes me creepy." "oh, _you're_ all right," said fridolin, a little envious, "you with your sting are safe. a person'll think twice before he'll let you sting his tongue. anybody'll tell you that. but how about us bark-beetles? how do you think we feel? a cousin of mine got caught. we had just had a little quarrel on account of my wife. i remember every detail perfectly. my cousin was paying us a visit and hadn't yet got used to our ways or our arrangements. all of a sudden we heard a woodpecker scratching and boring--one of the smaller species. it must have begun right at our building because as a rule we hear him beforehand and have time to run to shelter before he reaches us. "suddenly i heard my poor cousin scream in the dark: 'fridolin, i'm sticking!' then all i heard was a short desperate scuffle, followed by complete silence, and in a few moments the woodpecker was hammering at the house next door. my poor cousin! her name was agatha." "feel how my heart is beating," said maya, in a whisper. "you oughtn't to have told it so quickly. my goodness, the things that do happen!" and the little bee thought of her own adventures in the past and the accidents that might still happen to her. a laugh from fridolin interrupted her reflections. she looked up in surprise. "see who's coming," he cried, "coming up the tree. here's the fellow for you! i tell you, he's a--but you'll see." maya followed the direction of his gaze and saw a remarkable animal slowly climbing up the trunk. she wouldn't have believed such a creature was possible if she had not seen it with her own eyes. "hadn't we better hide?" she asked, alarm getting the better of astonishment. "absurd," replied the bark-beetle, "just sit still and be polite to the gentleman. he is very learned, really, very scholarly, and what is more, kind and modest and, like most persons of his type, rather funny. see what he's doing now!" "probably thinking," observed maya, who couldn't get over her astonishment. "he's struggling against the wind," said fridolin, and laughed. "i hope his legs don't get entangled." "are those long threads really his legs?" asked maya, opening her eyes wide. "i've never seen the like." meanwhile the newcomer had drawn near, and maya got a better view of him. he looked as though he were swinging in the air, his rotund little body hung so high on his monstrously long legs, which groped for a footing on all sides like a movable scaffolding of threads. he stepped along cautiously, feeling his way; the little brown sphere of his body rose and sank, rose and sank. his legs were so very long and thin that one alone would certainly not have been enough to support his body. he needed all at once, unquestionably. as they were jointed in the middle, they rose high in the air above him. maya clapped her hands together. "well!" she cried. "did you ever? would you have dreamed that such delicate legs, legs as fine as a hair, could be so nimble and useful--that one could really use them--and they'd know what to do? fridolin, i think it's wonderful, simply wonderful." "ah, bah," said the bark-beetle. "don't take things so seriously. just laugh when you see something funny; that's all." "but i don't feel like laughing. often we laugh at something and later find out it was just because we haven't understood." by this time the stranger had joined them and was looking down at maya from the height of his pointed triangles of legs. "good-morning," he said, "a real wind-storm--a pretty strong draught, don't you think, or--no? you are of a different opinion?" he clung to the tree as hard as he could. fridolin turned to hide his laughing, but little maya replied politely that she quite agreed with him and that was why she had not gone out flying. then she introduced herself. the stranger squinted down at her through his legs. "maya, of the nation of bees," he repeated. "delighted, really. i have heard a good deal about bees.-i myself belong to the general family of spiders, species daddy-long-legs, and my name is hannibal." the word spider has an evil sound in the ears of all smaller insects, and maya could not quite conceal her fright, especially as she was reminded of her agony in thekla's web. hannibal seemed to take no notice, so maya decided, "well if need be i'll fly away, and he can whistle for me; he has no wings and his web is somewhere else." "i am thinking," said hannibal, "thinking very hard.-if you will permit me, i will come a little closer. that big branch there makes a good shield against the wind." "why, certainly," said maya, making room for him. fridolin said good-by and left. maya stayed; she was eager to get at hannibal's personality. "the many, many different kinds of animals there are in the world," she thought. "every day a fresh discovery." the wind had subsided some, and the sun shone through the branches. from below rose the song of a robin redbreast, filling the woods with joy. maya could see it perched on a branch, could see its throat swell and pulse with the song as it held its little head raised up to the light. "if only i could sing like that robin redbreast," she said, "i'd perch on a flower and keep it up the livelong day." "you'd produce something lovely, you would, with your humming and buzzing." "the bird looks so happy." "you have great fancies," said the daddy-long-legs. "supposing every animal were to wish he could do something that nature had not fitted him to do, the world would be all topsy-turvy. supposing a robin redbreast thought he had to have a sting--a sting above everything else--or a goat wanted to fly about gathering honey. supposing a frog were to come along and languish for my kind of legs." maya laughed. "that isn't just what i mean. i mean, it seems lovely to be able to make all beings as happy as the bird does with his song.-but goodness gracious!" she exclaimed suddenly. "mr. hannibal, you have one leg too many." hannibal frowned and looked into space, vexed. "well, you've noticed it," he said glumly. "but as a matter of fact--one leg too few, not too many." "why? do you usually have eight legs?" "permit me to explain. we spiders have eight legs. we need them all. besides, eight is a more aristocratic number. one of my legs got lost. too bad about it. however you manage, you make the best of it." "it must be dreadfully disagreeable to lose a leg," maya sympathized. hannibal propped his chin on his hand and arranged his legs to keep them from being easily counted. "i'll tell you how it happened. of course, as usual when there's mischief, a human being is mixed up in it. we spiders are careful and look what we're doing, but human beings are careless, they grab you sometimes as though you were a piece of wood. shall i tell you?" "oh, do please," said maya, settling herself comfortably. "it would be awfully interesting. you must certainly have gone through a good deal." "i should say so," said hannibal. "now listen. we daddy-long-legs, you know, hunt by night. i was then living in a green garden-house. it was overgrown with ivy, and there were a number of broken window-panes, which made it very convenient for me to crawl in and out. the man came at dark. in one hand he carried his artificial sun, which he calls lamp, in the other hand a small bottle, under his arm some paper, and in his pocket another bottle. he put everything down on the table and began to think, because he wanted to write his thoughts on the paper.-you must certainly have come across paper in the woods or in the garden. the black on the paper is what man has excogitated--excogitated." "marvelous!" cried maya, all a-glow that she was to learn so much. "for this purpose," hannibal continued, "man needs both bottles. he inserts a stick into the one and drinks out of the other. the more he drinks, the better it goes. of course it is about us insects that he writes, everything he knows about us, and he writes strenuously, but the result is not much to boast of, because up to now man has found out very little in regard to insects. he is absolutely ignorant of our soul-life and hasn't the least consideration for our feelings. you'll see." "don't you think well of human beings?" asked maya. "oh, yes, yes. but the loss of a leg"--the daddy-long-legs looked down slantwise--"is apt to embitter one, rather." "i see," said maya. "one evening i was sitting on a window-frame as usual, prepared for the chase, and the man was sitting at the table, his two bottles before him, trying to produce something. it annoyed me dreadfully that a whole swarm of little flies and gnats, upon which i depend for my subsistence, had settled upon the artificial sun and were staring into it in that crude, stupid, uneducated way of theirs." "well," observed maya, "i think i'd look at a thing like that myself." "look, for all i care. but to look and to stare like an idiot are two entirely different things. just watch once and see the silly jig they dance around a lamp. it's nothing for them to butt their heads about twenty times. some of them keep it up until they burn their wings. and all the time they stare and stare at the light." "poor creatures! evidently they lose their wits." "then they had better stay outside on the window-frame or under the leaves. they're safe from the lamp there, and that's where i can catch them.-well, on that fateful night i saw from my position on the window-frame that some gnats were lying scattered on the table beside the lamp drawing their last breath. the man did not seem to notice or care about them, so i decided to go and take them myself. that's perfectly natural, isn't it?" "perfectly." "and yet, it was my undoing. i crept up the leg of the table, very softly, on my guard, until i could peep over the edge. the man seemed dreadfully big. i watched him working. then, slowly, very slowly, carefully lifting one leg at a time, i crossed over to the lamp. as long as i was covered by the bottle all went well, but i had scarcely turned the corner, when the man looked up and grabbed me. he lifted me by one of my legs, dangled me in front of his huge eyes, and said: 'see what's here, just see what's here.' and he grinned--the brute!--he grinned with his whole face, as though it were a laughing matter." hannibal sighed, and little maya kept quite still. her head was in a whirl. "have human beings such immense eyes?" she asked at last. "please think of _me_ in the position _i_ was in," cried hannibal, vexed. "try to imagine how i felt. who'd like to be hanging by the leg in front of eyes twenty times as big as his own body and a mouth full of gleaming teeth, each fully twice as big as himself? well, what do you think?" "awful! perfectly awful!" "thank the lord, my leg broke off. there's no telling what might have happened if my leg had not broken off. i fell to the table, and then i ran, i ran as fast as my remaining legs would take me, and hid behind the bottle. there i stood and hurled threats of violence at the man. they saved me, my threats did, the man was afraid to run after me. i saw him lay my leg on the white paper, and i watched how it wanted to escape--which it can't do without me." "was it still moving?" asked maya, prickling at the thought. "yes. our legs always do move when they're pulled out. my leg ran, but i not being there it didn't know where to run to, so it merely flopped about aimlessly on the same spot, and the man watched it, clutching at his nose and smiling--smiling, the heartless wretch!--at my leg's sense of duty." "impossible," said the little bee, quite scared, "an offen leg can't crawl." "an offen leg? _what_ is an offen leg?" "a leg that has come off," explained maya, staring at him. "don't you know? at home we children used the word offen for anything that had come off." "you should drop your nursery slang when you're out in the world and in the presence of cultured people," said hannibal severely. "but it _is_ true that our legs totter long after they have been torn from our bodies." "i can't believe it without proof." "do you think i'll tear one of my legs off to satisfy you?" hannibal's tone was ugly. "i see you're not a fit person to associate with. nobody, i'd like you to know, _no_body has ever doubted my word before." maya was terribly put out. she couldn't understand what had upset the daddy-long-legs so, or what dreadful thing she had done. "it isn't altogether easy to get along with strangers," she thought. "they don't think the way we do and don't see that we mean no harm." she was depressed and cast a troubled look at the spider with his long legs and soured expression. "really, someone ought to come and eat you up." hannibal had evidently mistaken maya's good nature for weakness. for now something unusual happened to the little bee. suddenly her depression passed and gave way, not to alarm or timidity, but to a calm courage. she straightened up, lifted her lovely, transparent wings, uttered her high clear buzz, and said with a gleam in her eyes: "i am a bee, mr. hannibal." "i beg your pardon," said he, and without saying good-by turned and ran down the tree-trunk as fast as a person can run who has seven legs. maya had to laugh, willy-nilly. from down below hannibal began to scold. "you're bad. you threaten helpless people, you threaten them with your sting when you know they're handicapped by a misfortune and can't get away fast. but your hour is coming, and when you're in a tight place you'll think of me and be sorry." hannibal disappeared under the leaves of the coltsfoot on the ground. his last words had not reached the little bee. the wind had almost died away, and the day promised to be fine. white clouds sailed aloft in a deep, deep blue, looking happy and serene like good thoughts of the lord. maya was cheered. she thought of the rich shaded meadows by the woods and of the sunny slopes beyond the lake. a blithe activity must have begun there by this time. in her mind she saw the slim grasses waving and the purple iris that grew in the rills at the edge of the woods. from the flower of an iris you could look across to the mysterious night of the pine-forest and catch its cool breath of melancholy. you knew that its forbidding silence, which transformed the sunshine into a reddish half-light of sleep, was the home of the fairy tale. maya was already flying. she had started off instinctively, in answer to the call of the meadows and their gay carpeting of flowers. it was a joy to be alive. [illustration] [illustration] chapter x the wonders of the night thus the days and weeks of her young life passed for little maya among the insects in a lovely summer world--a happy roving in garden and meadow, occasional risks and many joys. for all that, she often missed the companions of her early childhood and now and again suffered a pang of homesickness, an ache of longing for her people and the kingdom she had left. there were hours, too, when she yearned for regular, useful work and association with friends of her own kind. however, at bottom she had a restless nature, little maya had, and was scarcely ready to settle down for good and live in the community of the bees; she wouldn't have felt comfortable. often among animals as well as human beings there are some who cannot conform to the ways of the others. before we condemn them we must be careful and give them a chance to prove themselves. for it is not always laziness or stubbornness that makes them different. far from it. at the back of their peculiar urge is a deep longing for something higher or better than what every-day life has to offer, and many a time young runaways have grown up into good, sensible, experienced men and women. little maya was a pure, sensitive soul, and her attitude to the big, beautiful world came of a genuine eagerness for knowledge and a great delight in the glories of creation. yet it is hard to be alone even when you are happy, and the more maya went through, the greater became her yearning for companionship and love. she was no longer so very young; she had grown into a strong, superb creature with sound, bright wings, a sharp, dangerous sting, and a highly developed sense of both the pleasures and the hazards of her life. through her own experience she had gathered information and stored up wisdom, which she now often wished she could apply to something of real value. there were days when she was ready to return to the hive and throw herself at the queen's feet and sue for pardon and honorable reinstatement. but a great, burning desire held her back--the desire to know human beings. she had heard so many contradictory things about them that she was confused rather than enlightened. yet she had a feeling that in the whole of creation there were no beings more powerful or more intelligent or more sublime than they. a few times in her wanderings she had seen people, but only from afar, from high up in the air--big and little people, black people, white people, red people, and such as dressed in many colors. she had never ventured close. once she had caught the glimmer of red near a brook, and thinking it was a bed of flowers had flown down. she found a human being fast asleep among the brookside blossoms. it had golden hair and a pink face and wore a red dress. it was dreadfully large, of course, but still it looked so good and sweet that maya thrilled, and tears came to her eyes. she lost all sense of her whereabouts; she could do nothing but gaze and gaze upon the slumbering presence. all the horrid things she had ever heard against man seemed utterly impossible. lies they must have been--mean lies that she had been told against creatures as charming as this one asleep in the shade of the whispering birch-trees. after a while a mosquito came and buzzed greetings. "look!" cried maya, hot with excitement and delight. "look, just look at that human being there. how good, how beautiful! doesn't it fill you with enthusiasm?" the mosquito gave maya a surprised stare, then turned slowly round to glance at the object of her admiration. "yes, it _is_ good. i just tasted it. i stung it. look, my body is shining red with its blood." maya had to press her hand to her heart, so startled was she by the mosquito's daring. "will it die?" she cried. "where did you wound it? how could you? how could you screw up your courage to sting it? and how vile! why, you're a beast of prey!" the mosquito tittered. "why, it's only a very little human being," it answered in its high, thin voice. "it's the size called girl--the size at which the legs are covered half way up with a separate colored casing. my sting, of course, goes through the casing but usually doesn't reach the skin.-your ignorance is really stupendous. do you actually think that human beings are good? i haven't come across one who willingly let me take the tiniest drop of his blood." "i don't know very much about human beings, i admit," said maya humbly. "but of all the insects you bees have most to do with human beings. that's a well-known fact." "i left our kingdom," maya confessed timidly. "i didn't like it. i wanted to learn about the outside world." "well, well, what do you think of that!" the mosquito drew a step nearer. "how do you like your free-lancing? i must say, i admire you for your independence. i for one would never consent to serve human beings." "but they serve us too!" said maya, who couldn't bear a slight to be put upon her people. "maybe.-to what nation do you belong?" "i come of the nation in the castle park. the ruling queen is helen viii." "indeed," said the mosquito, and bowed low. "an enviable lineage. my deepest respects.-there was a revolution in your kingdom not so long ago, wasn't there? i heard it from the messengers of the rebel swarm. am i right?" "yes," said maya, proud and happy that her nation was so respected and renowned. homesickness for her people awoke again, deep down in her heart, and she wished she could do something good and great for her queen and country. carried away on the wings of this dream, she forgot to ask about human beings. or, like as not, she refrained from questions, feeling that the mosquito would not tell her things she would be glad to hear. the mite of a creature impressed her as a saucy miss, and people of her kind usually had nothing good to say of others. besides, she soon flew away. "i'm going to take one more drink," she called back to maya. "later i and my friends are going flying in the light of the westering sun. then we'll be sure to have good weather to-morrow." maya made off quickly. she couldn't bear to stay and see the mosquito hurt the sleeping child. and how could she do this thing and not perish? hadn't cassandra said: "if you sting a human being, you will die?" maya still remembered every detail of this incident with the child and the mosquito, but her craving to know human beings well had not been stilled. she made up her mind to be bolder and never stop trying until she had reached her goal. at last maya's longing to know human beings was to be satisfied, and in a way far, far lovelier and more wonderful than she had dreamed. once, on a warm evening, having gone to sleep earlier than usual, she woke up suddenly in the middle of the night--something that had never happened to her before. when she opened her eyes, her astonishment was indescribable: her little bedroom was all steeped in a quiet bluish radiance. it came down through the entrance, and the entrance itself shone as if hung with a silver-blue curtain. maya did not dare to budge at first, though not because she was frightened. no. somehow, along with the light came a rare, lovely peacefulness, and outside her room the air was filled with a sound finer, more harmonious than any music she had ever heard. after a time she rose timidly, awed by the glamour and the strangeness of it all, and looked out. the whole world seemed to lie under the spell of an enchantment. everything was sparkling and glittering in pure silver. the trunks of the birch-trees, the slumbering leaves were overlaid with silver. the grass, which from her height seemed to lie under delicate veils, was set with a thousand pale pearls. all things near and far, the silent distances, were shrouded in this soft, bluish sheen. "this must be the night," maya whispered and folded her hands. high up in the heavens, partly veiled by the leaves of a beech-tree, hung a full clear disk of silver, from which the radiance poured down that beautified the world. and then maya saw countless bright, sharp little lights surrounding the moon in the heavens--oh, so still and beautiful, unlike any shining things she had ever seen before. to think she beheld the night, the moon, and the stars--the wonders, the lovely wonders of the night! she had heard of them but never believed in them. it was almost too much. then the sound rose again, the strange night sound that must have awakened her. it came from nearby, filling the welkin, a soaring chirp with a silvery ring that matched the silver on the trees and leaves and grass and seemed to come rilling down from the moon on the beams of silver light. maya looked about for the source, in vain; in the mysterious drift of light and shadow it was difficult to make out objects in clear outline, everything was draped so mysteriously; and yet everything showed up true and in such heroic beauty. her room could keep her no longer; out she had to fly into this new splendor, the night splendor. "the good lord will take care of me," she thought, "i am not bent upon wrong." as she was about to fly off through the silver light to her favorite meadow, now lying full under the moon, she saw a winged creature alight on a beech-tree leaf not far away. scarcely alighted, it raised its head to the moon, lifted its narrow wings, and drew the edge of one against the other, for all the world as though it were playing on a violin. and sure enough, the sound came, the silvery chirp that filled the whole moonlit world with melody. "exquisite," whispered maya, "heavenly, heavenly, heavenly." she flew over to the leaf. the night was so mild and warm that she did not notice it was cooler than by day. when she touched the leaf, the chirper broke off playing abruptly, and to maya it seemed as if there had never been such a stillness before, so profound was the hush that followed. it was uncanny. through the dark leaves filtered the light, white and cool. "good night," said maya, politely, thinking "good night" was the greeting for the night like "good morning" for the morning. "please excuse me for interrupting, but the music you make is so fascinating that i had to find out where it came from." the chirper stared at maya, wide-eyed. "what sort of a crawling creature are you?" it asked after some moments had passed. "i have never met one like you before." "i am not a crawling insect. i am maya, of the nation of bees." "oh, of the nation of bees. indeed ... you live by day, don't you? i have heard of your race from the hedgehog. he told me that in the evening he eats the dead bodies that are thrown out of your hive." "yes," said maya, with a faint chill of apprehension, "that's so; cassandra told me about him; she heard of him from the sentinels. he comes when twilight falls and snouts in the grass looking for dead bodies.-but do you associate with the hedgehog? why, he's an awful brute." "i don't think so. we tree-crickets get along with him splendidly. we call him uncle. of course he always tries to catch us, but he never succeeds, so we have great fun teasing him. everybody has to live, doesn't he? just so he doesn't live off me, what do i care?" maya shook her head. she didn't agree. but not caring to insult the cricket by contradicting, she changed the subject. "so you're a tree-cricket?" "yes, a snowy tree-cricket.-but i must play, so please don't keep me any longer. it's full moon, a wonderful night. i must play." "oh, do make an exception this once. you play all the time.-tell me about the night." "a midsummer night is the loveliest in the world," answered the cricket. "it fills the heart with rapture.-but what my music doesn't tell you i shan't be able to explain. why _need_ everything be explained? why _know_ everything? we poor creatures can find out only the tiniest bit about existence. yet we can _feel_ the glory of the whole wide world." and the cricket set up its happy silvery strumming. heard from close by, where maya sat, the music was overpowering in its loudness. the little bee sat quite still in the blue summer night listening and musing deeply about life and creation. silence fell. there was a faint whirr, and maya saw the cricket fly out into the moonlight. "the night makes one feel sad," she reflected. her flowery meadow drew her now. she flew off. at the edge of the brook stood the tall irises brokenly reflected in the running water. a glorious sight. the moonlight was whirled along in the braided current, the wavelets winked and whispered, the irises seemed to lean over asleep. "asleep from sheer delight," thought the little bee. she dropped down on a blue petal in the full light of the moon and could not take her eyes from the living waters of the brook, the quivering flash, the flashing come and go of countless sparks. on the bank opposite, the birch-trees glittered as if hung with the stars. "where is all that water flowing to?" she wondered. "the cricket is right. we know so little about the world." of a sudden a fine little voice rose in song from the flower of an iris close beside her, ringing like a pure, clear bell, different from any earthly sound that maya knew. her heart throbbed, she held her breath. "oh, what is going to happen? what am i going to see now?" the iris swayed gently. one of the petals curved in at the edge, and maya saw a tiny snow-white human hand holding on to the flower's rim with its wee little fingers. then a small blond head arose, and then a delicate luminous body in white garments. a human being in miniature was coming up out of the iris. words cannot tell maya's awe and rapture. she sat rigid. the tiny being climbed to the edge of the blossom, lifted its arms up to the moonlight, and looked out into the bright shining night with a smile of bliss lighting up its face. then a faint quiver shook its luminous body, and from its shoulders two wings unfolded, whiter than the moonlight, pure as snow, rising above its blond head and reaching down to its feet. how lovely it was, how exquisitely lovely. nothing that maya had ever seen compared with it in loveliness. standing there in the moonlight, holding its hands up to heaven, the luminous little being lifted its voice again and sang. the song rang out in the night, and maya understood the words. my home is light. the crystal bowl of heaven's blue, i love it so! both death and life will change, i know, but not my soul, my living soul. my soul is that which breathes anew from all of loveliness and grace; and as it flows from god's own face, it flows from his creations, too. maya burst into sobs. what it was that made her so sad and yet so happy, she could not have told. the little human being turned around. "who is crying?" he asked in his chiming voice. "it's only me," stammered maya. "excuse me for interrupting you." "but why are you crying?" "i don't know. perhaps just because you are so beautiful. who are you? oh, do tell me, if i am not asking too much. you are an angel, aren't you? you must be." "oh, no," said the little creature, quite serious. "i am only a sprite, a flower-sprite.-but, dear little bee, what are you doing out here in the meadow so late at night?" the sprite flew over to a curving iris blade beside maya and regarded her long and kindly from his swaying perch in the moonlight. maya told him all about herself, what she had done, what she knew, and what she longed for. and while she spoke, his eyes never left her, those large dark eyes glowing in the white fairy face under the golden hair that ever and anon shone like silver in the moonlight. when she finished he stroked her head and looked at her so warmly and lovingly that the little bee, beside herself with joy, had to lower her gaze. "we sprites," he explained, "live seven nights, but we must stay in the flower in which we are born, else we die at dawn." maya opened her eyes wide in terror. "then hurry, hurry! fly back into your flower!" the, sprite shook his head sadly. "too late.-but listen. i have more to tell you. most of us sprites are glad to leave our flowers never to return, because a great happiness is connected with our leaving. we are endowed with a remarkable power: before we die, we can fulfill the dearest wish of the first creature we meet. it is when we make up our minds seriously to leave the flower for the purpose of making someone happy that our wings grow." "how wonderful!" cried maya. "i'd leave the flower too, then. it must be lovely to fulfill another person's wish." that _she_ was the first being whom the sprite on his flight from the flower had met, did not occur to her. "and then--must you die?" the sprite nodded, but not sadly this time. "we live to see the dawn still," he said, "but when the dew falls, we are drawn into the fine cobwebby veils that float above the grass and the flowers of the meadows. haven't you often noticed that the veils shine white as though a light were inside them? it's the sprites, their wings and their garments. when the light rises we change into dew-drops. the plants drink us and we become a part of their growing and blooming until in time we rise again as sprites from out their flowers." "then you were once another sprite?" asked maya, tense, breathless with interest. the earnest eyes said yes. "but i have forgotten my earlier existence. we forget everything in our flower-sleep." "oh, what a lovely fate!" "it is the same as that of all earthly creatures, when you really come to think of it, even if it isn't always flowers out of which they wake up from their sleep of death. but we won't talk of that to-night." "oh, i'm so happy!" cried maya. "then you haven't got a wish? you're the first person i've met, you know, and i possess the power to grant your dearest wish." "i? but i'm only a bee. no, it's too much. it would be too great a joy. i don't deserve it, i don't deserve that you should be so good to me." "no one deserves the good and the beautiful. the good and the beautiful come to us like the sunshine." maya's heart beat stormily. oh, she did have a wish, a burning wish, but she didn't dare confess it. the elf seemed to guess; he smiled so you couldn't keep anything a secret from him. "well?" he stroked his golden hair off his pure forehead. "i'd like to know human beings at their best and most beautiful," said the little bee. she spoke quickly and hotly. she was afraid she would be told that so great a wish could not be granted. but the sprite drew himself up, his expression was serious and serene, his eyes shone with confidence. he took maya's trembling hand and said: "come. we'll fly together. your wish shall be granted." [illustration] [illustration] chapter xi with the sprite and so maya and the flower-sprite started off together in the bright mid-summer night, flying low over the blossomy meadow. his white reflection crossing the brook shone as though a star were gliding through the water. how happy the little bee was to confide herself to this gracious being! whatever he were to do, wherever he were to lead her would be good and right, she felt. she would have liked to ask him a thousand questions had she dared. as they were passing between a double row of high poplar-trees, something whirred above them; a dark moth, as big and strong as a bird, crossed their way. "one moment, wait one moment, please," the sprite called. maya was surprised to see how readily the moth responded. all three alighted on a high poplar branch, from which there was a far view out upon the tranquil, moonlit landscape. the quaking leaves whispered delicately. the moth, perching directly opposite maya in the full light of the moon, slowly lifted his spread wings and dropped them again, softly, as if gently fanning--fanning a cool breath upon someone. broad, diagonal stripes of a gorgeous bright blue marked his wings, his black head was covered as with dark velvet, his face was like a strangely mysterious mask, out of which glowed a pair of dark eyes. how wonderful were the creatures of the night! a little cold shiver ran through maya, who felt she was dreaming the strangest dream of her life. "you are beautiful," she said to the moth, "beautiful, really." she was awed and solemn. "who is your companion?" the moth asked the sprite. "a bee. i met her just as i was leaving my flower." the moth seemed to realize what that meant. he looked at maya almost enviously. "you fortunate creature!" he said in a low, serious, musing tone, shaking his head to and fro. "are you sad?" asked maya out of the warmth of her heart. the moth shook his head. "no, not sad." his voice sounded friendly and grateful, and he gave maya such a kind look that she would have liked to strike up a friendship with him then and there. "is the bat still abroad, or has he gone to rest?" this was the question for which the sprite had stopped the moth. "oh, he's gone to rest long ago. you want to know, do you, on account of your companion?" the sprite nodded. maya was dying to find out what a bat was, but the sprite seemed to be in a hurry. with a charming gesture of restlessness he tossed his shining hair back from his forehead. "come, maya," he said, "we must hurry. the night is so short." "shall i carry you part of the way?" asked the moth. the sprite thanked him but declined. "some other time!" he called. "then it will be never," thought maya as they flew away, "because at dawn the flower-sprite must die." the moth remained on the leaf looking after them until the glimmer of the fairy garments grew smaller and smaller and finally sank into the depths of the blue distance. then he turned his face slowly and surveyed his great dark wings with their broad blue stripes. he sank into revery. "so often i have heard that i am gray and ugly," he said to himself, "and that my dress is not to be compared with the superb robes of the butterfly. but the little bee saw only what is beautiful in me.-and she asked me if i was sad. i wonder whether i am or not.-no, i am not sad," he decided, "not now." meanwhile maya and the flower-sprite flew through the dense shrubbery of a garden. the glory of it in the dimmed moonlight was beyond the power of mortal lips to say. an intoxicatingly sweet cool breath of dew and slumbering flowers transformed all things into unutterable blessings. the lilac grapes of the acacias sparkled in freshness, the june rose-tree looked like a small blooming heaven hung with red lamps, the white stars of the jasmine glowed palely, sadly, and poured out their perfume as if, in this one hour, to make a gift of their all. maya was dazed. she pressed the sprite's hand and looked at him. a light of bliss shone from his eyes. "who could have dreamed of this!" whispered the little bee. just then she saw something that sent a pang through her. "oh," she cried, "look! a star has fallen! it's straying about and can't find its way back to its place in the sky." "that's a firefly," said the flower-sprite, without a smile. now, in the midst of her amazement, maya realized for the first time why the sprite seemed so dear and kind. he never laughed at her ignorance; on the contrary, he helped her when she went wrong. "they are odd little creatures," the sprite continued. "they carry their own light about with them on warm summer nights and enliven the dark under the shrubbery where the moonlight doesn't shine through. so firefly can keep tryst with firefly even in the dark. later, when we come to the human beings, you will make the acquaintance of one of them." "why?" asked maya. "you'll soon see." by this time they had reached an arbor completely overgrown with jasmine and woodbine. they descended almost to the ground. from close by, within the arbor, came the sound of faint whispering. the flower-sprite beckoned to a firefly. "would you be good enough," he asked, "to give us a little light? we have to push through these dark leaves here; we want to get to the inside of the jasmine-arbor." "but your glow is much brighter than mine." "i think so, too," put in maya, more to hide her excitement than anything else. "i must wrap myself up in a leaf," explained the sprite, "else the human beings would see me and be frightened. we sprites appear to human beings only in their dreams." "i see," said the firefly. "i am at your service. i will do what i can.-won't the great beast with you hurt me?" the sprite shook his head no, and the firefly believed him. the sprite now took a leaf and wrapped himself in it; the gleam of his white garments was completely hidden. then he picked a little bluebell from the grass and put it on his shining head like a helmet. the only bit of him left exposed was his face, which was so small that surely no one would notice it. he asked the firefly to perch on his shoulder and with its wing to dim its lamp on the one side so as to keep the dazzle out of his eyes. "come now," he said, taking maya's hand. "we had better climb up right here." the little bee was thinking of something the sprite had said, and as they clambered up the vine, she asked: "do human beings dream when they sleep?" "not only then. they dream sometimes even when they are awake. they sit with their bodies a little limp, their heads bent a little forward, and their eyes searching the distance, as if to see into the very heavens. their dreams are always lovelier than life. that's why we appear to them in their dreams." the sprite now laid his tiny finger on his lips, bent aside a small blooming sprig of jasmine, and gently pushed maya ahead. "look down," he said softly, "you'll see what you have been wishing to see." the little bee looked and saw two human beings sitting on a bench in the shadows cast by the moonlight--a boy and a girl, the girl with her head leaning on the boy's shoulder, and the boy holding his arm around the girl as if to protect her. they sat in complete stillness, looking wide-eyed into the night. it was as quiet as if they had both gone to sleep. only from a distance came the chirping of the crickets, and slowly, slowly the moonlight drifted through the leaves. maya, transported out of herself, gazed into the girl's face. although it looked pale and wistful, it seemed to be transfused by the hidden radiance of a great happiness. above her large eyes lay golden hair, like the golden hair of the sprite, and upon it rested the heavenly sheen of the midsummer night. from her red lips, slightly parted, came a breath of rapture and melancholy, as if she wanted to offer everything that was hers to the man by her side for his happiness. and now she turned to him, pulled his head down, and whispered a magical something that brought a smile to his face such as maya thought no earthly being could wear. in his eyes gleamed a happiness and a vigor as if the whole big world were his to own, and suffering and misfortune were banished forever from the face of the earth. maya somehow had no desire to know what he said to the girl in reply. her heart quivered as though the ecstasy that emanated from the two human beings was also hers. "now i have seen the most glorious thing that my eyes will ever behold," she whispered to herself. "i know now that human beings are most beautiful when they are in love." how long maya stayed behind the leaves without stirring, lost in looking at the boy and girl, she did not know. when she turned round, the firefly's lamp had been extinguished, the sprite was gone. through the doorway of the arbor far across the country on the distant horizon showed a narrow streak of red. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xii alois, ladybird and poet the sun was risen high above the tops of the beech-trees when maya awoke in her woodland retreat. in the first moments, the moonlight, the chirping of the cricket, the midsummer night meadow, the lovely sprite, the boy and the girl in the arbor, all seemed the perishing fancies of a delicious dream. yet here it was almost midday; and she remembered slipping back into her chamber in the chill of dawn. so it had all been real, she _had_ spent the night with the flower-sprite and _had_ seen the two human beings, with their arms round each other, in the arbor of woodbine and jasmine. the sun outside was glowing hot on the leaves, a warm wind was stirring, and maya heard the mixed chorus of thousands of insects. ah, what these knew, and what _she_ knew! so proud was she of the great thing that had happened to her that she couldn't get out to the others fast enough; she thought they must read it in her very looks. but in the sunlight everything was the same as ever. nothing was changed; nothing recalled the blue moonlit night. the insects came, said how-do-you-do, and left; yonder, the meadow was a scene of bustling activity; the insects, birds and butterflies hopped, flew and flitted in the hot flickering air around the tall, gay midsummer flowers. sadness fell upon maya. there was no one in the world to share her joys and sorrows. she couldn't make up her mind to fly over and join the others in the meadow. no, she would go to the woods. the woods were serious and solemn. they suited her mood. how many mysteries and marvels lie hidden in the dim depths of the woods, no one suspects who hurries unobservant along the beaten tracks. you must bend aside the branches of the underbrush, or lean down and peep between the blackberry briars through the tall grasses and across the thick moss. under the shaded leaves of the plants, in holes in the ground and tree-trunks, in the decaying bark of stumps, in the curl and twist of the roots that coil on the ground like serpents, there is an active, multiform life by day and by night, full of joys and dangers, struggles and sorrows and pleasures. maya divined only a little of this as she flew low between the dark-brown trunks under the leafy roof of green. she followed a narrow trail in the grass, which made a clear path through thicket and clearing. now and then the sun seemed to disappear behind clouds, so deep was the shade under the high foliage and in the close shrubbery; but soon she was flying again through a bright shimmer of gold and green above the broad-leaved miniature forests of bracken and blackberry. after a long stretch the woods opened their columned and over-arched portals; before maya's eyes lay a wide field of grain in the golden sunshine. butterfly-weed flamed on the grassy borders. she alighted on the branch of a birch-tree at the edge of the field and gazed upon the sea of gold that spread out endlessly in the tranquillity of the placid day. it rippled softly under the shy summer breeze, which blew gently so as not to disturb the peace of the lovely world. under the birch-tree a few small brown butterflies, using the butterfly-weed for corners, were playing puss-in-the-corner, a favorite game with butterfly-children. maya watched them a while. "it must be lots of fun," she thought, "and the children in the hive might be taught to play it, too. the cells would do for corners.-but cassandra, i suppose, wouldn't permit it. she's so strict." ah, now maya felt sad again. because she had thought of home. and she was about to drift off into homesick revery when she heard someone beside her say: "good morning. you're a beast, it seems to me." maya turned with a start. "no," she said, "decidedly not." there sitting on her leaf was a little polished terra-cotta half-sphere with seven black dots on its cupola of a back, a minute black head and bright little eyes. peeping from under the dotted dome and supporting it as best they could maya detected thin legs fine as threads. in spite of his queer figure, she somehow took a great liking to the stout little fellow; he had distinct charm. "may i ask who you are? i myself am maya of the nation of bees." "do you mean to insult me? you have no reason to." "but why should i? i don't know you, really i don't." maya was quite upset. "it's easy to _say_ you don't know me.-well, i'll jog your memory. count." and the little rotundity began to wheel round slowly. "you mean i'm to count your dots?" "yes, if you please." "seven," said maya. "well?-well? you still don't know. all right then, i'll tell you. i'm called exactly according to what you counted. the scientific name of our family is septempunctata. _septem_ is latin for seven, _punctata_ is latin for dots, points, you see. our common name is ladybird, my own name is alois, i am a poet by profession. you know our common name, of course." maya, afraid of hurting alois' feelings, didn't dare to say no. "oh," said he, "i live by the sunshine, by the peace of the day, and by the love of mankind." "but don't you eat, too?" asked maya, quite astonished. "of course. plant-lice. don't you?" "no. that would be--that is...." "is what? is what?" "not--usual," said maya shyly. "of course, of course!" cried alois, trying to raise one shoulder, but not succeeding, on account of the firm set of his dome. "as a bourgeoise you would, of course, do only what is usual. we poets would not get very far that way.-have you time?" "why, yes," said maya. "then i'll recite you one of my poems. sit real still and close your eyes, so that nothing distracts your attention. the poem is called _man's finger_, and is about a personal experience. are you listening?" "yes, to every word." "well, then: "'since you did not do me wrong, that you found me, doesn't matter. you are rounded, you are long; up above you wear a flatter, pointed, polished sheath or platter which you move as swift as light, but below you're fastened tight!'" "well?" asked alois after a short pause. there were tears in his eyes and a quaver in his voice. "_man's finger_ gripped me very hard," replied maya in some embarrassment. she really knew much lovelier poems. "how do you find the form?" alois questioned with a smile of fine melancholy. he seemed to be overwhelmed by the effect he had produced. "long and round. you yourself said so in the poem." "i mean the artistic form, the form of my verse." "oh--oh, yes. yes, i thought it was very good." "it is, isn't it!" cried alois. "what you mean to say is that _man's finger_ may be ranked among the best poems you know of, and one must go way back in literature before one comes across anything like it. the prime requisite in art is that it should contain something new, which is what most poets forget. and bigness, too. don't you agree with me?" "certainly," said maya, "i think...." "the firm belief you express in my importance as a poet really overwhelms me. i thank you.-but i must be going now, for solitude is the poet's pride. farewell." "farewell," echoed maya, who really didn't know just what the little fellow had been after. "well," she thought, "_he_ knows. perhaps he's not full grown yet; he certainly isn't large." she looked after him, as he hastened up the branch. his wee legs were scarcely visible; he looked as though he were moving on low rollers. maya turned her gaze away, back to the golden field of grain over which the butterflies were playing. the field and the butterflies gave her ever so much more pleasure than the poetry of alois, ladybird and poet. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xiii the fortress how happily the day had begun and how miserably it was to end! before the horror swept upon her, maya had formed a very remarkable acquaintance. it was in the afternoon near a big old water-butt. she was sitting amid the scented elder blossoms, which lay mirrored in the placid dark surface of the butt, and a robin redbreast was warbling overhead, so sweetly and merrily that maya thought it was a shame, a crying shame that she, a bee, could not make friends with the charming songsters. the trouble was, they were too big and ate you up. she had hidden herself in the heart of the elder blossoms and was listening and blinking under the pointed darts of the sunlight, when she heard someone beside her sigh. turning round she saw--well, now it really _was_ the strangest of all the strange creatures she had ever met. it must have had at least a hundred legs along each side of its body--so she thought at first glance. it was about three times her size, and slim, low, and wingless. "for goodness sake! mercy on me!" maya was quite startled. "you must certainly be able to run!" the stranger gave her a pondering look. "i doubt it," he said. "i doubt it. there's room for improvement. i have too many legs. you see, before all my legs can be set in motion, too much time is lost. i didn't use to realize this, and often wished i had a few more legs. but god's will be done.-who are you?" maya introduced herself. the other one nodded and moved some of his legs. "i am thomas of the family of millepeds. we are an old race, and we arouse admiration and astonishment in all parts of the globe. no other animals can boast anything like our number of legs. eight is _their_ limit, so far as i know." "you are tremendously interesting. and your color is so queer. have you got a family?" "why, no! why should i? what good would a family do me? we millepeds crawl out of our eggs; that's all. if _we_ can't stand on our own feet, who should?" "of course, of course," maya observed thoughtfully. "but have you no relations?" "no, dear child. i earn my living, and doubt. i doubt." "oh! _what_ do you doubt?" "i was born doubting. i must doubt." maya stared at him in wide-eyed bewilderment. what did he mean, what could he possibly mean? she couldn't for the life of her make out, but she did not want to pry too curiously into his private affairs. "for one thing," said thomas after a pause, "for one thing i doubt whether you have chosen a good place to rest in. don't you know what's over there in the big willow?" "no." "you see! i doubted right away if you knew. the city of the hornets is over there." maya turned deathly white and nearly fell off the elder blossoms. in a voice shaking with fright, she asked just where the city was. "do you see that old nesting-box for starlings, there in the shrubbery near the trunk of the willow-tree? it's so poorly placed that i doubted from the first whether starlings would ever move in. if a bird-house isn't set with its door facing the sunrise, every decent bird will think twice before taking possession. well, the hornets have entrenched themselves in it. it's the biggest hornets' fortress in the country. you as a bee certainly ought to know of the place. why, the hornets are brigands who lie in wait for you bees. so, at least, i have observed." maya scarcely heard what he was saying. there, showing clear against the green, she saw the brown walls of the fortress. she almost stopped breathing. "i must fly away," she cried. too late! behind her sounded a loud, mean laugh. at the same moment the little bee felt herself caught by the neck, so violently that she thought her joints were broken. it was a laugh she would never forget, like a vile taunt out of hellish darkness. mingling with it was another gruesome sound, the awful clanking of armor. thomas let go with all his legs at once and tumbled head over heels through the branches into the water-butt. "i doubt if you get away alive," he called back. but the poor little bee no longer heard. she couldn't see her assailant, her neck was caught in too firm a grip, but a gilt-sheathed arm passed before her eyes, and a huge head with dreadful pincers suddenly thrust itself above her face. she took it at first to belong to a gigantic wasp, but then realized that she had fallen into the clutches of a hornet. the black-and-yellow striped monster was surely four times her size. maya lost sight, hearing, speech; every nerve in her body went faint. at length her voice came back, and she screamed for help. "never mind, girlie," said the hornet in a honey-sweet tone that was sickening. "never mind. it'll last until it's over." he smiled a baleful smile. "let go!" cried maya. "let me go! or i'll sting you in your heart." "in my heart right away? very brave. but there's time for that later." maya went into a fury. summoning all her strength, she twisted herself around, uttered her shrill battle-cry, and directed her sting against the middle of the hornet's breast. to her amazement and horror, the sting, instead of piercing his breast, swerved on the surface. the brigand's armor was impervious. wrath gleamed in his eyes. "i could bite your head off, little one, to punish you for your impudence. and i would, too, i would indeed, but for our queen. she prefers fresh bees to dead carcasses. so a good soldier saves a juicy morsel like you to bring to her alive." the hornet, with maya still in his grip, rose into the air and made directly for the fortress. "this is too awful," thought the poor little bee. "no one can stand this." she fainted. when she came to her senses, she found herself in half darkness, in a sultry dusk permeated by a horrid, pungent smell. slowly everything came back to her. a great paralyzing sadness settled in her heart. she wanted to cry: the tears refused to come. "i haven't been eaten up yet, but i may be, any moment," she thought in a tremble. through the walls of her prison she caught the distinct sound of voices, and soon she noticed that a little light filtered through a narrow chink. the hornets make their walls, not of wax like the bees, but of a dry mass resembling porous grey paper. by the one thread of light she managed bit by bit to make out her surroundings. horror of horrors! maya was almost congealed with fright: the floor was strewn with the bodies of dead insects. at her very feet lay a little rose-beetle turned over on its back; to one side was the skeleton of a large locust broken in two, and everywhere were the remains of slaughtered bees, their wings and legs and sheaths. "oh, oh, to think this had to happen to me," whimpered little maya. she did not dare to stir the fraction of an inch and pressed herself shivering into the farthest corner of this chamber of horrors. again she heard voices on the other side of the wall. impelled by mortal fear, she crept up to the chink and peeped through. what she saw was a vast hall crowded with hornets and magnificently illuminated by a number of captive glow-worms. enthroned in their midst sat the queen, who seemed to be holding an important council. maya caught every word that was said. if those glittering monsters had not inspired her with such unspeakable horror, she would have gone into raptures over their strength and magnificence. it was the first time she had had a good view of any of the race of brigands. tigers they looked like, superb tigers of the insect world, with their tawny black-barred bodies. a shiver of awe ran through the little bee. a sergeant-at-arms went about the walls of the hall ordering the glow-worms to give all the light they could; they must strain themselves to the utmost. he muttered his commands in a low voice, so as not to interrupt the deliberations, and thrust at them with a long spear, hissing as he did so: "light up, or i'll eat you!" terrible the things that were done in the fortress of the hornets! then maya heard the queen say: "very well, we shall abide by the arrangements we have made. to-morrow, one hour before dawn, the warriors will assemble and sally forth to the attack on the city of the bees in the castle park. the hive is to be plundered and as many prisoners taken as possible. he who captures queen helen viii and brings her to me alive will be dubbed a knight. go forth and be brave and victorious and bring back rich booty.-the meeting is herewith adjourned. sleep well, my warriors. i bid you good-night." the queen-hornet rose from her throne and left the hall accompanied by her body-guard. maya nearly cried out loud. "my country!" she sobbed, "my bees, my dear, dear bees!" she pressed her hands to her mouth to keep herself from screaming. she was in the depths of despair. "oh, would that i had died before i heard this. no one will warn my people. they will be attacked in their sleep and massacred. o god, perform a miracle, help me, help me and my people. our need is great!" in the hall the glow-worms were put out and devoured. gradually the fortress was wrapped in a hush. maya seemed to have been forgotten. a faint twilight crept into her cell, and she thought she caught the strumming of the crickets' night song outside.-was anything more horrible than this dungeon with its carcasses strewn on the ground! [illustration] [illustration] chapter xiv the sentinel soon, however, the little bee's despair yielded to a definite resolve. it was as though she once more called to mind that she was a bee. "here i am weeping and wailing," she thought, "as if i had no brains and as if i were a weakling. oh, i'm not much of an honor to my people and my queen. they are in danger. i am doomed anyhow. so since death is certain one way or another, i may as well be proud and brave and do everything i can to try to save them." it was as though maya had completely forgotten the long time that had passed since she left her home. more strongly than ever she felt herself one of her people; and the great responsibility that suddenly devolved upon her, through the knowledge of the hornets' plot, filled her with fine courage and determination. "if my people are to be vanquished and killed, i want to be killed, too. but first i must do everything in my power to save them." "long live my queen!" she cried. "quiet in there!" clanged harshly from the outside. ugh, what an awful voice!-the watchman making his rounds.-then it was already late in the night. as soon as the watchman's footsteps had died away, maya began to widen the chink through which she had peeped into the hall. it was easy to bite away the brittle stuff of the partition, though it took some time before the opening was large enough to admit her body. at length, in the full knowledge that discovery would cost her her life, she squeezed through into the hall. from remote depths of the fortress echoed the sound of loud snoring. the hall lay in a subdued blue light that found its way in through the distant entrance. "the moonlight!" maya said to herself. she began to creep cautiously toward the exit, cowering close in the deep shadows of the walls, until she reached the high, narrow passageway that led from the hall to the opening through which the light shone. she heaved a deep sigh. far, far away glimmered a star. "liberty!" she thought. the passageway was quite bright. softly, stepping oh so very softly, maya crept on. the portal came nearer and nearer. "if i fly now," she thought, "i'll be out in one dash." her heart pounded as if ready to burst. but there in the shadow of the doorway stood a sentinel leaning against a column. maya stood still, rooted to the spot. vanished all her hopes. gone the chance of escape. there was no getting by that formidable figure. what was she to do? best go back where she had come from. but the sight of the giant in the doorway held her in a spell. he seemed to be lost in revery. he stood gazing out upon the moon-washed landscape, his head tilted slightly forward, his chin propped on his hand. how his golden cuirass gleamed in the moonlight! something in the way he stood there stirred the little bee's emotions. "he looks so sad," she thought. "how handsome he is, how superbly he holds himself, how proudly his armor shines! he never removes it, neither by day nor by night. he is always ready to rob and fight and die...." little maya quite forgot that this man was her enemy. ah, how often the same thing had happened to her--that the goodness of her heart and her delight in beauty made her lose all sense of danger. a golden dart of light shot from the bandit's helmet. he must have turned his head. "my god," whispered maya, "this is the end of me!" but the sentinel said quietly: "just come here, child." "what!" cried maya. "you saw me?" "all the time, child. you bit a hole through the wall, then you crept along--crept along--tucking yourself very neatly into the dark places--until you reached the spot where you're standing. then you saw me, and you lost heart. am i right?" "yes," said maya, "quite right." her whole body shook with terror. the sentinel, then, had seen her the entire time. she remembered having heard how keen were the senses of these clever freebooters. "what are you doing here?" he asked good-humoredly. maya still thought he looked sad. his mind seemed to be far away and not to concern itself with what was of such moment to her. "i'd like to get out," she answered. "and i'm not afraid. i was just startled. you looked so strong and handsome, and your armor shone so. now i'll fight you." the sentinel, slightly astonished, leaned forward, and looked at maya and smiled. it was not an ugly smile, and maya experienced an entirely new feeling: the young warrior's smile seemed to exercise a mysterious power over her heart. "no, little one," he said almost tenderly, "you and i won't fight. you bees belong to a powerful nation, but man for man we hornets are stronger. to do single battle with a bee would be beneath our dignity. if you like you may stay here a little while and chat. but only a little while. soon i'll have to wake the soldiers up; then, back to your cell you must go." how curious! the hornet's lofty friendliness disarmed maya more than anger or hate could have done. the feeling with which he inspired her was almost admiration. with great sad eyes she looked up at her enemy, and constrained, as always, to follow the impulses of her heart, she said: "i have always heard bad things about hornets. but you are not bad. i can't believe you're bad." the warrior looked at maya. "there are good people and bad people everywhere," he said, gravely. "but you mustn't forget we are your enemies, and shall always remain your enemies." "must an enemy always be bad?" asked maya. "before, when you were looking out into the moonlight, i forgot that you were hard and dangerous. you seemed sad, and i have always thought that people who were sad couldn't possibly be wicked." the sentinel said nothing, and maya continued more boldly: "you are powerful. if you want to, you can put me back in my cell, and i'll have to die. but you can also set me free--if you want to." at this the warrior drew himself up. his armor clanked, and the arm he raised shone in the moonlight. but the moonlight was turning dimmer in the passageway. was dawn coming already? "you are right," he said. "i can. my people and my queen have entrusted me with this power. my orders are that no bee who has set foot in this fortress shall leave it alive. i shall keep faith with my people." after a pause he added softly as if to himself: "i have learned by bitter experience how faithlessness can hurt--when loveydear forsook me...." little maya was overcome. she did not know what to say. ah, the same sentiments moved her, too--love of her own kind, loyalty to her people. nothing to be done here but to use force or strategy. each did his duty, and yet each remained an enemy to the other. but hadn't the sentinel mentioned a name? hadn't he said something about someone's having been unfaithful to him? loveydear--why, she knew loveydear--the beautiful dragon-fly who lived at the lakeside among the waterlilies. maya quivered with excitement. here, perhaps, was her salvation. but she wasn't quite sure how much good her knowledge would be to her. so she said prudently: "who is loveydear, if i may ask?" "never mind, little one. she's not your affair, and she's lost to me forever. i shall never find her again." "i know miss loveydear." maya forced herself to put the utmost indifference into her tone. "she belongs to the family of dragon-flies and she's the loveliest lady of all." a tremendous change came over the warrior. he seemed to have forgotten where he was. he leapt over to maya's sides as if blown by a violent gust. "what! you know loveydear? tell me where she is. tell me, right away." "no." maya spoke quietly and firmly; she glowed with secret delight. "i'll bite your head off if you don't tell." the warrior drew dangerously close. "it will be bitten off anyhow. go ahead. i shan't betray the lovely dragon-fly. she's a close friend of mine.... you want to imprison her." the warrior breathed hard. in the gathering dawn maya could see that his forehead was pale and his eyes tragic with the inner struggle he was waging. "good god!" he said wildly. "it's time to rouse the soldiers.-no, no, little bee, i don't want to harm loveydear. i love her, more dearly than my life. tell me where i shall find her again." maya was clever. she purposely hesitated before she said: "but i love my life." "if you tell me where loveydear lives"--maya could see that the sentinel spoke with difficulty and was trembling all over-"i'll set you free. you can fly wherever you want." "will you keep your word?" "my word of honor as a brigand," said the sentinel proudly. maya could scarcely speak. but, if she was to be in time to warn her people of the attack, every moment counted. her heart exulted. "very well," she said, "i believe you. listen, then. do you know the ancient linden-trees near the castle? beyond them lies one meadow after another, and finally comes a big lake. in a cove at the south end where the brook empties into the lake the waterlilies lie spread out on the water in the sunlight. near them, in the rushes, is where loveydear lives. you'll find her there every day at noon when the sun is high in the heavens." the warrior had pressed both hands to his pale brow. he seemed to be having a desperate struggle with himself. "you're telling the truth," he said softly and groaned, whether from joy or pain it was impossible to tell. "she told me she wanted to go where there were floating white flowers. those must be the flowers you speak of. fly away, then. i thank you." and actually he stepped aside from the entrance. day was breaking. "a brigand keeps his word," he said. not knowing that maya had overheard the deliberations in the council chamber, he told himself that one small bee more or less made little difference. weren't there hundreds of others? "good-by," cried maya, breathless with haste, and flew off without a word of thanks. as a matter of fact, there was no time to spare. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xv the warning little maya summoned every bit of strength and will power she had left. like a bullet shot from the muzzle of a gun (bees can fly faster than most insects), she darted through the purpling dawn in a lightning beeline for the woods, where she knew she would be safe for the moment and could hide herself away should the hornet regret having let her go and follow in pursuit. gossamer veils hung everywhere over the level country, big drops fell from the trees on the dry leaves carpeting the ground, and the cold in the woods threatened to paralyze little maya's wings. no ray of the dawn had as yet found its way between the trees. the air was as hushed as if the sun had forgotten the earth, and all creatures had laid themselves to eternal rest. maya, therefore, flew high up in the air. only one thing mattered--to get back as quickly as strength and wits permitted to her hive, her people, her endangered home. she must warn her people. they must prepare against the attack which the terrible brigands had planned for that very morning. oh, if only the nation of bees had the chance to arm and make ready its defenses, it was well able to cope with its stronger opponents. but a surprise assault at rising time! what if the queen and the soldiers were still asleep? the success of the hornets would then be assured. they would take prisoners and give no quarter. the butchery would be horrible. thinking of the strength and energy of her people, their readiness to meet death, their devotion to their queen, the little bee felt a great wrath against their enemies the hornets. her beloved people! no sacrifice was too great for them. little maya's heart swelled with the ecstasy of self-sacrifice and the dauntless courage of enthusiasm. it was not easy for her to find her way over the woods. long before she had ceased to observe landmarks as did the other bees, who had great distances to come back with their loads of nectar. she felt she had never flown as high before, the cold hurt, and she could scarcely distinguish the objects below. "what can i go by?" she thought. "no one thing stands out. i shan't be able to reach my people and help them. oh, oh! and here i had a chance to atone for my desertion. what shall i do? what shall i do?"-suddenly some secret force steered her in a certain direction. "_what_ is pushing and pulling me? it must be homesickness guiding me back to my country." she gave herself up to the instinct and flew swiftly on. soon, in the distance, looking like grey domes in the dim light of the dawn, showed the mighty lindens of the castle park. she exclaimed with delight. she knew where she was. she dropped closer to the earth. in the meadows on one side hung the luminous wisps of fog, thicker here than in the woods. she thought of the flower-sprites who cheerfully died their early death inside the floating veils. that inspired her anew with confidence. her anxiety disappeared. let her people spurn her from the kingdom, let the queen punish her for desertion, if only the bees were spared this dreadful calamity of the hornets' invasion. close to the long stone wall shone the silver-fir that shielded the bee-city against the west wind. and there--she could see them distinctly now--were the red, blue, and green portals of her homeland. the stormy pounding of her heart nearly robbed her of her breath. but on she flew toward the red entrance which led to her people and her queen. on the flying-board, two sentinels blocked the entrance and laid hands upon her. maya was too breathless to utter a syllable, and the sentinels threatened to kill her. for a bee to force its way into a strange city without the queen's consent is a capital offense. "stand back!" cried one sentinel, thrusting her roughly away. "what's the matter with you! if you don't leave this instant, you'll die.-did you ever!" he turned to the other sentinel. "have you ever seen the like, and before daytime too?" now maya pronounced the password by which all the bees knew one another. the sentinels instantly released her. "what!" they cried. "you are one of us, and we don't know you?" "let me get to the queen," groaned the little bee. "right away, quick! we are in terrible danger." the sentinels still hesitated. they couldn't grasp the situation. "the queen may not be awakened before sunrise," said the one. "then," maya screamed, her voice rising to a passionate yell such as the sentinels had probably never heard from a bee before, "then the queen will never wake up alive. death is following at my heels. take me to the queen! take me to the queen, i say!" her voice was so wild and wrathful that the sentinels were frightened, and obeyed. the three hurried together through the warm, well-known streets and corridors. maya recognized everything, and for all her excitement and the tremendous need for haste, her heart quivered with sweet melancholy at the sight of the dear familiar scenes. "i am at home," she stammered with pale lips. in the queen's reception room she almost broke down. one of the sentinels supported her while the other hurried with the unusual message into the private chambers. both of them now realized that something momentous was taking place, and the messenger ran as fast as his legs would carry him. the first wax-generators were already up. here and there a little head thrust itself out curiously from the openings. the news of the incident traveled quickly. two officers emerged from the private chambers. maya recognized them instantly. in solemn silence, without a word to her, they took their posts, one on each side of the doorway: the queen would soon appear. she came without her court, attended only by her aide and two ladies-in-waiting. she hurried straight over to maya. when she saw what a state the child was in, the severe expression on her face relaxed a little. "you have come with an important message? who are you?" maya could not speak at once. finally she managed to frame two words: "the hornets!" the queen turned pale. but her composure was unshaken, and maya was somewhat calmed. "almighty queen!" she cried. "forgive me for not respecting the duties i owe your majesty. later i will tell you everything i have done. i repent. with my whole heart i repent.-just a little while ago, as by a miracle, i escaped from the fortress of the hornets, and the last i heard was that they were planning to attack and plunder our kingdom at dawn." the wild dismay that the little bee's words produced was indescribable. the ladies-in-waiting set up a loud wail, the officers at the door turned pale and made as if to dash off and sound the alarm, the aide said: "good god!" and wheeled completely round, because he wanted to see on all sides at once. as for the queen, it was really extraordinary to see with what composure, what resourcefulness she received the dreadful news. she drew herself up, and there was something in her attitude that both intimidated and inspired endless confidence. little maya was awed. never, she felt, had she witnessed anything so superior. it was like a great, magnificent event in itself. the queen beckoned the officers to her side and uttered a few rapid sentences aloud. at the end maya heard: "i give you one minute for the execution of my orders. a fraction of a second longer, and it will cost you your heads." but the officers scarcely looked as if they needed this incentive. in less time than it takes to tell they were gone. their instant readiness was a joy to behold. "o my queen!" said maya. the queen inclined her head to the little bee, who once again for a brief moment saw her monarch's countenance beam upon her gently, lovingly. "you have our thanks," she said. "you have saved us. no matter what your previous conduct may have been, you have made up for it a thousandfold.-but go, rest now, little girl, you look very miserable, and your hands are trembling." "i should like to die for you," maya stammered, quivering. "don't worry about us," replied the queen. "among the thousands inhabiting this city there is not one who would hesitate a moment to sacrifice his life for me and for the welfare of the country. you can go to sleep peacefully." she bent over and kissed the little bee on her forehead. then she beckoned to the ladies-in-waiting and bade them see to maya's rest and comfort. maya, stirred to the depths of her being, allowed herself to be led away. after this, life had nothing lovelier to offer. as in a dream she heard the loud, clear signals in the distance, saw the high dignitaries of state assemble around the royal chambers, heard a dull, far-echoing drone that shook the hive from roof to foundation. "the soldiers! our soldiers!" whispered the ladies-in-waiting at her side. the last thing maya heard in the little room where her companions put her to bed was the tramp of soldiers marching past her door and commands shouted in a blithe, resolute, ringing voice. into her dreams, echoing as from a great distance, she carried the ancient song of the soldier-bees: sunlight, sunlight, golden sheen, by your glow our lives are lighted; bless our labors, bless our queen, let us always be united. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xvi the battle the kingdom of the bees was in a whirl of excitement. not even in the days of the revolution had the turmoil been so great. the hive rumbled and roared. every bee was fired by a holy wrath, a burning ardor to meet and fight the ancient enemy to the very last gasp. yet there was no disorder or confusion. marvelous the speed with which the regiments were mobilized, marvelous the way each soldier knew his duty and fell into his right place and took up his right work. it was high time. at the queen's call for volunteers to defend the entrance, a number of bees offered themselves, and of these several had been sent out to see if the enemy was approaching. two had now returned--whizzing dots--and reported that the hornets were drawing near. an awesome hush of expectancy fell upon the hive. soldiers in three closed ranks stood lined up at the entrance, proud, pale, solemn, composed. no one spoke. the silence of death prevailed, except for the low commands of the officers drawing up the reserves in the rear. the hive seemed to be fast asleep. the only stir came from the doorway where about a dozen wax-generators were at work in feverish silence executing their orders to narrow the entrance with wax. as by a miracle, two thick partitions of wax had already gone up, which even the strongest hornets could not batter down without great loss of time. the hole had been reduced by almost half. the queen took up an elevated position inside the hive from which she was able to survey the battle. her aides flew scurrying hither and thither. the third messenger returned. he sank down exhausted at the queen's feet. "i am the last who will return," he shouted with all the strength he had left. "the others have been killed." "where are the hornets?" asked the queen. "at the lindens!-listen, listen," he stammered in mortal terror, "the air hums with the wings of the giants." no sound was heard. it must have been the poor fellow's terrified imagination, he must have thought he was still being pursued. "how many are there?" asked the queen sternly. "answer in a low voice." "i counted forty." although the queen was startled by the enemy's numbers, she gave no sign of shock. in a ringing, confident voice that all could hear, she said: "not one of them will see his home again." her words, which seemed to sound the enemy's doom, had instant effect. men and officers alike felt their courage rise. but when in the quiet of the morning an ominous whirring was heard outside the hive, first softly, then louder and louder, and the entrance darkened, and the whispering voices of the hornets, the most frightful robbers and murderers in the insect world, penetrated into the hive, then the faces of the valiant little bees turned pale as if washed over by a drab light falling upon their ranks. they gazed at one another with eyes in which death sat waiting, and those who were ranged at the entrance knew full well that one moment more and all would be over with them. the queen's controlled voice came clear and tranquil from her place on high: "let the robbers enter one by one until i give orders to attack. then those at the front throw themselves upon the invaders a hundred at a time, and the ranks behind cover the entrance. in that way we shall divide up the enemy's forces. remember, you at the front, upon your strength and endurance and bravery depends the fate of the whole state. have no fear; in the dusk the enemy will not see right away how well prepared we are, and he will enter unsuspecting...." she broke off. there, thrust through the doorway, was the head of the first brigand. the feelers played about, groping, cautious, the pincers opened and closed. it was a blood-curdling sight. slowly the huge black-and-gold striped body with its strong wings crept in after the head. the light falling in from the outside drew gleams from the warrior's cuirass. something like a quiver went through the ranks of the bees, but the silence remained unbroken. the hornet withdrew quietly. outside he could be heard announcing: "they're fast asleep. but the entrance is half walled up and there are no sentinels. i do not know whether to take this as a good or a bad sign." "a good sign!" rang out. "forward!" at that two giants leapt in through the entrance side by side; after them, soundlessly, pressed a throng of striped, armed, gleaming warriors, awful to behold. eight made their way into the hive. still no orders to attack from the queen. was she dumb with horror, had her voice failed her? and the brigands, did they not see in the shadow, to right and left, the soldiers drawn up in close, glittering ranks ready for mortal combat...? now at last came the order from on high: "in the name of eternal right, in the name of your queen, to the defense of the realm!" at that a droning roar went up. never before had the city been shaken by such a battle-cry. it threatened to burst the hive in two. where, an instant before, the hornets had been visible singly, there were now buzzing heaps, thick, dark, rolling knots. a young officer had scarcely awaited the end of the queen's words. he wanted to be the first to attack. he was the first to die. he had stood for some time ready to leap all a-quiver with eagerness for battle, and at the first sound of the order he rushed forward right into the clutches of the foremost brigand. his delicately fine-pointed sting found its way between the head and upper breast-ring of his opponent; he heard the hornet give a yell of rage, saw him double up into a glittering, gold-black ball. then the bandit's fearful sting leapt out and pierced between the young officer's breast-rings right into his heart; and dying the bee felt himself and his mortally wounded enemy sink under a cloud of storming bees. his brave death inspired them all with the wild rapture that comes from utter willingness to die for a noble cause. fearful was their attack upon the invaders. the hornets were sore pressed. but the hornets are an old race of robbers, trained to warfare. pillage and murder have long been their gruesome profession. though the initial assault of the bees had confused and divided them, yet the damage was not so great as might have seemed at first. for the bees' stings did not penetrate their breastplates, and their strength and gigantic size gave them an advantage of which they were well aware. their sharp, buzzing battle-cry rose high above the battle-cry of the bees. it is a sound that fills all creatures with horror, even human beings, who dread this danger signal, and are careful not to enter into conflict with hornets unprotected. those of the assailants who had already penetrated into the hive quickly realized that they must make their way still deeper inward if they were not to block up the entrance to their comrades outside. and so the struggling knots rolled farther and farther down the dark streets and corridors. how right the queen had been in her tactics! no sooner was a bit of space at the entrance cleared than the ranks in the rear leapt forward to its defense. it was an old strategy, and a dreadful one for the enemy. when a hornet at the entrance gave signs of exhaustion, the bees shammed the same, and let him crawl in; but the instant the one behind showed his head a great swarm of fresh soldiers dashed up to defend the apparently unprotected entrance, while the invader who had gone on ahead would find himself, already wearied, suddenly confronted by glittering ranks of soldier-bees who had not yet stirred a finger in battle. generally he succumbed to their superior numbers at the very first attack. now the groans of the wounded and the shrieks of the dying mingled in wild agony with the fierce battle-cries. the hornets' stings worked fearful havoc among the bees. the rolling knots left tracks of dead bodies in their wake. the hornets, whose retreat had been cut off, realizing that they would never see the light of day again, fought the fight of despair. yet, slowly, one by one, they succumbed. there was one great thing against them. though their strength was inexhaustible, not so the poison of their sting. after a time their sting lost its virulence, and the wounded bees, knowing they'd recover, fought in the consciousness of certain victory. to this was added the grief of the bees for their dead; it gave them the power of divine wrath. gradually the din subsided. the loud calls of the hornets on the outside met with no response from the invaders within. "they are all dead," said the leader of the hornets grimly, and summoned the combatants back from the entrance. their numbers had melted down to half. "we have been betrayed," said the leader. "the bees were prepared." the hornets were assembled on the silver-fir. it had grown lighter, and the red of dawn tinged the tops of the linden-trees. the birds began to sing. the dew fell. pale and quivering with rage of battle, the warriors stood around their leader, who was waging an awful inward struggle. should he yield to prudence or to his lust for pillage? the former prevailed. there was no use anyway. his whole tribe was in danger of destruction. grudgingly, in a shudder of thwarted ambition, he determined to send a messenger to the bees to sue for the return of the prisoners. he chose his cleverest officer and called upon him by name. a depressed silence instead of an answer. the officer was among those who had been cut off. the leader, overcome now by mortal dread lest those who had entered would never return, quickly chose another officer. the raging and roaring in the beehive could be heard in the distance. "be quick!" he cried, laying the white petal of a jasmine in the messenger's hand, "or the human beings will soon come and we shall be lost. tell the bees we will go away and leave them in peace forever if they will deliver up the prisoners." the messenger rushed off. at the entrance he waved his white signal and alighted on the flying-board. the queen-bee was immediately informed that an emissary was outside who wanted to make terms, and she sent her aide to parley with him. when he returned with his report she sent back this reply: "we will deliver up the dead if you want to take them away. there are no prisoners. all of your people who invaded our territory are dead. your promise never to return we do not believe. you may come again, whenever you wish. you will fare no better than you did to-day. and if you want to go on with the battle we are ready to fight to the last bee." the leader of the hornets turned pale when this message was delivered to him. he clenched his fists, he fought with himself. only too gladly would he have yielded to the wishes of his warriors who clamored for revenge. reason prevailed. "we _will_ come again," he hissed. "how could this thing have happened to us? are we not a more powerful people than the bees? every campaign of mine so far has been successful and has only added to our glory. how can i face the queen after this defeat?" in a quiver of fury he cried again: "how could this thing have happened to us? there must be treachery somewhere." an older hornet known as a friend of the queen's here took up the word. "it is true, we _are_ a more powerful race, but the bees are a unified nation, and unflinchingly loyal to their people and their state. that is a great source of strength; it makes them irresistible. not one of them would turn traitor; each without thought of self serves the weal of all." the leader scarcely listened. "my day is coming," he hissed. "what care i for the wisdom of these bourgeois! i am a brigand and will die a brigand.-but to keep up the battle now would be madness. what good would it do us if we destroyed the whole hive, and none of us came back alive?" turning to the messenger, he cried: "give us back our dead. we will withdraw." a dead silence fell. the messenger flew off. "we must be prepared for a fresh piece of trickery, though i don't think the hornets are in a fighting mood at present," said the queen bee when she heard the hornets' decision. she gave orders for the rear-guard, wax-generators, and honey-carriers to remove the dead from the city while two fresh regiments guarded the entrance. her orders were carried out. over mountains of the dead one brigand's body after another was dragged to the entrance and thrown to the ground outside. in gloomy silence the troop of hornets waited on the silver-fir and saw the corpses of their fallen warriors drop one by one to the earth. the sun arose upon a scene of endless desolation. twenty-one slain, who had died a glorious death, made a heap in the grass under the city of the bees. not a drop of honey, not a single prisoner had been taken by the enemy. the hornets picked up their dead and flew away, the battle was over, the bees had conquered. but at what a cost! everywhere lay fallen bodies, in the streets and corridors, in the dim places before the brooders and honey-cupboards. sad was the work in the hive on that lovely morning of summer sunshine and scented blossoms. the dead had to be disposed of, the wounded had to be bandaged and nursed. but before the hour of noon had struck, the regular tasks were begun; for the bees neither celebrated their victory nor spent time mourning their dead. each bee carried his pride and his grief locked quietly in his breast and went about his work. [illustration] [illustration] chapter xvii the queen's friend the noise of battle awoke maya out of a brief sleep. she jumped up and straightway wanted to dash out to help defend the city, but soon realized that she was too weak to be of any help. a group of struggling combatants came rolling toward her. one of them was a strong young hornet, an officer, maya judged by his badge, who was defending himself unaided against an overwhelming number of bees. the struggling knot drew nearer. to maya's horror it left one dead bee after another in its wake. but numbers finally told against the giant: whole clusters of bees, ready to die rather than let go, hung to his arms and legs and feelers, and their stings were beginning to pierce between the rings of his breast. maya saw him drop down exhausted. without cry or complaint, fighting to the very end, neither suing for mercy nor reviling his opponents, he went down to his brigand's death. the bees left him and hurried back to the entrance to throw themselves anew into the conflict. maya's heart was beating stormily. she slipped over to the hornet. he lay curled up in the twilight, still breathing. she counted about twenty stings, most of them in the fore part of his body, leaving his golden armor quite whole and sound. seeing he was still alive, she hurried away to bring water and honey--to cheer the dying man, she thought. but he shook his head and waived her off with his hand. "i _take_ what i want," he said proudly. "i don't care for gifts." "oh," said maya, "i only thought you might be thirsty." the young officer smiled at her, then said, not sadly, but with a strange earnestness: "i must die." the little bee could not reply. for the first time in her life she seemed to comprehend what it meant to have to die; and death seemed much closer when someone else was about to die than when her own life had been imperiled in the spider's web. "if there were only _some_thing i could do," she said, and burst into tears. the dying hornet made no answer. he opened his eyes once again and heaved a deep breath--for the last time. half an hour later he was thrown down into the grass outside the hive along with his dead comrades. little maya never forgot what she had learned from this brief farewell. she knew now for all time that her enemies were beings like herself, loving life as she did and having to die a hard death without succor. she thought of the flower sprite who had told her of his rebirth when nature sent forth her blossoms again in the spring; and she longed to know whether the other creatures would, like the sprite, come back to the light of life after they had died the death of the earth. "i will believe it is so," she said softly. a messenger now came and summoned her to the queen's presence. she found the full court assembled in the royal reception room. her legs shook, she scarcely dared to raise her eyes before her monarch and so many dignitaries. a number of the officers of the queen's staff were missing, and the gathering was unusually solemn. yet a gleam of exaltation seemed to light every brow--as if the consciousness of triumph and new glory won encircled everyone like an invisible halo. the queen arose, made her way unattended through the assemblage, went up to little maya and took her in her arms. this maya had never expected, not this. the measure of her joy was full to overflowing; she broke down and wept. the bees were deeply stirred. there was not one among them who did not share maya's happiness, who was not deeply grateful for the little bee's valiant deed. maya now had to tell her whole story. everybody wanted to know how she had learned of the hornets' plans and how she had succeeded in breaking out of the awful prison from which no bee had ever before escaped. so maya told of all the remarkable things she had seen and heard, of miss loveydear with the glittering wings, of the grasshopper, of thekla the spider, of puck, and of how splendidly bobbie had come to her rescue. when she told of the sprite and the human beings, it was so quiet in the hall that you could hear the generators in the back of the hive kneading the wax. "ah," said the queen, "who'd have thought the sprites were so lovely?" she smiled to herself with a look of melancholy and longing, as people will who long for beauty. and all the dignitaries smiled the same smile. "how did the song of the sprite go?" she asked. "say it again. i'd like to learn it by heart." maya repeated the song of the sprite. my soul is that which breathes anew from all of loveliness and grace; and as it flows from god's own face, it flows from his creations, too. there was silence for a while. the only sound was a restrained sobbing in the back of the hall--probably someone thinking of a friend who had been killed. maya went on with her story. when she came to the hornets, the bees' eyes darkened and widened. each imagined himself in the situation in which one of their number had been, and quivered, and drew a deep breath. "awful," said the queen, "perfectly awful...." the dignitaries murmured something to the same effect. "and so," maya ended, "i reached home. and i sue for your majesty's pardon--a thousand times." oh, no one bore the little bee any ill will for having run away from the hive. you may imagine they did not. the queen put her arm round maya's neck. "you did not forget your home and your people," she said kindly. "in your heart you were loyal. so we will be loyal to you. henceforth you shall stay by my side and help me conduct the affairs of state. in that way, i think, your experiences, all the things you have learned, will be made to serve the greatest good of your people and your country." cheers of approval greeted the queen's words. so ends the story of the adventures of maya the bee. they say her work contributed greatly to the good and welfare of the nation, and she came to be highly respected and loved by her people. sometimes on quiet evenings she went for a brief hour's conversation to cassandra's peaceful little room, where the ancient dame lived now on pension honey. there maya told the young bees, who listened to her eagerly, stories of the adventures which we have lived through with her. [illustration] * * * * * errors and inconsistencies every now and then, in the suddennest way [spelling unchanged] the tree would turn sear and die [spelling unchanged] the silvery chirp that filled the whole moonlit world with melody. [unneeded close quote at end of paragraph] "else the human beings would see me and be frightened ..." [open quote missing] i am thomas of the family of millepeds [spelling unchanged] "i'll set you free. you can fly wherever you want." [open quote missing] at work in feverish silence executing their orders [excuting] file was produced from images produced by core historical literature in agriculture (chla), cornell university) {transcriber's note the spelling in the original is sometimes idiosyncratic. it has not been changed, but a few obvious errors have been corrected. the corrections are listed at the end of this etext.} {illustration: the figures that are referred to in the text} new observations on the natural history of bees, by francis huber. translated from the original. * * * * * edinburgh: printed for john anderson, and sold by longman, hurst, rees, and orme, london. alex smellie, printer. 1806. _to sir joseph banks, bart._ _knight of the most honourable order of the bath, a privy councillor, president of the royal society of london, &c. &c._ _this translation is inscribed._ contents. letter 1.--on the impregnation of the queen bee page 1 letter 2.--sequel of observations on the impregnation of the queen bee 41 letter 3.--the same subject continued; observations on retarding the fecundation of queens 44 letter 4.--on m. schirach's discovery 76 letter 5.--experiments proving that there are sometimes common bees which lay fertile eggs 89 letter 6.--on the combats of queens; the massacre of the males; and what succeeds in a hive where a stranger queen is substituted for the natural one 108 letter 7.--sequel of observations on the reception of a stranger queen; m. de reaumur's observations on the subject 137 letter 8.--is the queen oviparous? what influence has the size of the cells where the eggs are deposited on the bees produced? researches on the mode of spinning the coccoons 145 letter 9.--on the formation of swarms 171 letter 10.--the same subject continued 201 letter 11.--the same subject continued 223 letter 12.--additional observations on queens that lay only the eggs of drones, and on those deprived of the antennæ 237 letter 13.--economical considerations on bees 253 appendix 275 translator's preface the facts contained in this volume are deeply interesting to the naturalist. they not only elucidate the history of those industrious animals, whose nature is the peculiar subject of investigation, but they present some singular features in physiology which have hitherto been unknown. the industry of bees has proved a fertile source of admiration in all countries and in every age; and mankind have endeavoured to render it subservient to their gratifications or emolument. hence innumerable theories, experiments, and observations have ensued, and uncommon patience has been displayed in prosecuting the enquiry. but although many interesting peculiarities have been discovered, they are so much interwoven with errors, that no subject has given birth to more absurdities than investigations into the history of bees: and unfortunately those treatises which are most easily attained, and the most popular, only serve to give such absurdities a wider range, and render it infinitely more difficult to eradicate them. a considerable portion of the following work is devoted to this purpose. the reader will judge of the success which results from the experiments that have been employed. perhaps this is not the proper place to bestow an encomium on a treatise from which so much entertainment and instruction will be derived. however, to testify the estimation in which it is held in other nations, the remarks upon it by the french philosopher sue, may be quoted, 'the observations are so consistent, and the consequences seem so just, that while perusing this work, it appears as if we had assisted the author in each experiment, and pursued it with equal zeal and interest. let us invite the admirers of nature to read these observations; few are equal to them in excellence, or so faithfully describe the nature, the habits, and inclinations of the insects of which they treat.' it is a remarkable circumstance that the author laboured under a defect in the organs of vision, which obliged him to employ an assistant in his experiments. thus these discoveries may be said to acquire double authority. but independent of this the experiments are so judiciously adapted to the purposes in view, and the conclusions so strictly logical, that there is evidently very little room for error. the talents of _francis burnens_, this philosophic assistant, had long been devoted to the service of the author, who, after being many successive years in this manner aided in his researches, was at last deprived of him by some unfortunate accident. whether the author has prosecuted his investigation farther does not appear, as no other production of his pen is known in this island. it is vain to attempt a translation of any work without being to a certain degree skilled in the subject of which it treats. some parts of the original of the following treatise, it must be acknowledged, are so confused, and some so minute, that it is extremely difficult to give an exact interpretation. but the general tenor, though not elegant, is plain and perspicuous; and such has it been here retained. letter i. _on the impregnation of the queen bee._ sir, when i had the honour at genthod of giving you an account of my principal experiments on bees, you desired me to transmit a written detail, that you might consider them with greater attention. i hasten, therefore, to extract the following observations from my journal.--as nothing can be more flattering to me than the interest you take in my researches, permit me to remind you of your promise to suggest new experiments{a}. after having long studied bees in glass hives constructed on m. de reaumur's principle, you have found the form unfavourable to an observer. the hives being too wide, two parallel combs were made by the bees, consequently whatever passed between them escaped observation. from this inconvenience, which i have experienced, you recommended much thinner hives to naturalists, where the panes should be so near each other, that only a single row of combs could be erected between them. i have followed your admonitions, sir, and provided hives only eighteen lines in width, in which i have found no difficulty to establish swarms. however, bees must not be entrusted with the charge of constructing a single comb: nature has taught them to make parallel ones, which is a law they never derogate from, unless when constrained by some particular arrangement. therefore, if left to themselves in these thin hives, as they cannot form two combs parallel to the plane of the hive, they will form several small ones perpendicular to it, and, in that case, all is equally lost to the observer. thus it became essential previously to arrange the position of the combs. i forced the bees to build them perpendicular to the horizon, and so that the lateral surfaces were three or four lines from the panes of the hive. this distance allows the bees sufficient liberty, but prevents them from collecting in too large clusters on the surface of the comb. by such precautions, bees are easily established in very thin hives. there they pursue their labours with the same assiduity and regularity; and, every cell being exposed, none of their motions can be concealed. it is true, that by compelling these insects to a habitation where they could construct only a single row of combs, i had, in a certain measure, changed their natural situation, and this circumstance might possibly have affected their instinct. therefore, to obviate every objection, i invented a kind of hives, which, without losing the advantages of those very thin, at the same time approached the figure of common hives where bees form several rows of combs. i took several small fir boxes, a foot square and fifteen lines wide, and joined them together by hinges, so that they could be opened and shut like the leaves of a book{b}. when using a hive of this description, we took care to fix a comb in each frame, and then introduced all the bees necessary for each particular experiment. by opening the different divisions successively, we daily inspected both surfaces of every comb. there was not a single cell where we could not distinctly see what passed at all times, nor a single bee, i may almost say, with which we were not particularly acquainted. indeed, this construction is nothing more than the union of several very flat hives which may be separated. bees, in such habitations, must not be visited before their combs are securely fixed in the frames, otherwise, by falling out, they may kill or hurt them, as also irritate them to that degree that the observer cannot escape stinging, which is always painful, and sometimes dangerous: but they soon become accustomed to their situation, and in some measure tamed by it; and, in three days, we may begin to operate on the hive, to open it, remove part of the combs, and substitute others, without the bees exhibiting too formidable symptoms of displeasure. you will remember, sir, that on visiting my retreat, i shewed you a hive of this kind that had been a long time in experiment, and how much you were surprised that the bees so quietly allowed us to open it. in these hives, i have repeated all my observations, and obtained exactly the same results as in the thinnest. thus, i think, already to have obviated any objections that may arise concerning the supposed inconvenience of flat hives. besides, i cannot regret the repetition of my labours; by going over the same course several times, i am much more certain of having avoided error; and it also appears, that some advantages are found in these which may be called _book_ or _leaf-hives_, as they prove extremely useful in the economical treatment of bees, which shall afterwards be detailed. i now come to the particular object of this letter, the fecundation of the queen bee; and i shall, in a few words, examine the different opinions of naturalists on this singular problem. next i shall state the most remarkable observations which their conjectures have induced me to make, and then describe the new experiments by which i think i have solved the problem{c}. swammerdam, who studied bees with unremitting attention, and who never could see a real copulation between a drone and a queen, was satisfied that copulation was unnecessary for fecundation of the eggs: but having remarked that, at certain times, the drones exhaled a very strong odour, he thought this odour was an emanation of the _aura seminalis_, or the _aura seminalis_ itself, which operated fecundation by penetrating the body of the female. his conjecture was confirmed on dissecting the male organs of generation; for he was so much struck with the disproportion between them and those of the female, that he did not believe copulation possible. his opinion, concerning the influence of the odour, had this farther advantage, that it afforded a good reason for the prodigious number of the males. there are frequently fifteen hundred or two thousand in a hive; and, according to swammerdam, it is necessary they should be numerous, that the emanation proceeding from them may have an intensity or energy sufficient to effect impregnation. though m. de reaumur has refuted this hypothesis by just and conclusive reasoning, he has failed to make the sole experiment that could support or overturn it. this was to confine all the drones of a hive in a tin case, perforated with minute holes, which might allow the emanation of the odour to escape, but prevent the organs of generation from passing through. then, this case should have been placed in a hive well inhabited, but completely deprived of males, both of large and small size, and the consequence attended to. it is evident, had the queen laid eggs after matters were thus disposed, that swammerdam's hypothesis would have acquired probability; and on the contrary it would have been confuted had she produced no eggs, or only sterile ones. however the experiment has been made by us, and the queen remained barren; therefore, it is undoubted, that the emanation of the odour of the males does not impregnate bees. m. de reaumur was of a different opinion. he thought that the queen's fecundation followed actual copulation. he confined several drones in a glass vessel along with a virgin queen: he saw the female make many advances to the males; but, unable to observe any union so intimate that it could be denominated copulation, he leaves the question undecided. we have repeated this experiment: we have frequently confined virgin queens with drones of all ages: we have done so at every season, and witnessed all their advances and solicitations to the males: we have even believed we saw a kind of union between them, but so short and imperfect that it was unlikely to effect impregnation. yet, to neglect nothing, we confined the virgin queen, that had suffered the approaches of the male, to her hive. during a month that her imprisonment continued, she did not lay a single egg; therefore, these momentary junctions do not accomplish fecundation. in the _contemplation de la nature_, you have cited the observations of the english naturalist mr debraw. they appear correct, and at last to elucidate the mystery. favoured by chance, the observer one day perceived at the bottom of cells containing eggs, a whitish fluid, apparently spermatic, at least, very different from the substance or jelly which bees commonly collect around their new hatched worms. solicitous to learn its origin, and conjecturing that it might be the male prolific fluid, he began to watch the motions of every drone in the hive, on purpose to seize the moment when they would bedew the eggs. he assures us, that he saw several insinuate the posterior part of the body into the cells, and there deposit the fluid. after frequent repetition of the first, he entered on a long series of experiments. he confined a number of workers in glass bells along with a queen and several males. they were supplied with pieces of comb containing honey, but no brood. he saw the queen lay eggs, which were bedewed by the males, and from which larvæ were hatched, consequently, he could not hesitate advancing as a fact demonstrated, that male bees fecundate the queen's eggs in the manner of frogs and fishes, that is, after they are produced. there was something very specious in this explanation: the experiments on which it was founded seemed correct; and it afforded a satisfactory reason for the prodigious number of males in a hive. at the same time, the author had neglected to answer one strong objection. larvæ appear when there are no drones. from the month of september until april, hives are generally destitute of males, yet, notwithstanding their absence, the queen then lays fertile eggs. thus, the prolific fluid cannot be required to impregnate them, unless we can suppose that it is necessary at a certain time of the year, while at every other season it is useless. to discover the truth amidst these facts apparently so contradictory, i wished to repeat mr debraw's experiments, and to observe more precaution than he himself had done. first, i sought for the fluid, which he supposes the seminal, in cells containing eggs. several were actually found with that appearance; and, during the first days of observation, neither my assistant nor myself doubted the reality of the discovery. but we afterwards found it an illusion arising from the reflection of the light, for nothing like a fluid was visible, except when the solar rays reached the bottom of the cells. fragments of the coccoons of worms, successively hatched, commonly cover the bottom; and, as they are shining, it may easily be conceived that, when much illuminated, an illusory effect results from the light. we proved it by the strictest examination, for no vestiges of a fluid were perceptible when the cells were detached and cut asunder. though the first observation inspired us with some distrust of mr debraw's discovery, we repeated his other experiments with the utmost care. on the 6. of august 1787, we immersed a hive, and, with scrupulous attention, examined the whole bees while in the bath. we ascertained that there was no male, either large or small; and having examined all the combs, we found neither male nymph, nor worm. when the bees were dry, we replaced them all, along with the queen, in their habitation, and transported them into my cabinet. they were allowed full liberty; therefore, they flew about, and made their usual collections; but, it being necessary that no male should enter the hive during the experiment, a glass tube was adapted to the entrance, of such dimensions that two bees only could pass at once; and we watched the tube attentively during the four or five days that the experiment continued. we should have instantly observed and removed any male that appeared, that the result of the experiment might be undisturbed, and i can positively affirm that not one was seen. however, from the first day, which was the sixth of august, the queen deposited fourteen eggs in the workers cells; and all these were hatched on the tenth of the same month. this experiment is decisive, since the eggs laid by the queen of a hive where there were no males, and where it was impossible one could be introduced, since these eggs, i say, were fertile, it becomes indubitable that the fluid of the males is not required for their exclusion. though it did not appear that any reasonable objection could be started against this conclusion, yet, as i had been accustomed in all my experiments to seek for the most trifling difficulties that could arise, i conceived that mr debraw's partisans might maintain, that the bees, deprived of drones, perhaps would search for those in other hives, and carry the fecundative fluid to their own habitations for depositing it on the eggs. it was easy to appreciate the force of this objection, for all that was necessary was a repetition of the former experiments, and to confine the bees so closely to their hives that none could possibly escape. you very well know, sir, that these animals can live three or four months confined in a hive well stored with honey and wax, and if apertures are left for circulation of the air. this experiment was made on the tenth of august; and i ascertained, by means of immersion, that no male was present. the bees were confined four days in the closest manner, and then i found forty young larvæ. i extended the precautions so far as to immerse this hive a second time, to assure myself that no male had escaped my researches. each of the bees was separately examined, and none was there that did not display its sting. the coincidence of this experiment with the other, proved that the eggs were not externally fecundated. in terminating the confutation of mr debraw's opinion, i have only to explain what led him into error; and that was, his using queens whose history he was unacquainted with from their origin. when he observed the eggs produced by a queen, confined along with males, were fertile, he thence concluded that they had been bedewed by the prolific fluid in the cells: but to render his conclusion just, he should first have ascertained that the female never had copulated, and this he neglected. the truth is, that, without knowing it, he had used, in his experiments, a queen after she had commerce with the male. had he taken a virgin queen the moment she came from the royal cell, and confined her along with drones in his vessels, the result would have been opposite; for, even amidst a seraglio of males, this young queen would never have laid, as i shall afterwards prove. the lusatian observers, and m. hattorf in particular, thought the queen was fecundated by herself, without concourse with the males. i shall here give an abstract of the experiment on which that opinion is founded.{d} m. hattorf took a queen whose virginity he could not doubt. he excluded all the males both of the large and small species, and, in several days, he found both eggs and worms. he asserts that there were no drones in the hive, during the course of the experiment; but although they were absent, the queen laid eggs, from which came worms: whence he considers she is impregnated by herself. reflecting on this experiment, i do not find it sufficiently accurate. males pass with great facility from hive to hive; and m. hattorf took no precaution that none was introduced into his. he says, indeed, there was no male, but is silent respecting the means he adopted to prove the fact. though he might be satisfied of no large drone being there, still a small one might have escaped his vigilance, and fecundated the queen. with a view to clear up the doubt, i resolved to repeat his experiment, in the manner described, and without greater care or precaution. i put a virgin queen into a hive, from which all the males were excluded, but the bees left at perfect liberty. for several days i visited the hive, and found new hatched worms in it. here then is the same result as m. hattorf obtained? but before deducing the same consequence from it, we had to ascertain beyond dispute that no male had entered the hive. thus, it was necessary to immerse the bees, and examine each separately. by this operation, we actually found four small males. therefore, to render the experiment decisive, not only was it requisite to remove all the drones, but also, by some infallible method, to prevent any from being introduced, which the german naturalist had neglected. i prepared to repair this omission, by putting a virgin queen into a hive, from which the whole males were carefully removed; and to be physically certain that none should enter, a glass tube was adapted at the entrance of such dimensions that the working bees could freely pass and repass, but too narrow for the smallest male. matters continued thus for thirty days, the workers departing and returning performed their usual labours: but the queen remained sterile. at the expiration of this time, her belly was equally slender as at the moment of her origin. i repeated the experiment several times, and always with the same consequence. therefore, as a queen, rigorously separated from all commerce with the male, remains sterile, it is evident she cannot impregnate herself, and m. hattorf's opinion is ill-founded. hitherto, by endeavouring to confute or verify the conjectures of all the authors who had preceded me, by new experiments, i acquired the knowledge of new facts, but these were apparently so contradictory as to render the solution of the problem still more difficult. while examining mr. debraw's hypothesis, i confined a queen in a hive, from which all the drones were removed; the queen nevertheless was fertile. when considering the opinion of m. hattorf on the contrary, i put a queen, of whose virginity i was perfectly satisfied, in the same situation, she remained sterile. embarrassed by so many difficulties, i was on the point of abandoning the subject of my researches, when at length by more attentive reflection, i thought these contradictions might arise from experiments made indifferently on virgin queens, and on those with whose history i was not acquainted from the origin, and which had perhaps been impregnated unknown to me. impressed with this idea, i undertook a new method of observation not on queens fortuitously taken from the hive, but on females decidedly in a virgin state, and whose history i knew from the instant they left the cell. from a very great number of hives, i removed all the virgin females, and substituted for each a queen taken at the moment of her birth. the hives were then divided into two classes. from the first, i took the whole males both large and small, and adapted a glass tube at the entrance, so narrow, that no drone could pass, but large enough for the free passage of the common bees. in the hives of the second class, i left all the drones belonging to them, and even introduced more; and to prevent them from escaping, a glass tube, also too narrow for the males, was adapted to the entrance of these hives. for more than a month, i carefully watched this experiment, made on a large scale; but much to my surprise, all the queens remained sterile. thus it was proved, that queens confined in a hive would continue barren though amidst a seraglio of males. this result induced me to suspect that the females could not be fecundated in the interior of the hive, and that it was necessary for them to leave it for receiving the approaches of the male. to ascertain the fact was easy, by a direct experiment; and as the point is important, i shall relate in detail what was done by my secretary and myself on the 29. june 1788. aware, that in summer the males usually leave the hive at the warmest time of the day, it was natural for me to conclude that if the queens were also obliged to go out for impregnation, instinct would induce them to do so at the same time as the males. at eleven in the forenoon, we placed ourselves opposite a hive containing an unimpregnated queen five days old. the sun had shone from his rising; the air was very warm; and the males began to leave the hives. we then enlarged the entrance of that which we wished to observe, and paid great attention to the bees that entered and departed. the males appeared, and immediately took flight. soon afterwards, the young queen appeared at the entrance; at first she did not fly, but brushed her belly with her hind legs, and traversed the board a little; neither workers nor males paid any attention to her. at last, she took flight. when several feet from the hive, she returned, and approached it as if to examine the place of her departure, perhaps judging this precaution necessary to recognize it; she then flew away, describing horizontal circles twelve or fifteen feet above the earth. we contracted the entrance of the hive that she might not return unobserved, and placed ourselves in the centre of the circles described in her flight, the more easily to follow her and observe all her motions. but she did not remain long in a situation favourable for us, and rapidly rose out of sight. we resumed our place before the hive; and in seven minutes, the young queen returned to the entrance of a habitation which she had left for the first time. having found no external appearance of fecundation, we allowed her to enter. in a quarter of an hour she re-appeared; and, after brushing herself as before, took flight. then returning to examine the hive, she rose so high that we soon lost sight of her. her second absence was much longer than the first; twenty-seven minutes elapsed before she came back. we then found her in a state very different from that in which she was after her first excursion. the sexual organs were distended by a white substance, thick and hard, very much resembling the fluid in the vessels of the male, completely similar to it indeed in colour and consistence{e}. but more evidence than mere resemblance was requisite to establish that the female had returned with the prolific fluid of the males. we allowed this queen to enter the hive, and confined her there. in two days, we found her belly swoln; and she had already laid near an hundred eggs in the worker's cells. to confirm our discovery, we made several other experiments, and with the same success. i shall continue to transcribe my journal. on the second of july, the weather being very fine, numbers of males left the hives. we set at liberty an unimpregnated young queen, eleven days old, whose hive had always been deprived of males. having quickly left the hive, she returned to examine it, and then rose out of sight. in a few minutes, she returned without any external marks of impregnation. in a quarter of an hour, she departed again, but her flight was so rapid that we could scarcely follow her a moment. this absence continued thirty minutes. on returning, the last ring of the body was open, and the sexual organs full of the whitish substance already mentioned. she was then replaced in the hive from which all the males were excluded. in two days, we found her impregnated. these observations at length demonstrate why m. hattorf obtained results so different from ours. his queens, though in hives deprived of males, had been fecundated, and he thence concludes that sexual intercourse is not requisite for their impregnation. but he did not confine the queens to their hives, and they had profited by their liberty to unite with the males. we, on the contrary, have surrounded our queens with a number of males; but they continued sterile; because the precaution of confining the males to their hives had also prevented the queens from departing to seek that fecundation without, which they could not obtain within. these experiments were repeated on queens, twenty, twenty-five, and thirty days old. all became fertile after a single impregnation; however, we have remarked some essential peculiarities in the fecundity of those unimpregnated until the twentieth day of their existence; but we shall defer speaking of the fact until we can present naturalists with observations sufficiently secure and numerous to merit their attention: yet let me add a few words more. though neither my assistant nor myself have witnessed the copulation of a queen and a drone, we think that, after the detail which has just been commenced, no doubt of it can remain, or of the necessity of copulation to effect impregnation. the sequel of experiments, made with every possible precaution, appears demonstrative. the uniform sterility of queens in hives wanting males, and in those where they were confined along with them; the departure of these queens from the hives; and the very conspicuous evidence of impregnation with which they return, are proofs against which no objections can stand. but we do not despair of being able next spring to obtain the complement of this proof, by seizing the female at the very moment of copulation. naturalists have always been very much embarrassed to account for the number of males found in most hives, and which seem only a burden on the community, since they fulfil no function. but we now begin to discern the object of nature in multiplying them to that extent. as fecundation cannot be accomplished within, and as the queen is obliged to traverse the expanse of the atmosphere, it is requisite the males should be numerous that she may have the chance of meeting some one of them. were only two or three drones in each hive, there would be little probability of their departure at the same instant with the queen, or that they would meet in their excursions; and most of the females would thus remain sterile. but why has nature prohibited copulation within the hives? this is a secret still unknown to us. it is possible, however, that some favourable circumstance may enable us to penetrate it in the course of our observations. various conjectures may be formed; but at this day we require facts, and reject gratuitous suppositions. it should be remembered, that bees do not form the sole republic among insects presenting a similar phenomenon; female ants are also obliged to leave the ant-hills previous to fecundation. i cannot request, sir, that you will communicate the reflections which your genius will excite concerning the facts i have related. this is a favour to which i am not yet entitled. but as new experiments will unquestionably occur to you, whether on the impregnation of the queen or on other points, may i solicit you to suggest them? they shall be executed with all possible care; and i shall esteem this mark of friendship and interest as the most flattering encouragement that the continuance of my labours can receive. _pregny, 13th august 1789._ * * * * * _letter from m. bonnet to m. huber._ you have most agreeably surprised me, sir, with your interesting discovery of the impregnation of the queen bee. it was a fortunate idea, that she left the hive to be fecundated, and your method of ascertaining the fact was extremely judicious and well adapted to the object in view. let me remind you, that male and female ants copulate in the air; and that after impregnation the females return to the ant hills to deposit their eggs. _contemplation de la nature, part ii. chap. 22. note 1._ it would be necessary to seize the instant when the drone unites with the female. but how remote from the power of the observer are the means of ascertaining a copulation in the air. if you have satisfactory evidence that the fluid bedewing the last rings of the female is the same with that of the male, it is more than mere presumption in favour of copulation. perhaps it may be necessary that the male should seize the female under the belly, which cannot easily be done but in the air. the large opening at the extremity of the queen, which you have observed in so particular a condition, seems to correspond to the singular size of the sexual parts of the male. you wish, my dear sir, that i should suggest some new experiments on these industrious republicans. in doing so, i shall take the greater pleasure and interest, as i know to what extent you possess the valuable art of combining ideas, and of deducing from this combination results adapted to the discovery of new facts. a few at this moment occur to me. it may be proper to attempt the artificial fecundation of a virgin queen, by introducing a little of the male's prolific fluid with a pencil, and at the same time observing every precaution to avoid error. artificial fecundation, you are aware, has already succeeded in more than one animal. to ascertain that the queen, which has left the hive for impregnation, is the same that returns to deposit her eggs, you will find it necessary to paint the thorax with some varnish that resists humidity. it will also be right to paint the thorax of a considerable number of workers in order to discover the duration of their life. this is a more secure method than slight mutilations. for hatching the worm, the egg must be fixed almost vertically by one end near the bottom of the cell. is it true, that it is unproductive unless fixed in this manner? i cannot determine the fact; and therefore leave it to the decision of experiment. i formerly mentioned to you that i had long doubted the real nature of the small ovular substances deposited by queens in the cells, and my inclination to suppose them minute worms not yet begun to expand. their elongated figure seems to favour my suspicions. it would therefore be proper to watch them with the utmost assiduity, from the instant of production until the period of exclusion. if the integument bursts, there can be no doubt that these minute substances are real eggs. i return to the mode of operating copulation. the height that the queen and the males rise to in the air prevent us from seeing what passes between them. on that account, the hive should be put into an apartment with a very lofty ceiling. m. de reaumur's experiment of confining a queen with several males in a glass vessel, merits repetition; and if, instead of a vessel, a glass tube, some inches in diameter and several feet long, were used, perhaps something satisfactory might be discovered. you have had the fortune to observe the small queens mentioned by the abbe needham, but which he never saw. it will be of great importance to dissect them for the purpose of finding their ovaries. when m. reims informed me that he had confined three hundred workers, along with a comb containing no eggs, and afterwards found hundreds in it, i strongly recommended that he should dissect the workers. he did so; and informed me that eggs were found in three. probably without being aware of it, he has dissected small queens. as small drones exist, it is not surprising if small queens are produced also, and undoubtedly by the same external causes. it is of much consequence to be intimately acquainted with this species of queens, for they may have great influence on different experiments and embarrass the observer: we should ascertain whether they inhabit pyramidal cells smaller than the common, or hexagonal ones. m. schirach's famous experiment on the supposed conversion of a common worm into a royal one, cannot be too often repeated, though the lusatian observers have already done it frequently. i could wish to learn whether, as the discoverer maintains, the experiment will succeed only with worms, three or four days old, and never with simple eggs. the lusatian observers, and those of the palatinate, affirm, that when common bees are confined with combs absolutely void of eggs, they then lay none but the eggs of drones. thus, there must be small queens producing the eggs of males only, for it is evident they must have produced those supposed to come from workers. but how is it possible to conceive that their ovaries contain male eggs alone? according to m. de reaumur, the life of chrysalids may be prolonged by keeping them in a cold situation, such as an ice-house. the same experiment should be made on the eggs of a queen; on the nymphs of drones and workers. another interesting experiment would be to take away all the combs composing the common cells, and leave none but those destined for the larvæ of males. by this means we should learn whether the eggs of common worms, laid by the queen in the large cells, will produce large workers. it is very probable, however, that deprivation of the common cells might discourage the bees, because they require them for their honey and wax. nevertheless, it is likely, by taking away only part of the common cells, the workers may be forced to lay common eggs in the cells of drones. i should also wish to have the young larvæ gently removed from the royal cell, and deposited at the bottom of a common one, along with some of the royal food. as the figure of hives has much influence on the respective disposition of the combs, it would be a satisfactory experiment, greatly to diversify their shape and internal dimensions. nothing could be better adopted to instruct us how bees can regulate their labours, and apply them to existing circumstances. this may enable us to discover particular facts which we cannot foresee. the royal eggs and those producing drones, have not yet been carefully compared with the eggs from which workers come. but they ought to be so, that we may ascertain whether these different eggs have secret distinctive characteristics. the food supplied by the workers to the royal worm, is not the same with that given to the common worm. could we not endeavour, with the point of a pencil, to remove a little of the royal food, and give it to a common worm deposited in a cell of the largest dimensions? i have seen common cells hanging almost vertically, where the queen had laid; and these i should prefer for this experiment. various facts, which require corroboration, were collected in my memoirs on bees; of this number are my own observations. you can select what is proper, my dear sir. you have already enriched the history of bees so much, that every thing may be expected from your understanding and perseverance. you know the sentiments with which you have inspired the contemplator of nature. _genthod, 18. august 1789._ footnotes: {a} all these letters are addressed to the celebrated naturalist m. bonnet.--_t._ {b} the leaf or book hive consists of twelve vertical frames or boxes, parallel to each other, and joined together. fig. 1. the sides, f f. f g. should be twelve inches long, and the cross spars, f f. g g. nine or ten; the thickness of these spars an inch, and their breadth fifteen lines. it is necessary that this last measure should be accurate; a a. a piece of comb which guides the bees in their work; d. a moveable slider supporting the lower part; b b. pegs to keep the comb properly in the frame or box; four are in the opposite side; e e. pegs in the sides under the moveable slider to support it. a book hive, consisting of twelve frames, all numbered, is represented fig. 2. between 6 and 7 are two cases with lids, that divide the hive into two equal parts, and should only be used to separate the bees for forming an artificial swarm; a a. two frames which shut up the two sides of the hive, have sliders, b. b. the entrance appears at the bottom of each frame. all should be close but 1 and 12. however it is necessary that they should open at pleasure. the hive is partly open, fig. 3. and shews how the component parts may be united by hinges, and open as the leaves of a book. the two covers closing up the sides, a. a. fig. 4. is another view of fig. 1. a a. a piece of comb to guide the bees; b b. pegs disposed so as to retain the comb properly in the frame; c c. parts of two shelves; the one above is fixed, and keeps the comb in a vertical position; the under one, which is moveable, supports it below. {c} i cannot insist that my readers, the better to comprehend what is here said, shall peruse the memoirs of m. de reaumur on bees, and those of the lusace society; but i must request them to examine the extracts in m. bonnet's works, tom. 5. 4to edit. and tom. 10. 8vo, where they will find a short and distinct abstract of all that naturalists have hitherto discovered on the subject. {d} vide m. schirach's history of bees, in a memoir by m. hattorf, entitled, _physical researches whether the queen bee requires fecundation by drones?_ {e} it will afterwards appear that what we took for the generative fluid, was the male organs of generation, left by copulation in the body of the female. this discovery we owe to a circumstance that shall immediately be related. perhaps i should avoid prolixity, by suppressing all my first observations on the impregnation of the queen, and by passing directly to the experiments that prove she carries away the genital organs; but in such observations which are both new and delicate, and where it is so easy to be deceived, i think service is done to the reader by a candid avowal of my errors. this is an additional proof to so many others, of the absolute necessity that an observer should repeat all his experiments a thousand times, to obtain the certainty of seeing facts as they really exist. letter ii. _sequel of observations on the impregnation of the queen bee._ sir, all the experiments, related in my preceding letter, were made in 1787 and 1788. they seem to establish two facts, which had previously been the subject of vague conjecture: 1. the queen bee is not impregnated of herself, but is fecundated by copulation with the male. 2. copulation is accomplished without the hive, and in the air. the latter appeared so extraordinary, that notwithstanding all the evidence obtained of it, we eagerly desired to take the queen in the fact; but, as she always rises to a great height, we never could see what passed. on that account you advised us to cut part off the wings of virgin queens. we endeavoured to benefit by your advice, in every possible manner; but to our great regret, when the wings lost much, the bees could no longer fly; and, by cutting off only an inconsiderable portion, we did not diminish the rapidity of their flight. probably there is a medium, but we were unable to attain it. on your suggestion, we tried to render their vision less acute, by covering the eyes with an opaque varnish, which was an experiment equally fruitless. we likewise attempted artificial fecundation, and took every possible precaution to insure success. yet the result was always unsatisfactory. several queens were the victims of our curiosity; and those surviving remained sterile. though these different experiments were unsuccessful, it was proved that queens leave their hives to seek the males, and that they return with undoubted evidence of fecundation. satisfied with this, we could only trust to time or accident for decisive proof of an actual copulation. we were far from suspecting a most singular discovery, which we made in july this year, and which affords complete demonstration of the supposed event, namely, that the sexual organs of the male remain with the female.{f} footnotes: {f} the remainder of this chapter chiefly consists of anatomical details. these may rather be considered an interruption of the narrative; and the translator has judged it expedient to transfer them to an appendix. letter iii. _the same subject continued.--observations on retarding the fecundation of queens._ in my first letter, i remarked, that when queens were prevented from receiving the approaches of the male until the twenty-fifth or thirtieth day of their existence, the result presented very interesting peculiarities. my experiments at that time were not sufficiently numerous; but they have since been so often repeated, and the result so uniform, that i no longer hesitate to announce, as a certain discovery, the singularities which retarded fecundation, produces on the ovaries of the queen. if she receives the male during the first fifteen days of her life, she remains capable of laying both the eggs of workers and of drones; but should fecundation be retarded until the twenty-second day, her ovaries are vitiated in such a manner that she becomes unfit for laying the eggs of workers, and will produce only those of drones. in june 1787, being occupied in researches relative to the formation of swarms, i had occasion, for the first time, to observe a queen that laid none but the eggs of males. when a hive is ready to swarm, i had before observed, that the moment of swarming is always preceded by a very lively agitation, which first affects the queen, is then communicated to the workers, and excites such a tumult among them, that they abandon their labours, and rush in disorder to the outlets of the hive. i then knew very well the cause of the queen's agitation, and it is described in the history of swarms, but i was ignorant how the delirium communicated to the workers; and this difficulty interrupted my researches. i therefore thought of investigating, by direct experiments, whether at all times, when the queen was greatly agitated, even not in the time of the hive swarming, her agitation would in like manner be communicated to the workers. the moment a queen was hatched, i confined her to the hive by contracting the entrances. when assailed by the imperious desire of union with the males, i could not doubt that she would make great exertions to escape, and that the impossibility of it would produce a kind of delirium. i had the patience to observe this queen thirty-four days. every morning about eleven o'clock, when the weather was fine and the sunshine invited the males to leave their hives, i saw her impetuously traverse every corner of her habitation, seeking to escape. her fruitless efforts threw her into an uncommon agitation, the symptoms of which i shall elsewhere describe, and all the common bees were affected by it. as she never was out all this time, she could not be impregnated. at length, on the thirty-sixth day, i set her at liberty. she soon took advantage of it; and was not long of returning with the most evident marks of fecundation. satisfied with the particular object of this experiment, i was far from any hopes that it would lead to the knowledge of another very remarkable fact; how great was my astonishment, therefore, on finding that this female, which, as usual, began to lay forty-six hours after copulation, laid the eggs of drones, but none of workers, and that she continued ever afterwards to lay those of drones only. at first, i exhausted myself with conjectures on this singular fact; the more i reflected on it, the more did it seem inexplicable. at length, by attentively meditating on the circumstances of the experiment it appeared there were two principles, the influence of which i should first of all endeavour to appreciate separately. on the one hand, this queen had suffered long confinement; on the other, her fecundation had been extremely retarded. you know, sir, that queens generally receive the males about the fifth or sixth day, and this queen had not copulated until the thirty-sixth. little weight could be given to the supposition, that the peculiarity could be occasioned by confinement. queens, in the natural state, leave their hives only once to seek the males. all the rest of their life they remain voluntary prisoners. thus, it was improbable that captivity could produce the effect i wished to explain. at the same time, as it was essential to neglect nothing in a subject so new, i wished to ascertain whether it was owing to the length of confinement, or to retarded fecundation. investigating this was no easy matter. to discover whether captivity, and not retarded fecundation, vitiated the ovaries, it was necessary to allow a female to receive the approaches of a male, and also to keep her imprisoned. now this could not be, for bees never copulate in hives. on the same account, it was impossible to retard the copulation of a queen without keeping her in confinement. i was long embarrassed by the difficulty. at length, i contrived an apparatus, which, though imperfect, nearly fulfilled my purpose. i put a queen, at the moment of her last metamorphosis, into a hive well stored, and sufficiently provided with workers and males; the entrance was contracted so as to prevent her exit, but allowed free passage to the workers. i also made another opening for the queen, and adapted a glass tube to it, communicating with a cubical glass box eight feet high. hither the queen could at all times come and fly about, enjoying a purer air than was to be found within the hive; but she could not be fecundated; for though the males flew about within the same bounds, the space was too limited to admit of any union between them. by the experiments related in my first letter, copulation takes place high in the air only: therefore, in this apparatus, i found the advantage of retarding fecundation, while the liberty the queen now had, did not render her situation too remote from the natural state. i attended to the experiment fifteen days. every fine morning, the young captive left her hive; she traversed her glass prison, and flew much about, and with great facility. she laid none during this interval, for she had not united with a male. on the sixteenth day, i set her at liberty: she left the hive, rose aloft in the air, and soon returned with full evidence of impregnation. in two days, she laid, first the eggs of workers, and afterwards as many as the most fertile queens. it thence followed, 1. that captivity did not alter the organs of queens. 2. when fecundation took place within the first sixteen days, she produced both species of eggs. this was an important experiment. it rendered my labours much more simple, by clearly pointing out the method to be pursued: it absolutely precluded the supposed influence of captivity; and left nothing for investigation but the consequences of retarded fecundation. with this view, i repeated the experiment; but, instead of giving the virgin queen liberty on the sixteenth day, i retained her until the twenty-first. she departed, rose high in the air, was fecundated, and returned. thirty-six hours afterwards, she began to lay: but it was the eggs of males only, and, although very fruitful afterwards, she laid no other kind. i occupied myself the remainder of 1787, and the two subsequent years, with experiments on retarded fecundation, and had constantly the same results. it is undoubted, therefore, that when the copulation of queens is retarded beyond the twentieth day, only an imperfect impregnation is operated: instead of laying the eggs of workers and males equally, they will lay none but those of males. i do not aspire to the honour of explaining this singular fact. when the course of my experiments led me to observe that some queens laid only the eggs of drones, it was natural to investigate the proximate cause of such a singularity; and i ascertained that it arose from retarded fecundation. my evidence is demonstrative, for i can always prevent queens from laying the eggs of workers, by retarding their fecundation until the twenty-second or twenty-third day. but, what is the remote cause of this peculiarity; or, in other words, why does the delay of impregnation render queens incapable of laying the eggs of workers? this is a problem on which analogy throws no light: nor in all physiology am i acquainted with any fact that bears the smallest similarity. the problem becomes still more difficult by reflecting on the natural state of things, that is when fecundation has not been delayed. the queen then lays the eggs of workers forty-six hours after copulation, and continues for the subsequent eleven months to lay these alone: and it is only after this period that a considerable and uninterrupted laying of the eggs of drones commences. when, on the contrary, impregnation is retarded after the twentieth day, the queen begins, from the forty-sixth hour, to lay the eggs of males, and no other kind during her whole life. as, in the natural state, she lays the eggs of workers only, during the first eleven months, it is clear that these, and the male eggs, are not indiscriminately mixed in the oviducts. undoubtedly they occupy a situation corresponding to the principles that regulate laying: the eggs of workers are first, and those of drones behind them. farther, it appears that the queen can lay no male eggs until those of workers, occupying the first place in the oviducts, are discharged. why, then, is this order inverted by retarded copulation? how does it happen that all the workers eggs which the queen ought to lay, if fecundation was in due time, now wither and disappear, yet do not, impede the passage of the eggs of drones, which occupy only the second place in the ovaries. nor is this all. i have satisfied myself that a single copulation is sufficient to impregnate the whole eggs that a queen will lay in the course of at least two years. i have even reason to think, that a single copulation will impregnate all the eggs that she will lay during her whole life: but i want absolute proof for more than two years. this, which is truly a very singular fact in itself, renders the influence of retarded fecundation still more difficult to be accounted for. since a single copulation suffices, it is clear that the male fluid acts from the first moment on all the eggs that the queen will lay in two years. it gives them, according to your principles, that degree of _animation_ that afterwards effects their successive expansion. having received the first impressions of life, they grow, they mature, so to speak, until the day they are laid: and as the laws of laying are constant, because the eggs of the first eleven months are always those of workers, it is evident that those which appear first are also the eggs that come soonest to maturity. thus, in the natural state, the space of eleven months is necessary for the male eggs to acquire that degree of increment they must have attained when laid. this consequence, which to me seems immediate, renders the problem insoluble. how can the eggs, which should grow slowly for eleven months, suddenly acquire their full expansion in forty-eight hours, when fecundation has been retarded twenty-one days, and by the effect of this retardation alone? observe, i beseech you, that the hypothesis of successive expansion is not gratuitous; it rests on the principles of sound philosophy. besides, for conviction that it is well founded, we have only to look at the figures given by swammerdam of the ovaries of the queen bee. there we see eggs in that part of the oviducts contiguous to the vulva, much farther advanced, and larger than those contained in the opposite part. therefore the difficulty remains in full force: it is an abyss where i am lost. the only known fact bearing any relation to that now described, is the state of certain vegetable seeds, which, although extremely well preserved, lose the faculty of germination from age. the eggs of workers may also preserve, only for a very short time, the property of being fecundated by the seminal fluid; and, after this period, which is about fifteen or eighteen days, become disorganised to that degree, that they can no longer be animated by it. i am sensible that the comparison is very imperfect; besides, it explains nothing, nor does it even put us on the way of making any new experiments. i shall add but one reflection more. hitherto no other effect has been observed from the retarded impregnation of animals, but that of rendering them absolutely sterile. the first instance of a female still preserving the faculty of engendering males, is presented by the queen bee. but as no fact in nature is unique, it is most probable that the same peculiarity will also be found in other animals. an extremely curious object of research would be to consider insects in this new point of view, i say _insects_, for i do not conceive that any thing analogous will be found in other species of animals. the experiments now suggested would necessarily begin with insects the most analogous to bees; as wasps, humble bees, mason bees, all species of flies, and the like. some experiments might also be made on butterflies; and, perhaps, an animal might be found whose retarded fecundation would be attended with the same effects as that of queen bees. should the animal be larger, dissection will be more easily accomplished; and we may discover what happens to the eggs when retarded fecundation prevents their expansion. at least, we might hope that some fortunate circumstance would lead to solution of the problem{g}. let us now return to my experiments. in may 1789, i took two queens just when they had undergone the last metamorphosis: one was put in a _leaf hive_, well provided with honey and wax, and sufficiently inhabited by workers and males. the other was put into a hive exactly similar, from which all the drones were removed. the entrances of these hives were too confined for the passage of the females and drones, but the common bees enjoyed perfect liberty. the queens were imprisoned thirty days; and being then set at liberty, they departed, and returned impregnated. visiting the hives in the beginning of july, i found much brood, but wholly consisting of the worms and nymphs of males. there actually was not a single worker's worm or nymph. both queens laid uninterruptedly until autumn, and constantly the eggs of drones. their laying ended in the first week of november, as that of my other queens. i was very earnest to learn what would become of them in the subsequent spring, whether they would resume laying, or if new fecundation would be necessary; and if they did lay, of what species the eggs would be. however, the hives being very weak, i dreaded they might perish during winter. fortunately, we were able to preserve them; and from april 1790, they recommenced laying. the precautions we had taken prevented them from receiving any new approaches of the male. their eggs were still those of males. it would have been extremely interesting to have followed the history of these two females still farther, but, to my great regret, the workers abandoned their hives on the fourth of may, and that same day i found both queens dead. no weevils were in the hive, which could disturb the bees; and the honey was still very plentiful: but as no workers had been been produced in the course of the preceding year, and winter had destroyed many, they were too few in spring to engage in their wonted labours, and, from discouragement, deserted their habitation to occupy the neighbouring hives. in my journal, i find a detail of many experiments on the retarded impregnation of queen bees, so many, that transcribing the whole would be tedious. i may repeat, however, that there was not the least variation in the principle, and that whenever the copulation of queens was postponed beyond the twenty-first day, the eggs of males only were produced. therefore, i shall limit my narrative to those experiments that have taught me some remarkable facts. a queen being hatched on the fourth of october 1789, we put her into a leaf-hive. though the season was well advanced, a considerable number of males was still in the hive; and it here became important to learn, whether, at this period of the year, they could equally effect fecundation; also, in case it succeeded, whether a laying, begun in the middle of autumn, would be interrupted or continued during winter. thus, we allowed the queen to leave the hive. she departed, indeed, but made four and twenty fruitless attempts before returning with the evidence of fecundation. finally, on the thirty-first of october, she was more fortunate: she departed, and returned with the most undoubted proof of the success of her amours: she was now twenty-seven days old, consequently fecundation had been retarded. she ought to have begun laying within forty-six hours, but the weather was cold, and she did not lay; which proves, as we may cursorily remark, that refrigeration of the atmosphere is the principal agent that suspends the laying of queens during winter. i was excessively impatient to learn whether, on the return of spring, she would prove fertile, without a new copulation. the means of ascertaining the fact was easy; for the entrances of the hives only required contraction, so as to prevent her from escaping. she was confined from the end of october until may. in the middle of march, we visited the combs, and found a considerable number of eggs, but, none being yet hatched, we could not know whether they would produce workers or males. on the fourth of april, having again examined the state of the hive, we found a prodigious quantity of nymphs and worms, all of drones; nor had this queen laid a single worker's egg. here, as well as in the preceding experiment, retardation had rendered the queens incapable of laying the eggs of workers. but this result is the more remarkable, as the queen did not commence laying until four months and a half after fecundation. it is not rigorously true, therefore, that the term of forty-six hours elapses between the copulation of the female and her laying; the interval may be much longer, if the weather grows cold. lastly, it follows, that although cold will retard the laying of a queen impregnated in autumn, she will begin to lay in spring without requiring new copulation. it may be added, that the fecundity of the queen, whose history is given here, was astonishing. on the first of may, we found in her hive, besides six hundred males, already flies, two thousand four hundred and thirty-eight cells, containing either eggs or nymphs of drones. thus, she had laid more than three thousand male eggs during march and april, which is above fifty each day. her death soon afterwards unfortunately interrupted my observation, i intended to calculate the total number of male eggs that she should lay throughout the year, and compare it with those of queens whose fecundation had not been retarded. you know, sir, that the latter lay about two thousand male eggs in spring; and another laying, but less considerable, commences in august, also in the interval, that they produce the eggs of workers almost solely. but it is otherwise with the females whose copulation has been retarded: they produce no workers' eggs. for four or five months following, they lay the eggs of males without interruption, and in such numbers, that, in this short time, i suppose one queen gives birth to more drones than a female, whose fecundation has not been retarded, produces in the course of two years. it gives me much regret, that i have not been able to verify this conjecture. i should also describe the very remarkable manner in which queens, that lay only the eggs of drones, sometimes deposit them in the cells. instead of being placed in the lozenges forming the bottom, they are frequently deposited on the lower side of the cells, two lines from the mouth. this arises from the body of such queens being shorter than that of those whose fecundation has not been retarded. the extremity remains slender, while the first two rings next the thorax are uncommonly swoln. thus, in disposing themselves for laying, the extremity cannot reach the bottom of the cells on account of the swoln rings; consequently the eggs must remain attached to the part that the extremity reaches. the worms proceeding from them pass their vermicular state in the same place where the eggs were deposited, which proves that bees are not charged with the care of transporting the eggs as has been supposed. but here they follow another plan. they extend beyond the surface of the comb those cells where they observe the eggs deposited, two lines from the mouth. permit me, sir, to digress a moment from the subject, to give the result of an experiment which seems interesting. bees, i say, are not charged with the care of transporting into cells, the eggs misplaced by the queen: and, judging by the single instance i have related, you will think me well entitled to deny this feature of their industry. however, as several authors have maintained the reverse, and even demanded our admiration of them in conveying the eggs, i should explain clearly that they are deceived. i had a glass hive constructed of two stages; the higher was filled with combs of large cells, and the lower with those of common ones. a kind of division, or diaphraghm, separated these two stages from each other, having at each side an opening for the passage of the workers from one stage to the other, but too narrow for the queen. i put a considerable number of bees into this hive; and, in the upper part, confined a very fertile queen that had just finished her great laying of male eggs; therefore she had only those of workers to lay, and she was obliged to deposit them in the surrounding large cells from the want of others. my object in this arrangement will already be anticipated. my reasoning was simple. if the queen laid workers' eggs in the large cells, and the bees were charged with transporting them if misplaced, they would infallibly take advantage of the liberty allowed to pass from either stage: they would seek the eggs deposited in the large cells, and carry them down to the lower stage containing the cells adapted for that species. if, on the contrary, they left the common eggs in the large cells, i should obtain certain proof that they had not the charge of transporting them. the result of this experiment excited my curiosity extremely. we observed the queen several days without intermission. during the first twenty-four hours, she persisted in not laying a single egg in the surrounding cells; she examined them one after another, but passed on without insinuating her belly into one. she was restless, and traversed the combs in all directions: her eggs appeared an oppressive burden, but she persisted in retaining them rather than they should be deposited in cells of unsuitable diameter. the bees, however, did not cease to pay her homage, and treat her as a mother. i was amused to observe, when she approached the edges of the division separating the two stages, that she gnawed at them to enlarge the passage: the workers approached her, and also laboured with their teeth, and made every exertion to enlarge the entrance to her prison, but ineffectually. on the second day, the queen could no longer retain her eggs: they escaped in spite of her, and fell at random. then we conceived that the bees would convey them into the small cells of the lower stage, and we sought them there with the utmost assiduity; but i can safely affirm there was not one. the eggs that the queen still laid the third day disappeared as the first. we again sought them in the small cells, but none were there. the fact is, they are ate by the workers; and this is what has deceived the naturalists, who supposed them carried away. they have observed the misplaced eggs disappear, and, without farther investigation, have asserted that the bees convey them elsewhere: they take them, indeed, not to convey them any where, but to devour them. thus nature has not charged bees with the care of placing the eggs in the cells appropriated for them, but she has inspired females themselves with sufficient instinct to know the species of eggs they are about to lay, and to deposit them in suitable cells. this has already been observed by m. de reaumur, and here my observations correspond with his. thus it is certain that in the natural state, when fecundation takes place at the proper time, and the queen has suffered from nothing, she is never deceived in the choice of the cells where her eggs are to be deposited; she never fails to lay those of workers in small cells, and those of males in large ones. the distinction is important, for the same certainty of instinct is no longer conspicuous in the conduct of those females whose impregnation has been deferred. i was oftener than once deceived respecting the eggs that such queens laid, for they were deposited indiscriminately in small cells and those of drones; and not aware of their instinct having suffered, i conceived that the eggs in small cells would produce workers; therefore i was very much surprised, when, at the moment they should have been hatched, the bees closed up the cells, and demonstrated, by anticipation, that the included worms would change into drones; they actually became males; those produced in small cells were small, those in large cells large. thus i must warn observers, who would repeat my experiments on queens that lay only the eggs of males, not to be deceived by these circumstances, and expect that eggs of males will be deposited in the workers cells. it is a singular fact, that the females, whose fecundation has been retarded, sometimes lay the eggs of males in royal cells. i shall prove, in the history of swarms, that immediately when queens, in the natural state, begin their great laying of male eggs, the workers construct numerous royal cells. undoubtedly, there is some secret relation between the appearance of male eggs and the construction of these cells; for it is a law of nature from which bees never derogate. it is not surprising, therefore, that such cells are constructed in hives governed by queens laying the eggs of males only. it is no longer extraordinary that these queens deposit in the royal cells, eggs of the only species they can lay, for in general their instinct seems affected. but what i cannot comprehend is, why the bees take exactly the same care of the male eggs deposited in royal cells, as of those that should become queens. they provide them more plentifully with food, they build up the cells as if containing a royal worm; in a word, they labour with such regularity that we have frequently been deceived. more than once, in the firm persuasion of finding royal nymphs, we have opened the cells after they were sealed, yet the nymph of a drone always appeared. here the instinct of the workers seemed defective. in the natural state, they can accurately distinguish the male worms from those of common bees, as they never fail giving a particular covering to the cells containing the former. why then can they no longer distinguish the worms of drones when deposited in the royal cells? the fact deserves much attention. i am convinced that to investigate the instinct of animals, we must carefully observe where it appears to err. perhaps i should have begun this letter with an abstract of the observations of prior naturalists, on queens laying none but the eggs of males; however, i shall here repair the omission. in a work, _histoire de la reine des abeilles_, translated from the german by _blassiere_, there is printed a letter from m. schirach to you, dated 15 april 1771, where he speaks of some hives, in which the whole brood changed into drones. you will remember that he ascribes this circumstance to some unknown vice in the ovaries of the queen; but he was far from suspecting that retarded fecundation had been the cause of vitiation. he justly felicitated himself on discovering a method to prevent the destruction of hives in this situation, which was simple, for it consisted in removing the queen that laid the eggs of males only, and substituting one for her whose ovaries were not impaired. but to make the substitution effectual, it was necessary to procure queens at pleasure; a secret reserved for m. schirach, and of which i shall speak in the following letter. you observe that the whole experiments of the german naturalist tended to the preservation of the hives whose queens laid none except male eggs; and that he did not attempt to discover the cause of the vice evident in their ovaries. m. de reaumur also says a few words, somewhere, of a hive containing many more drones than workers, but advances no conjectures on the cause. however, he adds, as a remarkable circumstance, that the males were tolerated in this hive until the subsequent spring. it is true that bees governed by a queen laying only male eggs, or by a virgin queen, preserve their drones several months after they have been massacred in other hives. i can ascribe no reason for it, but it is a fact i have several times witnessed during my long course of observations on retarded impregnation. in general it has appeared that while the queen lays male eggs, bees do not massacre the males already perfect in the hive. pregny, _21. august 1791_. footnotes: {g} the experiments suggested in this paragraph, recall a singular reflection of m. de reaumur. where treating of oviparous flies, he says, it would not be impossible for a hen to produce a living chicken, if, after fecundation, the eggs she should first lay could by any means be retained twenty-one days in the oviducts. _mem. sur. les insect. tom. 4. mem. 10._ letter iv. _on m. schirach's discovery._ when you found it necessary, sir, in the new edition of your works, to give an account of m. schirach's beautiful experiments on the conversion of common worms into royal ones, you invited naturalists to repeat them. indeed such an important discovery required the confirmation of several testimonies. for this reason, i hasten to inform you that all my researches establish the reality of the discovery. during ten years that i have studied bees, i have repeated m. schirach's experiment so often, and with such uniform success, that i can no longer have the least doubt on the subject. therefore, i consider it an established fact, when bees lose their queen, and several workers' worms are preserved in the hive, they enlarge some of their cells, and supply them not only with a different kind of food, but a greater quantity of it, and the worms reared in this manner, instead of changing to common bees, become real queens. i request my readers to reflect on the explanation you have given of so uncommon a fact, and the philosophical consequences you have deduced from it. _contemplation de la nature, part. ii, chap. 27._ in this letter i shall content myself with some account of the figure of the royal cells constructed by bees around those worms that are destined for the royal state, and terminate with discussing some points wherein my observations differ from those of m. schirach. bees soon become sensible of having lost their queen, and in a few hours commence the labour necessary to repair their loss. first, they select the young common worms, which the requisite treatment is to convert into queens, and immediately begin with enlarging the cells where they are deposited. their mode of proceeding is curious; and the better to illustrate it, i shall describe the labour bestowed on a single cell, which will apply to all the rest, containing worms destined for queens. having chosen a worm, they sacrifice three of the contiguous cells: next, they supply it with food, and raise a cylindrical inclosure around, by which the cell becomes a perfect tube, with a rhomboidal bottom; for the parts forming the bottom are left untouched. if the bees damaged it, they would lay open three corresponding cells on the opposite surface of the comb, and, consequently, destroy their worms, which would be an unnecessary sacrifice, and nature has opposed it. therefore, leaving the bottom rhomboidal, they are satisfied with raising a cylindrical tube around the worm, which, like the other cells in the comb, is horizontal. but this habitation remains suitable to the worm called to the royal state only during the first three days of its existence: another situation is requisite for the other two days it is a worm. then, which is so small a portion of its life, it must inhabit a cell nearly of a pyramidal figure, and hanging perpendicularly; we may say the workers know it; for, after the worm has completed the third day, they prepare the place to be occupied by its new lodging. they gnaw away the cells surrounding the cylindrical tube, mercilessly sacrifice their worms, and use the wax in constructing a new pyramidal tube, which they solder at right angles to the first, and work it downwards. the diameter of this pyramid decreases insensibly from the base, which is very wide, to the point. during the two days that it is inhabited by the worm, a bee constantly keeps its head more or less inserted into the cell, and, when this worker quits it, another comes to occupy its place. in proportion as the worm grows, the bees labour in extending the cell, and bring food, which they place before its mouth, and around its body, forming a kind of cord around it. the worm, which can move only in a spiral direction, turns incessantly to take the food before its head: it insensibly descends, and at length arrives at the orifice of the cell. now is the time of transformation to a nymph. as any farther care is unnecessary, the bees close the cell with a peculiar substance appropriated for it, and there the worm undergoes both its metamorphoses. though m. schirach supposes that none but worms three days old are selected for the royal treatment, i am certain of the contrary; and that the operation succeeds equally well on those of two days only. i must be permitted to relate at length the evidence i have of the fact, which will both demonstrate the reality of common worms being converted into queens, and the little influence which their age has on the effect of the operation. i put some pieces of comb, with some workers eggs, in the cells, and of the same kind as those already hatched, into a hive deprived of the queen. the same day several cells were enlarged by the bees, and converted into royal cells, and the worms supplied with a thick bed of jelly. five were then removed from those cells, and five common worms, which, forty-eight hours before we had seen come from the egg substituted for them. the bees did not seem aware of the change; they watched over the new worms the same as over those chosen by themselves; they continued enlarging the cells, and closed them at the usual time. when they had hatched on them seven days{h}, we removed the cells to see the queens that were to be produced. two were excluded, almost at the same moment, of the largest size, and well formed in every respect. the term of the other cells having elapsed, and no queen appearing, we opened them. in one, was a dead queen, but still a nymph; the other two were empty. the worms had spun their silk coccoons, but died before passing into their nymphine state, and presented only a dry skin. i can conceive nothing more conclusive than this experiment. it demonstrates that bees have the power of converting the worms of workers into queens; since they succeeded in procuring queens, by operating on the worms which we ourselves had selected. it is equally demonstrated, that the success of the operation does not depend on the worms being three days old, as those entrusted to the bees were only two. nor is this all; bees can convert worms still younger into queens. the following experiment showed, that when the queen is lost, they destine worms only a few hours old to replace her. i was in possession of a hive, which being long deprived of the female, had neither egg nor worm. i provided a queen of the greatest fertility; and she immediately began laying in the cells of workers. i removed this female before being quite three days in the hive, and before any of her eggs were hatched. the following morning, that is, the fourth day, we counted fifty minute worms, the oldest scarcely hatched twenty-four hours. however, several were already destined for queens, which was proved by the bees depositing around them a much more abundant provision of food than is supplied to common worms. next day, the worms were near forty hours old: the bees had enlarged and converted their hexagonal cells into cylindrical ones of the greatest capacity. during the subsequent days, they still laboured at them, and closed them on the fifth from the origin of the worms. seven days after sealing of the first of these royal cells, a queen of the largest size proceeded from it. she immediately rushed towards the other royal cells, and endeavoured to destroy their nymphs and worms. in another letter, i shall recount the effects of her fury. from these details, you will observe, sir, that m. schirach's experiments had not been sufficiently diversified when he affirmed that it was essential for the conversion of common worms into queens, they should be three days old. it is undoubted, that equal success attends the experiment not only with worms two days old, but also when they have been only a few hours in existence. after my researches to corroborate m. schirach's discovery, i was desirous of learning whether, as this observer conceives, the only means which the bees have of procuring a queen, is giving the common worms a certain kind of aliment, and rearing them in the largest cells. you will remember, that m. de reaumur's sentiments are very different: "the mother should lay, and she does lay, eggs from which flies fit for being mothers must in their turn proceed. she does so; and it is evident the workers know what she is to do. bees, to which the mother is so precious, seem to take a peculiar interest in the eggs that one is to proceed from, and to consider them of the greatest value. they construct particular cells where they are to be deposited.--the figure of a royal cell only begun, very much resembles a cup, or, more correctly speaking, the cup that has lost its acorn." m. de reaumur, though he did not suspect the possibility of a common worm being converted into a queen, conceived that the queen bee laid a particular species of eggs in the royal cells, from which worms should come that would be queens. according to m. schirach, on the other hand, bees always having the power of procuring a queen by bringing up worms three days old in a particular manner, it would be needless for nature to grant females the faculty of laying royal eggs. such prodigality is, in his eyes, inconsistent with the ordinary laws of nature. therefore he maintains, in direct terms, that she does not lay royal eggs in cells purposely prepared to receive them. he considers the royal cells only as common ones, enlarged by the bees at the moment when the included worm is destined for a queen; and adds, that the royal cell would always be too long for the belly of the mother to reach the bottom. i admit that m. de reaumur no where says he has seen the queen lay in the royal cell. however he did not doubt the fact; and, after all my observations, i must esteem his opinion just. it is quite certain that, at particular periods of the year, the bees prepare royal cells; that the females deposit their eggs in them; and that worms, which shall became queens, proceed from these eggs. m. schirach's objection, concerning the length of the cells, proves nothing; for the queen does not delay depositing her egg till they are finished. while only sketched and shaped like the cup of an acorn, she lays it. this naturalist, dazzled by the brilliancy of his discovery, saw only part of the truth. he was the first to find out the resource granted to bees by nature, for repairing the loss of their queen; and too soon persuaded himself that she had provided no other resource for the production of females. this error arose from not observing bees in very flat hives: had he used such as mine, he would have found, on opening them in spring, a confirmation of m. de reaumur's opinion. then, which is the season of swarming, hives in good condition are governed by a very fruitful queen: there are royal cells of a figure widely different from those constructed around the worms destined by the bees for queens. they are large, attached to the comb by a stalk, and hanging vertically like stalactites, such, in short, as m. de reaumur has described them. the females lay in them before completion. we have surprised a queen depositing the egg when the cell was only as the cup of an acorn. the workers never lengthen them until the egg has been laid. in proportion as the worm grows, they are enlarged, and closed by the bees when the first transformation approaches. thus it is true, that, in spring, the queen deposits in royal cells, previously prepared, eggs from which flies of her own species are to come. nature has, therefore, provided a double means for the multiplication and conservation of their race. _pregny, 24. august 1791._ footnotes: {h} the author's meaning here is obscure.--t. letter v. _experiments proving that there are sometimes common bees which lay fertile eggs._ the singular discovery of m. riems, concerning the existence of fertile workers, has appeared very doubtful to you, sir. you have suspected that the eggs ascribed to workers by this naturalist had actually been produced by small queens, which, on account of their size, were confounded with common bees. but you do not positively insist that m. riems is deceived; and, in the letter which you did me the honour to address to me, you requested me to investigate, by new experiments, whether there are actually working bees capable of laying fertile eggs. i have made these experiments with great care: and it is for you to judge of the confidence they merit. on the fifth of august 1788, we found the eggs and worms of large drones in two hives, which had both been some time deprived of queens. we also observed the rudiments of some royal cells appended like stalactites to the edges of the combs. the eggs of males were in them. being perfectly secure that there was no queen of large size among the bees of these two hives, the eggs, which daily became more numerous, were evidently laid either by queens of small size or by fertile workers. i had reason to believe it was actually by common bees, for we had frequently observed them inserting the posterior part into the cells; and assuming the same attitude as the queen when laying. but, not withstanding every exertion, we had never been able to seize one in this situation, to examine it more narrowly. and we were unwilling to assert any thing positively, without having the bees in our hands that had actually laid. therefore our observations were continued with equal assiduity, in hopes that, by some fortunate chance, or in a moment of address, we could secure one of them. more than a month all our endeavours were abortive. my assistant then offered to perform an operation that required both courage and patience, and which i could not resolve to suggest, though the same expedient had occurred to myself. he proposed to examine each bee in the hive separately, to discover whether some small queen had not insinuated herself among them, and escaped our first researches. this was an important experiment; for, should no small queen be found, it would be demonstrative evidence that the eggs had been laid by simple workers. to perform this operation with all possible exactness, immersing the bees was not enough. you know, sir, that the contact of water stiffens their organs, that it produces a certain alteration of their external figure: and, from the resemblance of small queens to workers, the slightest alteration of shape would prevent us from distinguishing with sufficient accuracy to what species those immersed might belong. therefore it was necessary to seize the whole bees of both hives, notwithstanding their irritation, and examine their specific character with the utmost care. this my assistant undertook, and executed with great address. eleven days were employed in it; and, during all that time, he scarcely allowed himself any relaxation, but what the relief of his eyes required. he took every bee in his hand; he attentively examined the trunk, the hind limbs, and the sting: there was not one without the characteristics of the common bee, that is, the little basket on the hind legs, the long trunk, and the straight sting. he had previously prepared glass cases containing combs. into these, he put each bee after examination. it is superfluous to observe they were confined, which was a precaution indispensible until termination of the experiment. neither was it enough to establish that the whole were workers; we had also to continue the experiment, and observe whether any would produce eggs. thus we examined the cells for several days, and soon observed new laid eggs, from which the worms of drones came at the proper time. my assistant held in his hands the bees that produced them; and as he was perfectly certain they were common ones, it is proved that there are sometimes fertile workers in hives. having ascertained m. schirach's discovery, by so decisive an experiment, we replaced all the bees examined, in very thin glass hives, being only eighteen lines thick, and capable of containing but a single row of combs, and thus were extremely favourable to the observer. we thought, by strictly persisting to watch the bees, we might surprise a fertile one in the act of laying, seize and dissect her. this we were desirous of doing, for the purpose of comparing her ovaries with those of queens, and to ascertain the difference. at length, on the eighth of september, we had the good fortune to succeed. a bee appeared in the position of a female laying. before she had time to leave the cell, we suddenly opened the hive and seized her. she presented all the external characteristics of common bees; the only difference we could recognise, and that was a very slight one, consisted in the belly seeming less and more slender than that of workers. on dissection, her ovaries were found more fragile, smaller and composed of fewer oviducts than the ovaries of queens. the filaments containing the eggs were extremely fine, and exhibited swellings at equal distances. we counted eleven eggs of sensible size, some of which appeared ripe for laying. this ovary was double like that of queens. on the ninth of september, we seized another fertile worker the instant she laid, and dissected her. the ovary was still less expanded than that of the preceding bee, and only four eggs had attained maturity. my assistant extracted one from the oviducts, and succeeded in fixing it by an end on a glass slider. we may take this opportunity of remarking, that it is in the oviducts themselves the eggs are imbued with the viscous liquid, with which they are produced, and not in passing through the spherical sac as swammerdam believed. during the remainder of this month, we found ten fertile workers in the same hives, and dissected them all. in most, the ovaries were easily distinguished, but in some we could not discern the faintest traces of them. in these last, the oviducts to all appearance were but imperfectly developed, and more address than we had acquired in dissection was necessary to distinguish them. fertile workers never lay the eggs of common bees; they produce none but those of males. m. riems had already observed this singular fact; and here all my observations correspond with his. i shall only add to what he says, that fertile workers are not absolutely indifferent in the choice of cells for depositing their eggs. they always prefer large ones; and only use small cells when unable to find those of larger diameter. but they so far correspond with queens whose impregnation has been retarded, that they sometimes lay in royal cells. speaking of females laying male eggs alone, i have already expressed my surprise that bees bestow, on those deposited in royal cells, such care and attention as to feed the worms proceeding from them, and, at the period of transformation, to close them up. but i know not, sir, why i omitted to observe that, after sealing the royal cells, the workers build them up, and sit on them until the last metamorphosis of the included male{i}. the treatment of the royal cells where fertile workers lay the eggs of drones is very different. they begin indeed with bestowing every care on their eggs and worms; they close the cells at a suitable time, but never fail to destroy them three days afterwards. having finished these first experiments with success, i had still to discover the cause of the expansion of the sexual organs of fertile workers. m. riems had not engaged in this interesting problem; and at first i dreaded that i should have no other guide towards its solution than conjecture. yet from serious reflection, it appeared, that, by connecting the facts contained in this letter, there was some light that might elucidate my procedure in this new research. from m. schirach's elegant discoveries, it is beyond all doubt that common bees are originally of the female sex. they have received from nature the germs of an ovary, but she has allowed its expansion only in the particular case of their receiving a certain aliment while a worm. thus it must be the peculiar object of inquiry whether the fertile workers get that aliment while worms. all my experiments convince me that bees, capable of laying, are produced in hives that have lost the queen. a great quantity of royal jelly is then prepared for feeding the larvæ destined to replace her. therefore, if fertile workers are produced in this situation alone, it is evident their origin is only in those hives where bees prepare the royal jelly. towards this circumstance, i bent all my attention. it induced me to suspect that when bees give the _royal treatment_ to certain worms, they either by accident or a particular instinct, the principle of which is unknown to me, drop some particles of royal jelly into cells contiguous to those containing the worms destined for queens. the larvæ of workers that have accidentally received portions of so active an aliment, must be more or less affected by it; and their ovaries should acquire a degree of expansion. but this expansion will be imperfect; why? because the royal food has been administered only in small portions, and, besides, the larvæ having lived in cells of the smallest dimensions, their parts cannot extend beyond the ordinary proportions. thus, the bees produced by them will resemble common workers in size and all the external characteristics. added to that, they will have the faculty of laying some eggs, solely from the effect of the trifling portion of royal jelly mixed with their aliment. that we may judge of the justness of this explanation, it is necessary to consider fertile workers from their origin; to investigate whether the cells, where they are brought up, are constantly in the vicinity of the royal cells, and if their food is mixed with particles of the royal jelly. unfortunately, the execution of these experiments is very difficult. when pure, the royal jelly is recognised by its sharp and pungent taste; but, when mixed with other substances, the peculiar savour is very imperfectly distinguished. thus i conceived, that my investigation should be limited to the situation of the cells; and, as the subject is important, permit me to enter a little into detail{j}. in june 1790, i observed that one of my thinnest hives had wanted the queen several days, and that the bees had no mean of replacing her, there being no workers' worms. i then provided them with a small portion of comb, each cell containing a young worm of the working species. next day, the bees prolonged several cells around the worms destined for queens, in the form of royal ones. they also bestowed some care on the worms in the adjoining cells. four days afterwards, all the royal cells were shut, and we counted nineteen small cells also perfected and closed by a covering almost flat. in these were worms that had not received the royal treatment; but as they had lived in the vicinity of the worms destined for replacing the queens, it was very interesting to follow their history, and necessary to watch the moment of their last transformation. i removed the nineteen cells into a grated box, which was introduced among the bees. i also removed the royal cells, for it was of great importance, that the queens they would produce should not disturb or derange the result of the experiment. but here another precaution was also requisite. it was to be feared, that the bees being deprived of the produce of their labour, and the object of their hope might be totally discouraged; therefore, i supplied them with another piece of comb, containing the brood of workers, reserving power to destroy the young brood when necessary. this plan succeeded admirably. the bees, in bestowing all their attention on these last worms, forgot those that had been removed. when the moment of transformation of the nymphs in the nineteen cells arrived, i examined the grated box frequently every day, and at length found six bees exactly similar to _common bees_. the worms of the remaining thirteen had perished without changing. the portion of brood comb that had been put into the hive to prevent the discouragement of the bees was then removed. i put aside the queens produced in the royal cells; and having painted the thorax of the six bees red, and amputated the right antenna, i transferred the whole six into the hive, where they were well received. you easily conceive my object, sir, in this course of observations. i knew there was neither a large nor small queen in the hive: therefore, if, in the sequel, i should find new laid eggs in the combs, how very probable must it be that they had been produced by some of the six bees? but, to attain absolute certainty, it was necessary to take them in the act of laying. some ineffaceable mark was also required for distinguishing them in particular. this proceeding was attended with the most ample success. we soon found eggs in the hive; their number increased daily; and their worms were all drones. but a long interval elapsed before we could take the bees that laid them. at length, by means of assiduity and perseverance, we perceived one introducing the posterior part into a cell; we opened the hive, and caught the bee: we saw the egg it had deposited, and by the colour of the thorax, and privation of the right antenna, instantly recognised that it was one of the six that had passed to the vermicular state in the vicinity of the royal cells. i could no longer doubt the truth of my conjecture; at the same time, i know not whether the truth will appear as rigorous to you, sir, as it does to myself. but i reason in the following manner: if it is certain that fertile workers are always produced in the vicinity of royal cells, it is no less true, that in itself, the vicinity is indifferent; for the size and figure of these cells can produce no effect on the worms in those surrounding them; there must be something more; we know that a particular aliment is conveyed to the royal cells; we also know, that this aliment has a very powerful effect on the ovaries; that it alone can unfold the germ. thus, we must necessarily suppose the worms in the adjacent cells have had a portion of the same food. this is what they gain, therefore, by vicinity to the royal cells. the bees, in their course thither, will pass in numbers over them, stop and drop some portion of the jelly destined for the royal larvæ. this reasoning, i presume, is consistent with the principles of sound logic. i have repeated the experiment now described so often, and weighed all the concomitant circumstances with so much care, that whenever i please, i can produce fertile workers in my hives. the method is simple. i remove the queen from a hive; and very soon the bees labour to replace her, by enlarging several cells, containing the brood of workers, and supplying the included worms with the royal jelly. portions of this aliment also fall on the young larvæ deposited in the adjacent cells, and it unfolds the ovaries to a certain degree. fertile workers are constantly produced in hives where the bees labour to replace their queen; but we very rarely find them, because they are attacked and destroyed by the young queens reared in the royal cells. therefore, to save them, all their enemies must be removed, and the larvæ of the royal cells taken away before undergoing their last metamorphoses. then the fertile workers, being without rivals at the time of their origin, will be well received, and, by taking the precaution to mark them, it will be seen, in a few days, that they produce the eggs of males. thus, the whole secret of this proceeding consists in removing the royal cells at the proper time; that is, after being sealed, and previous to the young queens leaving them{k}. i shall add but a few words to this long letter. there is nothing so very surprising in the production of fertile workers, when we consider the consequences of m. shirach's beautiful discovery. but why do they lay male eggs only? i can conceive, indeed, that the reason of their laying few is from their ovaries being but imperfectly expanded, but i can form no idea why all the eggs should be those of males, neither can i any better account for their use in hives; and hitherto, i have made no experiments on their mode of fecundation. _pregny, 25. august 1791._ footnotes: {i} it is difficult to discover whether the author thinks, as some naturalists, that bees are instrumental in hatching the eggs.--t. {j} the original is extremely confused in the preceding passages.--t. {k} i have frequently seen queens, at the moment of production, begin first by attacking the royal cells and then the common ones beside them. as i had not seen fertile workers when i first observed this fact, i could not conceive from what motive the fury of the queen was thus directed towards the common cells. but now i know they can distinguish the species included, and have the same instinctive jealousy or aversion towards them as against the nymphs of queens properly so denominated. letter vi. _on the combats of queens: the massacre of the males: and what succeeds in a hive where a stranger queen is substituted for the natural one._ m. de reaumur had not witnessed every thing relative to bees when he composed his history of these industrious animals. several observers, and those of lusaçe in particular, have discovered many important facts that escaped him; and i, in my turn, have made various observations of which he had no suspicion: at the same time, and this is a very remarkable circumstance, not only has all that he expressly declares he saw been verified by succeeding naturalists, but all his conjectures are found just. the german naturalists, schirach, hattorf, and riems sometimes contradict him, indeed, in their memoirs; but i can maintain that, while combating the opinion of m. de reaumur, it is they who are almost always wrong; of which several instances might be adduced. what i shall now proceed to say will give me an opportunity of detailing some interesting facts. it was observed by m. de reaumur, that when any supernumerary queen is either produced in a hive, or comes into it, one of the two soon perishes. he has not actually witnessed the combat in which she falls, but he conjectures there is a mutual attack, and that the empire remains with the strongest or the most fortunate. m. schirach, on the other hand, and, after him, m. riems, thinks that the working bees assail the stranger, and sting her to death. i cannot comprehend by what means they have been able to make this observation: as they used very thick hives only, with several rows of combs, they could at most but observe the commencement of hostilities. while the combat lasts, the bees move with great rapidity; they fly on all sides; and, gliding between the combs, conceal their motions from the observer. for my part, though using the most favourable hives, i have never seen a combat between the queens and workers, but i have very often beheld one between the queens themselves. in one of my hives in particular, there were five or six royal cells, each including a nymph. the eldest first underwent its transformation. scarcely did ten minutes elapse from the time of this young queen leaving her cradle, when she visited the other royal cells still close. she furiously attacked the nearest; and, by dint of labour, succeeded in opening the top: we saw her tearing the silk of the coccoon with her teeth; but her efforts were probably inadequate to the object, for she abandoned this end of the cell, and began at the other, where she accomplished a larger aperture. when it was sufficiently enlarged, she endeavoured to introduce her belly, and made many exertions until she succeeded in giving her rival a deadly wound with her sting. then having left the cell, all the bees that had hitherto been spectators of her labour, began to increase the opening, and drew out the dead body of a queen scarcely come from its envelope of a nymph. meanwhile, the victorious young queen attacked another royal cell, but did not endeavour to introduce her extremity into it. there was only a royal nymph, and no queen, come to maturity, as in the first cell. in all probability, nymphs of queens inspire their rivals with less animosity; still they do not escape destruction: because, whenever a royal cell has been opened before the proper time, the bees extract the contents in whatever form they may be, whether worm, nymph, or queen. lastly, the young queen attacked the third cell, but could not succeed in penetrating it. she laboured languidly, and appeared as if exhausted by her first exertions. as we now required queens for some particular experiments, we resolved to remove the other royal cells, yet in safety, to secure them from her fury. after this observation, we wished to see what ensued on two queens leaving their cells at the same time, and in what manner one perished. i find an observation on this head in my journal, 15. may 1790. in one of our thinnest hives, two queens left their cells almost at the same moment. whenever they observed each other, they rushed together, apparently with great fury, and were in such a position that the antennæ of each was seized by the teeth of the other: the head, breast, and belly of the one were exposed to the head, breast, and belly of the other: the extremity of their bodies were curved; they were reciprocally pierced with the stings; and both fell dead at the same instant. but it seems as if nature has not ordained that both combatants should perish in the duel; but rather that, when finding themselves in the situation described, namely, opposite, and belly to belly, they fly at that moment with the utmost precipitation. thus, when these two rivals felt the extremities about to meet, they disengaged themselves, and each fled away. you will observe, sir, that i have repeated this observation very often, so that it leaves no room for doubt: and i think that we may here penetrate the intention of nature. there ought to be none but one queen in a hive: therefore it is necessary, if by chance a second is either produced or comes into the hive, that one of the two must be destroyed. this cannot be committed to the working bees, because, in a republic composed of so many individuals, an equal consent cannot be supposed always to exist; it might frequently happen that one group of bees destroyed one of the queens, while a second would massacre the other; and the hive thus be deprived of queens. therefore it was necessary that the queens themselves should be entrusted with the destruction of their rivals: but as, in these combats, nature demands but a single victim, she has wisely arranged that, at the moment when, from their position, the two combatants might lose their lives, both feel so great an alarm, that they think only of flight, and not of using their stings. i am well aware of the hazard of error in minute researches into the causes of the most trifling facts. but here the object and the means seem so plain, that i have ventured to advance my conjectures. you will judge better than i can, whether they are well founded.--let me now return from this digression. a few minutes after the two queens separated, their terror ceased, and they again began to seek each other. immediately on coming in sight, they rushed together, seized one another, and resumed exactly their former position. the result of this encounter was the same. when their bellies approached, they hastily disengaged themselves, and fled with precipitation. during all this time, the workers seemed in great agitation; and the tumult appeared to increase when the adversaries separated. two different times, we observed them stop the flight of the queens, seize their limbs, and retain them prisoners above a minute. at last, the queen, which was either the strongest or the most enraged, darted on her rival at a moment when unperceived, and with her teeth caught the origin of the wing; then rising above her, brought the extremity of her own body under the belly of the other; and, by this means, easily pierced her with the sting. then she withdrew her sting after losing hold of the wing. the vanquished queen fell down, dragged herself languidly along, and, her strength failing, she soon expired. this observation proved that virgin queens engage in single combats; but we wished to discover whether those fecundated, and mothers, had the same animosity. on the 22. of july, we selected a flat hive, containing a very fertile queen: and being curious to learn whether, as virgin queens, she would destroy the royal cells, three were introduced into the middle of the comb. whenever she observed this, _she_ sprung forward on the whole, and pierced them towards the bottom; nor did she desist until the included nymphs were exposed. the workers which had hitherto been spectators of this destruction, now came to carry the nymphs away. they greedily devoured the food remaining at the bottom of the cells, and also sucked the fluid from the abdomen of the nymphs: and then terminated with destroying the cells from which they had been drawn. in the next place, we introduced a very fertile queen into this hive; after painting the thorax to distinguish her from the reigning queen. a circle of bees quickly formed around the stranger, but their intention was not to caress and receive her well; for they insensibly accumulated so much, and surrounded her so closely, that in scarcely a minute she lost her liberty and became a prisoner. it is a remarkable circumstance, that other workers at the same time collected round the reigning queen and restrained all her motions; we instantly saw her confined like the stranger. perhaps it may be said, the bees anticipated the combat in which these queens were about to engage, and were impatient to behold the issue of it, for they retained their prisoners only when they appeared to withdraw from each other; and if one less restrained seemed desirous of approaching her rival, all the bees forming the clusters gave way to allow her full liberty for the attack; then if the queens testified a disposition to fly, they returned to enclose them. we have repeatedly witnessed this fact, but it presents so new and singular a characteristic in the policy of bees, that it must be seen again a thousand times before any positive assertion can be made on the subject. i would therefore recommend that naturalists should attentively examine the combat of queens, and particularly ascertain what part is taken by the workers. is their object to accelerate the combat? do they by any secret means excite the fury of the combatants? whence does it happen that accustomed to bestow every care on their queen, in certain circumstances, they oppose her preparations to avoid impending danger? a long series of observations are necessary to solve these problems. it is an immense field for experiment, which will afford infinitely curious results. i intreat you to pardon my frequent digressions. the subject is deeply philosophical, genius such as your's is required to treat it properly; and i shall now be satisfied with proceeding in the description of the combat. the cluster of bees that surrounded the reigning queen having allowed her some freedom, she seemed to advance towards that part of the comb where her rival stood; then, all the bees receded before her, the multitude of workers, separating the two adversaries, gradually dispersed, until only two remained; these also removed, and allowed the queens to come in sight. at this moment, the reigning queen rushed on the stranger, with her teeth seized her near the origin of the wing, and succeeded in fixing her against the comb without any possibility of motion or resistance. next curving her body, she pierced this unhappy victim of our curiosity with a mortal wound. in the last place, to exhaust every combination, we had still to examine whether a combat would ensue between two queens, one impregnated, and the other a virgin; and what circumstances attended it. on the 18. of september, we introduced a very fruitful queen into a glass hive, already containing a virgin queen, and put her on the opposite side of the comb, that we might have time to see how the workers would receive her. she was immediately surrounded, but they confined her only a moment. being oppressed with the necessity of laying, she dropped some eggs; however, we could not discover what became of them; certainly the bees did not convey them to the cells, for, on inspection, we found none there. the group surrounding this queen having dispersed a little, she advanced towards the edge of the comb, and soon approached very near the virgin queen. when in sight, they rushed together; the virgin queen got on the back of the other, and gave her several stings in the belly, but, having aimed at the scaly part, they did not injure her, and the combatants separated. in a few minutes, they returned to the charge; but this time the impregnated queen mounted on her rival; however, she sought in vain to pierce her, for the sting did not enter; the virgin queen then disengaged herself and fled; she also succeeded in escaping another attack, where her adversary had the advantage of position. these rivals appeared nearly of equal strength; and it was difficult to foresee to which side victory would incline, until at last, by a successful exertion, the virgin queen mortally wounded the stranger, and she expired in a moment. the sting had penetrated so far that the victorious queen was unable to extract it, and she was overthrown by the fall of her enemy. she made great exertions to disengage the sting: but could succeed by no other means than turning on the extremity of the belly, as on a pivot. probably the barbs of the sting fell by this motion, and, closing like a spiral around the stem, came more easily from the wound. these observations, sir, i think will satisfy you, respecting the conjecture of our celebrated reaumur. it is certain, that if several queens are introduced into a hive, one alone will preserve the empire; that the others will perish from her attacks; and that the workers will at no time attempt to employ their stings against the stranger queen. i can conceive what has misled m. riems and schirach; but it is necessary for explaining it that i should relate a new feature in the policy of bees, at considerable length. in the natural state of hives, several queens from different royal cells, may sometimes exist at the same moment, and they will remain either until formation of a swarm or a combat among them decides to which the throne shall appertain. but excepting this case, there never can be supernumerary queens; and if an observer wishes to introduce one, he can accomplish it only by force, that is by opening the hive. in a word, no queen can insinuate herself into a hive in a natural state, for the following reasons. bees preserve a sufficient guard, day and night, at the entrance of their habitation. these vigilant centinels examine whatever is presented; and, as if distrusting their eyes, they touch with the antennæ every individual endeavouring to penetrate the hive, and also the various substances put within their reach; which affords us an opportunity of observing that the antennæ are certainly the organs of feeling. if a stranger queen appears, she is instantly seized by the bees on guard, which prevent her entry by laying hold of her legs or wings with their teeth, and crowd so closely around her, that she cannot move. other bees, from the interior of the hive, gradually come to their assistance, and confine her still more narrowly, all having their heads towards the centre where the queen is inclosed; and they remain with such evident anxiety, eagerness, and attention, that the cluster they form may be carried about for some time, without their being sensible of it. a stranger queen, so closely confined and hemmed in, cannot possibly penetrate the hive. if the bees retain her too long imprisoned, she perishes. her death probably ensues from hunger, or the privation of air; it is undoubted, at least, that she is never stung. we never saw the bees direct their stings against her, except a single time, and then it was owing to ourselves. we endeavoured, from compassion for a queen's situation, to remove her from the center of a cluster; the bees became enraged; and, in darting out their stings, some struck the queen, and killed her. it is so certain that the stings were not purposely directed against her, that several of the workers were themselves killed; and surely they could not intend destroying one another. had we not interfered, they would have been content with confining the queen, and would not have massacred her. it was in similar circumstances that m. riems saw the workers anxiously pursue a queen. he thought they designed to sting her, and thence concluded, that the office of the common bees is to kill supernumerary queens. you have quoted his observations in the _contemplation de la nature, part ii, chap. 27, note 7_. but you are sensible, sir, from these details, that he has been mistaken. he did not know the attention that bees bestow on what passes at the entrance of their hive, and he was entirely ignorant of the means they take to prevent supernumerary queens from penetrating it. * * * * * after ascertaining that the workers in no situation sting the supernumerary queens, we were curious to learn how a stranger queen would be received in a hive wanting a reigning one. to elucidate this matter, we made numerous experiments, the detail of which would protract this letter too much, therefore i shall relate only the principal results. bees do not immediately observe the removal of their queen; their labours are uninterrupted; they watch over the young, and perform all their ordinary occupations. but, in a few hours, agitation ensues; all appears a scene of tumult in the hive. a singular humming is heard; the bees desert their young; and rush over the surface of the combs with a delirious impetuosity. then they discover their queen is no longer among them. but how do they become sensible of it? how do the bees on the surface of the comb discover that the queen is not on the next comb? in treating of another characteristic of these animals, you have yourself, sir, proposed the same question; i am incapable of answering it indeed, but i have collected some facts, that may perhaps facilitate the elucidation of this mystery. i cannot doubt that the agitation arises from the workers having lost their queen; for on restoring her, tranquillity is instantly regained among them; and, what is very singular, they _recognise_ her: you must interpret this expression strictly. substitution of another queen is not attended with the same effect, if she is introduced into the hive within the first twelve hours after removal of the reigning one. here the agitation continues; and the bees treat the stranger the same as when the presence of their own leaves them nothing to desire. they surround, seize, and keep her captive, a very long time, in an impenetrable cluster; and she commonly dies either from hunger or privation of air. if eighteen hours elapse before substitution of a stranger queen for the native one removed, she is at first treated in the same manner, but the bees leave her sooner; nor is the surrounding cluster so close; they gradually disperse; and the queen is at last liberated. she moves languidly; and sometimes expires in a few minutes. however some queens have escaped in good health from an imprisonment of seventeen hours; and ended with reigning in the hives where they had originally been ill received. if, before substituting the stranger queen, twenty-four hours elapse, she will be well received, and reign from the moment of her introduction into the hive. here i speak of the good reception given to a queen after an interregnum of twenty-four hours. but as this word reception is very indefinite, it is proper to enter into some detail for explaining the exact sense in which i use it. on the 15. of august, i introduced a fertile queen, eleven months old, into a glass hive. the bees were twenty-four hours deprived of their queen, and had already begun the construction of twelve royal-cells, such as described in the preceding chapter. immediately on placing this female stranger on the comb, the workers near her touched her with their antennæ, and, passing their trunks over every part of her body, they gave her honey. then these gave place to others that treated her exactly in the same manner. all vibrated their wings at once, and ranged themselves in a circle around their sovereign. hence resulted a kind of agitation which gradually communicated to the workers situated on the same surface of the comb, and induced them to come and reconnoitre, in their turn, what was going on. they soon arrived; and, having broke through the circle formed by the first, approached the queen, touched her with the antennæ, and gave her honey. after this little ceremony they retired; and, placing themselves behind the others, enlarged the circle. there they vibrated their wings, and buzzed without tumult or disorder, and as if experiencing some very agreeable sensation. the queen had not yet moved from the place where i had put her, but in a quarter of an hour she began to move. the bees, far from opposing her, opened the circle at that part to which she turned, followed her, and formed a guard around. she was oppressed with the necessity of laying, and dropped eggs. finally, after four hours abode, she began to deposit male eggs in the cells she met. while these events passed on the surface of the comb where the queen stood, all was quiet on the other side. here the workers were apparently ignorant of a queen's arrival in the hive. they laboured with great activity at the royal cells, as if ignorant that they no longer stood in need of them: they watched over the royal worms, supplied them with jelly and the like. but the queen having at length come to this side, she was received with the same respect that she had experienced from their companions on the other side of the comb. they encompassed her; gave her honey; and touched her with their antennæ: and what proved better that they treated her as a mother, was their immediately desisting from work at the royal cells; they removed the worms, and devoured the food collected around them. from this moment the queen was recognised by all her people, and conducted herself in this new habitation as if it had been her native hive. these particulars will give a just idea of the manner that bees receive a stranger queen; when they have time to forget their own, she is treated exactly as if she was their natural one, except that there is perhaps at first greater interest testified in her, or more conspicuous demonstrations of it. i am sensible of the impropriety of these expressions, but m. de reaumur in some respect authorises them. he does not scruple to say, that bees pay _attention_, _homage_, and _respect_, to their queen, and from his example the like expressions have escaped most authors that treat on bees. twenty-four or thirty hours absence is sufficient to make them forget their first queen, but i can hazard no conjecture on the cause. * * * * * before terminating this letter, which is full of combats and disastrous scenes, i should, perhaps, give you an account of some more pleasing and interesting facts relative to their industry. however, to avoid returning to duels and massacres, i shall here subjoin my observations on the massacre of the males. you will remember, sir, it is agreed by all observers, that at a certain period of the year, the workers kill and expel the drones. m. de reaumur speaks of these executions as a horrible massacre. he does not expressly affirm, indeed, that he has himself witnessed it, but what we have seen corresponds so well with his account, that there can be no doubt he has beheld the peculiarities of the massacre. it is usually in the months of july and august, that the bees free themselves of the males. then they are drove away and pursued to the inmost parts of the hive, where they collect in numbers; and as at the same time we find many dead drones on the ground before the hives, it is indubitable that after being expelled, the bees sting them to death. yet on the surface of the comb, we do not see the sting used against them; there the bees are content to pursue and drive them away. you observe this, sir, yourself, in the new notes added to _la contemplation de la nature_; and you seem disposed to think, that the drones forced to retire to the extremity of the hive, perish from hunger. your conjecture was extremely probable. still it was possible the carnage might take place in the bottom of the hive, and had been unobserved, because that part is dark, and escapes the observer's eye. to appreciate the justice of this suspicion, we thought of making the support of the hive of glass, and of placing ourselves below to see what passed in the scene of action. therefore, a glass table was constructed, on which were put six hives with swarms of the same year; and, lying under it, we endeavoured to discover how the drones were destroyed. the invention succeeded to admiration. on the 4 of july, we saw the workers actually massacre the males, in the whole six swarms, at the same hour, and with the same peculiarities. the glass table was covered with bees full of animation, which flew upon the drones, as they came from the bottom of the hive; seized them by the antennæ, the limbs, and the wings, and after having dragged them about, or, so to speak, after quartering them, they killed them by repeated stings directed between the rings of the belly. the moment that this formidable weapon reached them, was the last of their existence; they stretched their wings, and expired. at the same time, as if the workers did not consider them as dead as they appeared to us, they still stuck the sting so deep, that it could hardly be withdrawn, and these bees were obliged to turn upon themselves before the stings could be disengaged. next day, having resumed our former position, we witnessed new scenes of carnage. during three hours, the bees furiously destroyed the males. they had massacred all their own on the preceding evening, but now attacked those which, driven from the neighbouring hives, had taken refuge amongst them. we saw them also tear some remaining nymphs from the combs; they greedily sucked all the fluid from the abdomen, and then carried them away. the following days no drones remained in the hives. these two observations seem to me decisive. it is incontestible that nature has charged the workers with the destruction of the males at certain seasons of the year. but what means does she use to excite their fury against them? this is a question that i cannot pretend to answer. however, an observation i have made may one day lead to solution of the problem. the males are never destroyed in hives deprived of queens, on the contrary, while a savage massacre prevails in other places, they there find an asylum. they are tolerated and fed, and many are seen even in the middle of january. they are also preserved in hives, which, without a queen properly so called, have some individuals of that species that lay the eggs of males, and in those whose half fecundated queens, if i may use the expression, propagate only drones. therefore, the massacre takes place but in hives where the queens are completely fertile, and it never begins until the season of swarming is past. _pregny, 28 august 1791._ letter vii. _sequel of experiments on the reception of a stranger queen. m. de reaumur's observations on the subject._ i have frequently testified my admiration of m. de reaumur's observations on bees. i feel a sensible pleasure in acknowledging that if i have made any progress in the art of observation, i am indebted for it to profound study of the works of this naturalist. in general his authority has such weight, that i can scarcely trust my own experiments when the results are different from his. likewise, on finding myself in opposition to the _historian of bees_, i repeat my experiments. i vary the mode of conducting them; i examine with the utmost caution all the circumstances that might mislead me, and never are my labours interrupted before acquiring the moral certainty of avoiding error. with the aid of these precautions, i have discovered the justice of m. de reaumur's suggestions, and i have a thousand times seen, if certain experiments seemed to combat them, it was from incorrectness of execution. yet i must except some facts where my results have constantly been different from his. those respecting the reception of a stranger queen substituted for the natural one, are of the number. if, after removing the natural queen, a stranger is immediately substituted, the usurper is ill received. i never could succeed in making them adopt her, but by allowing an interval of twenty or twenty-four hours to elapse. then they seemed to have forgot their own queen; and respectfully received any female put in her place. m. de reaumur, on the contrary, asserts, that should the original queen be removed, and another presented, this new one will be perfectly well received from the beginning. as evidence of this assertion, he gives the detail of an experiment which must be read in his work, for i shall here give only an extract of it{l}. he induced four or five hundred bees to leave their native hive and enter a glass box, containing a small piece of comb towards the top. at first they were in great agitation; and, to pacify or console them, he presented a new queen. from this moment, the tumult ceased, and the stranger queen was received with all respect. i do not dispute the truth of this experiment; but, in my opinion, it does not warrant the conclusion that m. de reaumur deduces from it. his apparatus removed the bees too much from their natural condition, to allow him to judge of their instinct and dispositions. in other situations, he has himself observed, that these animals, reduced to small numbers, lost their industry and activity, and feebly continued their ordinary labours. thus their instinct is affected by every operation that too much diminishes their number. to render such an experiment truly conclusive, it must be made in a populous hive; and on removing the native queen, a stranger must immediately be substituted in her place. had this been done, i am fully persuaded, that m. de reaumur would have seen the bees imprison the usurper, confine her at least twelve or fifteen hours among them, and frequently suffocate her: nor would he have witnessed any favourable reception before an interval of twenty-four hours after removal of the original queen. no variation has occurred in my experiments regarding this fact. their number, and the attention bestowed on them, make me presume they merit your confidence. m. de reaumur, in another passage of the same memoir, affirms, that _bees, which have a queen they are satisfied with, are nevertheless disposed to give the best possible reception to any female that seeks refuge among them_. in the preceding letter, i have related my experiments on this head: their success has been very different from that of m. de reaumur's. i have proved that the workers never employ their stings against the queen; but this cannot be called the welcome reception of a stranger. they retain her within their ranks, and seem to allow her liberty only when she prepares to combat the reigning queen. this observation cannot be made except in the thinnest hives. those used by m. de reaumur had always two parallel combs at least, which must have prevented him from observing some very important circumstances that influence the conduct of workers when supplied with several females. the first circles formed around a stranger queen he has taken for caresses; and, from the little that this queen could advance between the combs, it must have been impossible for him to observe that the circles, which always continued contracting, ended in restraint of the females there inclosed. had he used thinner hives, he would have discovered that what he supposed indication of a favourable reception was the prelude of actual imprisonment. i feel reluctant to assert that m. de reaumur was deceived. yet i cannot admit that, on certain occasions, bees tolerate a plurality of females in their hives. the experiment on which this affirmation rests will not be considered decisive. in the month of december, he introduced a stranger queen into a glass hive, in his cabinet, and confined her there. the bees had no opportunity of going out. this stranger was well received; her presence awakened the workers from their lethargic state, into which they did not relapse; she excited no carnage; the number of dead bees on the board of the hive did not sensibly increase; and no dead queens were found. before concluding any thing favourable to the plurality of queens, it was necessary to ascertain whether the native queen was living when the new one was introduced into the hive: however the author neglected this; and it is very probable the hive had lost its queen, since the bees were languid, and the presence of a stranger restored their activity. i trust, sir, that you will pardon this slight criticism. far from industriously seeking faults in our celebrated reaumur, i derive the greatest pleasure when my observations coincide with his, and still more, when my experiments justify his conjectures. but i think it proper to point out those cases where the imperfections of his hives have led him into error, and to explain from what causes i have not seen certain facts in the same manner he did. i feel particular anxiety to merit your confidence, and i am aware that the greatest exertions are necessary, when i have to combat the historian of bees. i confide in your judgment; and pray you to be assured of my respect. _pregny, 30. august 1791._ footnotes: {l} edit. 4to, tom. v. p. 258. letter viii. _is the queen oviparous? what influence has the size of the cells, where the eggs are deposited, on the bees produced?--researches on the mode of spinning the coccoons._ in this letter i shall collect some isolated observations relative to various points in the history of bees, concerning which you wished me to engage. you desired me to investigate whether the queen is really _oviparous_. m. de reaumur leaves this question undecided. he observes, that he has never seen the worm hatched; and he only asserts that worms are found in those cells where eggs have been deposited three days preceding. if we attempt to catch the moment when the worm leaves the egg, we must extend our observations beyond the interior of the hive; for there the continual motion of the bees obscures what passes at the bottom of cells. the egg must be taken out, presented to the microscope, and every change attentively watched. one other precaution is essential. as a certain degree of heat is requisite to hatch the worms, should the eggs be too soon deprived of it they wither and perish. the sole method of succeeding in seeing the worm come out, consists in watching the queen while she lays, in marking the egg so as to be recognised, and removing it from the hive to the microscope only an hour or two before the three days elapse. the worm will certainly be hatched, provided it has been exposed as long as possible to the full degree of heat. such is the course i have pursued; and the following are the results obtained. in the month of august, we removed several cells containing eggs that had been three days deposited: we cut off the top of the cell, and put the pyramidal bottom, where the egg was fixed, on a glass slider. slight motions were soon perceptible in the eggs. at first, we could observe no external organization: the worm was entirely concealed from us by its pellicle. we then prepared to examine the egg with a powerful magnifier; however, during the interval, the worm burst its surrounding membrane, and cast off part of the envelope, which was torn and ragged on different parts of the body, and more evidently so towards the last rings. the worm alternately curved and stretched itself, with very lively action. twenty minutes were occupied in casting off the spoil; when this exertion ceased: the worm lay down, curved, and seemed to take that rest which it required. an egg laid in a worker's cell produced this animal, which would have become a worker itself. we next directed our attention to the moment when a male worm would be hatched. an egg was exposed to the sun on a glass slider; and, with a good magnifier, nine rings of the worm were perceptible within the transparent pellicle. this membrane was still entire, and the worm perfectly motionless. the two longitudinal lines of tracheæ were visible on the surface, and many ramifications. we never lost sight of the egg a single instant, and now succeeded in observing the first motions of the worm. the thick end alternately straightened and curved, and almost reached the part where the sharp extremity was fixed. these exertions burst the membrane, first on the upper part, towards the head, then on the back, and afterwards on all the rest successively. the ragged pellicle remained in folds on different parts of the body, and then fell off. thus it is beyond dispute, that the queen is oviparous. some observers affirm, that the workers attend to the eggs before the worms are hatched; and it is certain that, at whatever time a hive is examined, we always see some workers with the head and thorax inserted into cells containing eggs, and remaining motionless several minutes in this position. it is impossible to discover what they do, for the interior of the cell is concealed by their bodies; but it is very easily ascertained that, in this attitude, they are doing nothing to the eggs. if, at the moment the queen lays, her eggs are put into a grated box, and deposited in a strange hive, where there is the necessary degree of heat, the worms come out at the usual time, just as if they had been left in the cells. thus no extraordinary aid or attention is required for their exclusion. when the workers penetrate the cells, and remain fifteen or twenty minutes motionless, i have reason to believe, it is only to repose from their labours. my observations on the subject seem correct. you know, sir, that a kind of irregular shaped cells, are frequently constructed on the panes of the hive. these, being glass on one side, are exceedingly convenient to the observer, since all that passes within is exposed. i have often seen bees enter these cells when nothing could attract them. the cells contained neither eggs nor honey, nor did they need further completion. therefore the workers repaired thither only to enjoy some moments of repose. indeed, they were fifteen or twenty minutes so perfectly motionless, that had not the dilatation of the rings shewed their respiration, we might have concluded them dead. the queen also sometimes penetrates the large cells of the males, and continues very long motionless in them. her position prevents the bees from paying their full homage to her, yet even then the workers do not fail to form a circle around her, and brush the part of her belly that remains exposed. the drones do not enter the cells while reposing, but cluster together on the combs; and sometimes retain this position eighteen or twenty hours without the slightest motion. as it is important, in many experiments, to know the exact time that the three species of bees exist before assuming their ultimate form, i shall here subjoin my own observations on the point. the worm of workers passes three days in the egg, five in the vermicular state, and then the bees close up its cell with a wax covering. the worm now begins spinning its coccoon, in which operation thirty-six hours are consumed. in three days, it changes to a nymph, and passes six days in this form. it is only on the twentieth day of its existence, counting from the moment the egg is laid, that it attains the fly state. the royal worm also passes three days in the egg, and is five a worm; the bees then close its cell; and it immediately begins spinning the coccoon, which occupies twenty-four hours. the tenth and eleventh day it remains in complete repose, and even sixteen hours of the twelfth. then the transformation to a nymph takes place, in which state four days and a third are passed. thus it is not before the sixteenth day that the perfect state of queen is attained. the male worm passes three days in the egg, six and a half as a worm, and metamorphoses into a fly on the twenty-fourth day after the egg is laid. though the larvæ of bees are apodal, they are not condemned to absolute immobility in their cells; for they can move by a spiral motion. during the first three days, this motion is so slow as scarcely to be perceptible, but it afterwards becomes more evident. i have then observed them perform two complete revolutions in an hour and three quarters. when the period of transformation arrives, they are only two lines from the orifice of the cells. as their position is constantly the same, bent in an arc, those in the workers' and drones' cells are perpendicular to the horizon, while those in the royal cells lie horizontally. it might be thought, that the difference of position has much influence on the increment of the different larvæ; yet it has none. by reversing combs containing common cells full of brood, i have put the worms in a horizontal position; but they were not injured. i have also turned the royal cells, so that the worms came into a horizontal direction; however their increment was neither slower nor less perfect. * * * * * i have been much surprised at the mode of bees spinning their coccoons, and i have witnessed many new and interesting facts. the worms both of workers and males fabricate _complete_ coccoons in their cells; that is, close at both ends, and surrounding the whole body. the royal larvæ, on the other hand, spin imperfect coccoons, open behind, and enveloping only the head, thorax, and first ring of the abdomen. the discovery of this difference, which at first may seem trifling, has given me extreme pleasure, for it evidently demonstrates the admirable art with which nature connects the various characteristics in the industry of bees. you will remember, sir, the evidence i gave you of the mutual aversion of queens, of the combats in which they engage, and the animosity that leads them to destroy one another. of several royal nymphs in a hive, the first transformed attacks the rest, and stings them to death. but were these nymphs enveloped in a complete coccoon, she could not accomplish it. why? because the silk is of so close a texture, the sting could not penetrate, or if it did, the barbs would be retained by the meshes of the coccoon, and the queen, unable to retract it, would become the victim of her own fury. thus, that the queen might destroy her rivals, it was necessary the last rings of the body should remain uncovered, therefore the royal nymphs must only form imperfect coccoons. you will observe, that the last rings alone should be exposed, for the sting can penetrate no other part: the head and thorax are protected by connected shelly plates which it cannot pierce. hitherto, philosophers have claimed our admiration of nature in her care of preserving and multiplying the species. but from the facts i relate, we must admire her precautions in exposing certain individuals to a mortal danger. the detail on which i have just entered clearly indicates the final cause of the opening left by the royal worms in their coccoons; but it does not shew whether it is in consequence of a particular instinct that they leave this opening, or whether the wideness of their cells prevents them from stretching the thread up to the top. this question interested me very much; the only method of deciding it was to observe the worms while spinning, which cannot be done in their opaque cells. it then occurred to me to dislodge them from their own habitations, and introduce them into glass tubes, blown in exact imitation of the different kind of cells. the most difficult part of the operation consisted in extracting worms and introducing them here; but my assistant accomplished it with much address. he opened several sealed royal cells, where we knew the larvæ were about to begin their coccoons, and, taking them gently out, introduced one into each of my glass cells without the smallest injury. they soon prepared to work; and commenced by stretching the anterior part of the body in a straight line, while the other was bent in a curve. this formed a curve of which the longitudinal sides of the cells were tangents, and afforded two points of support. the head was next conducted to the different parts of the cell which it could reach, and it carpeted the surface with a thick bed of silk. we remarked that the threads were not carried from one side to another, and that this would have been impracticable, for the worms being obliged to support themselves, and to keep the posterior rings curved, the free and moveable part of the body was not long enough for the mouth to reach the sides diametrically opposite, and fix the threads to them. you will remember, sir, that the royal cells are of a pyramidal form, with a wide base, and a long contracted top. these cells hang perpendicularly in the hive, the point downwards, from which position the royal worm can be supported in the cell, only when the curvature of the posterior part forms two points of support; and that it cannot obtain this support without resting on the lower part, or towards the extremity. therefore if it attempted to stretch out and spin towards the wide end of the cell, it could not reach both sides from being too distant. one part would be touched by its extremity, the other by its back, and it would consequently tumble down. i have particularly ascertained the fact in glass cells that were too large, and of which the diameter was greater towards the point than is usual in cells; there they were unable to support themselves. these first experiments obviated the suspicion of any particular instinct in the royal worms. they proved, if the worms spun incomplete coccoons, it was because they were forced to do so by the figure of their cells. however, i wished to have evidence still more direct. i put them into cylindrical glass cells, or portions of glass tubes resembling common cells, and i had the satisfaction of seeing them spin complete coccoons, as the worms of workers do. lastly, i put common worms in very wide cells, and they left the coccoon open. thus it is demonstrated, that the royal worms, and those of workers, have the same instinct and the same industry, or in other words, when situated in the same circumstances, the course they follow is the same. i may here add, that the royal worms artificially lodged in cells, where they can spin complete coccoons, undergo all their metamorphoses equally well. thus the necessity imposed on them by nature, of having the coccoons open, is not necessary for their increment; nor has it any other object than that of exposing them to the certainty of perishing by the wounds of their natural enemy; an observation new and truly singular. * * * * * i ought to relate my experiments on the influence that the size of the cells has on bees. it is to you, sir, that i am indebted for suggesting them. as we sometimes find males smaller than they ought to be, and also queens more diminutive than usual, it was desirable to obtain a general explanation, to what degree the cells, where bees pass the first period of their existence, influence their size. with this view, you have advised me to remove all the combs composed of common cells, and to leave those consisting of large cells only. it was evident if the common eggs which the queen would lay in these large cells produced workers of larger size, we were bound to conclude that the size of the cells had a sensible influence on the size of the bees. the first time i made this experiment, it did not succeed, because weevils lodged in the hive discouraged the bees. but i repeated it afterwards, and the result was very remarkable. i removed the whole comb, consisting of common cells, from one of my best glass hives, and left that composed of males' cells alone: and to avoid vacuities, i supplied others of the same kind. this was in june, the season most favourable to bees. i expected that the bees would quickly have repaired the ravages produced by this operation in their dwelling; that they would labour at the breaches, and unite the new combs to the old. but i was very much surprised to see that they did not begin to work. expecting they would resume their activity, i continued observing them several days; however, my hopes were disappointed. their homage to the queen was not interrupted indeed; but except in this, their conduct to the queen was quite different from what it usually is; they clustered on the combs without exciting any sensible heat. a thermometer among them rose only to 81°, though standing at 77° in the open air. in a word, they appeared in a state of the greatest despondency. the queen herself, though very fertile, and though she must have been oppressed by her eggs, hesitated long before depositing them in the large cells; she chose rather to drop them at random than lay in cells unsuitable. however, on the second day, we found six that had been deposited there with all regularity. the worms were hatched three days afterwards, and then we began to study their history. though the bees provided them with food, they did not carefully attend to it; yet i was in hopes they might be reared. i was again disappointed; for next morning all the worms had disappeared, and their cells were left empty. profound silence reigned in the hive; few bees left it, and these returned without pellets of wax on the limbs; all was cold and inanimate. to promote a little motion, i thought of supplying the hive with a comb, composed of large cells, full of male brood of all ages. the bees, which had twelve days obstinately refused working in wax, did not unite this comb to their own. however, their industry was awakened in a way that i had not anticipated. they removed all the brood from this comb, cleaned out the whole cells, and prepared them for receiving new eggs. i cannot determine whether they expected the queen to lay, but it is certain if they did so they were not deceived. from this moment, she no longer dropped her eggs; but laid such a number in the new comb, that we found five or six together in the same cell. i then removed all the combs composed of large cells to substitute small cells in their place, an operation which restored complete activity among the bees. the peculiarities of this experiment seem worthy of attention. it proves that nature does not allow the queen the choice of the eggs she is to lay. it is ordained that, at a certain time of the year, she shall produce those of males, and at another time the eggs of workers, and this order cannot be inverted. we have seen that another fact led me to the same consequence; and as that was extremely important, i am delighted to have it confirmed by a new observation. let me repeat, therefore, that the eggs are not indiscriminately mixed in the ovaries of the queen, but arranged so that, at a particular season, she can lay only a certain kind. thus, it would be vain at that time of the year, when the queen should lay the eggs of workers, to attempt forcing her to lay male eggs, by filling the hives with large cells; for, by the experiment just described, we learn, that she will rather drop the workers eggs by chance than deposit them in an unsuitable place; and that she will not lay the eggs of males. i cannot yield to the pleasure of allowing this queen discernment or foresight, for i observe a kind of inconsistency in her conduct. if she refused to lay the eggs of workers in large cells, because nature has instructed her that their size is neither proportioned to the size nor necessities of common worms, would not she also have been instructed not to lay several eggs in one cell? it seems much easier to rear a worker's worm in a large cell, than to rear several of the same species in a small one. therefore, the supposed discrimination of bees is not very conspicuous. here the most prominent feature of industry appears in the common bees. when i supplied them with a comb of small cells, full of male brood, their activity was awakened; but instead of bestowing the necessary care on this brood, as they would have done in every other situation, they destroyed the whole nymphs and larvæ, and cleaned out their cells, that the queen, now oppressed with the necessity of laying, might suffer no delay in depositing her eggs. could we allow them either reason or reflection, this would be an interesting proof of their affection for her. the experiment, now detailed at length, not having fulfilled my object in determining the influence of the size of the cells on that of the worms, i invented another which proved more successful. having selected a comb of large cells, containing the eggs and worms of males, i removed all the worms from their farina, and my assistant substituted those of workers a day old in their place. then he introduced this comb into a hive that had the queen. the bees did not abandon these substituted worms; they covered their cells with a top almost flat, a kind quite different from what is put on the cells of males; which proves, that they were well aware that these, though inhabiting large cells, were not males. this comb remained eight days in the hive, counting from the time the cells were sealed. i then removed it to examine the included nymphs, which proved those of workers in different stages of advancement; but, as to size and figure, they perfectly resembled what had grown in the smallest cells. i thence concluded, that the larvæ of workers do not acquire greater size in large than in small cells. although this experiment was made only once, it seems decisive. nature has appropriated cells of certain dimensions for the worms of workers while in their vermicular state; undoubtedly she has ordained that their organs should be fully expanded, and there is sufficient space for that purpose; therefore more would be useless. their expansion ought to be no greater in the most spacious cells than in those appropriated for them. if some cells smaller than common ones are found in combs, and the eggs of workers are deposited there, the size of the bees will probably be less than that of common workers, because they have been cramped in the cells; but it does not thence ensue, that a larger cell will admit of them growing to a greater size. the effect produced on the size of drones by the size of the cells their worms inhabit, may serve as a rule for what should happen to the larvæ of workers in the same circumstances. the large cells of males are sufficiently capacious for the perfect expansion of their organs. thus, although reared in cells of still greater capacity, they will grow no larger than common drones. we have had evidence of this in those produced by queens whose fecundation has been retarded. you will remember, sir, that they sometimes lay male eggs in the royal cells. now, the males proceeding from them, and reared in cells much more spacious than nature has appropriated for them, are no larger than common males. therefore it is certain, that whatever be the size of the cells where the worms acquire their increment, the bees will attain no greater size than is peculiar to their species. but if, in their primary form, they live in cells smaller than they should be, as their growth will be checked, they will not attain the usual size, of which there is proof in the following experiment. i had a comb consisting of the cell of large drones, and one with those of workers, which also served for the male worms. of these, my assistant took a certain number from the smallest cells, and deposited them on a quantity of food purposely prepared in the large ones; and in return he introduced into the small cells the worms that had been hatched in the other, and then committed both to the care of the workers in a hive where the queen laid the eggs of males only. the bees were not affected by this change; they took equal care of the worms; and when the period of metamorphosis arrived, gave both kinds that convex covering usually put on those of the males. eight days afterwards, we removed the combs, and found, as i had expected, nymphs of large males in the large cells, and those of small males in the small ones. you suggested another experiment which i carefully made, but it met with an unforeseen obstacle. to appreciate the influence of the royal food on the expansion of the worms, you desired me to supply the worm of a worker in a common cell with it. twice i have attempted this operation without success. nor do i think it can ever succeed. if bees get the charge of worms, in whose cells the royal food is deposited, and if at the same time they have a queen, they soon remove the worms and greedily devour the food. when, on the contrary, they are deprived of a queen, they change the cells containing worms into cells of the largest kind. then the worms will infallibly be converted to queens. but there is another situation where we can judge of the influence of the royal food administered to worms in common cells. i have spoken at great length in my letter on the existence of fertile workers. you cannot forget, sir, that the expansion of their sexual organs is owing to the reception of some particles of royal jelly, while in the vermicular form. for want of new observations, i must refer you to what is previously said on the subject. _pregny, 4 september 1791._ letter ix. _on the formation of swarms._ i can add but a few facts to the information m. de reaumur has communicated relative to swarms. a young queen, according to this celebrated naturalist, is always or almost always at the head of a swarm; but he does not assert the fact positively, and had some doubts on the subject. "is it certain," says he "as we have hitherto supposed, in coincidence with all who have treated of bees, that the new colony is always conducted by a young mother? may not the old mother be disgusted with her habitation? or may she not be influenced by some particular circumstances to abandon all her possessions to the young female? i wish it had been in my power to solve this question otherwise than by mere probabilities, and that some misfortune had not befallen all the bees whose queen i had marked red on the thorax." these expressions seem to indicate, that m. de reaumur suspected that the old queens sometimes conducted the young swarms. by the following details, you will observe, that his suspicions are fully justified. in the course of spring and summer, the same hive may throw several swarms. the old queen is always at the head of the first colony; the others are conducted by young queens. such is the fact which i shall now prove; and the peculiarities attending it shall be related. but previous to entering on this subject, i should repeat what has already been frequently observed, that the _leaf_ or flat hives are indispensible in studying the industry and instinct of bees. when they are left at liberty to conduct several rows of parallel combs, we can no longer observe what is continually passing between them, or they must be dislodged by water or smoke, for examining what has been constructed; a violent proceeding, which has a material influence on their instinct, and consequently exposes an observer to the risk of supposing simple accidents permanent laws. i now proceed to experiments proving that an old queen always conducts the first swarm. one of my glass hives consisted of three parallel combs, placed in squares that opened like the leaves of a book. it was well peopled and abundantly provided with honey, wax, and brood, of every age. on the fifth of may 1788, i removed the queen, and on the sixth, transferred all the bees into another hive, with a fertile queen at least a year old. they entered easily and without fighting, and were in general well received. the old inhabitants of the hive, which, since privation of their queen, had begun twelve royal cells, also gave the fertile queen a good reception; they presented her with honey, and formed regular circles around her. however, there was a little agitation in the evening, but confined to the surface of the comb where we had put the queen, and which she had not quitted. all was perfectly quiet on the other side of this comb. in the morning of the seventh, the bees had destroyed the twelve royal cells, but, independent of that, order continued prevalent in the hive; the queen laid the eggs of males in the large cells, and those of workers in the small ones, respectively. towards the twelfth, we found the bees occupied in constructing twenty-two royal cells, of the same species described by m. de reaumur, that is the bases not in the plane of the comb, but appended perpendicularly by pedicles or stalks of different length, like stalactites, on the edge of the passage made by the bees through their combs. they bore considerable resemblance to the cup of an acorn, and the longest were only about two lines and a half in depth from the bottom to the orifice. on the thirteenth, the queen seemed already more slender than when introduced into the hive; however she still laid some eggs, both in common cells and those of males. we also surprised her this day laying in a royal cell: she first dislodged the worker there employed, by pushing it away with her head, and then supported herself by the adjoining cells while depositing the egg. on the fifteenth, the queen was still more slender: the bees continued their attention to the royal cells, which were all unequally advanced; some to three or four lines in height, while others were already an inch long; which proved that the queen had not laid in the whole at the same time. at the moment when least expected, the hive swarmed on the nineteenth; we were warned of it by the noise in the air; and hastened to collect and put the bees into a hive purposely prepared. though we had overlooked the facts attending the departure of the swarm, the object of this experiment was fulfilled; for, on examination of all the bees, we were convinced they had been conducted by the old queen; by that we introduced on the sixth of the month, and which had been deprived of one of the antennæ. observe, there was no other queen in this colony. in the hive she had left, we found seven royal cells close at the top, but open at the side, and quite empty. eleven more were sealed; and some others newly begun; no queen remained in the hive. the new swarm next became the object of our attention: we observed it during the rest of the year, during winter and the subsequent spring; and, in april, we had the satisfaction of seeing a new swarm depart with the same queen at its head that had conducted the former swarm in may the preceding year. you will remark, sir, that this experiment is positive. we put an old queen in a glass hive while laying the eggs of males. the bees received her well, and at that time began to construct royal cells; she laid in one of them before us; and in the last place led forth the swarm. we have several times repeated the same experiment with equal success. thus it appears incontestible, that the old queen always conducts the first swarm; but never quits the hive before depositing eggs in the royal cells, from which other queens will proceed after her departure. the bees prepare these cells only while the queen lays male eggs; and a remarkable fact attends it, that after this laying terminates, her belly being considerably diminished, she can easily fly, whereas, her belly is previously so heavy she can hardly drag it along. therefore it is necessary she should lay in order to be in a condition for undertaking her journey, which may sometimes be very long. but this single condition is not enough. it is also requisite that the bees be very numerous: they should even be superabundant, and a person might say they are aware of it: for, if the hive is thin, no royal cells are constructed when the male eggs are laid, which is solely at the period that the queen is able to conduct a colony. this fact was proved by the following experiment on a large scale. on the third of may 1788, we divided eighteen hives into two portions; all the queens were about a year old. thus each portion of the hives had but half the bees that were originally there. eighteen halves wanted queens, but the other eighteen had very fertile ones. they soon began to lay the eggs of males; but, the bees being few, they did not construct royal cells, and none of the hives threw a swarm.--therefore, if the hive containing the old queen is not very populous, she remains in it until the subsequent spring; and if the population is then sufficient, royal cells will be constructed: the queen will begin to lay male eggs, and, after depositing them, will issue forth at the head of a colony, before the young queens are produced. such is a very brief abstract of my observations on swarms conducted by old queens. you must excuse the long detail on which i am about to enter, concerning the history of the royal cells left by the queen in the hive. every thing relative to this part of the history of bees has hitherto been very obscure. a long course of observations, protracted even during several years, was necessary to remove, in some degree, the veil that concealed these mysteries. i have been indemnified for the trouble, indeed, by the pleasure of seeing my experiments reciprocally confirmed; but, considering the assiduity required in these researches, they were truly very laborious. having established in 1788 and 1789, that queens a year old conducted the first swarm, and that they left worms or nymphs in the hive to transform into queens in their turn; i endeavoured, in 1790, to profit by the goodness of the spring, to study all that related to these young queens; and i shall now extract the chief experiments from my journal. on the fourteenth of may, we introduced two portions of bees, from the straw hives, into a large glass hive very flat; and allowed them only one queen of the preceding year, and which had already commenced laying in its native hive. we introduced her on the fifteenth. she was very fertile. the bees received her well, and she soon began to lay in large and small cells alternately. on the twentieth, we saw the formation of twelve royal cells, all on the edges of the communications, or passages through the combs, and shaped liked stalactites. on the twenty-seventh, ten were much but unequally enlarged; but none so long as when the worms are hatched. on the twenty-eighth, previous to which the queen had not ceased laying, her belly was very slender, and she began to exhibit signs of agitation. her motion soon became more lively, yet she still continued examining the cells as when about to lay; sometimes introducing half her belly, but suddenly withdrawing it, without having laid. at other times she deposited an egg, which lay in an irregular position, on one side of the hexagon, and not fixed by an end to the bottom of the cell. the queen produced no distinct sound in her course, and we heard nothing different from the ordinary humming of bees. she passed over those in her way; sometimes when she stopped, the bees meeting her also stopped; and seemed to consider her. they advanced briskly, struck her with their antennæ, and mounted on her back. she then went on carrying some of the workers on her back. none gave her honey, but she voluntarily took it from the cells in her way. the bees no longer inclosed and formed regular circles around her. the first, aroused by her motions, followed her running in the same manner, and in their passage excited those still tranquil on the combs. the way the queen had traversed was evident after she left it, by the agitation created, which was never afterwards quelled: she had soon visited every part of the hive, and occasioned a general agitation; if some places still remained tranquil, the bees in agitation arrived, and communicated their motion. the queen no longer deposited her eggs in cells; she let them fall fortuitously: nor did the bees any longer watch over the young; they ran about in every different direction; even those returning from the fields, before the agitation came to its height, no sooner entered the hive than they participated in these tumultuous motions. they neglected to free themselves of the waxen pellets on their limbs, and ran blindly about. at last the whole rushed precipitately towards the outlets of the hive, and the queen along with them. as it was of much consequence to see the formation of new swarms in this hive, and, for that reason, as i wished it to continue very populous, i removed the queen, at the moment she came out, that the bees might not fly too far, and that they might return. in fact, after losing their female, they did return to the hive. to increase the population still more, i added another swarm, which had come from a straw hive on the same morning, and removed its queen also. all these facts were certain, and appeared susceptible of no error. notwithstanding this, i was particularly earnest to learn whether old queens always followed the same course; which induced me, on the twenty-ninth, to replace, in the glass hive, the queen a year old, which had hitherto been the subject of my experiments, and had just began to lay the eggs of males. on the same day, we found one of the royal cells left by the preceding queen larger than the rest; and, from its length, supposed the included worm two days old: the egg had, therefore, been laid on the twenty-fourth by that queen, and the worm was hatched on the twenty-seventh. on the thirtieth, the queen laid a great deal in the large and small cells alternately. now, and the two following days, the bees enlarged several royal cells, but unequally, which proved that they included larvæ of different ages. one was closed on the first of june, and on the second another. the bees also commenced some new ones. all was perfectly quiet at eleven in the morning; but, at mid-day, the queen, from the utmost tranquillity, became evidently agitated; and her agitation insensibly communicated to the workers in every part of their dwelling. in a few minutes they precipitately crowded to the entrances, and, along with the queen, left the hive. after they had settled on the branch of a neighbouring tree, i sought for the queen; thinking that, by removing her, the bees might return to the hive, which actually ensued. their first care seemed to consist in seeking the female; they were still in great agitation, but gradually calmed; and in three hours complete tranquillity was restored. they had resumed their usual occupations on the third: they attended to the young, worked within the open royal cells, and also watched on those that were shut. they made a waved work on them, not by applying wax cordons, but by removing wax from the surface. towards the top this waved work is almost imperceptible; it becomes deeper above, and the workers excavate it still more from thence to the base of the pyramid. the cell, when once shut, also becomes thinner; and is so much so, immediately preceding the queen's metamorphosis from a nymph, that all its motions are perceptible through the thin covering of wax on which the waved work is founded. it is a very remarkable circumstance, that in making the cells thinner, from the moment they are closed, the bees know to regulate their labour so that it terminates only when the nymph is ready to undergo its last metamorphosis. on the seventh day the coccoon is almost completely _unwaxed_, if i may use the expression, at the part next to the head and thorax of the queen. this operation facilitates her exit; for she has nothing to do but cut the silk that forms the coccoon. most probably the object is, to promote evaporation of the superabundant fluids of the nymph. i have made some direct experiments to ascertain the fact, but they are yet unfinished. a third royal cell was closed by the bees on the same day, the third of june, twenty-four hours after closing the second. the like was done to other royal cells successively, during the subsequent days. every moment of the seventh, we expected the queen to leave the royal cell shut on the thirtieth of may. the seven days had elapsed. the waving of her cell was so deep, that what passed within was pretty perceptible; we could discern that the silk of the coccoon was cut circularly, a line and a half from the extremity; but the bees being unwilling that she should yet quit her cell, they had soldered the covering to it with some particles of wax. what seemed most singular was, that this female emitted a very distinct sound, or clacking from her prison. it was still more audible in the evening, and even consisted of several monotonous notes in rapid succession. the same sound proceeded from the royal cell on the eighth. several bees kept guard round each royal cell. the first cell opened on the ninth. the young queen was lively, slender, and of a brown colour. now, we understood why bees retain the female captive in their cells, after the period for transformation has elapsed; it is, that they may be able to fly the instant they are hatched. the new queen occupied all our attention. when she approached the other royal cells, the bees on guard pulled, bit her, and chased her away; they seemed to be greatly irritated against her, and she enjoyed tranquillity only when at a good distance from these cells. this procedure was frequently repeated through the day. she twice emitted the sound; in doing so she stood, her thorax against a comb, and the wings crossed on her back; they were in motion but without being unfolded or further opened. whatever might be the cause of her assuming this attitude, the bees were affected by it; all hung down their heads, and remained motionless. the hive presented the same appearances on the following day. twenty-three royal cells yet remained, assiduously guarded by a great many bees. when the queen approached, all the guards became agitated, surrounded her on all sides, bit, and commonly drove her away; sometimes when in these circumstances, she emitted her sound, assuming the position just described, from that moment the bees became motionless. the queen confined in the second cell had not yet left it, and was heard to hum several times. we accidentally discovered how the bees fed her. on attentive examination, a small aperture was perceptible in the end of the coccoon which she had cut to escape, and which her guards had again covered with wax, to confine her still longer. she thrust her trunk through the cleft; at first the bees did not observe it alternately thrust out and drawn in, but one at length perceiving it, came to apply its trunk to that of the captive queen, and then gave way to others that also approached her with honey. when satisfied she retracted her trunk, and the bees again closed up the opening with wax. the queen this day between twelve and one became extremely agitated. the royal cells had multiplied very much; she could go no where without meeting them, and on approaching she was very roughly treated. then she fled, but to obtain no better reception. at last, these things agitated the bees; they precipitately rushed through the outlets of the hive, and settled on a tree in the garden. it singularly happened that the queen was herself unable to follow or conduct the swarm. she had attempted to pass between two royal cells before they were abandoned by the bees guarding them, and she was so confined and maltreated as to be incapable of moving. we then removed her into a separate hive prepared for a particular experiment; the bees, which had clustered on a branch, soon discovered their queen was not present, and returned of their own accord to the hive. such is an account of the second colony of this hive. we were extremely solicitous to ascertain what would become of the other royal cells. four of the close ones had attained complete maturity, and the queens would have left them had not the bees prevented it. they were not open either previous to the agitation of the swarms, or at the moment of swarming. none of the queens were at liberty on the eleventh. the second should have transformed on the eighth; thus she had been three days confined, a longer period than the first which formed the swarm. we could not discover what occasioned the difference in their captivity. on the twelfth, the queen was at last liberated, as we found her in the hive. she had been treated exactly as her predecessor; the bees allowed her to rest in quiet, when distant from the royal cells, but tormented her cruelly when she approached them. we watched this queen a long time, but not aware that she would lead out a colony, we left the hive for a few hours. returning at mid-day, we were greatly surprised to find it almost totally deserted. during our absence, it had thrown a prodigious swarm, which still clustered on the branch of a neighbouring tree. we also saw with astonishment the third cell open, and its top connected to it as by a hinge. in all probability the captive queen, profiting by the confusion that preceded the swarming, escaped. thus, there was no doubt of both queens being in the swarm. we found it so; and removed them, that the bees might return to the hive, which they did very soon. while we were occupied in this operation, the fourth captive queen left her prison, and the bees found her on returning. at first they were very much agitated, but calmed towards the evening, and resumed their wonted labours. they formed a strict guard around the royal cells, and took great care to remove the queen whenever she attempted to approach. eighteen royal cells now remained to be guarded. the fifth queen left her cell at ten at night; therefore two queens were now in the hive. they immediately began fighting, but came to disengage themselves from each other. however they fought several times during the night without any thing decisive. next day, the thirteenth, we witnessed the death of one, which fell by the wounds of her enemy. this duel was quite similar to what is said of the combats of queens. the victorious queen now presented a very singular spectacle. she approached a royal cell, and took this moment to utter the sound, and assume that posture, which strikes the bees motionless. for some minutes, we conceived, that taking advantage of the dread exhibited by the workers on guard, she would open it, and destroy the young female; also she prepared to mount the cell; but in doing so she ceased the sound, and quitted that attitude which paralyses the bees. the guardians of the cell instantly took courage; and, by means of tormenting and biting the queen, drove her away. on the fourteenth, the sixth young queen appeared, and the hive threw a swarm, with all the concomitant disorder before described. the agitation was so considerable, that a sufficient number of bees did not remain to guard the royal cells, and several of the imprisoned queens were thus enabled to make their escape. three were in the cluster formed by the swarm, and other three remained in the hive. we removed those that had led the colony, to force the bees to return. they entered the hive, resumed their post around the royal cells, and maltreated the queens when approaching. a duel took place in the night of the fifteenth, in which one queen fell. we found her dead next morning before the hive; but three still remained, as one had been hatched during night. next morning we saw a duel. both combatants were extremely agitated, either with the desire of fighting, or the treatment of the bees, when they came near the royal cells. their agitation quickly communicated to the rest of the bees, and at mid-day they departed impetuously with the two females. this was the fifth swarm that had left the hive between the thirtieth of may and fifteenth of june. on the sixteenth, a sixth swarm cast, which i shall give you no account of, as it shewed nothing new. unfortunately we lost this, which was a very strong swarm; the bees flew out of sight, and could never be found. the hive was now very thinly inhabited. only the few bees that had not participated in the general agitation remained, and those that returned from the fields after the swarm had departed. the cells were, therefore, slenderly guarded; the queens escaped from them, and engaged in several combats, until the throne remained with the most successful. notwithstanding the victories of this queen, she was treated with great indifference from the sixteenth to the nineteenth, that is, the three days that she preserved her virginity. at length, having gone to seek the males, she returned with all the external signs of fecundation, and was henceforth received with every mark of respect; she laid her first eggs forty-six hours after fecundation. behold, sir, a simple and faithful account of my observations on the formation of swarms. that the narrative might be the more connected, i have avoided interrupting it by the detail of several particular experiments which i made at the same time for elucidating various obscure points of their history. these shall be the subject of future letters. for, although i have said so much, i hope still to interest you. _pregny, 6. september 1791._ _p. s._--in revising this letter, i find i have neglected taking notice of an objection that may embarrass my readers, and which ought to be answered. after the first five swarms had thrown, i had always returned the bees to the hive: it is not surprising, therefore, that it was continually so sufficiently stocked that each colony was numerous. but things are otherwise in the natural state: the bees composing a swarm do not return to the hive; and it will undoubtedly be asked, what resource enables a common hive to swarm three or four times without being too much weakened? i cannot lessen the difficulty. i have observed that the agitation, which precedes the swarming, is often so considerable, that most of the bees quit the hive, and in that case we cannot well comprehend how, in three or four days afterwards, it can be in a state to send out another colony equally strong. but remark, in the first place, that the queen leaves a prodigious quantity of workers' brood, which soon transforms to bees; and in this way the population sometimes becomes almost as great after swarming as before it. thus the hive is perfectly capable of affording a second colony without being too much weakened. the third and fourth swarm weaken it more sensibly; but the inhabitants always remain in sufficient numbers to preserve the course of their labours uninterrupted; and the losses are soon repaired by the great fecundity of the queen, as she lays above an hundred eggs a day. if, in some cases, the agitation of swarming is so great, that all the bees participate in it, and leave the hive, the desertion lasts but for a moment. the hive throws only during the finest part of the day, and it is then that the bees are ranging through the country. those that are out, therefore, cannot share in the agitation; when returned to the hive, they quietly resume their labours; and their number is not small, for, when the weather is fine, at least a third of the bees are employed in the fields at once. even in the most embarrassing case, namely, where the whole bees desert the hive, it does not follow, that all those endeavouring to depart become members of the new colony. when this agitation or delirium seizes them, the whole rush forward and accumulate towards the entrance of the hive, and are heated in such a manner that they perspire copiously. those near the bottom, and supporting the weight of all the rest, seem drenched in perspiration; their wings grow moist; they are incapable of flight; and even when able to escape, they advance no farther than the board of the hive, and soon return. those that have lately left their cells remain behind the swarm, still feeble, they could not support themselves in flight. here then are also many recruits to people what we should have thought a deserted habitation. letter x. _the same subject continued._ to preserve greater regularity in continuing the history of swarms, i think it proper to recapitulate in a few words the principal points of the preceding letter, and to expatiate on each, concerning the result of new experiments, respecting which i have still been silent. in the first place. _if at the return of spring, we examine a hive well peopled, and governed by a fertile queen, we shall see her lay a prodigious number of male eggs in the course of may, and the workers will chuse that moment for constructing several royal cells of the kind described by m. de reaumur._ such is the result of several long continued observations, among which there has not been the slightest variation, and i cannot hesitate in announcing it as demonstrated. however, i should here add the necessary explanation. it is necessary that the queen, before commencing her _great_ laying of the eggs of males, be eleven months old; when young she lays only those of workers. a queen, hatched in spring, will perhaps lay fifty or sixty eggs of drones in whole, but before beginning her great laying of them, which should be two thousand in a month, she must have completed her eleventh month in age. in the course of our experiments, which more or less disturbed the natural state of things, it often happened that the queen did not attain this age until october, and immediately began laying male eggs. the workers, as if induced by some emanation from the eggs, also adopted this time for building the royal cells. no swarm resulted thence, it is true, because in autumn all the necessary circumstances are absolutely wanting, but it is not less evident, that there is a secret relation between the production of the eggs of males, and the construction of royal cells. this laying commonly continues thirty days. the bees on the twentieth or twenty-first lay the foundation of several royal cells. sometimes they build sixteen or twenty; we have even had twenty-seven. when the cells are three or four lines high, the queen lays those eggs from which her own species will come, but not the whole in one day. that the hive may throw several swarms, it is essential that the young females conducting them be not all produced at the same time. one may affirm, that the queen anticipates the fact, for she takes care to allow at least the interval of a day between every egg deposited in the cells. it is proved by the bees knowing to close the cells the moment the worms are ready to metamorphose to nymphs. now, as they close all the royal cells at different periods, it is evident the included worms are not all of an equal age. the queen's belly is very turgid before she begins laying the eggs of drones; but it sensibly decreases as she advances, and when terminated is very small. thus she finds herself in a condition to undertake a journey which circumstances may prolong; thus this condition was necessary; and as every thing is harmonious in the laws of nature, the origin of the males corresponds with that of the females, which they are to fecundate. secondly. _when the larvæ hatched from the eggs laid by the queen, in the royal cells, are ready to transform to nymphs, this queen leaves the swarm conducting a swarm along with her; and the first swarm that proceeds from the hive is uniformly conducted by the old queen._{m} i think i can divine the reason of it. that there may never be a plurality of females in a hive, nature has inspired queens with a natural horror against each other; they never meet without endeavouring to fight, and to accomplish their mutual destruction. thus, the chance of combat is equal between them, and fortune will decide to which the empire shall pertain. but if one combatant is older than the rest, she is stronger, and the advantage will be with her. she will destroy her rivals successively as produced. thus, if the old queen did not leave the hive, when the young ones undergo their last metamorphosis, it could produce no more swarms, and the species would perish. therefore, to preserve the species, it is necessary that the old queen conduct the first swarm. but what is the secret means employed by nature to induce her departure? i am ignorant of it. in this country it is very rare, though not without example, for the swarm, led forth by the old queen, in three weeks to produce a new colony, which is also conducted by the same old queen; and that may happen thus. nature has not willed that the queen shall quit the first hive before her production of male eggs is finished. it is necessary for her to be freed of them, that she may become lighter. besides, if her first occupation, on entering a new dwelling, was laying more male eggs, still she might perish either from age or accident before depositing those of workers. the bees in that case would have no means of replacing her, and the colony would go to ruin. all these things have been with infinite wisdom foreseen. the first operation of the bees of a swarm is to construct the cells of workers. they labour at them with great ardour, and as the ovaries of the queen have been disposed with admirable foresight, the first eggs she has to lay in her new abode are those of workers. commonly her laying continues ten or eleven days; and at this time portions of comb containing large cells are fabricated. it may be affirmed, that the bees know their queen will also lay the eggs of drones; she actually does begin to deposit some, though in much smaller number than at first; enough however to encourage the bees to construct royal cells. now, if in these circumstances the weather is favourable, it is not impossible that a second colony may be formed, and that the queen may depart at the head of it within three weeks of conducting the first swarm. but i repeat, the fact is rare in our climate. let me now return to the hives from which the queen has led the first colony. thirdly. _after the old queen has conducted the first swarm from the hive, the remaining bees take particular care of the royal cells, and prevent the young queens successively hatched from leaving them, unless at an interval of several days between each._ in the preceding letter, i have given you the detail and proof of this fact, and i shall here add some reflexions. during the period of swarming, the conduct or instinct of bees seems to receive a particular modification. at all other times, when they have lost their queen, they appropriate workers worms to replace her; they prolong and enlarge the cells of these worms; they supply them with aliment more abundantly, and of a more pungent taste; and by this alteration, the worms that would have changed to common bees are transformed to queens. we have seen twenty-seven cells of this kind constructed at once; but when finished the bees no longer endeavour to preserve the young females from the attacks of their enemies. one may perhaps leave her cell, and attack all the other royal cells successively, which she will tear open to destroy her rivals, without the workers taking any part in their defence. should several queens be hatched at once, they will pursue each other, and fight until the throne remain with her that is victorious. far from opposing such duels, the other bees rather seem to excite the combatants. things are quite reversed during the period of swarming. the royal cells then constructed are of a different figure from the former. they resemble stalactites, and in the beginning are like the cup of an acorn. the bees assiduously guard the cells when the young queens are ready for their last metamorphosis. at length the female hatched from the first egg laid by the old queen leaves her cell; the workers at first treat her with indifference. but she, immediately yielding to the instinct which urges her to destroy her rivals, seeks the cells where they are enclosed; yet no sooner does she approach than the bees bite, pull, and drive her away, so that she is forced to remove; but the royal cells being numerous, scarce can she find a place of rest. incessantly harassed with the desire of attacking the other queens, and incessantly repelled, she becomes agitated, and hastily traverses the different groupes of workers, to which she communicates her agitation. at this moment numbers of bees rush towards the aperture of the hive, and, with the young queen at their head, depart to seek another habitation. after the departure of the colony, the remaining workers set another queen at liberty, and treat her with equal indifference as the first. they drive her from the royal cells; being perpetually harrassed, she becomes agitated; departs, and carries a new swarm along with her. in a populous hive this scene is repeated three or four times during spring. as the number of bees is so much reduced, that they are no longer capable of preserving a strict watch over the royal cells, several females then leave their confinement at once; they seek each other, fight, and the queen at last victorious reigns peaceably over the republic. the longest intervals we have observed between the departure of each natural swarm have been from seven to nine days. this is the time that usually elapses after the first colony is led out by the old queen, until the next swarm is conducted by the first young queen set at liberty. the interval between the second and third is still shorter; and the fourth sometimes departs the day after the third. in hives left to themselves, fifteen or eighteen days are usually sufficient for the throwing of the four swarms, if the weather continues favourable, as i shall explain. a swarm is never seen except in a fine day, or, to speak more correctly, at a time of the day when the sun shines, and the air is calm. sometimes we have observed all the precursors of swarming, disorder and agitation, but a cloud passed before the sun, and tranquillity was restored; the bees thought no more of swarming. an hour afterwards, the sun having again appeared, the tumult was renewed; it rapidly augmented; and the swarm departed. bees generally seem much alarmed at the prospect of bad weather. while ranging in the fields the passage of a cloud before the hive induces them precipitately to return. i am induced to think they are disquieted by the sudden diminution of light. for if the sky is uniformly obscured, and there is no alteration in clearness or in the clouds dispelling, they proceed to the fields for their ordinary collections, and the first drops of a soft rain does not make them return with much precipitation. i am persuaded that the necessity of a fine day for swarming is one reason that has induced nature to admit of bees protracting the captivity of their young queens in the royal cells. i will not deny that they sometimes seem to use this right in an arbitrary manner. however the confinement of the queens is always longer when bad weather lasts several days together. here the final object cannot be mistaken. if the young females were at liberty to leave their cradles during these bad days, there would be a plurality of queens in the hive, consequently combats; and victims would fall. bad weather might continue so long, that all the queens might at once have undergone their last metamorphosis, or attained their liberty. one victorious over the whole would enjoy the throne, and the hive, which should naturally produce several swarms, could give only one. thus the multiplication of the species would have been left to the chance of rain, or fine weather, instead of which it is rendered independent of either, by the wise dispositions of nature. by allowing only a single female to escape at once, the formation of swarms is secured. this explanation appears so simple, that it is superfluous to insist farther on it. but i should mention another important circumstance resulting from the captivity of queens; which is, that they are in a condition to fly, when the bees have given them liberty, and by this means are capable of profiting by the first moment of sunshine to depart at the head of a colony. you well know, sir, that all drones and workers are not in a condition to fly for a day or two after leaving their cells. then they are of a whitish colour, weak, and their organs infirm. at least, twenty-four or thirty hours must elapse before the acquisition of perfect strength, and the development of all their faculties. it would be the same with the females was not their confinement protracted after the period of transformation; but we see them appear, strong, full grown, brown, and in a better condition for flying than at any other period. i have elsewhere observed, that constraint is used to retain the queens in captivity. the bees solder the covering to the sides of the cell by a cordon of wax. as i have also explained how they are fed, it need not be repeated here. it is likewise a very remarkable fact, that queens are set at liberty earlier or later according to their age. immediately when the royal cells were sealed, we marked them all with numbers, and we chose this period because it indicated the age of the queens exactly. the oldest was first liberated, then the one immediately younger, and so on with the rest. none of the younger queens were set at liberty before the older ones. i have a thousand times asked myself how the bees could so accurately distinguish the age of their captives. undoubtedly i should do better to answer this question by a simple avowal of my ignorance. at the same time, i must be permitted to state a conjecture. you will admit, that i have not, as some authors, abused the right of giving myself up to hypothesis; may not the humming or sound emitted by the young queens in their cells, be one of the methods employed by nature to instruct the bees in the age of their queens? it is certain that the female, whose cell is first sealed, is also the first to emit this sound. that in the next emits it sooner than the rest, and so on with those immediately subsequent. as their captivity may continue six days, it is possible that the bees in this space of time may forget which has emitted it first; but it is also possible, that the queens diversify the sounds, encreasing the loudness as they become older, and that the bees can distinguish these variations. we have even ourselves been able to distinguish differences in the sound, either with relation to the succession of notes, or their intensity; and probably there are gradations still more imperceptible that escape our organs, but may be sensible to those of the workers. what gives weight to this conjecture is, that the queens brought up by m. schirach's method, are perfectly mute; neither do the workers form any guard around their cells, nor do they retain them in captivity a moment beyond the period of transformation, and, when they have undergone it, they are allowed to combat until one has become victorious over all the rest. why? because the object is only to replace the last queen. now, provided that among the worms reared as queens, only one succeeds, the fate of the others is uninteresting to the bees, whereas, during the period of swarming, it is necessary to preserve a succession of queens, for conducting the different colonies; and to ensure the safety of the queens, it is necessary to avert the consequences of the mutual horror by which they are animated against each other. behold the evident cause of all the precautions that bees, instructed by nature, take during the period of swarming; behold an explanation of the captivity of females; and that the duration of their captivity might be ascertained by the age of the young queens, it was requisite for them to have some method of communicating to the workers when they should be liberated. this method consists in the sound emitted, and the variation they are able to give it. in spite of all my researches, i have never been able to discover the situation of the organ which produces the sound. but i have instituted a new course of experiments on the subject, which are still unfinished. another problem still remains for solution. why are the queens reared, according to m. schirach's method, mute, whilst those bred in the time of swarming have the faculty of emitting a certain sound? what is the physical cause of this difference? at first i thought it might be ascribed to the period of life, when the worms that are to become queens receive the royal food. while hives swarm, the royal worms receive the food adapted for queens, from the moment of leaving the egg; those on the contrary, destined for queens, according to m. schirach's method, receive it only the second or third day of their existence. it appears to me that this circumstance may have an influence on the different parts of organisation, and particularly on the organ of voice. experiment has not confirmed this conjecture. i constructed glass cells in perfect imitation of royal cells, that the metamorphosis of the worms into nymphs, and of the nymphs to queens, might be visible. these experiments are related in a preceding letter. into one of these artificial cells we introduced the nymph of a worm, reared according to m. schirach's method, twenty-four hours before it could naturally undergo its last metamorphosis; and we replaced the glass cell in the hive, that the nymph might have the necessary degree of heat. next day, we had the satisfaction of seeing it divest itself of the spoil, and assume its ultimate figure. this queen was prevented from escaping from her prison; but we had contrived an aperture for her thrusting out her trunk, and that the bees might feed her. i expected that she would have been completely mute; but it was otherwise; for she emitted sounds similar to those already described, therefore my conjecture was erroneous. i next conceived that the queen being restrained in her motions, and in her desire for liberty, was induced to emit certain sounds. all queens, in this new point of view, are equally capable of emitting the sound, but to induce them to it, they must be in a confined situation. in the natural state, the queens that come from workers are not a single instant in restraint; and, if they do not emit the sound, it is because nothing impels them to it. on the other hand, those produced at the time of swarming are induced to do so by the captivity in which they are kept. for my own part, i give little weight to this conjecture; and though i state it here, it is less with a view to claim merit than to put others on a plan of discovering something more probable. i do not ascribe to myself the credit of having discovered the humming of the queen bee. old authors speak of it. m. de reaumur cites a latin work published 1671, _monarchia femina_, by charles butler. he gives a very brief abstract of this naturalist's observations, who we easily see has exaggerated or rather disguised the truth, by mixing it with the most absurd fancies; but it is not the less evident that butler has heard this peculiar humming of queens, and that he did not confound it with the confused humming sometimes heard in hives. fourthly. _the young queens conducting swarms from their native hive are still in a virgin state._ the day after, being settled in their new abode, they generally depart in quest of the males; and this is usually the fifth day of their existence as queens; for two or three pass in captivity, one in their native hive, and a fifth in their new dwelling. those queens that come from the worm of a worker, also pass five days in the hive before going in quest of males. so long as in a state of virginity, both are treated with indifference by the bees; but after returning with the external marks of fecundation, they are received by their subjects with the most distinguished respect. however, forty-six hours elapse after fecundation before they begin to lay. the old queen, which leads the first swarm in spring, requires no farther commerce with the males, for preservation of her fecundity. a single copulation is sufficient to impregnate all the eggs she will lay for at least two years. _pregny, 8. september 1791._ footnotes: {m} schirach seems to have been aware of this fact.--t. letter xi. _the same subject continued._ i have collected my chief observations on swarms in the two preceding letters; those most frequently repeated, and of which the uniformity of result leads me to apprehend no error. i have deduced what seem the most direct consequences; and in all the theoretical part, i have sedulously avoided going beyond facts. what is yet to be mentioned is more hypothetical, but it engrosses several curious experiments. it has been demonstrated, that the principal motive of the young females departing when hives swarm, is their insuperable antipathy to each other. i have repeatedly observed that they cannot gratify their aversion, because the workers with the utmost care prevent them from attacking the royal cells. this perpetual opposition at length creates a visible inquietude, and excites a degree of agitation that induces them to depart. all the young queens are successively treated alike in hives that are to swarm. but the conduct of the bees towards the old queen, destined to conduct the first swarm, is very different. always accustomed to respect fertile queens, they do not forget what they owe to her; they allow her the most uncontrouled liberty. she is permitted to approach the royal cells; and if she even attempts to destroy them, no opposition is presented by the bees. thus her inclinations are not obstructed, and we cannot ascribe her flight, as that of the young queens, to the opposition she suffers. therefore, i candidly confess myself ignorant of the motives of her departure. yet, on more mature reflection, it does not appear to me that this fact affords so strong an objection against the general rule as i had at first conceived. it is certain at least, that the old queens, as well as the young ones, have the greatest aversion to the individuals of their own sex. this has been proved by the numerous royal cells destroyed. you will remember, sir, that in my first observations on the departure of old queens, seven royal cells opened at one side were destroyed by the queen. if rain continues several days, the whole are destroyed; in this case, there is no swarm, which too often happens in our climate, where spring is generally rainy. queens never attack cells containing an egg or a very young worm; but only when the worm is ready for transforming to a nymph, or when it has undergone its last metamorphosis. the presence of royal cells with nymphs or worms near their change, also inspires old queens with the utmost horror or aversion; but here it would be necessary to explain why the queen does not always destroy them though it is in her power. on this point, i am limited to conjectures. perhaps the great number of royal cells in a hive at once, and the labour of opening the whole, creates insuperable alarm in the old queen. she commences indeed with attacking her rivals; but, incapable of immediate success, her inquietude during this work becomes a terrible agitation. if the weather continues favourable, while she remains in this condition, she is naturally disposed to depart. it may easily be understood, that the workers accustomed to respect their queen, whose presence is a real necessity to them, crowd after her; and the formation of the first swarm creates no difficulty in this respect. but you will undoubtedly ask, sir, what motive can induce the workers to follow their queen from the hive, while they treat the young queens very ill, and, even in their most amicable moments, testify perfect indifference towards them. probably it is to escape the heat to which the hive is then exposed. the extreme agitation of the females leads them to traverse the combs in all directions. they pass through groupes of bees, injure and derange them; they communicate a kind of delirium, and these tumultuous motions raise the temperature to an insupportable degree. we have frequently proved it by the thermometer. in a populous hive it commonly stands between 92° and 97°, in a fine day of spring; but during the tumult which precedes swarming, it rises above 104°. and this is heat intolerable to bees. when exposed to it, they rush impetuously towards the outlets of the hive and depart. in general they cannot endure the sudden augmentation of heat, and in that case quit their dwelling; neither do those returning from the fields enter when the temperature is extraordinary. i am certain, from direct experiments, that the impetuous courses of the queen over the combs, actually throws the workers into agitation; and i was able to ascertain it in the following manner. i wished to avoid a complication of causes. it was particularly important to learn, whether the queen would impart her agitation but not at the time of swarming. therefore i took two females still virgins, but capable of fecundation for above five days, and put one in a glass hive sufficiently populous; the other i put into a different hive of the same kind. then i shut the hives in such a way that there was no possibility of their escape. the air had free circulation. i then prepared to observe the hives every moment that the fineness of the weather would invite both males and females to go abroad, for the purpose of fecundation. next morning, the weather being gloomy, no male left the hive, and the bees were tranquil; but towards eleven of the following day, the sun shining bright, both queens began to run about seeking an exit from every part of their dwelling; and from their inability to find one, traversed the combs with the most evident symptoms of disquiet and agitation. the bees soon participated of the same disorder; they crowded towards that part of the hive where the openings were placed; unable to escape they ascended with equal rapidity, and ran heedlessly over the cells until four in the afternoon. it is nearly about this time that the sun declining in the horizon recalls the males; queens requiring fecundation never remain later abroad. the two females became calmer, and tranquillity was in a short time restored. this was repeated several subsequent days with perfect similarity; and i am now convinced that there is nothing singular in the agitation of bees while swarming, but that they are always in a tumultuous state when the queen herself is in agitation. i have but one fact more to mention. it has already been observed, that on losing the female, bees give the larvæ of simple workers the royal treatment, and, according to m. schirach, in five or six days they repair the loss of their queen. in this case there are no swarms. all the females leave their cells almost at the same moment, and after a bloody combat the throne remains with the most fortunate. i can very well comprehend that the object of nature is to replace the lost queen; but as bees are at liberty to choose either the eggs or worms of workers, during the first three days of existence; to supply her place, why do they give the royal treatment to worms, all of nearly an equal age, and which must undergo their last metamorphosis almost at the same time? since they are enabled to retain the young females in their cells, why do they allow all the queens, reared according to schirach's method, to escape at once. by prolonging their captivity more or less, they would fulfil two most important objects at once, in repairing the loss of their females and preserving a succession of queens to conduct several swarms. at first it was my opinion, that this difference of conduct proceeded from the difference of circumstances in which they found themselves situated. they are induced to make all their dispositions relative to swarming only when in great numbers, and when they have a queen occupied with her principal laying of male eggs; whereas, having lost their female, the eggs of drones are no longer in the combs to influence their instinct. they are in a certain degree restless and discouraged. therefore, after removing the queen from a hive, i thought of rendering all the other circumstances as similar as possible to the situation of bees preparing to swarm. by introducing a great many workers, i encreased the population to excess, and supplied them with combs of male brood in every stage. their first occupation was to construct royal cells after schirach's method, and to rear common worms with royal food. they also began some stalactite cells, as if the presence of the male brood had inspired them to it; but this they discontinued, as there was no queen to deposit her eggs. finally, i gave them several close royal cells, taken indifferently from hives preparing to swarm. however, all these precautions were fruitless; the bees were occupied only with replacing their lost queen; they neglected the royal cells entrusted to their care; the included queens came out at the ordinary time, without being detained prisoners a moment; they engaged in several combats, and there were no swarms. recurring to subtleties, we may perhaps suggest a cause for this apparent contradiction. but the more we admire the wise dispositions of the author of nature, in the laws he has prescribed to the industry of animals, the greater reserve is necessary in admitting any theory adverse to this beautiful system, and the more must we distrust that facility of imagination from which we think by embellishment to elucidate facts. in general, naturalists who have long observed animals, and those in particular who have chose insects for their favourite study, have too readily ascribed to them our sentiments, our passions, and even our intentions and designs. incited to admiration, and disgusted perhaps by the contempt with which insects are treated, they have conceived themselves obliged to justify the consumption of time bestowed on this pursuit, and they have painted different traits of the industry of these minute animals, with the colours inspired by an exalted imagination. nor is even the celebrated reaumur to be acquitted of such a charge. he frequently ascribes combined intentions to bees; love, anticipation, and other faculties of too elevated a kind. i think i can perceive that although he formed very just ideas of their operations, he would be well pleased that his reader should admit they were sensible of their own interests. he is a painter who by a happy interest flatters the original, whose features he depicts. on the other hand, buffon unjustly considers bees as mere automatons. it was reserved for you, sir, to establish the theory of animal industry on the most philosophical principles, and to demonstrate that those actions that have a moral appearance depend on an association of ideas _simply sensible_. it is not my object here to penetrate those depths, or to insist on the details. but, on the whole, facts relative to the formation of swarms perhaps present more subjects of admiration than any other part of the history of bees. i think it proper to state, in a few words, the simplicity of the methods by which the wisdom of nature guides their instinct. it cannot allow them the slightest portion of understanding; it leaves them no precautions to be taken, no combination to be followed, no foresight to exercise, no knowledge to acquire. but having adapted their sensorium to the different operations with which they are charged, it is the impulse of pleasure which leads them on. she has therefore pre-ordained all that is relative to the succession of their different labours; and to each operation she has united an agreeable sensation. thus, when bees construct cells, watch over their larvæ, and collect provisions, we must not seek for method, affection, or foresight. the only inducement must be sought for in some pleasing sensation attached to each of these operations. i address a philosopher; and as these are his own opinions applied to new facts, i believe my language will be easily understood. but i request my readers to peruse and to reflect on that part of your works which treats of the industry of animals. let me add but another sentence. the inducement of pleasure is not the sole agent; there is another principle, the prodigious influence of which, at least with regard to bees, has hitherto been unknown, that is the sentiment of aversion which all females continually feel against each other, a sentiment whose existence is so fully demonstrated by my experiments, and which explains many important facts in the theory of swarms. _pregny, 10. september 1791._ letter xii. _additional observations on queens that lay only the eggs of drones, and on those deprived of the antennæ._ in relating my first observations on queens that lay male eggs alone, i have proved that they lay them in cells of all dimensions indifferently, and even in royal cells. it is also proved that the same treatment is given to male worms hatched from eggs laid in the royal cells, as if they were actually to be transformed to queens; and i have added, that in this instance the instinct of the workers appeared defective. it is indeed most singular, that bees which know the worms of males so well when the eggs are laid in small cells, and never fail to give them a convex covering when about to transform to nymphs, should no longer recognise the same species of worms when the eggs are laid in royal cells, and treat them exactly as if they should change to queens. this irregularity depends on something i cannot comprehend. in revising what is said on this subject, i observe still wanting an interesting experiment to complete the history of queens that lay only the eggs of drones. i had to investigate whether these females could themselves distinguish that the eggs they deposit in the royal cells would not produce queens. i have already observed that they do not endeavour to destroy these cells when close, and i thence concluded, that in general the presence of royal cells in their hive does not inspire them with the same aversion to females whose fecundation has been retarded; but to ascertain the fact more correctly, it was essential to examine how the presence of a cell containing a royal nymph would affect a queen that had never laid any other than the eggs of drones. this experiment was easy; and i put it in practice on the fourth of september, in a hive some time deprived of its queen. the bees had not failed to construct several royal cells for replacing their females. i chose this opportunity for supplying them with a queen, whose fecundation had been retarded to the twenty-eighth day, and which laid none but the eggs of males. at the same time, i removed all the royal cells, except one that had been sealed five days. one remaining was enough to shew the impression it would make on the stranger queen introduced; had she endeavoured to destroy it; this, in my opinion, would have proved that she anticipated the origin of a dangerous rival. you must admit the use i make of the word anticipate; it saves a long paraphrase; i feel the impropriety of it. if, on the contrary, she did not attack the cell i would thence conclude that the delay of fecundation, which deprived her of the power of laying workers eggs, had also impaired her instinct. this was the fact; the queen passed several times over the royal cell, both the first and the subsequent day, without seeming to distinguish it from the rest. she quietly laid in the surrounding cells; notwithstanding the cares incessantly bestowed by the bees upon it, she never one moment appeared to suspect the danger with which the included royal nymph threatened her. besides, the workers treated their new queen as well as they would have treated any other female. they were lavish of honey and respect, and formed those regular circles around her that seem an expression of homage. thus, independent of the derangement occasioned by retarded impregnation, in the sexual organs of queens, it certainly impairs their instinct. aversion or jealousy is no longer preserved against their own sex in the nymphine state, nor do they longer endeavour to destroy them in their cradles. my readers will be surprised that queens whose fecundation has been retarded, and whose fecundity is so useless to bees, should be so well treated and become as dear to them as females laying both kinds of eggs. but i remember to have observed a fact more astonishing still. i have seen workers bestow every attention on a queen though sterile; and after her death treat her dead body as they had treated herself when alive, and long prefer this inanimate body to the most fertile queens i had offered them. this sentiment, which assumes the appearance of so lively an affection, is probably the effect of some agreeable sensation communicated to bees by their queen, independent of fertility. those laying only the eggs of males probably excite the same sensation in the workers. i now recollect that the celebrated swammerdam somewhere observes, that when a queen is blind, sterile, or mutilated, she ceases to lay, and the workers of her hive no longer labour or make any collections, as if aware that it was now useless to work. he cites no experiment that led him to the discovery. those made by myself have afforded some very singular results. i frequently amputated the four wings of queens; and not only did they continue laying, but the same confederation of them was testified by the workers as before. therefore, swammerdam has no foundation for asserting, that mutilated queens cease to lay. indeed, from his ignorance of fecundation taking place without the hives, it is possible he cut the wings off virgin queens, and they, becoming incapable of flight, remained sterile from inability to seek the males in the air. thus, amputation of the wings does not produce sterility in queens. * * * * * i have frequently cut off one antennæ to recognise a queen the more easily, and it was not prejudicial to her either in fecundity or instinct nor did it affect the attention paid to her by the bees. it is true, that as one still remained, the mutilation was imperfect; and the experiment decided nothing. but amputation of both antennæ produced most singular effects. on the fifth of september, i cut both off a queen that laid the eggs of males only, and put her into the hive immediately after the operation. from this moment there was a great alteration in her conduct. she traversed the combs with extraordinary vivacity. scarcely had the workers time to separate and recede before her; she dropped her eggs, without attending to deposit them in any cell. the hive not being very populous, part was without comb. hither she seemed particularly earnest to repair, and long remained motionless. she appeared to avoid the bees; however, several workers followed her into this solitude, and treated her with the most evident respect. she seldom required honey from them, but, when that occurred, directed her trunk with an uncertain kind of feeling, sometimes on the head and sometimes on the limbs of the workers, and if it did reach their mouths, it was by chance. at other times she returned upon the combs, then quitted them to traverse the glass sides of the hive: and always dropped eggs during her various motions. sometimes she appeared tormented with the desire of leaving her habitation. she rushed towards the opening, and entered the glass tube adapted there; but the external orific being too small, after fruitless exertion, she returned. notwithstanding these symptoms of delirium, the bees did not cease to render her the same attention as they ever pay to their queens, but this one received it with indifference. all that i describe appeared to me the consequence of amputating the antennæ. however, her organization having already suffered from retarded fecundation, and as i had observed her instinct in some degree impaired, both causes might possibly concur in producing the same effect. to distinguish properly what belonged to the privation of the antennæ, a repetition of the experiment was necessary, in a queen otherwise well organised, and capable of laying both kinds of eggs. this i did on the sixth of september. i amputated both the antennæ of a female which had been several months the subject of observation, and being of great fecundity had already laid a considerable number of workers eggs, and those of males. i put her into the same hive where the queen of the preceding experiment still remained, and she exhibited precisely the same marks of delirium and agitation, which i think it needless to repeat. i shall only add, that to judge better of the effect produced by privation of the antennæ, on the industry and instinct of bees, i attentively considered the manner in which these two mutilated queens treated each other. you cannot have forgot, sir, the animosity with which queens, possessing all their organs, combat, on which account it became extremely interesting to learn whether they would experience the same reciprocal aversion after losing their antennæ. we studied these queens a long time; they met several times in their courses, and without exhibiting the smallest resentment. this last instance is, in my opinion, the most complete evidence of a change operated in their instinct. another very remarkable circumstance, which this experiment gave me occasion to observe, consists in the good reception given by the bees to the stranger queen, while they still preserved the first. having so often seen the symptoms of discontent that a plurality of queens occasions, after having witnessed the clusters formed around these supernumerary queens to confine them, i could not expect they would pay the same homage to a second mutilated one they still testified towards the first. is it because after losing the antennæ, these queens have no more any characteristic which distinguishes the one from the other? i was the more inclined to admit this conjecture from the bad reception of a third fertile queen preserving her antennæ, which was introduced into the same hive. the bees seized, bit her, and confined her so closely, that she could hardly breath or move. therefore, if they treat two females deprived of antennæ in the same hive equally well, it is probably because they experience the same sensation from these two females, and want the means of longer distinguishing them from each other. from all this, i conclude, that the antennæ are not a frivolous ornament to insects, but, according to all appearance, are the organs of touch or smell. yet i cannot affirm which of these senses reside in them. it is not impossible that they are organised in such a manner as to fulfil both functions at once. as in the course of this experiment both mutilated females constantly endeavoured to escape from the hive, i wished to see what they would do if set at liberty, and whether the bees would accompany them in their flight. therefore i removed the first and third queen from the hive, leaving the fertile mutilated one, and enlarged the entrance. the queen left her habitation the same day. at first she tried to fly, but, her belly being full of eggs, she fell down and never attempted it again. no workers accompanied her. why, after rendering the queen so much attention while she lived among them, did they abandon her now on her departure? you know, sir, that queens governing a weak swarm are sometimes discouraged, and fly away, carrying all their little colony along with them. in like manner sterile queens, and those whose dwelling is ravaged by weevils, depart; and are followed by all their bees. why therefore in this experiment did the workers allow their mutilated queen to depart alone? all that i can hazard on this question is a conjecture. it appears that bees are induced to quit the hives from the increased heat which occasions the agitation of their queen, and the tumultuous motion which she communicates to them. a mutilated queen, notwithstanding her delirium, does not agitate the workers, because she seeks the uninhabited parts of the hive, and the glass panes of it: she hurries over clusters of bees, but the shock resembles that of any other body, and produces only a local and instantaneous motion. the agitation arising from it, is not communicated from one place to another, like that produced by a queen, which in the natural state wishes to abandon her hive and lead out a swarm; there is no increased heat, consequently nothing that renders the hive insupportable to her. this conjecture, which affords a tolerable explanation why bees persist in remaining in the hive, though the mutilated queen has left it, is no reason for the motive inducing the queen herself to depart. her instinct is altered; that is the whole that i can perceive. i can discern nothing more. it is very fortunate for the hive, that this queen departs, for the bees incessantly attend her; nor do they ever think of procuring another while she remains; and if she was long of leaving them, it would be impossible to replace her; for the workers worms would exceed the term at which they are convertible into royal worms, and the hive would perish. observe, that the eggs dropped by the mutilated queen can never serve for replacing her, for, not being deposited in cells, they dry and produce nothing. i have yet to say a few words on females laying male eggs only. m. schirach supposes that one branch of their double ovary suffers some alteration. he seems to think that one of these branches contains the eggs of males, while the other has none but common eggs, and as he ascribes the inability of certain queens to lay the latter to some disease, his conjecture becomes very plausible. in fact, if the eggs of males and workers are indiscriminately mixed in both branches of the ovary, it appears at first sight that whatever cause acts on that organ, it should equally affect both species of eggs. if on the contrary, one branch is occupied by the eggs of drones only, and the other contains none but common eggs, we may conceive how disease affects the one, while the other remains untouched. though this conjecture is probable, it is confuted by observation. we lately dissected queens, which laid none but male eggs, and found both branches of the ovary equally well expanded, and equally sound, if i may use the expression. the only difference that struck us was that in these two branches, the eggs were apparently not so close together as in the ovaries of queens laying both kinds of eggs. _pregny, 12. september 1791._ letter xiii. _economical considerations on bees._ in this letter i shall treat of the advantages that may be derived from the new invented hives, called _book_ or _leaf_ hives, in promoting the _economical knowledge_ of bees. it is needless to relate the different methods hitherto employed in forcing bees to yield up a portion of their honey and wax; all resemble each other in being cruel and ill understood. it is evident, when bees are cultivated for the purpose of sharing the produce of their labours, we must endeavour to multiply them as much as the nature of the country admits; and consequently to regard their lives at the time we plunder them. therefore it is an absurd custom to sacrifice whole hives to get at the riches they contain. the inhabitants of this country, who follow no other method, annually lose immense numbers of hives; and spring, being generally unfavourable to swarms, the loss is irreparable. i well know that at first they will not adopt any other method; they are too much attached to prejudices and old customs. but naturalists and intelligent cultivators of bees will be sensible of the utility of the method i propose; and if they apply it to use i hope their example will extend and perfect the culture of bees. it is not more difficult to lodge a natural swarm in a leaf hive than in any other of a different shape. but there is one precaution essential to success, which i should not omit. though the bees are indifferent as to the position of their combs, and as to their greater or lesser size, they are obliged to construct them perpendicular to the horizon, and parallel to each other. therefore, if left entirely to themselves, when establishing a colony in one of those new hives, they would frequently construct several small combs parallel indeed, but perpendicular to the plane of the frames or leaves, and by this disposition prevent the advantages which i think to derive from the figure of my hives, since they could not be opened without breaking the combs. thus they must previously have a guide to follow; the cultivator himself lays the foundation of their edifices, and that by a simple method. a portion of comb must be solidly fixed in some of the boxes composing the hive; the bees will extend it; and, in prosecution of their work, will accurately follow the plan already given them. therefore on opening the hive, no obstacle is to be removed, nor stings to be dreaded, for one of the most singular and valuable properties attending this construction, is its rendering the bees tractable. i appeal to you, sir, for the truth of what i say. in your presence i have opened all the divisions of the most populous hives, and the tranquillity of the bees has given you great surprise. i can desire no other evidence of my assertion. it is in the facility of opening these hives at pleasure that all the advantages lie, which i expect in perfecting the economical knowledge of bees. i conceive, when i observe bees may be rendered tractable, that it need not be added, i do not arrogate to myself the absurd pretence of _taming_ them, for this excites a vague idea of tricks; and i would willingly avoid the hazard of exposing myself to any such reproach. i ascribe their tranquillity on opening the hives, to the manner that the sudden introduction of light affects them; then, they seem rather to testify fear than anger. many retire and enter the cells, and appear to conceal themselves. what confirms my conjecture is, their being less tractable during night or after sunset than through the day. thus, we must open the hives, while the sun is above the horizon, cautiously, and without any sudden shock. the divisions must be separated slowly, and care taken not to wound any of the bees. if they cluster too much on the combs, they must be brushed off with a feather; and breathing on them carefully avoided. the air we expire seems to excite their fury; it certainly has some irritating quality, for if bellows are used, they are rather disposed to escape than to sting. respecting the advantages of leaf hives, i shall observe, they are very convenient for forming _artificial_ swarms. in the history of natural swarms, i have shewn how many favourable circumstances are necessary for their success. from experience i know that they very often fail in our climate; and even when a hive is disposed to swarm, it frequently happens that the swarm is lost either because the moment of its departure has not been foreseen, because it rises out of sight, or settles on inaccessible places. instructing the cultivators of bees how to make artificial swarms is a real service, and the form of my hives renders this an easy operation. but it requires farther illustration. since bees, according to m. schirach's discovery, can procure another queen after having lost their own, provided there is workers brood in the combs not above three days old, it results that we can at pleasure produce queens, by removing the reigning one. therefore, if a hive sufficiently populous is divided in two, one half will retain the old queen, and the other will not be long of obtaining a new one. but to ensure success, we must choose a propitious moment, which is never certain but in leaf hives. in these we can see whether the population is sufficient to admit of division, if the brood is of the proper age, if males exist or are ready to be produced for impregnating the young queens. supposing the union of all these conditions, the following is the method to be pursued. the leaf hive may be divided through the middle without any shock. two empty divisions may be insinuated between the halves, which, when exactly applied to each other, are close on the outside. the queen must be sought in one of the halves, and marked to avoid mistake. if she by chance remains in the division with most brood, she is to be transferred to the other with less, that the bees may have every possible opportunity of obtaining another female. next, it is necessary to connect the halves together, by a cord tied tight around them, and care must be taken that they are set on the same board that the hive previously occupied. the old entrance, now become useless, will be shut up; but as each half requires a new one, it ought to be made at the bottom of each division, on purpose that they may be as far asunder as possible. both entrances should not be made on the same day. the bees in the half deprived of the queen ought to be confined twenty-four hours, and no opening made before then except for admission of air. without this precaution, they would soon search for their queen, and infallibly find her in the other division. they will then retire in great numbers from their own division, until too few remain to perform the necessary labours. but this will not ensue if they are confined twenty-four hours, provided that interval is sufficient to make them forget the queen. when all these circumstances are favourable, the bees, in the division wanting the queen, will the same day begin to labour in procuring another, and ten or fifteen days after the operation, their loss will be repaired. the young female they have reared, soon issues forth to seek impregnation, and in two days commences the laying of workers eggs. nothing more is wanting to the bees of this half hive, and the success of the artificial swarm is ensured. it is to m. schirach that we are indebted for this ingenious method of forming swarms. he supposes, by producing young queens early in spring, that early swarms might be procured, which would certainly be advantageous in favourable circumstances. but unfortunately this is impossible. schirach believed that queens were impregnated of themselves, consequently he thought that after being artificially produced, they would lay and give birth to a numerous posterity. now, this is an error; the females, to become fertile, require the concourse of the males, and if not impregnated within a few days of their origin, their laying, as i have observed, is completely deranged. thus, if a swarm were artificially formed before the usual time of the males originating, the bees would be discouraged by the sterility of the young female. or should they remain faithful to her, awaiting the period of fecundation, as she could not for three or four weeks receive the approaches of the male, she would lay eggs producing males only, and the hive in this case would perish. thus the natural order must not be deranged, but we must delay the division of hives until males are about to originate or actually exist. besides, if m. schirach did succeed in obtaining artificial swarms, notwithstanding the great inconvenience of his hives, it was owing to his singular address and unremitting assiduity. he had some pupils in the art; these communicated the method of forming artificial swarms to others, and there are people now in saxony who traverse the country practising this operation. those versant in the matter can alone venture to undertake it with common hives, whereas, every cultivator can do it himself with the leaf hives. in this construction, another very great advantage will also be found. bees can be forced to work in wax. here i am led to what i believe is a new observation. while naturalists have directed our admiration to the parallel position of the combs, they have overlooked another trait in the industry of bees, namely, the equal distance uniformly between them. on measuring the interval separating the combs, it will generally be found four lines. were they too distant, it is very evident the bees would be much dispersed and unable to communicate their heat reciprocally; whence the brood would not be exposed to sufficient warmth. were the combs too close, on the contrary, the bees could not freely traverse the intervals, and the work of the hive would suffer. therefore, a certain distance always uniform is requisite, which corresponds equally well with the service of the hive, and the care necessary for the worms. nature, which has taught bees so much, has instructed them regularly to preserve this distance. at the approach of winter, they sometimes elongate the cells which are to contain the honey, and thus contract the intervals between the combs. but this operation is a preparation for a season, when it is important to have plentiful magazines, and when their activity being very much relaxed, it is unnecessary for their communications to be so spacious and free. on the return of spring, the bees hasten to contract these elongated cells, that they may become fit for receiving the eggs which the queen will lay, and thus re-establish the just distance which nature has ordained. this being admitted, bees may be forced to work in wax, or, which is the same thing, to construct new combs. to accomplish the object, it is only necessary to separate those already built so far asunder that they may build others in the interval. suppose an artificial swarm is lodged in a leaf hive, composed of six divisions, each containing a comb, if the young queen is as fertile as she ought to be, the bees will be very active in their labours, and disposed to make great collections of wax. to induce them towards this an empty box or division must be placed between two others, each containing a comb. as all the boxes are of equal dimensions, and of the necessary width for receiving a comb, the bees having sufficient space for constructing a new one in the empty division introduced into the hive, will not fail to build it, because they are under the necessity of never having more than four lines between them. without any guide, this new comb will be parallel to the old ones, to preserve that law which establishes an equal distance throughout the whole. if the hive is strong and the weather good, three empty divisions may at first be left between the old combs; one between the first and second, another between the third and fourth, and the last between the fifth and sixth. the bees will fill them in seven or eight days, and the hive then contains nine combs. should the temperature of the weather continue favourable, three new leaves or divisions may be introduced; consequently in fifteen days or three weeks, the bees will have been forced to construct six new combs. the experiment may be extended farther in warm climates, and where flowers perpetually blow. but in our country, i have reason to think that the labour should not be forced more during the first year. from these details, you are sensible, sir, how preferable _leaf hives_ are to those of any other construction, and even to those ingenious stages described by _m. palteau_, for the bees cannot by means of them be forced to labour more in wax than they would do if left to themselves; whereas, they are obliged to do it by inserting empty divisions. next, the combs constructed on those stages cannot be removed without destroying considerable portions of brood, deranging the bees, and creating real disorder in the hive. mine have also this advantage, that what passes within may daily be observed, and we may judge of the most favourable moments for depriving the bees of part of their stores. with all the combs before us we can distinguish those containing brood only, and what it is proper to preserve. the scarcity or abundance of provisions is visible, and the portion suitable may be taken away. i should protract this letter too much, if i gave an account of all my observations on the time proper for inspecting hives, on the rules to be followed in the different seasons, and the proportion to be observed in dividing their riches with them. the subject would require a separate work; and i may perhaps one day engage in it; but until that arrives i shall always feel gratification in communicating to cultivators, who wish to follow my method, directions of which long practice has demonstrated the utility. here i shall only observe, that we hazard absolute ruin of the hives, by robbing them of too great a proportion of honey and wax. in my opinion, the art of cultivating these animals consists in moderately exercising the privilege of sharing their labours; but as a compensation for this, every method must be employed which promotes the multiplication of bees. thus, for example, if we desire to procure a certain quantity of honey and wax annually, it will be better to seek it in a number of hives, managed with discretion, than to plunder a few of a great proportion of their treasures. it is indubitable that the multiplication of these industrious animals is much injured by privation of several combs, in a season unfavourable to the collection of wax, because the time consumed in replacing them is taken from that which should be consecrated to the care of the eggs and worms, and by this means the brood suffers. besides, they must always have a sufficient provision of honey left for winter, for although less is consumed during this season, they do consume some; because they are not torpid, as some authors have conceived.{n} therefore if they have not enough, they must be supplied with it, which requires great exactness. i admit that in determining to what extent hives may be multiplied in a particular country, it is necessary first to know how many the country can support, which is a problem yet unsolved. it also depends on another, the solution of which is as little known, namely the greatest distance that bees fly in collecting their provender. different authors maintain, they can fly several leagues from the hive. but by the few observations i have been able to make, this distance seems greatly exaggerated. it appears to me that the radius of the circle they traverse does not exceed half a league. as they return to the hive with the greatest precipitation whenever a cloud passes before the sun, it is probable they do not fly far. nature which has inspired them with such terror for a storm, and even for rain, undoubtedly restrains them from going so far as to be too much exposed to the injuries of the weather. i have endeavoured to ascertain the fact more positively, by transporting to various distances bees with the thorax painted, that they might again be recognised. but none ever returned that i had carried for twenty-five or thirty minutes from their dwelling, while those at a shorter distance have found their way and returned. i do not state this experiment as decisive. though bees do not generally fly above half a league, it is very possible they go much farther, when flowers are scarce in their own vicinity. a conclusive experiment must be made in vast arid or sandy plains, separated by a known distance from a fertile region. thus, the question yet remains undecided. but without ascertaining the number of hives that any district can maintain, i shall remark that certain vegetable productions are much more favourable to bees than others. more hives, for example, may be kept in a country abounding meadows, and where black grain is cultivated, than in a district of vineyards or corn. * * * * * here i terminate my observations on bees. though i have had the good fortune to make some interesting discoveries, i am far from considering my labour finished. several problems concerning the history of these animals still remain unsolved. the experiments i project may perhaps throw some light on them; and i shall be animated with much greater hopes of success, if you, sir, will continue your counsels and direction. i am, with every sentiment of gratitude and respect, francis huber. _pregny, 1. october 1791._ footnotes: {n} so far from being torpid in winter, when the thermometer in the open air is several degrees below freezing, it stands at (86) and (88°), in hives sufficiently populous. the bees then cluster together, and move to preserve their heat. now that i am on the subject of thermometrical observations, i may cursorily remark, that m. dubois of bourg en bresse, in a memoir otherwise valuable, is of opinion, that the larvæ cannot be hatched below (104). i have repeatedly made the experiment with the most accurate thermometers, and obtained a very different result. when the thermometer rises to (104°), the heat is so much greater than the eggs require, that it is intolerable to the bees. m. dubois has been deceived, i imagine, by too suddenly introducing his thermometer into a cluster of bees, and putting them in agitation, the mercury has rose higher than it should naturally do. had he delayed introducing the thermometer, he would soon have seen it fall to between 95 and 97, which is the usual temperature of hives in summer. in august this year, when the thermometer in the open air stood at 94, it did not rise above 99 in the most populous hives. the bees had little motion, and a great many rested on the board of the hive. appendix. [the following passages are chiefly engrossed in the substance of the work, but the translator, as has already been observed, for various reasons, judges it expedient to transfer them to an appendix. in his opinion these very minute details rather interrupt the connexion of the narrative, however interesting they may be considered, and they pertain more to researches purely anatomical. the translator has likewise in some instances incorporated several long and important notes with the text; because it appears to him that they actually belong to the substance of the treatise. these are the only variations from the original with respect to arrangement.] * * * * * swammerdam has given an imperfect description of the ovary of the queen. he observes that he has never been able to find the termination of the oviducts in the abdomen, nor any other parts excepting those which he has described. "notwithstanding all my exertions, i never could discover the site of the vulva, partly because i had not all my apparatus with me in the country, when investigating this subject, and partly from my apprehension of injuring other parts by pressure, which i had then occasion to examine. however, i have clearly observed a muscular swelling of the oviduct, where approaching the last ring of the belly; that it then contracts and afterwards dilates in becoming membranaceous. as i was desirous of preserving the poison bag, which is situated exactly here, along with, the muscles aiding the motion of the sting, i could follow the oviduct no farther. however, in another female, it appeared that the vulva is in the last ring of the abdomen, and under the sting. the parts expanding only while the queen lays, renders it extremely difficult to penetrate the aperture." we have attempted to discover what has escaped the indefatigable swammerdam. but his observation that the research can be made to the greatest advantage, at the time of laying, has paved the way to us. we have remarked that the oviduct did not issue from the body, but that the eggs fall into a kind of cavity, where they are retained several seconds before being laid. on the sixth of august, we took a very fertile queen, and holding her gently by the wings in a supine position, the whole belly was exposed. she seized the extremity with her second pair of legs, and curved it as much as possible. this seeming an unfavourable position for laying, we forced her to stretch it out. the queen, oppressed with the necessity of laying, could no longer retain her eggs. the lower part of the last ring then separated so far from the upper part as to leave some of the inside discovered. in this cavity the sting lay above in its sheath. as the queen now made new efforts, we saw an egg fall into the cavity from the end of the oviduct. the lips then closed for several seconds; they opened again, and, in a much shorter time, dropped the egg from the cavity. from our own observations we found that the seminal fluid of drones coagulated on exposure to the air, and from several experiments had so little doubt on the subject, that whenever the female returned with the external marks of fecundation, we thought we recognised it in the whitish substance filling the sexual organs. it did not then occur to us to dissect the females to ascertain the fact more particularly: but this year, whether designing to neglect nothing, or to examine the distension of the female organs, we determined to dissect several. to our infinite surprise, what we had supposed the residue of the prolific fluid, actually proved the genital organs of the male, which separate from his body during copulation, and remain in the female. we procured a number of queens according to schirach's method for the purpose of dissection, and set them at liberty that they might seek the males. the first which did so, was seized the instant she returned, and without dissection spontaneously exhibited what we were so impatient to behold. examining the under part of the belly, we saw the oval end of a white substance which distended the sexual organs. the belly was in constant motion, by alternate extension and contraction. already had we prepared to sever the rings, and by dissection to ascertain the cause of these motions; when the queen curving her belly very much, and endeavouring to reach its extremity with her hind legs, seized the distending substance with her claws, and evidently made an effort to extract it. she at last succeeded, and it fell before us. we expected a shapeless mass of coagulated fluid; what therefore was our surprise to find it part of the same male that had rendered this queen a mother. at first we could not credit our eyes; but after examining it in every position, both with the naked eye, and a powerful magnifier, we distinctly recognised it to be that part which m. de reaumur calls the _lenticular_ body, or the _lentil_, in the following description.{o} 'opening a drone there appears a portion formed by the assemblage of several parts, often whiter than milk. this on investigation is found to be principally composed of four oblong pieces. the two largest are attached to a kind of twisted cord, fig. 4. r, called by swammerdam the root of the penis; and he has denominated seminal vessels, s. s. two long bodies that we are about to consider. other two bodies oblong like the preceding, but shorter and not half the diameter, he calls the _vasa deferentia_, d. d. each communicates with one of the seminal vessels near, g. g. where they unite to the twisted cord, r. from the other extremity proceeds a very delicate vessel, which, after several involutions, terminates in a body, t. a little larger, but difficult to disengage from the surrounding tracheæ. swammerdam considers these two bodies, t. t. the testicles. thus there are two parts of considerable size, communicating with other two still thicker and longer. these four bodies are of a cellular texture, and full of a milky fluid, which may be squeezed out. this long twisted cord, r, to which the largest of the seminal vessels is connected, this cord, i say, is doubtless the channel by which the milky fluid issues. after several plications, it terminates in a kind of bladder or fleshy sac, i. i. in different males this part is of various length and flatness. by calling it the _lenticular_ body, or the lentil, it receives a name descriptive of the figure it presents in all males whose internal parts have acquired consistency in spirit of wine. the body, l. i. is therefore a lentil, a little thickened, of which one half, or nearly so, of the circumference is edged along the outline by two chesnut coloured scaly plates, e. i. a small white cord, the real edge of the lentil, is visible, and separates them. this lentil is a little oblong, and, for convenience, we shall ascribe two extremities to it, the anterior and posterior. the anterior, l, next the head, is where the canal, r, dividing the seminal vessels is inserted, and the opposite part; i. next the anus, the posterior. the two scaly plates, e. i. e. i, proceed from the vicinity of this last part, whence each enlarges to cover part of the lentil. under the broadest part of each plate, there is a division formed by two soft points of unequal length; the largest of which is on the circumference of the lentil. besides these two scaly plates, there are two others, n. n. of the same colour, narrower, and fully one half shorter, each of which is situated very near the preceding, and originates close to the origin of that it accompanies, namely, at the posterior part of the lentil. the rest of the lentil is white and membranaceous. from behind proceeds a tube, k. a canal also white and membranaceous, but it is difficult to judge of its diameter, for the membranes, of which it consists, are evidently in folds. to one side of this pipe is attached a fleshy part, p. somewhat pallet shaped, one side is concave, and the edges plaited; the other side is convex. in certain places the plaits rise and project from the rest of the outline, and form a kind of rays; the pallet appears prettily figured. though lying with the concave side applied to the lentil, it is not fixed to it. swammerdam seems to consider this pallet as the characteristic part of the male. 'though the parts we have described are the most conspicuous in the male, they are neither those which protrude first, nor when protruded are the most remarkable. on viewing from the opposite edge of the lentil, forming the division of the two great scaly plates, a sac or canal, k. proceeding from the posterior part of the lentil, there is distinctly visible the body u, which we call the arc; where there are five transverse hairy bands of a yellow colour, while the rest is white. this arc seems out of the membranaceous canal because it is covered only by a very transparent membrane. one end almost reaches the lenticular body, and the other terminates where the membranaceous canal joins the folded yellow membranes, m. which form a species of sac, that is applied to the sides of the aperture, adapted for the genital organs passing through. these reddish membranes are those that appear first on pressure, and form this elongated portion, at whose end is a kind of hairy mask. finally, with the sac formed by the reddish membranes, there are connected two appendages, c. c. of reddish yellow, and red at the end, s. these are what appear externally like horns.{p}' the lenticular substance, l. i. provided with each scaly lamina, are the only parts of those described by m. de reaumur, that we have found engaged in the organs of our queens. the canal, r, by swammerdam denominated the root of the penis, breaks in copulation; and we have seen its fragments at the place where it unites to the end of the lentil, l. towards the anterior extremity; but we have found no traces of the canal, k, formed of involuted membranes, which in the body of the male proceeds from the posterior end of the lentil, l. i. nor of the plaited pallet, p. adhering to this canal, called by swammerdam the penis from its resemblance to that of other animals, though he is not of opinion that this point, which is not perforated, can perform the functions of a real penis, and hold the principal part in generation. the canal, k, therefore, and all appertaining to it, must break at i, quite close to the posterior part of the lentil, since we found no remains of the lenticular bodies left by the fecundating males, in the body of our females. the canal, r, which swammerdam calls the root of the penis, with greater reason than he was himself aware, is not extended in the body of the male as represented by the figure here engraved, but this long twilled canal consists of several involutions, from the seminal vessels whence it proceeds, into the lenticular body where it terminates, and where it conveys the fluid. this canal therefore can extend during copulation, and allow the lenticular substance to protrude out of the body of the males. it is evident this may be the case during copulation as is seen on opening a drone, for, by endeavouring to displace the lenticular body, the involutions of the cord disappear, and it extends much more than necessary for the lentil to protrude from the body; and if we attempt to separate it farther, the canal breaks at l. close to the lentil, and at the same place where it breaks in copulation. by dissection two nerves are discovered, towards the origin of the canal, r. inserted into the seminal vessels and distribute in them, and towards the root of the penis many ramifications undoubtedly serving for the motion of these parts. two small parts, perceptible near the nerves, are two ligaments for retaining the generative organs in their proper place, so that except the root of the penis, they cannot be drawn out without some exertion; it and the lenticular body however can protrude, and actually do so during copulation. a certain degree of pressure forces all these parts from the body of the male, but they spontaneously return, and appear reversed. swammerdam, and after him m. de reaumur have admired this mechanism; they have thought, indeed, that the return should be occasioned by the effect of the air inflating the parts, and they supposed that the male organs proceeded from the body, and returned during copulation, the same as when forced out by pressure. following their example, we have pressed them from the body of many males; we have a thousand times witnessed this wonderful return, which they detail with the greatest precision; but our males never survived the operation. we have seen, as m. de reaumur, a few males protrude them spontaneously, even some of the parts inverted, but at that moment they died, and were unable to retract the parts which a pressure, most likely accidental, had forced out. thus it is improbable that the male organs protrude by turning out of themselves in copulation; and the details which follow prove incontestibly, that it is otherwise. had not swammerdam been prejudiced with this opinion, he would have seen that the lenticular body can proceed from the body in erection without reversing itself; he could have proportioned the tortuous canal, which he calls the root of the penis; he would have seen that, at certain times, it can be sufficiently extended to allows the lenticular substance to protrude; he would have discovered the real use of the scaly plates; he would have explained that of the canal k, of the plaited pallet q, and the movements of all these parts, more admirable perhaps than the inversion which he was the first to observe. our observations incontestibly prove copulation. the portion of the males found engaged in the body of our queens, hitherto called the lenticular substance, may be denominated a penis both from its position and use. the same surface is presented by it in the queen as in the body of the male, which is proved by the position of the laminæ, e. e. attached to the interior of the penis, when found in the queen. it is evident, if the supposed inversion took place, the laminæ would be found within the posterior part of the penis; and we should see them through its membrane, by their concave side, instead of which the convex surface is presented when in the vulva of females, the same as in the body of the males. but what is the use of these laminæ? from their figure, hardness, relative position with respect to each other, and their situation at the extremity of the penis, we cannot doubt they are real pincers. however, to ascertain the fact, we found it necessary to see their position, and that of the penis itself in the females. for this purpose, we prevented some of the queens from extracting the parts left by the impregnating males, and by dissection we discovered that the laminæ were pincers as we had conjectured. the penis was situated under the sting of the queens, and pressed against the upper region of the belly. it was supported by the posterior end, against the extremity of the vagina, or excretory canal. there we were sensible of the motion and use of the scaly pieces. their extremities were separated a little more than in the male, and pressed between them some of the female parts below the excretory canal. the extreme minuteness of these parts prevented us from distinguishing them clearly, but the effort necessary to separate and remove the penis from the female, satisfied us of the use of these laminæ. inspecting a male from above, the convex side of the plates, e. e. is presented, and the summit of the angle formed by their origin. when in the body of the female, they are in the inverse position; what was above in the male is now below, and the extremity of the pincers directed upwards. this makes us suspect that in copulation the male mounts on the back of the female, but we are far from asserting it positively. it may be asked whether that part we call the penis, is the sole part introduced into the female during copulation? we have carefully investigated this, and can affirm, that it is the only one of all those described by m. de reaumur, which has been found in our females. but we have discovered a new part that escaped both him and swammerdam, which appears from the following experiment. separating the lenticular substance from the excretory canal, where it was attached, we drew along with it a white body, adhering by one extremity, and having the other engaged in the vagina. towards the end of the lentil, where the substance adhered, it appeared cylindrical, then it swelled, and again contracted, to dilate anew in a greater degree than at first; afterwards it contracted and terminated in a point. a powerful magnifier was required to see all this. when pulled from the lenticular body, the part was commonly broke, and also when extracted by the queens from themselves. the figure and situation seemed to authorise our considering it the penis itself, and the lenticular body only an appendage. but the last queen we examined exhibited a peculiarity that induced us to doubt the fact, and led us to suspect that this body is nothing else than the seminal fluid itself, moulded and coagulated in the vagina, and which from its viscosity adheres to the lenticular substance, and accompanies it when separated from the vagina. in this queen was found a little extravasated white matter, near the opening of the vagina. this, though at first liquid, soon coagulated in the air as the seminal fluid of drones does. in separating the lenticular body from the vagina, we drew along with it a thread which broke near the lentil; and seemed of too little consistence for the penis of a male. the lenticular bodies, found in our queens, appeared larger than in the males we dissected, and we have remarked with m. de reaumur, that these parts are not of equal size in every male. * * * * * _experiment 1._--on the tenth of july, we set successively at liberty three virgin queens four or five days old. two flew away several times; their absence was short and fruitless. the third profited better by her liberty; she departed thrice; the first and second time her absence was short; but the third lasted thirty-five minutes. she returned in a very different state; and in such as allowed no doubt of her employment, for she exhibited the part of a male that had rendered her a mother. we seized her wings with one hand, and in the other received the lenticular body, of which she had disengaged herself with her claws. the posterior part was armed with two pincers, e. e. shelly and elastic, which could be drawn asunder, and then resumed their original position. towards the anterior part of the lentil appeared the fragment of the root of the penis; this canal had broke half a line from the lenticular body. we allowed the queen to enter her habitation, and adapted the entrance so that she could not leave it unknown to us. on the seventeenth we found no eggs in the hive; the queen was as slender as the first day; therefore the male, with which she had copulated, had not impregnated her eggs. she was again set at liberty; after twice departing, she returned with evidence of a second copulation. we then confined her, and the eggs she afterwards laid proved that the second copulation had been more successful than the first and that there are some males more fit for impregnating queens than others. however, it is very rare that the first copulation is inefficient; we have only seen two that required it twice; all the rest were impregnated by the first. * * * * * _experiment 2._--on the eighteenth we put at liberty a virgin queen twenty-seven days old, she departed twice. her second absence was twenty-eight minutes, and she returned with the proofs of copulation. we prevented her from entering, and put her under a glass to see how she would disengage the male organs. this she was unable to accomplish, having only the table and sides of the glass for support; therefore we introduced a bit of comb; thus providing the same conveniences as are in a hive. fixing herself on _it_ by the first four legs, she stretched out the two last, and extending them along her belly seemed to press it between them. at length introducing her claws between the two parts of the last ring, she seized the lenticular body, and dropped it on the table. the posterior part was provided with shelly pincers, under which and in the same direction was a grey cylindrical body. the end farthest from the lentil was sensibly thicker than that adhering to it, and terminated in a point. this point was double, and open like the bill of a bird, which induces us to think the body was broken, a conjecture supported by the following experiment. * * * * * _experiment 3._--on the nineteenth we set at liberty a queen four days old; she departed twice; her first absence was short; the second lasted thirty minutes, and then she returned with the marks of fecundation. as we wished to obtain the male organs entire, it was necessary to prevent the queen from breaking them by extracting them with her feet; we therefore suddenly killed her, and cut off the last rings in order to lay the vulva open. but though deprived of animation, so much life remained in these parts that the lenticular body was thrown out spontaneously. under the pincers appeared the remnant of a cylindrical body which had broken near the origin and remained in the female. this body was very small at the origin; it afterwards sensibly enlarged; next contracting by degrees, it terminated in a sharp point. we found the point engaged up to the gland in the excretory canal, and the rest in the vulva. * * * * * _experiment 4._--we set two virgin queens at liberty on the twentieth. the first had been abroad on the preceding days, but the scarcity of males prevented her from being previously fecundated. she returned with the organs of a male. we tried to prevent her from extracting them, but she did this so expeditiously with her feet, that we could not accomplish it. she was then allowed to enter the hive. the second queen departed twice. her first absence was short as usual; the second lasted about half an hour, and she returned impregnated. having killed her as suddenly as possible, we laid open the vulva. the lenticular body was deposited as in every queen hitherto dissected; the pincers were situated under the excretory canal. some parts not easily distinguishable were pressed between the laminæ, and their office seemed to consist in forcing the extremity of the lentil to approach the orifice of the vagina, and apply so forcibly to it that some exertion was necessary to separate them. we previously examined them, with a very powerful magnifier. then a peculiarity which had escaped us was perceptible. in drawing out the lenticular body, there proceeded from the vagina a minute part, v. adhering to the posterior end of the lentil, and situated below the plates. it spontaneously retracted into the lentil, like the horns of a snail. it appeared white, very short, and cylindrical. under the pincers was a little half coagulated seminal fluid at the bottom of the vulva. though much could be expressed, there was none pure; it was almost liquid, but soon coagulated, and formed a whitish inorganic mass. this observation carefully made removed all our doubts, and demonstrated that what we had taken for the penis of males was nothing but the seminal fluid, which had coagulated and assumed the interior figure of the vagina. the only hard part introduced by the male, was the short cylindrical point which retracted into the lentil, when we separated it. its situation and office prove that it is there we must look for the issue of the seminal fluid, if we can hope to find an opening, when not engaged in copulation. we found this new part in the first drone we dissected. by pressing the seminal vessels, the white liquid then escaped downwards to the root of the penis r. and into the lenticular body, l. i. which became sensibly swoln. we prevented the fluid from returning, and by new pressure of the lentil forced it to advance. however, none escaped, but we saw at the posterior end of the lenticular body, and under the scaly pincers, a small white cylindrical substance, the same in appearance as that we had found engaged in the vagina of the queen. this part retracted on pressure, and then returned. i request you, sir, while perusing this letter, to inspect the figure of the male sexual organs published by m. de reaumur, and which are copied here. the descriptions are most accurate, and present a just idea of the situation of these parts when in the male's body. we readily conceive how they appear when left in the female by copulation. this detail will sufficiently indicate the situation and figure of the new part i have discovered. i suspect that the males perish after losing their sexual organs. but why does nature exact so great a sacrifice? this is a mystery which i cannot pretend to unveil. i am unacquainted with any analogous fact in natural history, but as there are two species of insects whose copulation can take place only in the air, namely, ephemeræ and ants, it would be extremely interesting to discover whether their males also lose their sexual parts, in the same circumstances, and whether, as with drones, enjoyment in their flight is the prelude of death. finis. footnotes: {o} memoires sur les abeilles, p. 450. {p} such long and minute descriptions can be very imperfectly translated; indeed they are unintelligible without microscopical inspections of the parts themselves.--t. analytical index. description of a hive invented by the author page 4 swammerdam's opinion on the fecundation of bees 8 sentiments of m. de reaumur 10 mr debraw's opinion 11 hattorf's opinion 19 difficulty of discovering the mode of impregnation 22 experiments on the subject 23 suggestions by m. bonnet 34 the queen is impregnated by copulation, which never takes place within the hive 41 experiments on artificial fecundation have not succeeded 42 the male loses the sexual organs in copulation 43 regarded impregnation affects the ovaries of the queen 45 she then lays no eggs but those producing males 47 one copulation impregnates all the eggs the queen will lay in two years 54 fecundity of a queen 63 common bees do not transport the queen's eggs 66 they sometimes eat them 69 eggs producing males are sometimes laid in royal cells 71 common worms may be converted into queens 77 operations of the bees when this is done 78 fertile workers sometimes exist 89 they lay none but the eggs of males 96 all common bees are originally females 98 receiving the royal food while larvæ, expands their ovaries 105 mutual enmity of queens 110 the common bees seem to promote their combats 117 a guard is constantly at the entrance of the hive 123 what ensues when bees lose their queen 126 effects of introducing a stranger queen 128 massacre of the males 132 it never ensues in hives deprived of queens 135 a plurality of queens is never tolerated 142 the queen bee is oviparous 149 bees seem occasionally to repose 150 interval between production of the egg and the perfect state of bees 151 mode of spinning the coccoon 153 that of the queen is open at one end 154 the size of the bees is not affected by that of the cells 167 the old queen always conducts the first swarm 173 but never before depositing eggs in the royal cells 177 singular effect of a sound emitted by perfect queens 189 the instinct of bees is affected during the period of swarming 208 queens are liberated from their cells according to their age 214 the bees probably judge of this by the sound emitted 217 young queens conducting swarms are virgins 221 the conduct of bees to old queens is peculiar 224 retarded impregnation affects the instinct of queens 241 amputation of the antennæ produces singular effects 245 advantages of the leaf hive 253 it renders the bees tractable 256 they may there be forced to work in wax 264 uniform distance between the combs 265 natural heat of bees 269 distance to which they fly 271 appendix 273 anatomical observations on the sexual organs of bees 276 experiments proving the copulation of the queen 290 alex. smellie, printer. {transcriber's notes the spelling in the original is sometimes idiosyncratic. it has not been changed, but a few obvious errors have been corrected. the corrections are listed below. inconsistent spellings include: lusace/lusaçe, centre/center, choose/chuse, organisation/organization, recognise/recognize unusual spellings (which have not been changed) include: centinels, coccoon, diaphraghm, encreased, encreasing, groupes, harrassed, inaccessible, incontestible, indispensible, moveable, perceptible, susceptible, uncontrouled, unintelligible letter i "secret distinctive characterestics" changed to "secret distinctive characteristics" letter ii "the copulalation of queens" changed to "the copulation of queens" letter iv "the worms had spun their silk coccons" changed to "the worms had spun their silk coccoons" letter v "characteristics of commo nbees" changed to "characteristics of common bees" letter vi "the result of this rencounter" changed to "the result of this encounter" "genius such as your's" unchanged. "observing that the antennae" changed to "observing that the antennæ" "combats and disastrou scenes" changed to "combats and disastrous scenes" "m. de reamur speaks of these executions" changed to "m. de reaumur speaks of these executions" letter ix "only the few bees that not participated" changed to "only the few bees that had not participated" letter xi "these tumultous motions" changed to "these tumultuous motions" letter xii "one antennæ" unchanged. "reside in them," changed to "reside in them." appendix "the cirumference is edged" changed to "the circumference is edged" "he could have proportioned the tortous canal" changed to "he could have proportioned the tortuous canal" "pressed between the laminae" changed to "pressed between the laminæ" } charles duvall, cheri ripley, and cheryl sullivan birds and bees sharp eyes and other papers by john burroughs with an introduction by mary e. burt and a biographical sketch contents biographical sketch introduction by mary e. burt birds bird enemies the tragedies of the nests bees an idyl of the honey-bee the pastoral bees biographical sketch. nature chose the spring of the year for the time of john burroughs's birth. a little before the day when the wake-robin shows itself, that the observer might be on hand for the sight, he was born in roxbury, delaware county, new york, on the western borders of the catskill mountains; the precise date was april 3, 1837. until 1863 he remained in the country about his native place, working on his father's farm, getting his schooling in the district school and neighboring academies, and taking his turn also as teacher. as he himself has hinted, the originality, freshness, and wholesomeness of his writings are probably due in great measure to the unliterary surroundings of his early life, which allowed his mind to form itself on unconventional lines, and to the later companionships with unlettered men, which kept him in touch with the sturdy simplicities of life. from the very beginnings of his taste for literature, the essay was his favorite form. dr. johnson was the prophet of his youth, but he soon transferred his allegiance to emerson, who for many years remained his "master enchanter." to cure himself of too close an imitation of the concord seer, which showed itself in his first magazine article, expression, he took to writing his sketches of nature, and about this time he fell in with the writings of thoreau, which doubtless confirmed and encouraged him in this direction. but of all authors and of all men, walt whitman, in his personality and as a literary force, seems to have made the profoundest impression upon mr. burroughs, though doubtless emerson had a greater influence on his style of writing. expression appeared in the atlantic monthly in 1860, and most of his contributions to literature have been in the form of papers first published in the magazines, and afterwards collected into books. he more than once paid tribute to his teachers in literature. his first book, now out of print, was notes on walt whitman, as poet and person, published in 1867; and whitman: a study, which appeared in 1896, is a more extended treatment of the man and his poetry and philosophy. birds and poets, too, contains a paper on whitman, entitled the flight of the eagle, besides an essay on emerson, whom he also treated incidentally in his paper, matthew arnold on emerson and carlyle, in indoor studies; and the latter volume contains his essay on thoreau. in the autumn of 1863 he went to washington, and in the following january entered the treasury department. he was for some years an assistant in the office of the comptroller of the currency, and later chief of the organization division of that bureau. for some time he was keeper of one of the vaults, and for a great part of the day his only duty was to be at his desk. in these leisure hours his mind traveled off into the country, where his previous life had been spent, and with the help of his pen, always a faithful friend and magician, he lived over again those happy days, now happier still with the glamour of all past pleasures. in this way he wrote wake-robin and a part of winter sunshine. it must not be supposed, however, that he was deprived of outdoor pleasures while at washington. on the contrary, he enjoyed many walks in the suburbs of the capital, and in those days the real country came up to the very edges of the city. his spring at the capital, winter sunshine, a march chronicle, and other papers bear the fruit of his life on the potomac. he went to england in 1871 on business for the treasury department, and again on his own account a dozen years later. the record of the two visits is to be found mainly in his chapters on an october abroad, contained in the volume winter sunshine, and in the papers gathered into the volume fresh fields. he resigned his place in the treasury in 1873, and was appointed receiver of a broken national bank. later, until 1885, his business occupation was that of a national bank examiner. an article contributed by him to the century magazine for march, 1881, on broken banks and lax directors, is perhaps the only literary outcome of this occupation, but the keen powers of observation, trained in the field of nature, could not fail to disclose themselves in analyzing columns of figures. after leaving washington mr. burroughs bought a fruit farm at west park, near esopus, on the hudson, and there building his house from the stones found in his fields, has given himself the best conditions for that humanizing of nature which constitutes the charm of his books. he was married in 1857 to a lady living in the new york village where he was at the time teaching. he keeps his country home the year round, only occasionally visiting new york. the cultivation of grapes absorbs the greater part of his time; but he has by no means given over letters. his work, which has long found ready acceptance both at home and abroad, is now passing into that security of fame which comes from its entrance into the school-life of american children. besides his outdoor sketches and the other papers already mentioned, mr. burroughs has written a number of critical essays on life and literature, published in indoor studies, and other volumes. he has also taken his readers into his confidence in an egotistical chapter, the final one of his indoor studies; and in the introduction to the riverside edition of his writings he has given us further glimpses of his private intellectual life. probably no other american writer has a greater sympathy with, and a keener enjoyment of, country life in all its phases--farming, camping, fishing, walking--than has john burroughs. his books are redolent of the soil, and have such "freshness and primal sweetness," that we need not be told that the pleasure he gets from his walks and excursions is by no means over when he steps inside his doors again. as he tells us on more than one occasion, he finds he can get much more out of his outdoor experiences by thinking them over, and writing them out afterwards. numbers 28, 36, and 92 of the riverside literature series consist of selections from mr. burroughs's books. no. 28, which is entitled birds and bees, is made up of bird enemies and the tragedies of the nests from the volume signs and seasons, an idyl of the honey-bee from pepacton, and the pastoral bees from locusts and wild honey. the introduction, by miss mary e. burt, gives an account of the use of mr. burroughs's writings in chicago schools. in no. 36, sharp eyes, and other papers, the initial paper, sharp eyes, is drawn from locusts and wild honey, the apple comes from winter sunshine, a taste of maine birch and winter neighbors from signs and seasons, and notes by the way (on muskrats, squirrels, foxes, and woodchucks) from pepacton. the collection called a bunch of herbs, and other papers, forming no. 92 of the series, was designed with special reference to what the author has to say of trees and flowers, and contains a bunch of herbs from pepacton, strawberries from locusts and wild honey, a march chronicle and autumn tides from winter sunshine, a spray of pine and a spring relish from signs and seasons, and english woods: a contrast from fresh fields. introduction. it is seldom that i find a book so far above children that i cannot share its best thought with them. so when i first took up one of john burroughs's essays, i at once foresaw many a ramble with my pupils through the enchanted country that is found within its breezy pages. to read john burroughs is to live in the woods and fields, and to associate intimately with all their little timid inhabitants; to learn that- "god made all the creatures and gave them our love and our fear, to give sign, we and they are his children, one family here." when i came to use pepacton in my class of the sixth grade, i soon found, not only that the children read better but that they came rapidly to a better appreciation of the finer bits of literature in their regular readers, while their interest in their new author grew quickly to an enthusiasm. never was a little brother or sister more real to them than was "peggy mel" as she rushed into the hive laden with stolen honey, while her neighbors gossiped about it, or the stately elm that played sly tricks, or the log which proved to be a good bedfellow because it did not grumble. burroughs's way of investing beasts, birds, insects, and inanimate things with human motives is very pleasing to children. they like to trace analogies between the human and the irrational, to think of a weed as a tramp stealing rides, of nature as a tell-tale when taken by surprise. the quiet enthusiasm of john burroughs's essays is much healthier than the over-wrought dramatic action which sets all the nerves a-quiver,--nerves already stimulated to excess by the comedies and tragedies forced upon the daily lives of children. it is especially true of children living in crowded cities, shut away from the woods and hills, constant witnesses of the effects of human passion, that they need the tonic of a quiet literature rather than the stimulant of a stormy or dramatic one,--a literature which develops gentle feelings, deep thought, and a relish for what is homely and homespun, rather than a literature which calls forth excited feelings. the essays in this volume are those in which my pupils have expressed an enthusiastic interest, or which, after careful reading, i have selected for future use. i have found in them few pages so hard as to require over much study, or a too frequent use of the dictionary. john burroughs, more than almost any other writer of the time, has a prevailing taste for simple words and simple constructions. "he that runs may read" him. i have found many children under eleven years of age who could read a whole page without hesitating. if i discover some words which i foresee will cause difficulty, i place such on the blackboard and rapidly pronounce and explain them before the reading. generally, however, i find the text the best interpreter of its words. what follows explains what goes before, if the child is led to read on to the end of the sentence. it is a mistake to allow children to be frightened away from choice reading by an occasional hard word. there is no better time than his reading lesson in which to teach a child that the hard things of life are to be grappled with and overcome. a mistake also, i think, is that toilsome process of explanation which i sometimes find teachers following, under the impression that it will be "parrot work" (as the stock phrase of the "institutes" has it) for the pupils to read anything which they do not clearly and fully comprehend. teachers' definitions, in such cases, i have often noticed, are no better than dictionary definitions, and surely everybody knows that few more fruitless things than dictionary definitions are ever crammed into the memory of a child. better far give free play to the native intelligence of the child, and trust it to apprehend, though it may not yet comprehend nor be able to express its apprehension in definition. on this subject i am glad to quote so high an authority as sir walter scott: "indeed i rather suspect that children derive impulses of a powerful and important kind from reading things which they do not comprehend, and therefore that to write down to children's understanding is a mistake. set them on the scent and let them puzzle it out." from time to time i have allowed my pupils to give me written reports from memory of these essays, and have often found these little compositions sparkling with pleasing information, or full of that childlike fun which is characteristic of the author. i have marked the errors in these exercises, and have given them back to the children to rewrite. sometimes the second papers show careful correction-and sometimes the mistakes are partially neglected. very often the child wishes to improve on the first composition, and so adds new blunders as well as creates new interest. there is a law of self-preservation in nature, which takes care of mistakes. every human soul reaches toward the light in the most direct path open to it, and will correct its own errors as soon as it is developed far enough. there is no use in trying to force maturity; teachers who trouble children beyond all reason, and worry over their mistakes, are fumbling at the roots of young plants that will grow if they are let alone long enough. the average mechanical work (spelling, construction of sentences, writing, etc.) is better under this method than when more time is devoted to the mechanics and less to the thought of composition. i have seen many reports of burroughs's essays from the pens of children more pleasing and reliable than the essays of some professional reviewers; in these papers i often find the children adding little suggestions of their own; as, "do birds dream?" one of the girls says her bird "jumps in its sleep." a little ten year old writes, "weeds are unuseful flowers," and, "i like this book because there are real things in it." another thinks she "will look more carefully" if she ever gets out into the country again. for the development of close observation and good feeling toward the common things of life, i know of no writings better than those of john burroughs. mary e. burt jones school, chicago, sept. 1, 1887. birds. bird enemies. how surely the birds know their enemies! see how the wrens and robins and bluebirds pursue and scold the cat, while they take little or no notice of the dog! even the swallow will fight the cat, and, relying too confidently upon its powers of flight, sometimes swoops down so near to its enemy that it is caught by a sudden stroke of the cat's paw. the only case i know of in which our small birds fail to recognize their enemy is furnished by the shrike; apparently the little birds do not know that this modest-colored bird is an assassin. at least, i have never seen them scold or molest him, or utter any outcries at his presence, as they usually do at birds of prey. probably it is because the shrike is a rare visitant, and is not found in this part of the country during the nesting season of our songsters. but the birds have nearly all found out the trick the jay, and when he comes sneaking through the trees in may and june in quest of eggs, he is quickly exposed and roundly abused. it is amusing to see the robins hustle him out of the tree which holds their nest. they cry "thief, thief!" to the top of their voices as they charge upon him, and the jay retorts in a voice scarcely less complimentary as he makes off. the jays have their enemies also, and need to keep an eye on their own eggs. it would be interesting to know if jays ever rob jays, or crows plunder crows; or is there honor among thieves even in the feathered tribes? i suspect the jay is often punished by birds which are otherwise innocent of nest-robbing. one season i found a jay's nest in a small cedar on the side of a wooded ridge. it held five eggs, every one of which had been punctured. apparently some bird had driven its sharp beak through their shells, with the sole intention of destroying them, for no part of the contents of the eggs had been removed. it looked like a case of revenge; as if some thrush or warbler, whose nest had suffered at the hands of the jays, had watched its opportunity, and had in this way retaliated upon its enemies. an egg for an egg. the jays were lingering near, very demure and silent, and probably ready to join a crusade against nest-robbers. the great bugaboo of the birds is the owl. the owl snatches them from off their roosts at night, and gobbles up their eggs and young in their nests. he is a veritable ogre to them, and his presence fills them with consternation and alarm. one season, to protect my early cherries i placed a large stuffed owl amid the branches of the tree. such a racket as there instantly began about my grounds is not pleasant to think upon! the orioles and robins fairly "shrieked out their affright." the news instantly spread in every direction, and apparently every bird in town came to see that owl in the cherry-tree, and every bird took a cherry, so that i lost more fruit than if i had left the owl in-doors. with craning necks and horrified looks the birds alighted upon the branches, and between their screams would snatch off a cherry, as if the act was some relief to their outraged feelings. the chirp and chatter of the young of birds which build in concealed or inclosed places, like the woodpeckers, the house wren, the high-hole, the oriole, is in marked contrast to the silence of the fledglings of most birds that build open and exposed nests. the young of the sparrows,--unless the social sparrow be an exception,--warblers, fly-catchers, thrushes, never allow a sound to escape them; and on the alarm note of their parents being heard, sit especially close and motionless, while the young of chimney swallows, woodpeckers, and orioles are very noisy. the latter, in its deep pouch, is quite safe from birds of prey, except perhaps the owl. the owl, i suspect, thrusts its leg into the cavities of woodpeckers and into the pocket-like nest of the oriole, and clutches and brings forth the birds in its talons. in one case which i heard of, a screech-owl had thrust its claw into a cavity in a tree, and grasped the head of a red-headed woodpecker; being apparently unable to draw its prey forth, it had thrust its own round head into the hole, and in some way became fixed there, and had thus died with the woodpecker in its talons. the life of birds is beset with dangers and mishaps of which we know little. one day, in my walk, i came upon a goldfinch with the tip of one wing securely fastened to the feathers of its rump, by what appeared to be the silk of some caterpillar. the bird, though uninjured, was completely crippled, and could not fly a stroke. its little body was hot and panting in my hands, as i carefully broke the fetter. then it darted swiftly away with a happy cry. a record of all the accidents and tragedies of bird life for a single season would show many curious incidents. a friend of mine opened his box-stove one fall to kindle a fire in it, when he beheld in the black interior the desiccated forms of two bluebirds. the birds had probably taken refuge in the chimney during some cold spring storm, and had come down the pipe to the stove, from whence they were unable to ascend. a peculiarly touching little incident of bird life occurred to a caged female canary. though unmated, it laid some eggs, and the happy bird was so carried away by her feelings that she would offer food to the eggs, and chatter and twitter, trying, as it seemed, to encourage them to eat! the incident is hardly tragic, neither is it comic. certain birds nest in the vicinity of our houses and outbuildings, or even in and upon them, for protection from their enemies, but they often thus expose themselves to a plague of the most deadly character. i refer to the vermin with which their nests often swarm, and which kill the young before they are fledged. in a state of nature this probably never happens; at least i have never seen or heard of it happening to nests placed in trees or under rocks. it is the curse of civilization falling upon the birds which come too near man. the vermin, or the germ of the vermin, is probably conveyed to the nest in hen's feathers, or in straws and hairs picked up about the barn or hen-house. a robin's nest upon your porch or in your summer-house will occasionally become an intolerable nuisance from the swarms upon swarms of minute vermin with which it is filled. the parent birds stem the tide as long as they can, but are often compelled to leave the young to their terrible fate. one season a phoebe-bird built on a projecting stone under the eaves of the house, and all appeared to go well till the young were nearly fledged, when the nest suddenly became a bit of purgatory. the birds kept their places in their burning bed till they could hold no longer, when they leaped forth and fell dead upon the ground. after a delay of a week or more, during which i imagine the parent birds purified themselves by every means known to them, the couple built another nest a few yards from the first, and proceeded to rear a second brood; but the new nest developed into the same bed of torment that the first did, and the three young birds, nearly ready to fly, perished as they sat within it. the parent birds then left the place as if it had been accursed. i imagine the smaller birds have an enemy in our native white-footed mouse, though i have not proof enough to convict him. but one season the nest of a chickadee which i was observing was broken up in a position where nothing but a mouse could have reached it. the bird had chosen a cavity in the limb of an apple-tree which stood but a few yards from the house. the cavity was deep, and the entrance to it, which was ten feet from the ground, was small. barely light enough was admitted, when the sun was in the most favorable position, to enable one to make out the number of eggs, which was six, at the bottom of the dim interior. while one was peering in and trying to get his head out of his own light, the bird would startle him by a queer kind of puffing sound. she would not leave her nest like most birds, but really tried to blow or scare the intruder away; and after repeated experiments i could hardly refrain from jerking my head back when that little explosion of sound came up from the dark interior. one night, when incubation was about half finished, the nest was harried. a slight trace of hair or fur at the entrance led me to infer that some small animal was the robber. a weasel might have done it, as they sometimes climb trees, but i doubt if either a squirrel or a rat could have passed the entrance. probably few persons have ever suspected the cat-bird of being an egg-sucker; i do not know that she has ever been accused of such a thing, but there is something uncanny and disagreeable about her, which i at once understood, when i one day caught her in the very act of going through a nest of eggs. a pair of the least fly-catchers, the bird which says chebec, chebec, and is a small edition of the pewee, one season built their nest where i had them for many hours each day under my observation. the nest was a very snug and compact structure placed in the forks of a small maple about twelve feet from the ground. the season before, a red squirrel had harried the nest of a wood-thrush in this same tree, and i was apprehensive that he would serve the fly-catchers the same trick; so, as i sat with my book in a summer-house near by, i kept my loaded gun within easy reach. one egg was laid, and the next morning, as i made my daily inspection of the nest, only a fragment of its empty shell was to be found. this i removed, mentally imprecating the rogue of a red squirrel. the birds were much disturbed by the event, but did not desert the nest, as i had feared they would, but after much inspection of it and many consultations together, concluded, it seems, to try again. two more eggs were laid, when one day i heard the birds utter a sharp cry, and on looking up i saw a cat-bird perched upon the rim of the nest, hastily devouring the eggs. i soon regretted my precipitation in killing her, because such interference is generally unwise. it turned out that she had a nest of her own with five eggs in a spruce-tree near my window. then this pair of little fly-catchers did what i had never seen birds do before; they pulled the nest to pieces and rebuilt it in a peach-tree not many rods away, where a brood was successfully reared. the nest was here exposed to the direct rays of the noon-day sun, and to shield her young when the heat was greatest, the mother-bird would stand above them with wings slightly spread, as other birds have been know to do under like circumstances. to what extent the cat-bird is a nest-robber i have no evidence, but that feline mew of hers, and that flirting, flexible tail, suggest something not entirely bird-like. probably the darkest tragedy of the nest is enacted when a snake plunders it. all birds and animals, so far i have observed, behave in a peculiar manner toward a snake. they seem to feel something of the loathing toward it that the human species experiences. the bark of a dog when he encounters a snake is different from that which he gives out on any other occasion; it is a mingled note of alarm, inquiry, and disgust. one day a tragedy was enacted a few yards from where i was sitting with a book; two song-sparrows trying to defend their nest against a black snake. the curious, interrogating note of a chicken who had suddenly come upon the scene in his walk caused me to look up from my reading. there were the sparrows, with wings raised in a way peculiarly expressive of horror and dismay, rushing about a low clump of grass and bushes. then, looking more closely, i saw the glistening form of the black snake and the quick movement of his head as he tried to seize the birds. the sparrows darted about and through the grass and weeds, trying to beat the snake off. their tails and wings were spread, and, panting with the heat and the desperate struggle, they presented a most singular spectacle. they uttered no cry, not a sound escaped them; they were plainly speechless with horror and dismay. not once did they drop their wings, and the peculiar expression of those uplifted palms, as it were, i shall never forget. it occurred to me that perhaps here was a case of attempted bird-charming on the part of the snake, so i looked on from behind the fence. the birds charged the snake and harassed him from every side, but were evidently under no spell save that of courage in defending their nest. every moment or two i could see the head and neck of the serpent make a sweep at the birds, when the one struck at would fall back, and the other would renew the assault from the rear. there appeared to be little danger that the snake could strike and hold one of the birds, though i trembled for them, they were so bold and approached so near to the snake's head. time and again he sprang at them, but without success. how the poor things panted, and held up their wings appealingly! then the snake glided off to the near fence, barely escaping the stone which i hurled at him. i found the nest rifled and deranged; whether it had contained eggs or young i know not. the male sparrow had cheered me many a day with his song, and i blamed myself for not having rushed at once to the rescue, when the arch enemy was upon him. there is probably little truth in the popular notion that snakes charm birds. the black snake is the most subtle, alert, and devilish of our snakes, and i have never seen him have any but young, helpless birds in his mouth. we have one parasitical bird, the cow-bird, so-called because it walks about amid the grazing cattle and seizes the insects which their heavy tread sets going, which is an enemy of most of the smaller birds. it drops its egg in the nest of the song-sparrow, the social sparrow, the snow-bird, the vireos, and the wood-warblers, and as a rule it is the only egg in the nest that issues successfully. either the eggs of the rightful owner of the nest are not hatched, or else the young are overridden and overreached by the parasite and perish prematurely. among the worst enemies of our birds are the so-called "collectors," men who plunder nests and murder their owners in the name of science. not the genuine ornithologist, for no one is more careful of squandering bird life than he; but the sham ornithologist, the man whose vanity or affectation happens to take an ornithological turn. he is seized with an itching for a collection of eggs and birds because it happens to be the fashion, or because it gives him the air of a man of science. but in the majority of cases the motive is a mercenary one; the collector expects to sell these spoils of the groves and orchards. robbing the nests and killing birds becomes a business with him. he goes about it systematically, and becomes expert in circumventing and slaying our songsters. every town of any considerable size is infested with one or more of these bird highwaymen, and every nest in the country round about that the wretches can lay hands on is harried. their professional term for a nest of eggs is "a clutch," a word that well expresses the work of their grasping, murderous fingers. they clutch and destroy in the germ the life and music of the woodlands. certain of our natural history journals are mainly organs of communication between these human weasels. they record their exploits at nest-robbing and bird-slaying in their columns. one collector tells with gusto how he "worked his way" through an orchard, ransacking every tree, and leaving, as he believed, not one nest behind him. he had better not be caught working his way through my orchard. another gloats over the number of connecticut warblers--a rare bird--he killed in one season in massachusetts. another tells how a mocking-bird appeared in southern new england and was hunted down by himself and friend, its eggs "clutched," and the bird killed. who knows how much the bird lovers of new england lost by that foul deed? the progeny of the birds would probably have returned to connecticut to breed, and their progeny, or a part of them, the same, till in time the famous songster would have become a regular visitant to new england. in the same journal still another collector describes minutely how he outwitted three humming birds and captured their nests and eggs,--a clutch he was very proud of. a massachusetts bird harrier boasts of his clutch of the egg's of that dainty little warbler, the blue yellow-back. one season he took two sets, the next five sets, the next four sets, besides some single eggs, and the next season four sets, and says he might have found more had he had more time. one season he took, in about twenty days, three from one tree. i have heard of a collector who boasted of having taken one hundred sets of the eggs of the marsh wren, in a single day; of another, who took in the same time, thirty nests of the yellow-breasted chat; and of still another, who claimed to have taken one thousand sets of eggs of different birds in one season. a large business has grown up under the influence of this collecting craze. one dealer in eggs has those of over five hundred species. he says that his business in 1883 was twice that of 1882; in 1884 it was twice that of 1883, and so on. collectors vie with each other in the extent and variety of their cabinets. they not only obtain eggs in sets, but aim to have a number of sets of the same bird so as to show all possible variations. i hear of a private collection that contains twelve sets of kingbirds' eggs, eight sets of house-wrens' eggs, four sets mocking-birds' eggs, etc.; sets of eggs taken in low trees, high trees, medium trees; spotted sets, dark sets, plain sets, and light sets of the same species of bird. many collections are made on this latter plan. thus are our birds hunted and cut off and all in the name of science; as if science had not long ago finished with these birds. she has weighed and measured, and dissected, and described them, and their nests, and eggs, and placed them in her cabinet; and the interest of science and of humanity now demands that this wholesale nest-robbing cease. these incidents i have given above, it is true, are but drops in the bucket, but the bucket would be more than full if we could get all the facts. where one man publishes his notes, hundreds, perhaps thousands, say nothing, but go as silently about their nest-robbing as weasels. it is true that the student of ornithology often feels compelled to take bird-life. it is not an easy matter to "name all the birds without a gun," though an opera-glass will often render identification entirely certain, and leave the songster unharmed; but once having mastered the birds, the true ornithologist leaves his gun at home. this view of the case may not be agreeable to that desiccated mortal called the "closet naturalist," but for my own part the closet naturalist is a person with whom i have very little sympathy. he is about the most wearisome and profitless creature in existence. with his piles of skins, his cases of eggs, his laborious feather-splitting, and his outlandish nomenclature, he is not only the enemy of the birds but the enemy of all those who would know them rightly. not the collectors alone are to blame for the diminishing numbers of our wild birds, but a large share of the responsibility rests upon quite a different class of persons, namely, the milliners. false taste in dress is as destructive to our feathered friends as are false aims in science. it is said that the traffic in the skins of our brighter plumaged birds, arising from their use by the milliners, reaches to hundreds of thousands annually. i am told of one middleman who collected from the shooters in one district, in four months, seventy thousand skins. it is a barbarous taste that craves this kind of ornamentation. think of a woman or girl of real refinement appearing upon the street with her head gear adorned with the scalps of our songsters! it is probably true that the number of our birds destroyed by man is but a small percentage of the number cut off by their natural enemies; but it is to be remembered that those he destroys are in addition to those thus cut off, and that it is this extra or artificial destruction that disturbs the balance of nature. the operation of natural causes keeps the birds in check, but the greed of the collectors and milliners tends to their extinction. i can pardon a man who wishes to make a collection of eggs and birds for his own private use, if he will content himself with one or two specimens of a kind, though he will find any collection much less satisfactory and less valuable than he imagines, but the professional nest-robber and skin collector should be put down, either by legislation or with dogs and shotguns. i have remarked above that there is probably very little truth in the popular notion that snakes can "charm" birds. but two of my correspondents have each furnished me with an incident from his own experience, which seems to confirm the popular belief. one of them writes from georgia as follows:-"some twenty-eight years ago i was in calaveras county, california, engaged in cutting lumber. one day in coming out of the camp or cabin, my attention was attracted to the curious action of a quail in the air, which, instead of flying low and straight ahead as usual, was some fifty feet high, flying in a circle, and uttering cries of distress. i watched the bird and saw it gradually descend, and following with my eye in a line from the bird to the ground saw a large snake with head erect and some ten or twelve inches above the ground, and mouth wide open, and as far as i could see, gazing intently on the quail (i was about thirty feet from the snake). the quail gradually descended, its circles growing smaller and smaller and all the time uttering cries of distress, until its feet were within two or three inches of the mouth of the snake; when i threw a stone, and though not hitting the snake, yet struck the ground so near as to frighten him, and he gradually started off. the quail, however, fell to the ground, apparently lifeless. i went forward and picked it up and found it was thoroughly overcome with fright, its little heart beating as if it would burst through the skin. after holding it in my hand a few moments it flew away. i then tried to find the snake, but could not. i am unable to say whether the snake was venomous or belonged to the constricting family, like the black snake. i can well recollect it was large and moved off rather slow. as i had never seen anything of the kind before, it made a great impression on my mind, and after the lapse of so long a time, the incident appears as vivid to me as though it had occurred yesterday." it is not probable that the snake had its mouth open; its darting tongue may have given that impression. the other incident comes to me from vermont. "while returning from church in 1876," says the writer, "as i was crossing a bridge... i noticed a striped snake in the act of charming a song-sparrow. they were both upon the sand beneath the bridge. the snake kept his head swaying slowly from side to side, and darted his tongue out continually. the bird, not over a foot away, was facing the snake, hopping from one foot to the other, and uttering a dissatisfied little chirp. i watched them till the snake seized the bird, having gradually drawn nearer. as he seized it, i leaped over the side of the bridge; the snake glided away and i took up the bird, which he had dropped. it was too frightened to try to fly and i carried it nearly a mile before it flew from my open hand." if these observers are quite sure of what they saw, then undoubtedly snakes have the power to draw birds within their grasp. i remember that my mother told me that while gathering wild strawberries she had on one occasion come upon a bird fluttering about the head of a snake as if held there by a spell. on her appearance, the snake lowered its head and made off, and the panting bird flew away. a neighbor of mine killed a black snake which had swallowed a full-grown red squirrel, probably captured by the same power of fascination. the tragedies of the nests the life of the birds, especially of our migratory song-birds, is a series of adventures and of hair-breadth escapes by flood and field. very few of them probably die a natural death, or even live out half their appointed days. the home instinct is strong in birds as it is in most creatures; and i am convinced that every spring a large number of those which have survived the southern campaign return to their old haunts to breed. a connecticut farmer took me out under his porch, one april day, and showed me a phoebe bird's nest six stories high. the same bird had no doubt returned year after year; and as there was room for only one nest upon her favorite shelf, she had each season reared a new superstructure upon the old as a foundation. i have heard of a white robin--an albino--that nested several years in succession in the suburbs of a maryland city. a sparrow with a very marked peculiarity of song i have heard several seasons in my own locality. but the birds do not all live to return to their old haunts: the bobolinks and starlings run a gauntlet of fire from the hudson to the savannah, and the robins and meadow-larks and other song-birds are shot by boys and pot-hunters in great numbers,--to say nothing of their danger from hawks and owls. but of those that do return, what perils beset their nests, even in the most favored localities! the cabins of the early settlers, when the country was swarming with hostile indians, were not surrounded by such dangers. the tender households of the birds are not only exposed to hostile indians in the shape of cats and collectors, but to numerous murderous and bloodthirsty animals, against whom they have no defense but concealment. they lead the darkest kind of pioneer life, even in our gardens and orchards, and under the walls of our houses. not a day or a night passes, from the time the eggs are laid till the young are flown, when the chances are not greatly in favor of the nest being rifled and its contents devoured,--by owls, skunks, minks, and coons at night, and by crows, jays, squirrels, weasels, snakes, and rats during the day. infancy, we say, is hedged about by many perils; but the infancy of birds is cradled and pillowed in peril. an old michigan settler told me that the first six children that were born to him died; malaria and teething invariably carried them off when they had reached a certain age; but other children were born, the country improved, and by and by the babies weathered the critical period and the next six lived and grew up. the birds, too, would no doubt persevere six times and twice six times, if the season were long enough, and finally rear their family, but the waning summer cuts them short, and but a few species have the heart and strength to make even the third trial. the first nest-builders in spring, like the first settlers near hostile tribes, suffer the most casualties. a large portion of the nests of april and may are destroyed; their enemies have been many months without eggs and their appetites are keen for them. it is a time, too, when other food is scarce, and the crows and squirrels are hard put. but the second nests of june, and still more the nests of july and august, are seldom molested. it is rarely that the nest of the goldfinch or the cedar-bird is harried. my neighborhood on the hudson is perhaps exceptionally unfavorable as a breeding haunt for birds, owing to the abundance of fish-crows and of red squirrels; and the season of which this chapter is mainly a chronicle, the season of 1881, seems to have been a black-letter one even for this place, for at least nine nests out of every ten that i observed during that spring and summer failed of their proper issue. from the first nest i noted, which was that of a bluebird,--built (very imprudently i thought at the time) in a squirrel-hole in a decayed apple-tree, about the last of april, and which came to naught, even the mother-bird, i suspect, perishing by a violent death,--to the last, which was that of a snow-bird, observed in august, among the catskills, deftly concealed in a mossy bank by the side of a road that skirted a wood, where the tall thimble blackberries grew in abundance, from which the last young one was taken, when it was about half grown, by some nocturnal walker or daylight prowler, some untoward fate seemed hovering about them. it was a season of calamities, of violent deaths, of pillage and massacre, among our feathered neighbors. for the first time i noticed that the orioles were not safe in their strong, pendent nests. three broods were started in the apple-trees, only a few yards from the house, where, for previous seasons, the birds had nested without molestation; but this time the young were all destroyed when about half grown. their chirping and chattering, which was so noticeable one day, suddenly ceased the next. the nests were probably plundered at night, and doubtless by the little red screech-owl, which i know is a denizen of these old orchards, living in the deeper cavities of the trees. the owl could alight on the top of the nest, and easily thrust his murderous claw down into its long pocket and seize the young and draw them forth. the tragedy of one of the nests was heightened, or at least made more palpable, by one of the half-fledged birds, either in its attempt to escape or while in the clutches of the enemy, being caught and entangled in one of the horse-hairs by which the nest was stayed and held to the limb above. there it hung bruised and dead, gibbeted to its own cradle. this nest was the theatre of another little tragedy later in the season. some time in august a bluebird, indulging its propensity to peep and pry into holes and crevices, alighted upon it and probably inspected the interior; but by some unlucky move it got its wings entangled in this same fatal horse-hair. its efforts to free itself appeared only to result in its being more securely and hopelessly bound; and there it perished; and there its form, dried and embalmed by the summer heats, was yet hanging in september, the outspread wings and plumage showing nearly as bright as in life. a correspondent writes me that one of his orioles got entangled in a cord while building her nest, and that though by the aid of a ladder he reached and liberated her, she died soon afterward. he also found a "chippie" (called also "hair bird") suspended from a branch by a horse-hair, beneath a partly constructed nest. i heard of a cedar-bird caught and destroyed in the same way, and of two young bluebirds, around whose legs a horse-hair had become so tightly wound that the legs withered up and dropped off. the birds became fledged, and left the nest with the others. such tragedies are probably quite common. before the advent of civilization in this country, the oriole probably built a much deeper nest than it usually does at present. when now it builds in remote trees and along the borders of the woods, its nest, i have noticed, is long and gourd-shaped; but in orchards and near dwellings it is only a deep cup or pouch. it shortens it up in proportion as the danger lessens. probably a succession of disastrous years, like the one under review, would cause it to lengthen it again beyond the reach of owl's talons or jay-bird's beak. the first song-sparrow's nest i observed in the spring of 1881 was in the field under a fragment of a board, the board being raised from the ground a couple of inches by two poles. it had its full complement of eggs, and probably sent forth a brood of young birds, though as to this i cannot speak positively, as i neglected to observe it further. it was well sheltered and concealed, and was not easily come at by any of its natural enemies, save snakes and weasels. but concealment often avails little. in may, a song-sparrow, that had evidently met with disaster earlier in the season, built its nest in a thick mass of woodbine against the side of my house, about fifteen feet from the ground. perhaps it took the hint from its cousin, the english sparrow. the nest was admirably placed, protected from the storms by the overhanging eaves and from all eyes by the thick screen of leaves. only by patiently watching the suspicious bird, as she lingered near with food in her beak, did i discover its whereabouts. that brood is safe, i thought, beyond doubt. but it was not; the nest was pillaged one night, either by an owl, or else by a rat that had climbed into the vine, seeking an entrance to the house. the mother-bird, after reflecting upon her ill-luck about a week, seemed to resolve to try a different system of tactics and to throw all appearances of concealment aside. she built a nest few yards from the house beside the drive, upon a smooth piece of greensward. there was not a weed or a shrub or anything whatever to conceal it or mark its site. the structure was completed and incubation had begun before i discovered what was going on. "well, well," i said, looking down upon the bird almost at my feet, "this is going to the other extreme indeed; now, the cats will have you." the desperate little bird sat there day after day, looking like a brown leaf pressed down in the short green grass. as the weather grew hot, her position became very trying. it was no longer a question of keeping the eggs warm, but of keeping them from roasting. the sun had no mercy on her, and she fairly panted in the middle of the day. in such an emergency the male robin has been known to perch above the sitting female and shade her with his outstretched wings. but in this case there was no perch for the male bird, had he been disposed to make a sunshade of himself. i thought to lend a hand in this direction myself, and so stuck a leafy twig beside the nest. this was probably an unwise interference; it guided disaster to the spot; the nest was broken up, and the mother-bird was probably caught, as i never saw her afterward. for several previous summers a pair of kingbirds had reared, unmolested, a brood of young in an apple-tree, only a few yards from the house; but during this season disaster overtook them also. the nest was completed, the eggs laid, and incubation had begun, when, one morning about sunrise, i heard cries of distress and alarm proceed from the old apple-tree. looking out of the window i saw a crow, which i knew to be a fish-crow, perched upon the edge of the nest, hastily bolting the eggs. the parent birds, usually so ready for the attack, seemed over-come with grief and alarm. they fluttered about in the most helpless and bewildered manner, and it was not till the robber fled on my approach that they recovered themselves and charged upon him. the crow scurried away with upturned, threatening head, the furious kingbirds fairly upon his back. the pair lingered around their desecrated nest for several days, almost silent, and saddened by their loss, and then disappeared. they probably made another trial elsewhere. the fish-crow only fishes when it has destroyed all the eggs and young birds it can find. it is the most despicable thief and robber among our feathered creatures. from may to august, it is gorged with the fledglings of the nest. it is fortunate that its range is so limited. in size it is smaller than the common crow, and is a much less noble and dignified bird. its caw is weak and feminine--a sort of split and abortive caw, that stamps it the sneak-thief it is. this crow is common farther south, but is not found in this state, so far as i have observed, except in the valley of the hudson. one season a pair of them built a nest in a norway spruce that stood amid a dense growth of other ornamental trees near a large unoccupied house. they sat down amid plenty. the wolf established himself in the fold. the many birds--robins, thrushes, finches, vireos, pewees--that seek the vicinity of dwellings (especially of these large country residences with their many trees and park-like grounds), for the greater safety of their eggs and young, were the easy and convenient victims of these robbers. they plundered right and left, and were not disturbed till their young were nearly fledged, when some boys, who had long before marked them as their prize, rifled the nest. the song-birds nearly all build low; their cradle is not upon the tree-top. it is only birds of prey that fear danger from below more than from above, and that seek the higher branches for their nests. a line five feet from the ground would run above more than half the nests, and one ten feet would bound more than three fourths of them. it is only the oriole and the wood pewee that, as a rule, go higher than this. the crows and jays and other enemies of the birds have learned to explore this belt pretty thoroughly. but the leaves and the protective coloring of most nests baffle them as effectually, no doubt as they do the professional oã¶logist. the nest of the red-eyed vireo is one of the most artfully placed in the wood. it is just beyond the point where the eye naturally pauses in its search; namely, on the extreme end of the lowest branch of the tree, usually four or five feet from the ground. one looks up and down through the tree,--shoots his eye-beams into it as he might discharge his gun at some game hidden there, but the drooping tip of that low horizontal branch--who would think of pointing his piece just there? if a crow or other marauder were to alight upon the branch or upon those above it, the nest would be screened from him by the large leaf that usually forms a canopy immediately above it. the nest-hunter standing at the foot of the tree and looking straight before him, might discover it easily, were it not for its soft, neutral gray tint which blends so thoroughly with the trunks and branches of trees. indeed, i think there is no nest in the woods--no arboreal nest--so well concealed. the last one i saw was a pendent from the end of a low branch of a maple, that nearly grazed the clapboards of an unused hay-barn in a remote backwoods clearing. i peeped through a crack and saw the old birds feed the nearly fledged young within a few inches of my face. and yet the cow-bird finds this nest and drops her parasitical egg in it. her tactics in this as in other cases are probably to watch the movements of the parent bird. she may often be seen searching anxiously through the trees or bushes for a suitable nest, yet she may still oftener be seen perched upon some good point of observation watching the birds as they come and go about her. there is no doubt that, in many cases, the cow-bird makes room for her own illegitimate egg in the nest by removing one of the bird's own. when the cow-bird finds two or more eggs in a nest in which she wishes to deposit her own, she will remove one of them. i found a sparrow's nest with two sparrow's eggs and one cow-bird's egg, another egg lying a foot or so below it on the ground. i replaced the ejected egg, and the next day found it again removed, and another cow-bird's egg in its place; i put it back the second time, when it was again ejected, or destroyed, for i failed to find it anywhere. very alert and sensitive birds like the warblers often bury the strange egg beneath a second nest built on top of the old. a lady, living in the suburbs of an eastern city, one morning heard cries of distress from a pair of house-wrens that had a nest in a honeysuckle on her front porch. on looking out of the window, she beheld this little comedy--comedy from her point of view, but no doubt grim-tragedy from the point of view of the wrens; a cow-bird with a wren's egg in its beak running rapidly along the walk with the outraged wrens forming a procession behind it, screaming, scolding, and gesticulating as only these voluble little birds can. the cow-bird had probably been surprised in the act of violating the nest, and the wrens were giving her a piece of theirs minds. every cow-bird is reared at the expense of two or more song-birds. for every one of these dusky little pedestrians there amid the grazing cattle there are two more sparrows, or vireos, or warblers, the less. it is a big price to pay--two larks for a bunting-two sovereigns for a shilling; but nature does not hesitate occasionally to contradict herself in just this way. the young of the cow-bird is disproportionately large and aggressive, one might say hoggish. when disturbed it will clasp the nest and scream, and snap its beak threateningly. one hatched out in a song-sparrow's nest which was under my observation, and would soon have overridden and overborne the young sparrow, which came out of the shell a few hours later, had i not interfered from time to time and lent the young sparrow a helping hand. every day i would visit the nest and take the sparrow out from under the pot-bellied interloper and place it on top so that presently it was able to hold its own against its enemy. both birds became fledged and left the nest about the same time. whether the race was an even one after that, i know not. i noted but two warblers' nests during that season, one of the black-throated blue-back and one of the redstart,--the latter built in an apple-tree but a few yards from a little rustic summer-house where i idle away many summer days. the lively little birds, darting and flashing about, attracted my attention for a week before i discovered their nest. they probably built it by working early in the morning, before i appeared upon the scene, as i never saw them with material in their beaks. guessing from their movements that the nest was in a large maple that stood near by, i climbed the tree and explored it thoroughly, looking especially in the forks of the branches, as the authorities say these birds build in a fork. but no nest could i find. indeed, how can one by searching find a bird's nest? i overshot the mark; the nest was much nearer me, almost under my very nose, and i discovered it, not by searching but by a casual glance of the eye, while thinking of other matters. the bird was just settling upon it as i looked up from my book and caught her in the act. the nest was built near the end of a long, knotty, horizontal branch of an apple-tree, but effectually hidden by the grouping of the leaves; it had three eggs, one of which proved to be barren. the two young birds grew apace, and were out of the nest early in the second week; but something caught one of them the first night. the other probably grew to maturity, as it disappeared from the vicinity with its parents after some days. the blue-back's nest was scarcely a foot from the ground, in a little bush situated in a low, dense wood of hemlock and beech and maple, amid the catskills,--a deep, massive, elaborate structure, in which the sitting bird sank till her beak and tail alone were visible above the brim. it was a misty, chilly day when i chanced to find the nest, and the mother-bird knew instinctively that it was not prudent to leave her four half incubated eggs uncovered and exposed for a moment. when i sat down near the nest she grew very uneasy, and after trying in vain to decoy me away by suddenly dropping from the branches and dragging herself over the ground as if mortally wounded, she approached and timidly and half doubtingly covered her eggs within two yards of where i sat. i disturbed her several times to note her ways. there came to be something almost appealing in her looks and manner, and she would keep her place on her precious eggs till my outstretched hand was within a few feet of her. finally, i covered the cavity of the nest with a dry leaf. this she did not remove with her beak, but thrust her head deftly beneath it and shook it off upon the ground. many of her sympathizing neighbors, attracted by her alarm note, came and had a peep at the intruder and then flew away, but the male bird did not appear upon the scene. the final history of this nest i am unable to give, as i did not again visit it till late in the season, when, of course, it was empty. years pass without my finding a brown-thrasher's nest; it is not a nest you are likely to stumble upon in your walk; it is hidden as a miser hides his gold, and watched as jealously. the male pours out his rich and triumphant song from the tallest tree he can find, and fairly challenges you to come and look for his treasures in his vicinity. but you will not find them if you go. the nest is somewhere on the outer circle of his song; he is never so imprudent as to take up his stand very near it. the artists who draw those cosy little pictures of a brooding mother-bird with the male perched but a yard away in full song, do not copy from nature. the thrasher's nest i found thirty or forty rods from the point where the male was wont to indulge in his brilliant recitative. it was in an open field under a low ground-juniper. my dog disturbed the sitting bird as i was passing near. the nest could be seen only by lifting up and parting away the branches. all the arts of concealment had been carefully studied. it was the last place you would think of looking, and, if you did look, nothing was visible but the dense green circle of the low-spreading juniper. when you approached, the bird would keep her place till you had begun to stir the branches, when she would start out, and, just skimming the ground, make a bright brown line to the near fence and bushes. i confidently expected that this nest would escape molestation, but it did not. its discovery by myself and dog probably opened the door for ill luck, as one day, not long afterward, when i peeped in upon it, it was empty. the proud song of the male had ceased from his accustomed tree, and the pair were seen no more in that vicinity. the phoebe-bird is a wise architect, and perhaps enjoys as great an immunity from danger, both in its person and its nest, as any other bird. its modest, ashen-gray suit is the color of the rocks where it builds, and the moss of which it makes such free use gives to its nest the look of a natural growth or accretion. but when it comes into the barn or under the shed to build, as it so frequently does, the moss is rather out of place. doubtless in time the bird will take the hint, and when she builds in such places will leave the moss out. i noted but two nests, the summer i am speaking of: one, in a barn, failed of issue, on account of the rats, i suspect, though the little owl may have been the depredator; the other, in the woods, sent forth three young. this latter nest was most charmingly and ingeniously placed. i discovered it while in quest of pond-lilies, in a long, deep level stretch of water in the woods. a large tree had blown over at the edge of the water, and its dense mass of up-turned roots, with the black, peaty soil filling the interstices, was like the fragment of a wall several feet high, rising from the edge of the languid current. in a niche in this earthy wall, and visible and accessible only from the water, a phoebe had built her nest, and reared her brood. i paddled my boat up and came alongside prepared to take the family aboard. the young, nearly ready to fly, were quite undisturbed by my presence, having probably been assured that no danger need be apprehended from that side. it was not a likely place for minks, or they would not have been so secure. i noted but one nest of the wood pewee, and that, too, like so many other nests, failed of issue. it was saddled upon a small dry limb of a plane-tree that stood by the roadside, about forty feet from the ground. every day for nearly a week, as i passed by i saw the sitting bird upon the nest. then one morning she was not in her place, and on examination the nest proved to be empty--robbed, i had no doubt, by the red squirrels, as they were very abundant in its vicinity, and appeared to make a clean sweep of every nest. the wood pewee builds an exquisite nest, shaped and finished as if cast in a mould. it is modeled without and within with equal neatness and art, like the nest of the humming-bird and the little gray gnat-catcher. the material is much more refractory than that used by either of these birds, being, in the present case, dry, fine cedar twigs; but these were bound into a shape as rounded and compact as could be moulded out of the most plastic material. indeed, the nest of this bird looks precisely like a large, lichen-covered, cup-shaped excrescence of the limb upon which it is placed. and the bird, while sitting, seems entirely at ease. most birds seem to make very hard work of incubation. it is a kind of martyrdom which appears to tax all their powers of endurance. they have such a fixed, rigid, predetermined look, pressed down into the nest and as motionless as if made of cast-iron. but the wood pewee is an exception. she is largely visible above the rim of the nest. her attitude is easy and graceful; she moves her head this way and that, and seems to take note of whatever goes on about her; and if her neighbor were to drop in for a little social chat, she could doubtless do her part. in fact, she makes light and easy work of what, to most other birds, is such a serious and engrossing matter. if it does not look like play with her, it at least looks like leisure and quiet contemplation. there is no nest-builder that suffers more from crows and squirrels and other enemies than the wood-thrush. it builds as openly and unsuspiciously as if it thought the whole world as honest as itself. its favorite place is the fork of a sapling, eight or ten feet from the ground, where it falls an easy prey to every nest-robber that comes prowling through the woods and groves. it is not a bird that skulks and hides, like the cat-bird, the brown-thrasher, the chat, or the cheewink, and its nest is not concealed with the same art as theirs. our thrushes are all frank, open-mannered birds; but the veery and the hermit build upon the ground, where they at least escape the crows, owls, and jays, and stand a better chance to be overlooked, by the red squirrel and weasel also; while the robin seeks the protection of dwellings and out-buildings. for years i have not known the nest of a wood-thrush to succeed. during the season referred to i observed but two, both apparently a second attempt, as the season was well advanced, and both failures. in one case, the nest was placed in a branch that an apple tree, standing near a dwelling, held out over the highway. the structure was barely ten feet above the middle of the road, and would just escape a passing load of hay. it was made conspicuous by the use of a large fragment of newspaper in its foundation--an unsafe material to build upon in most cases. whatever else the press may guard, this particular newspaper did not guard this nest from harm. it saw the egg and probably the chick, but not the fledgeling. a murderous deed was committed above the public highway, but whether in the open day or under cover of darkness i have no means of knowing. the frisky red squirrel was doubtless the culprit. the other nest was in a maple sapling, within a few yards of the little rustic summer-house already referred to. the first attempt of the season, i suspect, had failed in a more secluded place under the hill; so the pair had come up nearer the house for protection. the male sang in the trees near by for several days before i chanced to see the nest. the very morning, i think, it was finished, i saw a red squirrel exploring a tree but a few yards away; he probably knew what the singing meant as well as i did. i did not see the inside of the nest, for it was almost instantly deserted, the female having probably laid a single egg, which the squirrel had devoured. if i were a bird, in building my nest i should follow the example of the bobolink, placing it in the midst of a broad meadow, where there was no spear of grass, or flower or growth unlike another to mark its site. i judge that the bobolink escapes the dangers to which i have adverted as few or no other birds do. unless the mowers come along at an earlier date than she has anticipated, that is, before july lst, or a skunk goes nosing through the grass, which is unusual, she is as safe as bird well can be in the great open of nature. she selects the most monotonous and uniform place she can find amid the daisies or the timothy and clover, and places her simple structure upon the ground in the midst of it. there is no concealment, except as the great conceals the little, as the desert conceals the pebble, as the myriad conceals the unit. you may find the nest once, if your course chances to lead you across it and your eye is quick enough to note the silent brown bird as she darts quickly away; but step three paces in the wrong direction, and your search will probably be fruitless. my friend and i found a nest by accident one day, and then lost it again one minute afterward. i moved away a few yards to be sure of the mother-bird, charging my friend not to stir from his tracks. when i returned, he had moved two paces, he said (he had really moved four), and we spent a half hour stooping over the daisies and the buttercups, looking for the lost clew. we grew desperate, and fairly felt the ground all over with our hands, but without avail. i marked the spot with a bush, and came the next day, and with the bush as a centre, moved about it in slowly increasing circles, covering, i thought, nearly every inch of ground with my feet, and laying hold of it with all the visual power that i could command, till my patience was exhausted, and i gave up, baffled. i began to doubt the ability of the parent birds themselves to find it, and so secreted myself and watched. after much delay, the male bird appeared with food in his beak, and satisfying himself that the coast was clear, dropped into the grass which i had trodden down in my search. fastening my eye upon a particular meadow-lily, i walked straight to the spot, bent down, and gazed long and intently into the grass. finally my eye separated the nest and its young from its surroundings. my foot had barely missed them in my search, but by how much they had escaped my eye i could not tell. probably not by distance at all, but simply by unrecognition. they were virtually invisible. the dark gray and yellowish brown dry grass and stubble of the meadow-bottom were exactly copied in the color of the half-fledged young. more than that, they hugged the nest so closely and formed such a compact mass, that though there were five of them, they preserved the unit of expression,--no single head or form was defined; they were one, and that one was without shape or color, and not separable, except by closest scrutiny, from the one of the meadow-bottom. that nest prospered, as bobolinks' nests doubtless generally do; for, notwithstanding the enormous slaughter of the birds during their fall migrations by southern sportsmen, the bobolink appears to hold its own, and its music does not diminish in our northern meadows. birds with whom the struggle for life is the sharpest seem to be more prolific than those whose nest and young are exposed to fewer dangers. the robin, the sparrow, the pewee, etc., will rear, or make the attempt to rear, two and sometimes three broods in a season; but the bobolink, the oriole, the kingbird, the goldfinch, the cedar-bird, the birds of prey, and the woodpeckers, that build in safe retreats, in the trunks of trees, have usually but a single brood. if the boblink reared two broods, our meadows would swarm with them. i noted three nests of the cedar-bird in august in a single orchard, all productive, but all with one or more unfruitful eggs in them. the cedar-bird is the most silent of our birds having but a single fine note, so far as i have observed, but its manners are very expressive at times. no bird known to me is capable of expressing so much silent alarm while on the nest as this bird. as you ascend the tree and draw near it, it depresses its plumage and crest, stretches up its neck, and becomes the very picture of fear. other birds, under like circumstances, hardly change their expression at all till they launch into the air, when by their voice they express anger rather than alarm. i have referred to the red squirrel as a destroyer of the eggs and young of birds. i think the mischief it does in this respect can hardly be over estimated. nearly all birds look upon it as their enemy, and attack and annoy it when it appears near their breeding haunts. thus, i have seen the pewee, the cuckoo, the robin, and the wood-thrush pursuing it with angry voice and gestures. a friend of mine saw a pair of robins attack one in the top of a tall tree so vigorously that they caused it to lose its hold, when it fell to the ground, and was so stunned by the blow as to allow him to pick it up. if you wish the birds to breed and thrive in your orchard and groves, kill every red squirrel that infests the place; kill every weasel also. the weasel is a subtle and arch enemy of the birds. it climbs trees and explores them with great ease and nimbleness. i have seen it do so on several occasions. one day my attention was arrested by the angry notes of a pair of brown-thrashers that were flitting from bush to bush along an old stone row in a remote field. presently i saw what it was that excited them--three large red weasels, or ermines coming along the stone wall, and leisurely and half playfully exploring every tree that stood near it. they had probably robbed the thrashers. they would go up the trees with great ease, and glide serpent-like out upon the main branches. when they descended the tree they were unable to come straight down, like a squirrel, but went around it spirally. how boldly they thrust their heads out of the wall, and eyed me and sniffed me, as i drew near,--their round, thin ears, their prominent, glistening, bead-like eyes, and the curving, snake-like motions of the head and neck being very noticeable. they looked like blood-suckers and egg-suckers. they suggested something extremely remorseless and cruel. one could understand the alarm of the rats when they discover one of these fearless, subtle, and circumventing creatures threading their holes. to flee must be like trying to escape death itself. i was one day standing in the woods upon a flat stone, in what at certain seasons was the bed of a stream, when one of these weasels came undulating along and ran under the stone upon which i was standing. as i remained motionless, he thrust his wedge-shaped head, and turned it back above the stone as if half in mind to seize my foot; then he drew back, and presently went his way. these weasels often hunt in packs like the british stoat. when i was a boy, my father one day armed me with an old musket and sent me to shoot chipmunks around the corn. while watching the squirrels, a troop of weasels tried to cross a bar-way where i sat, and were so bent on doing it that i fired at them, boy-like, simply to thwart their purpose. one of the weasels was disabled by my shot, but the troop was not discouraged, and, after making several feints to cross, one of them seized the wounded one and bore it over, and the pack disappeared in the wall on the other side. let me conclude this chapter with two or three notes about this alert enemy of the birds and the lesser animals, the weasel. a farmer one day heard a queer growling sound in the grass; on approaching the spot he saw two weasels contending over a mouse; each had hold of the mouse pulling in opposite directions, and were so absorbed in the struggle that the farmer cautiously put his hands down and grabbed them both by the back of the neck. he put them in a cage, and offered them bread and other food. this they refused to eat, but in a few days one of them had eaten the other up, picking his bones clean and leaving nothing but the skeleton. the same farmer was one day in his cellar when two rats came out of a hole near him in great haste, and ran up the cellar wall and along its top till they came to a floor timber that stopped their progress, when they turned at bay, and looked excitedly back along the course they had come. in a moment a weasel, evidently in hot pursuit of them, came out of the hole, and seeing the farmer, checked his course and darted back. the rats had doubtless turned to give him fight, and would probably have been a match for him. the weasel seems to track its game by scent. a hunter of my acquaintance was one day sitting in the woods, when he saw a red squirrel run with great speed up a tree near him, and out upon a long branch, from which he leaped to some rocks, and disappeared beneath them. in a moment a weasel came in full course upon his trail, ran up the tree, then out along the branch, from the end of which he leaped to the rocks as the squirrel did, and plunged beneath them. doubtless the squirrel fell a prey to him. the squirrel's best game would have been to have kept to the higher tree-tops, where he could easily have distanced the weasel. but beneath the rocks he stood a very poor chance. i have often wondered what keeps such an animal as the weasel in check, for weasels are quite rare. they never need go hungry, for rats and squirrels and mice and birds are everywhere. they probably do not fall a prey to any other animal, and very rarely to man. but the circumstances or agencies that check the increase of any species of animal are, as darwin says, very obscure and but little known. bees. an idyl of the honey-bee. there is no creature with which man has surrounded himself that seems so much like a product of civilization, so much like the result of development on special lines and in special fields, as the honey-bee. indeed, a colony of bees, with their neatness and love of order, their division of labor, their public spiritedness, their thrift, their complex economies and their inordinate love of gain, seems as far removed from a condition of rude nature as does a walled city or a cathedral town. our native bee, on the other hand, "the burly, dozing humble-bee," affects one more like the rude, untutored savage. he has learned nothing from experience. he lives from hand to mouth. he luxuriates in time of plenty, and he starves in times of scarcity. he lives in a rude nest or in a hole in the ground, and in small communities; he builds a few deep cells or sacks in which he stores a little honey and bee-bread for his young, but as a worker in wax he is of the most primitive and awkward. the indian regarded the honey-bee as an ill-omen. she was the white man's fly. in fact she was the epitome of the white man himself. she has the white man's craftiness, his industry, his architectural skill, his neatness and love of system, his foresight; and above all his eager, miserly habits. the honeybee's great ambition is to be rich, to lay up great stores, to possess the sweet of every flower that blooms. she is more than provident. enough will not satisfy her, she must have all she can get by hook or by crook. she comes from the oldest country, asia, and thrives best in the most fertile and long-settled lands. yet the fact remains that the honey-bee is essentially a wild creature, and never has been and cannot be thoroughly domesticated. its proper home is the woods, and thither every new swarm counts on going; and thither many do go in spite of the care and watchfulness of the bee-keeper. if the woods in any given locality are deficient in trees with suitable cavities, the bees resort to all sorts of makeshifts; they go into chimneys, into barns and outhouses, under stones, into rocks, and so forth. several chimneys in my locality with disused flues are taken possession of by colonies of bees nearly every season. one day, while bee-hunting, i developed a line that went toward a farm-house where i had reason to believe no bees were kept. i followed it up and questioned the farmer about his bees. he said he kept no bees, but that a swarm had taken possession of his chimney, and another had gone under the clapboards in the gable end of his house. he had taken a large lot of honey out of both places the year before. another farmer told me that one day his family had seen a number of bees examining a knot-hole in the side of his house; the next day as they were sitting down to dinner their attention was attracted by a loud humming noise, when they discovered a swarm of bees settling upon the side of the house and pouring into the knot-hole. in subsequent years other swarms came to the same place. apparently, every swarm of bees before it leaves the parent hive sends out exploring parties to look up the future home. the woods and groves are searched through and through, and no doubt the privacy of many a squirrel and many a wood mouse is intruded upon. what cozy nooks and retreats they do spy out, so much more attractive than the painted hive in the garden, so much cooler in summer and so much warmer in winter! the bee is in the main an honest citizen; she prefers legitimate to illegitimate business; she is never an outlaw until her proper sources of supply fail; she will not touch honey as long as honey-yielding flowers can be found; she always prefers to go to the fountain-head, and dislikes to take her sweets at second hand. but in the fall, after the flowers have failed, she can be tempted. the bee-hunter takes advantage of this fact; he betrays her with a little honey. he wants to steal her stores, and he first encourages her to steal his, then follows the thief home with her booty. this is the whole trick of the bee-hunter. the bees never suspect his game, else by taking a circuitous route they could easily baffle him. but the honey-bee has absolutely no wit or cunning outside of her special gifts as a gatherer and storer of honey. she is a simple-minded creature, and can be imposed upon by any novice. yet it is not every novice that can find a bee-tree. the sportsman may track his game to its retreat by the aid of his dog, but in hunting the honey-bee one must be his own dog, and track his game through an element in which it leaves no trail. it is a task for a sharp, quick eye, and may test the resources of the best wood-craft. one autumn when i devoted much time to this pursuit, as the best means of getting at nature and the open-air exhilaration, my eye became so trained that bees were nearly as easy to it as birds. i saw and heard bees wherever i went. one day, standing on a street corner in a great city, i saw above the trucks and the traffic a line of bees carrying off sweets from some grocery or confectionery shop. one looks upon the woods with a new interest when he suspects they hold a colony of bees. what a pleasing secret it is; a tree with a heart of comb-honey, a decayed oak or maple with a bit of sicily or mount hymettus stowed away in its trunk or branches; secret chambers where lies hidden the wealth of ten thousand little freebooters, great nuggets and wedges of precious ore gathered with risk and labor from every field and wood about. but if you would know the delights of bee-hunting, and how many sweets such a trip yields beside honey, come with me some bright, warm, late september or early october day. it is the golden season of the year, and any errand or pursuit that takes us abroad upon the hills or by the painted woods and along the amber colored streams at such a time is enough. so, with haversacks filled with grapes and peaches and apples and a bottle of milk,--for we shall not be home to dinner,--and armed with a compass, a hatchet, a pail, and a box with a piece of comb-honey neatly fitted into it--any box the size of your hand with a lid will do nearly as well as the elaborate and ingenious contrivance of the regular bee-hunter--we sally forth. our course at first lies along the highway, under great chestnut-trees whose nuts are just dropping, then through an orchard and across a little creek, thence gently rising through a long series of cultivated fields toward some high, uplying land, behind which rises a rugged wooded ridge or mountain, the most sightly point in all this section. behind this ridge for several miles the country is wild, wooded, and rocky, and is no doubt the home of many wild swarms of bees. what a gleeful uproar the robins, cedar-birds, high-holes, and cow black-birds make amid the black cherry-trees as we pass along. the raccoons, too, have been here after black cherries, and we see their marks at various points. several crows are walking about a newly sowed wheat field we pass through, and we pause to note their graceful movements and glossy coats. i have seen no bird walk the ground with just the same air the crow does. it is not exactly pride; there is no strut or swagger in it, though perhaps just a little condescension; it is the contented, complaisant, and self-possessed gait of a lord over his domains. all these acres are mine, he says, and all these crops; men plow and sow for me, and i stay here or go there, and find life sweet and good wherever i am. the hawk looks awkward and out of place on the ground; the game birds hurry and skulk, but the crow is at home and treads the earth as if there were none to molest him or make him afraid. the crows we have always with us, but it is not every day or every season that one sees an eagle. hence i must preserve the memory of one i saw the last day i went bee-hunting. as i was laboring up the side of a mountain at the head of a valley, the noble bird sprang from the top of a dry tree above me and came sailing directly over my head. i saw him bend his eye down upon me, and i could hear the low hum of his plumage, as if the web off every quill in his great wings vibrated in his strong, level flight. i watched him as long as my eye could hold him. when he was fairly clear of the mountain he began that sweeping spiral movement in which he climbs the sky. up and up he went without once breaking his majestic poise till he appeared to sight some far-off alien geography, when he bent his course thitherward and gradually vanished in the blue depths. the eagle is a bird of large ideas, he embraces long distances; the continent is his home. i never look upon one without emotion; i follow him with my eye as long as i can. i think of canada, of the great lakes, of the rocky mountains, of the wild and sounding sea-coast. the waters are his, and the woods and the inaccessible cliffs. he pierces behind the veil of the storm, and his joy is height and depth and vast spaces. we go out of our way to touch at a spring run in the edge of the woods, and are lucky to find a single scarlet lobelia lingering there. it seems almost to light up the gloom with its intense bit of color. beside a ditch in a field beyond we find the great blue lobelia (lobelia syphilitica), and near it amid the weeds and wild grasses and purple asters the most beautiful of our fall flowers, the fringed gentian. what a rare and delicate, almost aristocratic look the gentian has amid its coarse, unkempt surroundings. it does not lure the bee, but it lures and holds every passing human eye. if we strike through the corner of yonder woods, where the ground is moistened by hidden springs and where there is a little opening amid the trees, we shall find the closed gentian, a rare flower in this locality. i had walked this way many times before i chanced upon its retreat; and then i was following a line of bees. i lost the bees but i got the gentians. how curiously this flower looks, with its deep blue petals folded together so tightly--a bud and yet a blossom. it is the nun among our wild flowers, a form closely veiled and cloaked. the buccaneer bumble-bee sometimes tries to rifle it of its sweets. i have seen the blossom with the bee entombed in it. he had forced his way into the virgin corolla as if determined to know its secret, but he had never returned with the knowledge he had gained. after a refreshing walk of a couple of miles we reach a point where we will make our first trial--a high stone wall that runs parallel with the wooded ridge referred to, and separated from it by a broad field. there are bees at work there on that goldenrod, and it requires but little maneuvering to sweep one into our box. almost any other creature rudely and suddenly arrested in its career and clapped into a cage in this way would show great confusion and alarm. the bee is alarmed for a moment, but the bee has a passion stronger than its love of life or fear of death, namely, desire for honey, not simply to eat, but to carry home as booty. "such rage of honey in their bosom beats," says virgil. it is quick to catch the scent of honey in the box, and as quick to fall to filling itself. we now set the box down upon the wall and gently remove the cover. the bee is head and shoulders in one of the half-filled cells, and is oblivious to everything else about it. come rack, come ruin, it will die at work. we step back a few paces, and sit down upon the ground so as to bring the box against the blue sky as a background. in two or three minutes the bee is seen rising slowly and heavily from the box. it seems loath to leave so much honey behind and it marks the place well. it mounts aloft in a rapidly increasing spiral, surveying the near and minute objects first, then the larger and more distant, till having circled about the spot five or six times and taken all its bearings it darts away for home. it is a good eye that holds fast to the bee till it is fairly off. sometimes one's head will swim following it, and often one's eyes are put out by the sun. this bee gradually drifts down the hill, then strikes away toward a farm-house half a mile away, where i know bees are kept. then we try another and another, and the third bee, much to our satisfaction, goes straight toward the woods. we could see the brown speck against the darker background for many yards. the regular bee-hunter professes to be able to tell a wild bee from a tame one by the color, the former, he says, being lighter. but there is no difference; they are both alike in color and in manner. young bees are lighter than old, and that is all there is of it. if a bee lived many years in the woods it would doubtless come to have some distinguishing marks, but the life of a bee is only a few months at the farthest, and no change is wrought in this brief time. our bees are all soon back, and more with them, for we have touched the box here and there with the cork of a bottle of anise oil, and this fragrant and pungent oil will attract bees half a mile or more. when no flowers can be found, this is the quickest way to obtain a bee. it is a singular fact that when the bee first finds the hunter's box its first feeling is one of anger; it is as mad as a hornet; its tone changes, it sounds its shrill war trumpet and darts to and fro, and gives vent to its rage and indignation in no uncertain manner. it seems to scent foul play at once. it says, "here is robbery; here is the spoil of some hive, may be my own," and its blood is up. but its ruling passion soon comes to the surface, its avarice gets the better of its indignation, and it seems to say, "well, i had better take possession of this and carry it home." so after many feints and approaches and dartings off with a loud angry hum as if it would none of it, the bee settles down and fills itself. it does not entirely cool off and get soberly to work till it has made two or three trips home with its booty. when other bees come, even if all from the same swarm, they quarrel and dispute over the box, and clip and dart at each other like bantam cocks. apparently the ill feeling which the sight of the honey awakens is not one of jealousy or rivalry, but wrath. a bee will usually make three or four trips from the hunter's box before it brings back a companion. i suspect the bee does not tell its fellows what it has found, but that they smell out the secret; it doubtless bears some evidence with it upon its feet or proboscis that it has been upon honey-comb and not upon flowers, and its companions take the hint and follow, arriving always many seconds behind. then the quantity and quality of the booty would also betray it. no doubt, also, there are plenty of gossips about a hive that note and tell everything. "oh, did you see that? peggy mel came in a few moments ago in great haste, and one of the up-stairs packers says she was loaded till she groaned with apple-blossom honey which she deposited, and then rushed off again like mad. apple-blossom honey in october! fee, fi, fo, fum! i smell something! let's after." in about half an hour we have three well-defined lines of bees established--two to farm-houses and one to the woods, and our box is being rapidly depleted of its honey. about every fourth bee goes to the woods, and now that they have learned the way thoroughly they do not make the long preliminary whirl above the box, but start directly from it. the woods are rough and dense and the hill steep, and we do not like to follow the line of bees until we have tried at least to settle the problem as to the distance they go into the woods-whether the tree is on this side of the ridge or in the depth of the forest on the other side. so we shut up the box when it is full of bees and carry it about three hundred yards along the wall from which we are operating. when liberated, the bees, as they always will in such cases, go off in the same directions they have been going; they do not seem to know that they have been moved. but other bees have followed our scent, and it is not many minutes before a second line to the woods is established. this is called cross-lining the bees. the new line makes a sharp angle with the other line, and we know at once that the tree is only a few rods into the woods. the two lines we have established form two sides of a triangle of which the wall is the base; at the apex of the triangle, or where the two lines meet in the woods, we are sure to find the tree. we quickly follow up these lines, and where they cross each other on the side of the hill we scan every tree closely. i pause at the foot of an oak and examine a hole near the root; now the bees are in this tree and their entrance is on the upper side near the ground, not two feet from the hole i peer into, and yet so quiet and secret is their going and coming that i fail to discover them and pass on up the hill. failing in this direction, i return to the oak again, and then perceive the bees going out in a small crack in the tree. the bees do not know they are found out and that the game is in our hands, and are as oblivious of our presence as if we were ants or crickets. the indications are that the swarm is a small one, and the store of honey trifling. in "taking up" a bee-tree it is usual first to kill or stupefy the bees with the fumes of burning sulfur or with tobacco smoke. but this course is impracticable on the present occasion, so we boldly and ruthlessly assault the tree with an ax we have procured. at the first blow the bees set up a loud buzzing, but we have no mercy, and the side of the cavity is soon cut away and the interior with its white-yellow mass of comb-honey is exposed, and not a bee strikes a blow in defense of its all. this may seem singular, but it has nearly always been my experience. when a swarm of bees are thus rudely assaulted with an ax, they evidently think the end of the world has come, and, like true misers as they are, each one seizes as much of the treasure as it can hold; in other words they all fall to and gorge themselves with honey, and calmly await the issue. when in this condition they make no defense and will not sting unless taken hold of. in fact they are as harmless as flies. bees are always to be managed with boldness and decision. any half-way measures, any timid poking about, any feeble attempts to reach their honey, are sure to be quickly resented. the popular notion that bees have a special antipathy toward certain persons and a liking for certain others has only this fact at the bottom of it; they will sting a person who is afraid of them and goes skulking and dodging about, and they will not sting a person who faces them boldly and has no dread of them. they are like dogs. the way to disarm a vicious dog is to show him you do not fear him; it is his turn to be afraid then. i never had any dread of bees and am seldom stung by them. i have climbed up into a large chestnut that contained a swarm in one of its cavities and chopped them out with an ax, being obliged at times to pause and brush the bewildered bees from my hands and face, and not been stung once. i have chopped a swarm out of an apple-tree in june and taken out the cards of honey and arranged them in a hive, and then dipped out the bees with a dipper, and taken the whole home with me in pretty good condition, with scarcely any opposition on the part of the bees. in reaching your hand into the cavity to detach and remove the comb you are pretty sure to get stung, for when you touch the "business end" of a bee, it will sting even though its head be off. but the bee carries the antidote to its own poison. the best remedy for bee sting is honey, and when your hands are besmeared with honey, as they are sure to be on such occasions, the wound is scarcely more painful than the prick of a pin. assault your bee-tree, then, boldly with your ax, and you will find that when the honey is exposed every bee has surrendered and the whole swarm is cowering in helpless bewilderment and terror. our tree yields only a few pounds of honey, not enough to have lasted the swarm till january, but no matter; we have the less burden to carry. in the afternoon we go nearly half a mile farther along the ridge to a cornfield that lies immediately in front of the highest point of the mountain. the view is superb; the ripe autumn landscape rolls away to the east, cut through by the great placid river; in the extreme north the wall of the catskills stands out clear and strong, while in the south the mountains of the highlands bound the view. the day is warm and the bees are very busy there in that neglected corner of the field, rich in asters, flea-bane, and golden-rod. the corn has been cut, and upon a stout, but a few rods from the woods, which here drop quickly down from the precipitous heights, we set up our bee-box, touched again with the pungent oil. in a few moments a bee has found it; she comes up to leeward, following the scent. on leaving the box she goes straight toward the woods. more bees quickly come, and it is not long before the line is well established. now we have recourse to the same tactics we employed before, and move along the ridge to another field to get our cross line. but the bees still go in almost the same direction they did from the corn stout. the tree is then either on the top of the mountain or on the other or west side of it. we hesitate to make the plunge into the woods and seek to scale those precipices, for the eye can plainly see what is before us. as the afternoon sun gets lower the bees are seen with wonderful distinctness. they fly toward and under the sun and are in a strong light, while the near woods which form the background are in deep shadow. they look like large luminous motes. their swiftly vibrating, transparent wings surround their bodies with a shining nimbus that makes them visible for a long distance. they seem magnified many times. we see them bridge the little gulf between us and the woods, then rise up over the tree-tops with their burdens, swerving neither to the right hand nor to the left. it is almost pathetic to see them labor so, climbing the mountain and unwittingly guiding us to their treasures. when the sun gets down so that his direction corresponds exactly with the course of the bees, we make the plunge. it proves even harder climbing than we had anticipated; the mountain is faced by a broken and irregular wall of rock, up which we pull ourselves slowly and cautiously by main strength. in half an hour, the perspiration streaming from every pore, we reach the summit. the trees here are all small, a second growth, and we are soon convinced the bees are not here. then down we go on the other side, clambering down the rocky stairways till we reach quite a broad plateau that forms something like the shoulder of the mountain. on the brink of this there are many large hemlocks, and we scan them closely and rap upon them with our ax. but not a bee is seen or heard; we do not seem as near the tree as we were in the fields below; yet if some divinity would only whisper the fact to us we are within a few rods of the coveted prize, which is not in one of the large hemlocks or oaks that absorb our attention, but in an old stub or stump not six feet high, and which we have seen and passed several times without giving it a thought. we go farther down the mountain and beat about to the right and left and get entangled in brush and arrested by precipices, and finally as the day is nearly spent, give up the search and leave the woods quite baffled, but resolved to return on the morrow. the next day we come back and commence operations in an opening in the woods well down on the side of the mountain, where we gave up the search. our box is soon swarming with the eager bees, and they go back toward the summit we have passed. we follow back and establish a new line where the ground will permit; then another and another, and yet the riddle is not solved. one time we are south of them, then north, then the bees get up through the trees and we cannot tell where they go. but after much searching, and after the mystery seems rather to deepen than to clear up, we chance to pause beside the old stump. a bee comes out of a small opening, like that made by ants in decayed wood, rubs its eyes and examines its antennae as bees always do before leaving their hive, then takes flight. at the same instant several bees come by us loaded with our honey and settle home with that peculiar low complacent buzz of the well-filled insect. here then is our idyl, our bit of virgil and theocritus, in a decayed stump of a hemlock tree. we could tear it open with our hands, and a bear would find it an easy prize, and a rich one too, for we take from it fifty pounds of excellent honey. the bees have been here many years, and have of course sent out swarm after swarm into the wilds. they have protected themselves against the weather and strengthened their shaky habitation by a copious use of wax. when a bee-tree is thus "taken up" in the middle of the day, of course a good many bees are away from home and have not heard the news. when they return and find the ground flowing with honey, and piles of bleeding combs lying about, they apparently do not recognize the place, and their first instinct is to fall to and fill themselves; this done, their next thought is to carry it home, so they rise up slowly through the branches of the trees till they have attained an altitude that enables them to survey the scene, when they seem to say, "why, this is home," and down they come again; beholding the wreck and ruins once more they still think there is some mistake, and get up a second or a third time and then drop back pitifully as before. it is the most pathetic sight of all, the surviving and bewildered bees struggling to save a few drops of their wasted treasures. presently, if there is another swarm in the woods, robber-bees appear. you may know them by their saucy, chiding, devil-may-care hum. it is an ill wind that blows nobody good, and they make the most of the misfortune of their neighbors; and thereby pave the way for their own ruin. the hunter marks their course and the next day looks them up. on this occasion the day was hot and the honey very fragrant, and a line of bees was soon established s. s. w. though there was much refuse honey in the old stub, and though little golden rills trickled down the hill from it, and the near branches and saplings were besmeared with it where we wiped our murderous hands, yet not a drop was wasted. it was a feast to which not only honey-bees came, but bumble-bees, wasps, hornets, flies, ants. the bumble-bees, which at this season are hungry vagrants with no fixed place of abode, would gorge themselves, then creep beneath the bits of empty comb or fragments of bark and pass the night, and renew the feast next day. the bumble-bee is an insect of which the bee-hunter sees much. there are all sorts and sizes of them. they are dull and clumsy compared with the honey-bee. attracted in the fields by the bee-hunter's box, they will come up the wind on the scent and blunder into it in the most stupid, lubberly fashion. the honey-bee that licked up our leavings on the old stub belonged to a swarm, as it proved, about half a mile farther down the ridge, and a few days afterward fate overtook them, and their stores in turn became the prey of another swarm in the vicinity, which also tempted providence and were overwhelmed. the first mentioned swarm i had lined from several points, and was following up the clew over rocks and through gulleys, when i came to where a large hemlock had been felled a few years before and a swarm taken from a cavity near the top of it; fragments of the old comb were yet to be seen. a few yards away stood another short, squatty hemlock, and i said my bees ought to be there. as i paused near it i noticed where the tree had been wounded with an ax a couple of feet from the ground many years before. the wound had partially grown over, but there was an opening there that i did not see at the first glance. i was about to pass on when a bee passed me making that peculiar shrill, discordant hum that a bee makes when besmeared with honey. i saw it alight in the partially closed wound and crawl home; then came others and others, little bands and squads of them heavily freighted with honey from the box. the tree was about twenty inches through and hollow at the butt, or from the ax mark down. this space the bees had completely filled with honey. with an ax we cut away the outer ring of live wood and exposed the treasure. despite the utmost care, we wounded the comb so that little rills of the golden liquid issued from the root of the tree and trickled down the hill. the other bee-tree in the vicinity, to which i have referred, we found one warm november day in less than half an hour after entering the woods. it also was a hemlock, that stood in a niche in a wall of hoary, moss-covered rocks thirty feet high. the tree hardly reached to the top of the precipice. the bees entered a small hole at the root, which was seven or eight feet from the ground. the position was a striking one. never did apiary have a finer outlook or more rugged surroundings. a black, wood-embraced lake lay at our feet; the long panorama of the catskills filled the far distance, and the more broken outlines of the shawangunk range filled the rear. on every hand were precipices and a wild confusion of rocks and trees. the cavity occupied by the bees was about three feet and a half long and eight or ten inches in diameter. with an ax we cut away one side of the tree and laid bare its curiously wrought heart of honey. it was a most pleasing sight. what winding and devious ways the bees had through their palace! what great masses and blocks of snow-white comb there were! where it was sealed up, presenting that slightly dented, uneven surface, it looked like some precious ore. when we carried a large pail full of it out of the woods, it seemed still more like ore. your native bee-hunter predicates the distance of the tree by the time the bee occupies in making its first trip. but this is no certain guide. you are always safe in calculating that the tree is inside of a mile, and you need not as a rule look for your bee's return under ten minutes. one day i picked up a bee in an opening in the woods and gave it honey, and it made three trips to my box with an interval of about twelve minutes between them; it returned alone each time; the tree, which i afterward found, was about half a mile distant. in lining bees through the woods, the tactics of the hunter are to pause every twenty or thirty rods, lop away the branches or cut down the trees, and set the bees to work again. if they still go forward, he goes forward also and repeats his observations till the tree is found or till the bees turn and come back upon the trail. then he knows he has passed the tree, and he retraces his steps to a convenient distance and tries again, and thus quickly reduces the space to be looked over till the swarm is traced home. on one occasion, in a wild rocky wood, where the surface alternated between deep gulfs and chasms filled with thick, heavy growths of timber and sharp, precipitous, rocky ridges like a tempest tossed sea, i carried my bees directly under their tree, and set them to work from a high, exposed ledge of rocks not thirty feet distant. one would have expected them under such circumstances to have gone straight home, as there were but few branches intervening, but they did not; they labored up through the trees and attained an altitude above the woods as if they had miles to travel, and thus baffled me for hours. bees will always do this. they are acquainted with the woods only from the top side, and from the air above they recognize home only by land-marks here, and in every instance they rise aloft to take their bearings. think how familiar to them the topography of the forest summits must be-an umbrageous sea or plain where every mask and point is known. another curious fact is that generally you will get track of a bee-tree sooner when you are half a mile from it than when you are only a few yards. bees, like us human insects, have little faith in the near at hand; they expect to make their fortune in a distant field, they are lured by the remote and the difficult, and hence overlook the flower and the sweet at their very door. on several occasions i have unwittingly set my box within a few paces of a bee-tree and waited long for bees without getting them, when, on removing to a distant field or opening in the woods i have got a clew at once. i have a theory that when bees leave the hive, unless there is some special attraction in some other direction, they generally go against the wind. they would thus have the wind with them when they returned home heavily laden, and with these little navigators the difference is an important one. with a full cargo, a stiff head-wind is a great hindrance, but fresh and empty-handed they can face it with more ease. virgil says bees bear gravel stones as ballast, but their only ballast is their honey bag. hence, when i go bee-hunting, i prefer to get to windward of the woods in which the swarm is supposed to have taken refuge. bees, like the milkman, like to be near a spring. they do water their honey, especially in a dry time. the liquid is then of course thicker and sweeter, and will bear diluting. hence, old bee-hunters look for bee-trees along creeks and near spring runs in the woods. i once found a tree a long distance from any water, and the honey had a peculiar bitter flavor imparted to it, i was convinced, by rainwater sucked from the decayed and spongy hemlock tree, in which the swarm was found. in cutting into the tree, the north side of it was found to be saturated with water like a spring, which ran out in big drops, and had a bitter flavor. the bees had thus found a spring or a cistern in their own house. bees are exposed to many hardships and many dangers. winds and storms prove as disastrous to them as to other navigators. black spiders lie in wait for them as do brigands for travelers. one day as i was looking for a bee amid some golden-rod, i spied one partly concealed under a leaf. its baskets were full of pollen, and it did not move. on lifting up the leaf i discovered that a hairy spider was ambushed there and had the bee by the throat. the vampire was evidently afraid of the bee's sting, and was holding it by the throat till quite sure of its death. virgil speaks of the painted lizard, perhaps a species of salamander, as an enemy of the honey-bee. we have no lizard that destroys the bee; but our tree-toad, ambushed among the apple and cherry blossoms, snaps them up wholesale. quick as lightning that subtle but clammy tongue darts forth, and the unsuspecting bee is gone. virgil also accuses the titmouse and the woodpecker of preying upon the bees, and our kingbird has been charged with the like crime, but the latter devours only the drones. the workers are either too small and quick for it, or else it dreads their sting. virgil, by the way, had little more than a child's knowledge of the honey-bee. there is little fact and much fable in his fourth georgic. if he had ever kept bees himself, or even visited an apiary, it is hard to see how he could have believed that the bee in its flight abroad carried a gravel stone for ballast:- "and as when empty barks on billows float, with sandy ballast sailors trim the boat; so bees bear gravel stones, whose poising weight steers through the whistling winds their steady flight;" or that when two colonies made war upon each other they issued forth from their hives led by their kings and fought in the air, strewing the ground with the dead and dying:- "hard hailstones lie not thicker on the plain, nor shaken oaks such show'rs of acorns rain." it is quite certain he had never been bee-hunting. if he had, we should have had a fifth georgic. yet he seems to have known that bees sometimes escaped to the woods:- "nor bees are lodged in hives alone, but found in chambers of their own beneath the ground: their vaulted roofs are hung in pumices, and in the rotten trunks of hollow trees." wild honey is as near like tame as wild bees are like their brothers in hive. the only difference is that wild honey is flavored with your adventure, which makes it a little more delectable than the domestic article. the pastoral bees the honey-bee goes forth from the hive in spring like the dove from noah's ark, and it is not till after many days that she brings back the olive leaf, which in this case is a pellet of golden pollen upon each hip, usually obtained from the alder or the swamp willow. in a country where maple sugar is made, the bees get their first taste of sweet from the sap as it flows from the spiles, or as it dries and is condensed upon the sides of the buckets. they will sometimes, in their eagerness, come about the boiling place and be overwhelmed by the steam and the smoke. but bees appear to be more eager for bread in the spring than for honey; their supply of this article, perhaps, does not keep as well as their stores of the latter, hence fresh bread, in the shape of new pollen, is diligently sought for. my bees get their first supplies from the catkins of the willows. how quickly they find them out. if but one catkin opens anywhere within range, a bee is on hand that very hour to rifle it, and it is a most pleasing experience to stand near the hive some mild april day and see them come pouring in with their little baskets packed with this first fruitage of the spring. they will have new bread now; they have been to mill in good earnest; see their dusty coats, and the golden grist they bring home with them. when a bee brings pollen into the hive, he advances to the cell in which it is to be deposited and kicks it off as one might his overalls or rubber boots, making one foot help the other; then he walks off without ever looking behind him; another bee, one of the indoor hands, comes along and rams it down with his head and packs it into the cell as the dairymaid packs butter into a firkin. the first spring wild-flowers, whose shy faces among the dry leaves and rocks are so welcome, yield no honey. the anemone, the hepatica, the bloodroot, the arbutus, the numerous violets, the spring beauty, the corydalis, etc., woo lovers of nature, but do not woo the honey-loving bee. it requires more sun and warmth to develop the saccharine element, and the beauty of these pale striplings of the woods and groves is their sole and sufficient excuse for being. the arbutus, lying low and keeping green all winter, attains to perfume, but not to honey. the first honey is perhaps obtained from the flowers of the red maple and the golden willow. the latter sends forth a wild, delicious perfume. the sugar maple blooms a little later, and from its silken tassels a rich nectar is gathered. my bees will not label these different varieties for me as i really wish they would. honey from the maples, a tree so clean and wholesome, and full of such virtues every way, would be something to put one's tongue to. or that from the blossoms of the apple, the peach, the cherry, the quince, the currant,--one would like a card of each of these varieties to note their peculiar qualities. the apple-blossom is very important to the bees. a single swarm has been known to gain twenty pounds in weight during its continuance. bees love the ripened fruit, too, and in august and september will suck themselves tipsy upon varieties such as the sops-of-wine. the interval between the blooming of the fruit-trees and that of the clover and the raspberry is bridged over in many localities by the honey locust. what a delightful summer murmur these trees send forth at this season. i know nothing about the quality of the honey, but it ought to keep well. but when the red raspberry blooms, the fountains of plenty are unsealed indeed; what a commotion about the hives then, especially in localities where it is extensively cultivated, as in places along the hudson. the delicate white clover, which begins to bloom about the same time, is neglected; even honey itself is passed by for this modest colorless, all but odorless flower. a field of these berries in june sends forth a continuous murmur like that of an enormous hive. the honey is not so white as that obtained from clover but it is easier gathered; it is in shallow cups while that of the clover is in deep tubes. the bees are up and at it before sunrise, and it takes a brisk shower to drive them in. but the clover blooms later and blooms everywhere, and is the staple source of supply of the finest quality of honey. the red clover yields up its stores only to the longer proboscis of the bumble-bee, else the bee pasturage of our agricultural districts would be unequaled. i do not know from what the famous honey of chamouni in the alps is made, but it can hardly surpass our best products. the snow-white honey of anatolia in asiatic turkey, which is regularly sent to constantinople for the use of the grand seignior and the ladies of his seraglio, is obtained from the cotton plant, which makes me think that the white clover does not flourish these. the white clover is indigenous with us; its seeds seem latent in the ground, and the application of certain stimulants to the soil, such as wood ashes, causes them to germinate and spring up. the rose, with all its beauty and perfume, yields no honey to the bee, unless the wild species be sought by the bumble-bee. among the humbler plants, let me not forget the dandelion that so early dots the sunny slopes, and upon which the bee languidly grazes, wallowing to his knees in the golden but not over-succulent pasturage. from the blooming rye and wheat the bee gathers pollen, also from the obscure blossoms of indian corn. among weeds, catnip is the great favorite. it lasts nearly the whole season and yields richly. it could no doubt be profitably cultivated in some localities, and catnip honey would be a novelty in the market. it would probably partake of the aromatic properties of the plant from which it was derived. among your stores of honey gathered before midsummer, you may chance upon a card, or mayhap only a square inch or two of comb, in which the liquid is as transparent as water, of a delicious quality, with a slight flavor of mint. this is the product of the linden or basswood, of all the trees in our forest the one most beloved by the bees. melissa, the goddess of honey, has placed her seal upon this tree. the wild swarms in the woods frequently reap a choice harvest from it. i have seen a mountain side thickly studded with it, its straight, tall, smooth, light-gray shaft carrying its deep-green crown far aloft, like the tulip-tree or the maple. in some of the northwestern states there are large forests of it, and the amount of honey reported stored by strong swarms in this section during the time the tree is in bloom is quite incredible. as a shade and ornamental tree the linden is fully equal to the maple, and if it were as extensively planted and cared for, our supplies of virgin honey would be greatly increased. the famous honey of lithuania in russia is the product of the linden. it is a homely old stanza current among bee folk that- "a swarm of bees in may is worth a load of hay; a swarm of bees in june is worth a silver spoon; but a swarm in july is not worth a fly." a swarm in may is indeed a treasure; it is, like an april baby, sure to thrive, and will very likely itself send out a swarm a month or two later; but a swarm in july is not to be despised; it will store no clover or linden honey for the "grand seignior and the ladies of his seraglio," but plenty of the rank and wholesome poor man's nectar, the sun-tanned product of the plebeian buckwheat. buckwheat honey is the black sheep in this white flock, but there is spirit and character in it. it lays hold of the taste in no equivocal manner, especially when at a winter breakfast it meets its fellow, the russet buckwheat cake. bread with honey to cover it from the same stalk is double good fortune. it is not black, either, but nut-brown, and belongs to the same class of goods as herrick's "nut-brown mirth and russet wit." how the bees love it, and they bring the delicious odor of the blooming plant to the hive with them, so that in the moist warm twilight the apiary is redolent with the perfume of buckwheat. yet evidently it is not the perfume of any flower that attracts the bees; they pay no attention to the sweet-scented lilac, or to heliotrope, but work upon sumach, silkweed, and the hateful snapdragon. in september they are hard pressed, and do well if they pick up enough sweet to pay the running expenses of their establishment. the purple asters and the golden-rod are about all that remain to them. bees will go three or four miles in quest of honey, but it is a great advantage to move the hive near the good pasturage, as has been the custom from the earliest times in the old world. some enterprising person, taking a hint perhaps from the ancient egyptians, who had floating apiaries on the nile, has tried the experiment of floating several hundred colonies north on the mississippi, starting from new orleans and following the opening season up, thus realizing a sort of perpetual may or june, the chief attraction being the blossoms of the river willow, which yield honey of rare excellence. some of the bees were no doubt left behind, but the amount of virgin honey secured must have been very great. in september they should have begun the return trip, following the retreating summer south. it is the making of the wax that costs with the bee. as with the poet, the form, the receptacle, gives him more trouble than the sweet that fills it, though, to be sure, there is always more or less empty comb in both cases. the honey he can have for the gathering, but the wax he must make himself--must evolve from his own inner consciousness. when wax is to be made the wax-makers fill themselves with honey and retire into their chamber for private meditation; it is like some solemn religious rite; they take hold of hands, or hook themselves together in long lines that hang in festoons from the top of the hive, and wait for the miracle to transpire. after about twenty-four hours their patience is rewarded, the honey is turned into wax, minute scales of which are secreted from between the rings of the abdomen of each bee; this is taken off and from it the comb is built up. it is calculated that about twenty-five pounds of honey are used in elaborating one pound of comb, to say nothing of the time that is lost. hence the importance in an economical point of view, of a recent device by which the honey is extracted and the comb returned intact to the bees. but honey without the comb is the perfume without the rose,--it is sweet merely, and soon degenerates into candy. half the delectableness is in breaking down these frail and exquisite walls yourself, and tasting the nectar before it has lost its freshness by the contact with the air. then the comb is a sort of shield or foil that prevents the tongue from being overwhelmed by the shock of the sweet. the drones have the least enviable time of it. their foothold in the hive is very precarious. they look like the giants, the lords of the swarm, but they are really the tools. their loud, threatening hum has no sting to back it up, and their size and noise make them only the more conspicuous marks for the birds. toward the close of the season, say in july or august, the fiat goes forth that the drones must die; there is no further use for them. then the poor creatures, how they are huddled and hustled about, trying to hide in corners and by-ways. there is no loud, defiant humming now, but abject fear seizes them. they cower like hunted criminals. i have seen a dozen or more of them wedge themselves into a small space between the glass and the comb, where the bees could not get hold of them or where they seemed to be overlooked in the general slaughter. they will also crawl outside and hide under the edges of the hive. but sooner or later they are all killed or kicked out. the drone makes no resistance, except to pull back and try to get away; but (putting yourself in his place) with one bee a-hold of your collar or the hair of your head, and another a-hold of each arm or leg, and still another feeling for your waistbands with his sting, the odds are greatly against you. it is a singular fact, also, that the queen is made, not born. if the entire population of spain or great britain were the offspring of one mother, it might be found necessary to hit upon some device by which a royal baby could be manufactured out of an ordinary one, or else give up the fashion of royalty. all the bees in the hive have a common parentage, and the queen and the worker are the same in the egg and in the chick; the patent of royalty is in the cell and in the food; the cell being much larger, and the food a peculiar stimulating kind of jelly. in certain contingencies, such as the loss of the queen with no eggs in the royal cells, the workers take the larva of an ordinary bee, enlarge the cell by taking in the two adjoining ones, and nurse it and stuff it and coddle it, till at the end of sixteen days it comes out a queen. but ordinarily, in the natural course of events, the young queen is kept a prisoner in her cell till the old queen has left with the swarm. later on, the unhatched queen is guarded against the reigning queen, who only wants an opportunity to murder every royal scion in the hive. at this time both the queens, the one a prisoner and the other at large, pipe defiance at each other, a shrill, fine, trumpet-like note that any ear will at once recognize. this challenge, not being allowed to be accepted by either party, is followed, in a day or two by the abdication of the reigning queen; she leads out the swarm, and her successor is liberated by her keepers, who, in her time, abdicates in favor of the next younger. when the bees have decided that no more swarms can issue, the reigning queen is allowed to use her stiletto upon her unhatched sisters. cases have been known where two queens issued at the same time, when a mortal combat ensued, encouraged by the workers, who formed a ring about them, but showed no preference, and recognized the victor as the lawful sovereign. for these and many other curious facts we are indebted to the blind huber. it is worthy of note that the position of the queen cells is always vertical, while that of the drones and workers is horizontal; majesty stands on its head, which fact may be a part of the secret. the notion has always very generally prevailed that the queen of the bees is an absolute ruler, and issues her royal orders to willing subjects. hence napoleon the first sprinkled the symbolic bees over the imperial mantle that bore the arms of his dynasty; and in the country of the pharaohs the bee was used as the emblem of a people sweetly submissive to the orders of its king. but the fact is, a swarm of bees is an absolute democracy, and kings and despots can find no warrant in their example. the power and authority are entirely vested in the great mass, the workers. they furnish all the brains and foresight of the colony, and administer its affairs. their word is law, and both king and queen must obey. they regulate the swarming, and give the signal for the swarm to issue from the hive; they select and make ready the tree in the woods and conduct the queen to it. the peculiar office and sacredness of the queen consists in the fact that she is the mother of the swarm, and the bees love and cherish her as a mother and not as a sovereign. she is the sole female bee in the hive, and the swarm clings to her because she is their life. deprived of their queen, and of all brood from which to rear one, the swarm loses all heart and soon dies, though there be an abundance of honey in the hive. the common bees will never use their sting upon the queen; if she is to be disposed of they starve her to death; and the queen herself will sting nothing but royalty--nothing but a rival queen. the queen, i say, is the mother bee; it is undoubtedly complimenting her to call her a queen and invest her with regal authority, yet she is a superb creature, and looks every inch a queen. it is an event to distinguish her amid the mass of bees when the swarm alights; it awakens a thrill. before you have seen a queen you wonder if this or that bee, which seems a little larger than its fellows, is not she, but when you once really set eyes upon her you do not doubt for a moment. you know that is the queen. that long, elegant, shining, feminine-looking creature can be none less than royalty. how beautifully her body tapers, how distinguished she looks, how deliberate her movements! the bees do not fall down before her, but caress her and touch her person. the drones or males, are large bees too, but coarse, blunt, broad-shouldered, masculine-looking. there is but one fact or incident in the life of the queen that looks imperial and authoritative: huber relates that when the old queen is restrained in her movements by the workers, and prevented from destroying the young queens in their cells, she assumes a peculiar attitude and utters a note that strikes every bee motionless, and makes every head bow; while this sound lasts not a bee stirs, but all look abashed and humbled, yet whether the emotion is one of fear, or reverence, or of sympathy with the distress of the queen mother, is hard to determine. the moment it ceases and she advances again toward the royal cells, the bees bite and pull and insult her as before. i always feel that i have missed some good fortune if i am away from home when my bees swarm. what a delightful summer sound it is; how they come pouring out of the hive, twenty or thirty thousand bees each striving to get out first; it is as when the dam gives way and lets the waters loose; it is a flood of bees which breaks upward into the air, and becomes a maze of whirling black lines to the eye and a soft chorus of myriad musical sounds to the ear. this way and that way they drift, now contracting, now expanding, rising, sinking, growing thick about some branch or bush, then dispersing and massing at some other point, till finally they begin to alight in earnest, when in a few moments the whole swarm is collected upon the branch, forming a bunch perhaps as large as a two-gallon measure. here they will hang from one to three or four hours, or until a suitable tree in the woods is looked up, when, if they have not been offered a hive in the mean time, they are up and off. in hiving them, if any accident happens to the queen the enterprise miscarries at once. one day i shook a swarm from a small pear-tree into a tin pan, set the pan down on a shawl spread beneath the tree, and put the hive over it. the bees presently all crawled up into it, and all seemed to go well for ten or fifteen minutes, when i observed that something was wrong; the bees began to buzz excitedly and to rush about in a bewildered manner, then they took to the wing and all returned to the parent stock. on lifting up the pan, i found beneath it the queen with three or four other bees. she had been one of the first to fall, had missed the pan in her descent, and i had set it upon her. i conveyed her tenderly back to the hive, but either the accident terminated fatally with her or else the young queen had been liberated in the interim, and one of them had fallen in combat, for it was ten days before the swarm issued a second time. no one, to my knowledge, has ever seen the bees house-hunting in the woods. yet there can be no doubt that they look up new quarters either before or on the day the swarm issues. for all bees are wild bees and incapable of domestication; that is, the instinct to go back to nature and take up again their wild abodes in the trees is never eradicated. years upon years of life in the apiary seems to have no appreciable effect towards their final, permanent domestication. that every new swarm contemplates migrating to the woods, seems confirmed by the fact that they will only come out when the weather is favorable to such an enterprise, and that a passing cloud or a sudden wind, after the bees are in the air, will usually drive them back into the parent hive. or an attack upon them with sand or gravel, or loose earth or water, will quickly cause them to change their plans. i would not even say but that, when the bees are going off, the apparently absurd practice, now entirely discredited by regular bee-keepers but still resorted to by unscientific folk, of beating upon tin pans, blowing horns, and creating an uproar generally, might not be without good results. certainly not by drowning the "orders" of the queen, but by impressing the bees as with some unusual commotion in nature. bees are easily alarmed and disconcerted, and i have known runaway swarms to be brought down by a farmer ploughing in the field who showered them with handfuls of loose soil. i love to see a swarm go off--if it is not mine, and if mine must go i want to be on hand to see the fun. it is a return to first principles again by a very direct route. the past season i witnessed two such escapes. one swarm had come out the day before, and, without alighting, had returned to the parent hive--some hitch in the plan, perhaps, or may be the queen had found her wings too weak. the next day they came out again, and were hived. but something offended them, or else the tree in the woods--perhaps some royal old maple or birch holding its head high above all others, with snug, spacious, irregular chambers and galleries--had too many attractions; for they were presently discovered filling the air over the garden, and whirling excitedly around. gradually they began to drift over the street; a moment more, and they had become separated from the other bees, and, drawing together in a more compact mass or cloud, away they went, a humming, flying vortex of bees, the queen in the centre, and the swarm revolving around her as a pivot,--over meadows, across creeks and swamps, straight for the heart of the mountain, about a mile distant,--slow at first, so that the youth who gave chase kept up with them, but increasing their speed till only a fox hound could have kept them in sight. i saw their pursuer laboring up the side of the mountain; saw his white shirt-sleeves gleam as he entered the woods; but he returned a few hours afterward without any clew as to the particular tree in which they had taken refuge out of the ten thousand that covered the side of the mountain. the other swarm came out about one o'clock of a hot july day, and at once showed symptoms that alarmed the keeper, who, however, threw neither dirt nor water. the house was situated on a steep side-hill. behind it the ground rose, for a hundred rods or so, at an angle of nearly forty-five degrees, and the prospect of having to chase them up this hill, if chase them we should, promised a good trial of wind at least; for it soon became evident that their course lay in this direction. determined to have a hand, or rather a foot, in the chase, i threw off my coat and hurried on, before the swarm was yet fairly organized and under way. the route soon led me into a field of standing rye, every spear of which held its head above my own. plunging recklessly forward, my course marked to those watching from below by the agitated and wriggling grain, i emerged from the miniature forest just in time to see the runaways disappearing over the top of the hill, some fifty rods in advance of me. lining them as well as i could, i soon reached the hill-top, my breath utterly gone and the perspiration streaming from every pore of my skin. on the other side the country opened deep and wide. a large valley swept around to the north, heavily wooded at its head and on its sides. it became evident at once that the bees had made good their escape, and that whether they had stopped on one side of the valley or the other, or had indeed cleared the opposite mountain and gone into some unknown forest beyond, was entirely problematical. i turned back, therefore, thinking of the honey-laden tree that some of these forests would hold before the falling of the leaf. i heard of a youth in the neighborhood, more lucky than myself on a like occasion. it seems that he had got well in advance of the swarm, whose route lay over a hill, as in my case, and as he neared the summit, hat in hand, the bees had just come up and were all about him. presently he noticed them hovering about his straw hat, and alighting on his arm; and in almost as brief a time as it takes to relate it, the whole swarm had followed the queen into his hat. being near a stone wall, he coolly deposited his prize upon it, quickly disengaged himself from the accommodating bees, and returned for a hive. the explanation of this singular circumstance no doubt is, that the queen, unused to such long and heavy flights, was obliged to alight from very exhaustion. it is not very unusual for swarms to be thus found in remote fields, collected upon a bush or branch of a tree. when a swarm migrates to the woods in this manner, the individual bees, as i have intimated, do not move in right lines or straight forward, like a flock of birds, but round and round, like chaff in a whirlwind. unitedly they form a humming, revolving, nebulous mass, ten or fifteen feet across, which keeps just high enough to clear all obstacles, except in crossing deep valleys, when, of course, it may be very high. the swarm seems to be guided by a line of couriers, which may be seen (at least at the outset) constantly going and coming. as they take a direct course, there is always some chance of following them to the tree, unless they go a long distance, and some obstruction, like a wood, or a swamp, or a high hill, intervenes--enough chance, at any rate, to stimulate the lookers-on to give vigorous chase as long as their wind holds out. if the bees are successfully followed to their retreat, two plans are feasible: either to fell the tree at once, and seek to hive them, perhaps bring them home in the section of the tree that contains the cavity; or to leave the tree till fall, then invite your neighbors, and go and cut it, and see the ground flow with honey. the former course is more business-like; but the latter is the one usually recommended by one's friends and neighbors. perhaps nearly one third of all the runaway swarms leave when no one is about, and hence are unseen and unheard, save, perchance, by some distant laborers in the field, or by some youth ploughing on the side of the mountain, who hears an unusual humming noise, and sees the swarm dimly whirling by overhead, and, may be, gives chase; or he may simply catch the sound, when he pauses, looks quickly around, but sees nothing. when he comes in at night he tells how he heard or saw a swarm of bees go over; and, perhaps from beneath one of the hives in the garden a black mass of bees has disappeared during the day. they are not partial as to the kind of tree,--pine, hemlock, elm, birch, maple, hickory,--any tree with a good cavity high up or low down. a swarm of mine ran away from the new patent hive i gave them, and took up their quarters in the hollow trunk of an old apple-tree across an adjoining field. the entrance was a mouse-hole near the ground. another swarm in the neighborhood deserted their keeper and went into the cornice of an out-house that stood amid evergreens in the rear of a large mansion. but there is no accounting for the taste of bees, as samson found when he discovered the swarm in the carcass, or more probably the skeleton, of the lion he had slain. in any given locality, especially in the more wooded and mountainous districts, the number of swarms that thus assert their independence forms quite a large per cent. in the northern states these swarms very often perish before spring; but in such a country as florida they seem to multiply, till bee-trees are very common. in the west, also, wild honey is often gathered in large quantities. i noticed not long since, that some wood-choppers on the west slope of the coast range felled a tree that had several pailfuls in it. one night on the potomac a party of us unwittingly made our camp near the foot of a bee-tree, which next day the winds of heaven blew down, for our special delectation, at least so we read the sign. another time while sitting by a waterfall in the leafless april woods i discovered a swarm in the top of a large hickory. i had the season before remarked the tree as a likely place for bees, but the screen of leaves concealed them from me. this time my former presentiment occurred to me, and, looking sharply, sure enough there were the bees, going out and in a large, irregular opening. in june a violent tempest of wind and rain demolished the tree, and the honey was all lost in the creek into which it fell. i happened along that way two or three days after the tornado, when i saw a remnant of the swarm, those, doubtless, that escaped the flood and those that were away when the disaster came, hanging in a small black mass to a branch high up near where their home used to be. they looked forlorn enough. if the queen was saved the remnant probably sought another tree; otherwise the bees have soon died. i have seen bees desert their hive in the spring when it was infested with worms, or when the honey was exhausted; at such times the swarm seems to wander aimlessly, alighting here and there, and perhaps in the end uniting with some other colony. in case of such union, it would be curious to know if negotiations were first opened between the parties, and if the houseless bees are admitted at once to all the rights and franchises of their benefactors. it would be very like the bees to have some preliminary plan and understanding about the matter on both sides. bees will accommodate themselves to almost any quarters, yet no hive seems to please them so well as a section of a hollow tree--"gums" as they are called in the south and west where the sweet gum grows. in some european countries the hive is always made from the trunk of a tree, a suitable cavity being formed by boring. the old-fashioned straw hive is picturesque, and a great favorite with the bees also. the life of a swarm of bees is like an active and hazardous campaign of an army; the ranks are being continually depleted, and continually recruited. what adventures they have by flood and field, and what hair-breadth escapes! a strong swarm during the honey season loses, on an average, about four or five thousand per month, or one hundred and fifty per day. they are overwhelmed by wind and rain, caught by spiders, benumbed by cold, crushed by cattle, drowned in rivers and ponds, and in many nameless ways cut off or disabled. in the spring the principal mortality is from the cold. as the sun declines they get chilled before they can reach home. many fall down outside the hive, unable to get in with their burden. one may see them come utterly spent and drop hopelessly into the grass in front of their very doors. before they can rest the cold has stiffened them. i go out in april and may and pick them up by the handfuls, their baskets loaded with pollen, and warm them in the sun or in the house, or by the simple warmth of my hand, until they can crawl into the hive. heat is their life, and an apparently lifeless bee may be revived by warming him. i have also picked them up while rowing on the river and seen them safely to shore. it is amusing to see them come hurrying home when there is a thunderstorm approaching. they come piling in till the rain is upon them. those that are overtaken by the storm doubtless weather it as best they can in the sheltering trees or grass. it is not probable that a bee ever gets lost by wandering into strange and unknown parts. with their myriad eyes they see everything; and then, their sense of locality is very acute, is, indeed, one of their ruling traits. when a bee marks the place of his hive, or of a bit of good pasturage in the fields or swamps, or of the bee-hunter's box of honey on the hills or in the woods, he returns to it as unerringly as fate. honey was a much more important article of food with the ancients than it is with us. as they appear to have been unacquainted with sugar, honey, no doubt, stood them instead. it is too rank and pungent for the modern taste; it soon cloys upon the palate. it demands the appetite of youth, and the strong, robust digestion of people who live much in the open air. it is a more wholesome food than sugar, and modern confectionery is poison beside it. beside grape sugar, honey contains manna, mucilage, pollen, acid, and other vegetable odoriferous substances and juices. it is a sugar with a kind of wild natural bread added. the manna of itself is both food and medicine, and the pungent vegetable extracts have rare virtues. honey promotes the excretions and dissolves the glutinous and starchy impedimenta of the system. hence it is not without reason that with the ancients a land flowing with milk and honey should mean a land abounding in all good things; and the queen in the nursery rhyme, who lingered in the kitchen to eat "bread and honey" while the "king was in the parlor counting out his money," was doing a very sensible thing. epaminondas is said to have rarely eaten anything but bread and honey. the emperor augustus one day inquired of a centenarian how he had kept his vigor of mind and body so long; to which the veteran replied that it was by "oil without and honey within." cicero, in his "old age," classes honey with meat and milk and cheese as among the staple articles with which a well-kept farm-house will be supplied. italy and greece, in fact all the mediterranean countries, appear to have been famous lands for honey. mount hymettus, mount hybla, and mount ida produced what may be called the classic honey of antiquity, an article doubtless in nowise superior to our best products. leigh hunt's "jar of honey" is mainly distilled from sicilian history and literature, theocritus furnishing the best yield. sicily has always been rich in bees. swinburne (the traveler of a hundred years ago) says the woods on this island abounded in wild honey, and that the people also had many hives near their houses. the idyls of theocritus are native to the island in this respect, and abound in bees--"flat-nosed bees" as he calls them in the seventh idyl--and comparisons in which comb-honey is the standard of the most delectable of this world's goods. his goatherds can think of no greater bliss than that the mouth be filled with honey-combs, or to be inclosed in a chest like daphnis and fed on the combs of bees; and among the delectables with which arsinoe cherishes adonis are "honey-cakes," and other tid-bits made of "sweet honey." in the country of theocritus this custom is said still to prevail: when a couple are married the attendants place honey in their mouths, by which they would symbolize the hope that their love may be as sweet to their souls as honey to the palate. it was fabled that homer was suckled by a priestess whose breasts distilled honey; and that once when pindar lay asleep the bees dropped honey upon his lips. in the old testament the food of the promised immanuel was to be butter and honey (there is much doubt about the butter in the original), that he might know good from evil; and jonathan's eyes were enlightened, by partaking of some wood or wild honey: "see, i pray you, how mine eyes have been enlightened, because i tasted a little of this honey." so far as this part of his diet was concerned, therefore, john the baptist, during his sojourn in the wilderness, his divinity school-days in the mountains and plains of judea, fared extremely well. about the other part, the locusts, or, not to put too fine a point on it, the grasshoppers, as much cannot be said, though they were among the creeping and leaping things the children of israel were permitted to eat. they were probably not eaten raw, but roasted in that most primitive of ovens, a hole in the ground made hot by building a fire in it. the locusts and honey may have been served together, as the bedas of ceylon are said to season their meat with honey. at any rate, as the locust is often a great plague in palestine, the prophet in eating them found his account in the general weal, and in the profit of the pastoral bees; the fewer locusts, the more flowers. owing to its numerous wild-flowers and flowering shrubs, palestine has always been a famous country for bees. they deposit their honey in hollow trees as our bees do when they escape from the hive, and in holes in the rocks as ours do not. in a tropical or semi-tropical climate bees are quite apt to take refuge in the rocks, but where ice and snow prevail, as with us, they are much safer high up in the trunk of a forest tree. the best honey is the product of the milder parts of the temperate zone. there are too many rank and poisonous plants in the tropics. honey from certain districts of turkey produces headache and vomiting, and that from brazil is used chiefly as medicine. the honey of mount hymettus owes its fine quality to wild thyme. the best honey in persia and in florida is collected from the orange blossom. the celebrated honey of narbonne in the south of france is obtained from a species of rosemary. in scotland good honey is made from the blossoming heather. california honey is white and delicate and highly perfumed, and now takes the lead in the market. but honey is honey the world over; and the bee is the bee still. "men may degenerate," says an old traveler, "may forget the arts by which they acquired renown; manufactories may fail, and commodities be debased, but the sweets of the wild-flowers of the wilderness, the industry and natural mechanics of the bee, will continue without change or derogation." ii. sharp eyes and other papers contents sharp eyes the apple a taste of maine birch winter neighbors notes by the way. i. the weather-wise muskrat ii. cheating the squirrels iii. fox and hound iv. the woodchuck sharp eyes. noting how one eye seconds and reinforces the other, i have often amused myself by wondering what the effect would be if one could go on opening eye after eye to the number say of a dozen or more. what would he see? perhaps not the invisible--not the odors of flowers nor the fever germs in the air--not the infinitely small of the microscope nor the infinitely distant of the telescope. this would require, not more eyes so much as an eye constructed with more and different lenses; but would he not see with augmented power within the natural limits of vision? at any rate some persons seem to have opened more eyes than others, they see with such force and distinctness; their vision penetrates the tangle and obscurity where that of others fails like a spent or impotent bullet. how many eyes did gilbert white open? how many did henry thoreau? how many did audubon? how many does the hunter, matching his sight against the keen and alert sense of a deer or a moose, or a fox or a wolf? not outward eyes, but inward. we open another eye whenever we see beyond the first general features or outlines of things--whenever we grasp the special details and characteristic markings that this mask covers. science confers new powers of vision. whenever you have learned to discriminate the birds, or the plants, or the geological features of a country, it is as if new and keener eyes were added. of course one must not only see sharply, but read aright what he sees. the facts in the life of nature that are transpiring about us are like written words that the observer is to arrange into sentences. or the writing is in cipher and he must furnish the key. a female oriole was one day observed very much preoccupied under a shed where the refuse from the horse stable was thrown. she hopped about among the barn fowls, scolding them sharply when they came too near her. the stable, dark and cavernous, was just beyond. the bird, not finding what she wanted outside, boldly ventured into the stable, and was presently captured by the farmer. what did she want? was the query. what, but a horsehair for her nest which was in an apple-tree near by; and she was so bent on having one that i have no doubt she would have tweaked one out of the horse's tail had he been in the stable. later in the season i examined her nest and found it sewed through and through with several long horse hairs, so that the bird persisted in her search till the hair was found. little dramas and tragedies and comedies, little characteristic scenes, are always being enacted in the lives of the birds, if our eyes are sharp enough to see them. some clever observer saw this little comedy played among some english sparrows and wrote an account of it in his newspaper; it is too good not to be true: a male bird brought to his box a large, fine goose feather, which is a great find for a sparrow and much coveted. after he had deposited his prize and chattered his gratulations over it he went away in quest of his mate. his next-door neighbor, a female bird, seeing her chance, quickly slipped in and seized the feather,--and here the wit of the bird came out, for instead of carrying it into her own box she flew with it to a near tree and hid it in a fork of the branches, then went home, and when her neighbor returned with his mate was innocently employed about her own affairs. the proud male, finding his feather gone, came out of his box in a high state of excitement, and, with wrath in his manner and accusation on his tongue, rushed into the cot of the female. not finding his goods and chattels there as he had expected, he stormed around a while, abusing everybody in general and his neighbor in particular, and then went away as if to repair the loss. as soon as he was out of sight, the shrewd thief went and brought the feather home and lined her own domicile with it. i was much amused one summer day in seeing a bluebird feeding her young one in the shaded street of a large town. she had captured a cicada or harvest-fly, and after bruising it a while on the ground flew with it to a tree and placed it in the beak of the young bird. it was a large morsel, and the mother seemed to have doubts of her chick's ability to dispose of it, for she stood near and watched its efforts with great solicitude. the young bird struggled valiantly with the cicada, but made no head way in swallowing it, when the mother took it from him and flew to the sidewalk, and proceeded to break and bruise it more thoroughly. then she again placed it in his beak, and seemed to say, "there, try it now," and sympathized so thoroughly with his efforts that she repeated many of his motions and contortions. but the great fly was unyielding, and, indeed, seemed ridiculously disproportioned to the beak that held it. the young bird fluttered and fluttered and screamed, "i'm stuck, i'm stuck," till the anxious parent again seized the morsel and carried it to an iron railing, where she came down upon it for the space of a minute with all the force and momentum her beak could command. then she offered it to her young a third time, but with the same result as before, except that this time the bird dropped it; but she was at the ground as soon as the cicada was, and taking it in her beak flew some distance to a high board fence where she sat motionless for some moments. while pondering the problem how that fly should be broken, the male bluebird approached her, and said very plainly, and i thought rather curtly, "give me that bug," but she quickly resented his interference and flew farther away, where she sat apparently quite discouraged when i last saw her. the bluebird is a home bird, and i am never tired of recurring to him. his coming or reappearance in the spring marks a new chapter in the progress of the season; things are never quite the same after one has heard that note. the past spring the males came about a week in advance of the females. a fine male lingered about my grounds and orchard all the time, apparently waiting the arrival of his mate. he called and warbled every day, as if he felt sure she was within ear-shot, and could be hurried up. now he warbled half-angrily or upbraidingly, then coaxingly, then cheerily and confidently, the next moment in a plaintive, far-away manner. he would half open his wings, and twinkle them caressingly, as if beckoning his mate to his heart. one morning she had come, but was shy and reserved. the fond male flew to a knot-hole in an old apple-tree, and coaxed her to his side. i heard a fine confidential warble,--the old, old story. but the female flew to a near tree, and uttered her plaintive, homesick note. the male went and got some dry grass or bark in his beak, and flew again to the hole in the old tree, and promised unremitting devotion, but the other said "nay," and flew away in the distance. when he saw her going, or rather heard her distant note, he dropped his stuff, and cried out in a tone that said plainly enough, "wait a minute. one word, please," and flew swiftly in pursuit. he won her before long, however, and early in april the pair were established in one of the four or five boxes i had put up for them, but not until they had changed their minds several times. as soon as the first brood had flown, and while they were yet under their parents' care, they began another nest in one of the other boxes, the female, as usual, doing all the work, and the male all the complimenting. a source of occasional great distress to the mother-bird was a white cat that sometimes followed me about. the cat had never been known to catch a bird, but she had a way of watching them that was very embarrassing to the bird. whenever she appeared, the mother bluebird would set up that pitiful melodious plaint. one morning the cat was standing by me, when the bird came with her beak loaded with building material, and alighted above me to survey the place before going into the box. when she saw the cat, she was greatly disturbed, and in her agitation could not keep her hold upon all her material. straw after straw came eddying down, till not half her original burden remained. after the cat had gone away, the bird's alarm subsided, till, presently seeing the coast clear, she flew quickly to the box and pitched in her remaining straws with the greatest precipitation, and, without going in to arrange them, as was her wont, flew away in evident relief. in the cavity of an apple-tree but a few yards off, and much nearer the house than they usually build, a pair of high-holes, or golden-shafted woodpeckers, took up their abode. a knot-hole which led to the decayed interior was enlarged, the live wood being cut away as clean as a squirrel would have done it. the inside preparations i could not witness, but day after day, as i passed near, i heard the bird hammering away, evidently beating down obstructions and shaping and enlarging the cavity. the chips were not brought out, but were used rather to floor the interior. the woodpeckers are not nest-builders, but rather nest-carvers. the time seemed very short before the voices of the young were heard in the heart of the old tree,--at first feebly, but waxing stronger day by day until they could be heard many rods distant. when i put my hand upon the trunk of the tree, they would set up an eager, expectant chattering; but if i climbed up it toward the opening, they soon detected the unusual sound and would hush quickly, only now and then uttering a warning note. long before they were fully fledged they clambered up to the orifice to receive their food. as but one could stand in the opening at a time, there was a good deal of elbowing and struggling for this position. it was a very desirable one aside from the advantages it had when food was served; it looked out upon the great shining world, into which the young birds seemed never tired of gazing. the fresh air must have been a consideration also, for the interior of a high-hole's dwelling is not sweet. when the parent birds came with food the young one in the opening did not get it all, but after he had received a portion, either on his own motion or on a hint from the old one, he would give place to the one behind him. still, one bird evidently outstripped his fellows, and in the race of life, was two or three days in advance of them. his voice was loudest and his head oftenest at the window. but i noticed that when he had kept the position too long, the others evidently made it uncomfortable in his rear, and, after "fidgeting" about a while, he would be compelled to "back down." but retaliation was then easy, and i fear his mates spent few easy moments at that lookout. they would close their eyes and slide back into the cavity as if the world had suddenly lost all its charms for them. this bird was, of course, the first to leave the nest. for two days before that event he kept his position in the opening most of the time and sent forth his strong voice incessantly. the old ones abstained from feeding him almost entirely, no doubt to encourage his exit. as i stood looking at him one afternoon and noting his progress, he suddenly reached a resolution,--seconded, i have no doubt, from the rear,--and launched forth upon his untried wings. they served him well and carried him about fifty yards up-hill the first heat. the second day after, the next in size and spirit left in the same manner; then another, till only one remained. the parent birds ceased their visits to him, and for one day he called and called till our ears were tired of the sound. his was the faintest heart of all. then he had none to encourage him from behind. he left the nest and clung to the outer bowl of the tree, and yelped and piped for an hour longer; then he committed himself to his wings and went his way like the rest. a young farmer in the western part of new york, who has a sharp, discriminating eye, sends me some interesting notes about a tame high-hole he once had. "did you ever notice," says he, "that the high-hole never eats anything that he cannot pick up with his tongue? at least this was the case with a young one i took from the nest and tamed. he could thrust out his tongue two or three inches, and it was amusing to see his efforts to eat currants from the hand. he would run out his tongue and try to stick it to the currant; failing in that, he would bend his tongue around it like a hook and try to raise it by a sudden jerk. but he never succeeded, the round fruit would roll and slip away every time. he never seemed to think of taking it in his beak. his tongue was in constant use to find out the nature of everything he saw; a nail-hole in a board or any similar hole was carefully explored. if he was held near the face he would soon be attracted by the eye and thrust his tongue into it. in this way he gained the respect of a number of half-grown cats that were around the house. i wished to make them familiar to each other, so there would be less danger of their killing him. so i would take them both on my knee, when the bird would soon notice the kitten's eyes, and leveling his bill as carefully as a marksman levels his rifle, he would remain so a minute when he would dart his tongue into the cat's eye. this was held by the cats to be very mysterious: being struck in the eye by something invisible to them. they soon acquired such a terror of him that they would avoid him and run away whenever they saw his bill turned in their direction. he never would swallow a grasshopper even when it was placed in his throat; he would shake himself until he had thrown it out of his mouth. his 'best hold' was ants. he never was surprised at anything, and never was afraid of anything. he would drive the turkey gobbler and the rooster. he would advance upon them holding one wing up as high as possible, as if to strike with it, and shuffle along the ground toward them, scolding all the while in a harsh voice. i feared at first that they might kill him, but i soon found that he was able to take care of himself. i would turn over stones and dig into ant-hills for him, and he would lick up the ants so fast that a stream of them seemed going into his mouth unceasingly. i kept him till late in the fall, when he disappeared, probably going south, and i never saw him again." my correspondent also sends me some interesting observations about the cuckoo. he says a large gooseberry bush standing in the border of an old hedgerow, in the midst of open fields, and not far from his house, was occupied by a pair of cuckoos for two seasons in succession, and, after an interval of a year, for two seasons more. this gave him a good chance to observe them. he says the mother-bird lays a single egg, and sits upon it a number of days before laying the second, so that he has seen one young bird nearly grown, a second just hatched, and a whole egg all in the nest at once. "so far as i have seen, this is the settled practice,--the young leaving the nest one at a time to the number of six or eight. the young have quite the look of the young of the dove in many respects. when nearly grown they are covered with long blue pin-feathers as long as darning-needles, without a bit of plumage on them. they part on the back and hang down on each side by their own weight. with its curious feathers and misshapen body the young bird is anything but handsome. they never open their mouths when approached, as many young birds do, but sit perfectly still, hardly moving when touched." he also notes the unnatural indifference of the mother-bird when her nest and young are approached. she makes no sound, but sits quietly on a near branch in apparent perfect unconcern. these observations, together with the fact that the egg of the cuckoo is occasionally found in the nests of other birds, raise the inquiry whether our bird is slowly relapsing into the habit of the european species, which always foists its egg upon other birds; or whether, on the other hand, it is not mending its manners in this respect. it has but little to unlearn or to forget in the one case, but great progress to make in the other. how far is its rudimentary nest--a mere platform of coarse twigs and dry stalks of weeds--from the deep, compact, finely woven and finely modeled nest of the goldfinch or king-bird, and what a gulf between its indifference toward its young and their solicitude! its irregular manner of laying also seems better suited to a parasite like our cow-bird, or the european cuckoo, than to a regular nest-builder. this observer, like most sharp-eyed persons, sees plenty of interesting things as he goes about his work. he one day saw a white swallow, which is of rare occurrence. he saw a bird, a sparrow he thinks, fly against the side of a horse and fill his beak with hair from the loosened coat of the animal. he saw a shrike pursue a chickadee, when the latter escaped by taking refuge in a small hole in a tree. one day in early spring he saw two hen-hawks that were circling and screaming high in air, approach each other, extend a claw, and, clasping them together, fall toward the earth flapping and struggling as if they were tied together; on nearing the ground they separated and soared aloft again. he supposed that it was not a passage of war but of love, and that the hawks were toying fondly with each other. he further relates a curious circumstance of finding a humming-bird in the upper part of a barn with its bill stuck fast in a crack of one of the large timbers, dead, of course, with wings extended, and as dry as a chip. the bird seems to have died as it had lived, on the wing, and its last act was indeed a ghastly parody of its living career. fancy this nimble, flashing sprite, whose life was passed probing the honeyed depths of flowers, at last thrusting its bill into a crack in a dry timber in a hayloft, and, with spread wings, ending its existence. when the air is damp and heavy, swallows frequently hawk for insects about cattle and moving herds in the field. my farmer describes how they attended him one foggy day, as he was mowing in the meadow with a mowing-machine. it had been foggy for two days, and the swallows were very hungry, and the insects stupid and inert. when the sound of his machine was heard, the swallows appeared and attended him like a brood of hungry chickens. he says there was a continued rush of purple wings over the "cut-bar," and just where it was causing the grass to tremble and fall. without his assistance the swallows would doubtless have gone hungry yet another day. of the hen-hawk, he has observed that both male and female take part in incubation. "i was rather surprised," he says, "on one occasion, to see how quickly they change places on the nest. the nest was in a tall beech, and the leaves were not yet fully out. i could see the head and neck of the hawk over the edge of the nest, when i saw the other hawk coming down through the air at full speed. i expected he would alight near by, but instead of that he struck directly upon the nest, his mate getting out of the way barely in time to avoid being hit; it seemed almost as if he had knocked her off the nest. i hardly see how they can make such a rush on the nest without danger to the eggs." the king-bird will worry the hawk as a whiffet dog will worry a bear. it is by his persistence and audacity, not by any injury he is capable of dealing his great antagonist. the king-bird seldom more than dogs the hawk, keeping above and between his wings, and making a great ado; but my correspondent says he once "saw a king-bird riding on a hawk's back. the hawk flew as fast as possible, and the king-bird sat upon his shoulders in triumph until they had passed out of sight,"--tweaking his feathers, no doubt, and threatening to scalp him the next moment. that near relative of the king-bird, the great crested fly-catcher, has one well known peculiarity: he appears never to consider his nest finished until it contains a cast-off snake-skin. my alert correspondent one day saw him eagerly catch up an onion skin and make off with it, either deceived by it or else thinking it a good substitute for the coveted material. one day in may, walking in the woods, i came upon the nest of a whippoorwill, or rather its eggs, for it builds no nest,--two elliptical whitish spotted eggs lying upon the dry leaves. my foot was within a yard of the mother-bird before she flew. i wondered what a sharp eye would detect curious or characteristic in the ways of the bird, so i came to the place many times and had a look. it was always a task to separate the bird from her surroundings though i stood within a few feet of her, and knew exactly where to look. one had to bear on with his eye, as it were, and refuse to be baffled. the sticks and leaves, and bits of black or dark-brown bark, were all exactly copied in the bird's plumage. and then she did sit so close, and simulate so well a shapeless decaying piece of wood or bark! twice i brought a companion, and guiding his eye to the spot, noted how difficult it was for him to make out there, in full view upon the dry leaves, any semblance to a bird. when the bird returned after being disturbed, she would alight within a few inches of her eggs, and then, after a moment's pause, hobble awkwardly upon them. after the young had appeared, all the wit of the bird came into play. i was on hand the next day, i think. the mother-bird sprang up when i was within a pace of her, and in doing so fanned the leaves with her wings till they sprang up too; as the leaves started the young started, and, being of the same color, to tell which was the leaf and which the bird was a trying task to any eye. i came the next day, when the same tactics were repeated. once a leaf fell upon one of the young birds and nearly hid it. the young are covered with a reddish down like a young partridge, and soon follow their mother about. when disturbed, they gave but one leap, then settled down, perfectly motionless and stupid, with eyes closed. the parent bird, on these occasions made frantic efforts to decoy me away from her young. she would fly a few paces and fall upon her breast, and a spasm, like that of death, would run through her tremulous outstretched wings and prostrate body. she kept a sharp eye out the meanwhile to see if the ruse took, and if it did not, she was quickly cured, and moving about to some other point tried to draw my attention as before. when followed she always alighted upon the ground, dropping down in a sudden peculiar way. the second or third day both old and young had disappeared. the whippoorwill walks as awkwardly as a swallow, which is as awkward as a man in a bag, and yet she manages to lead her young about the woods. the latter, i think, move by leaps and sudden spurts, their protective coloring shielding them most effectively. wilson once came upon the mother-bird and her brood in the woods, and, though they were at his very feet, was so baffled by the concealment of the young that he was about to give up the search, much disappointed, when he perceived something "like a slight moldiness among the withered leaves, and, on stooping down, discovered it to be a young whippoorwill seemingly asleep." wilson's description of the young is very accurate, as its downy covering does look precisely like a "slight moldiness." returning a few moments afterward to the spot to get a pencil he had forgotten, he could find neither old nor young. it takes an eye to see a partridge in the woods motionless upon the leaves; this sense needs to be as sharp as that of smell in hounds and pointers; and yet i know an unkempt youth that seldom fails to see the bird and shoot it before it takes wing. i think he sees it as soon as it sees him and before it suspects itself seen. what a training to the eye is hunting! to pick out the game from its surroundings, the grouse from the leaves, the gray squirrel from the mossy oak limb it hugs so closely, the red fox from the ruddy or brown or gray field, the rabbit from the stubble, or the white hare from the snow requires the best powers of this sense. a woodchuck, motionless in the fields or upon a rock, looks very much like a large stone or bowlder, yet a keen eye knows the difference at a glance, a quarter of a mile away. a man has a sharper eye than a dog, or a fox, or than any of the wild creatures, but not so sharp an ear or nose. but in the birds he finds his match. how quickly the old turkey discovers the hawk, a mere speck against the sky, and how quickly the hawk discovers you if you happen to be secreted in the bushes or behind the fence near which he alights! one advantage the bird surely has, and that is, owing to the form, structure, and position of the eye, it has a much larger field of vision--indeed, can probably see in nearly every direction at the same instant, behind as well as before. man's field of vision embraces less than half a circle horizontally, and still less vertically; his brow and brain prevent him from seeing within many degrees of the zenith without a movement of the head; the bird on the other hand, takes in nearly the whole sphere at a glance. i find i see almost without effort nearly every bird within sight in the field or wood i pass through (a flit of the wing, a flirt of the tail are enough, though the flickering leaves do all conspire to hide them), and that with like ease the birds see me, though, unquestionably, the chances are immensely in their favor. the eye sees what it has the means of seeing, truly. you must have the bird in your heart before you can find it in the bush. the eye must have purpose and aim. no one ever yet found the walking fern who did not have the walking fern in his mind. a person whose eye is full of indian relics picks them up in every field he walks through. one season i was interested in the tree-frogs; especially the tiny piper that one hears about the woods and brushy fields--the hyla of the swamps become a denizen of the trees; i had never seen him in this new role. but this season, having hylas in mind, or rather being ripe for them, i several times came across them. one sunday, walking amid some bushes, i captured two. they leaped before me as doubtless they had done many times before; but though i was not looking for or thinking of them, yet they were quickly recognized, because the eye had been commissioned to find them. on another occasion, not long afterward, i was hurriedly loading my gun in the october woods in hopes of overtaking a gray squirrel that was fast escaping through the tree-tops, when one of these lilliput frogs, the color of the fast-yellowing leaves, leaped near me. i saw him only out of the corner of my eye and yet bagged him, because i had already made him my own. nevertheless, the habit of observation is the habit of clear and decisive gazing. not by a first casual glance, but by a steady deliberate aim of the eye are the rare and characteristic things discovered. you must look intently and hold your eye firmly to the spot, to see more than do the rank and file of mankind. the sharp-shooter picks out his man and knows him with fatal certainty from a stump, or a rock, or a cap on a pole. the phrenologists do well to locate, not only form, color, and weight, in the region of the eye, but also a faculty which they call individuality--that which separates, discriminates, and sees in every object its essential character. this is just as necessary to the naturalist as to the artist or the poet. the sharp eye notes specific points and differences,--it seizes upon and preserves the individuality of the thing. persons frequently describe to me some bird they have seen or heard and ask me to name it, but in most cases the bird might be any one of a dozen, or else it is totally unlike any bird found in this continent. they have either seen falsely or else vaguely. not so the farm youth who wrote me one winter day that he had seen a single pair of strange birds, which he describes as follows: "they were about the size of the 'chippie,' the tops of their heads were red, and the breast of the male was of the same color, while that of the female was much lighter; their rumps were also faintly tinged with red. if i have described them so that you would know them, please write me their names." there can be little doubt but the young observer had seen a pair of red-polls,--a bird related to the goldfinch, and that occasionally comes down to us in the winter from the far north. another time, the same youth wrote that he had seen a strange bird, the color of a sparrow, that alighted on fences and buildings as well as upon the ground, and that walked. this last fact shoved the youth's discriminating eye and settled the case. i knew it to be a species of the lark, and from the size, color, season, etc., the tit-lark. but how many persons would have observed that the bird walked instead of hopped? some friends of mine who lived in the country tried to describe to me a bird that built a nest in a tree within a few feet of the house. as it was a brown bird, i should have taken it for a wood-thrush, had not the nest been described as so thin and loose that from beneath the eggs could be distinctly seen. the most pronounced feature in the description was the barred appearance of the under side of the bird's tail. i was quite at sea, until one day, when we were driving out, a cuckoo flew across the road in front of us, when my friends exclaimed, "there is our bird!" i had never known a cuckoo to build near a house, and i had never noted the appearance the tail presents when viewed from beneath; but if the bird had been described in its most obvious features, as slender, with a long tail, cinnamon brown above and white beneath, with a curved bill, anyone who knew the bird would have recognized the portrait. we think we have looked at a thing sharply until we are asked for its specific features. i thought i knew exactly the form of the leaf of the tulip-tree, until one day a lady asked me to draw the outline of one. a good observer is quick to take a hint and to follow it up. most of the facts of nature, especially in the life of the birds and animals, are well screened. we do not see the play because we do not look intently enough. the other day i was sitting with a friend upon a high rock in the woods, near a small stream, when we saw a water-snake swimming across a pool toward the opposite bank. any eye would have noted it, perhaps nothing more. a little closer and sharper gaze revealed the fact that the snake bore something in its mouth, which, as we went down to investigate, proved to be a small cat-fish, three or four inches long. the snake had captured it in the pool, and, like any other fisherman, wanted to get its prey to dry land, although itself lived mostly in the water. here, we said, is being enacted a little tragedy, that would have escaped any but sharp eyes. the snake, which was itself small, had the fish by the throat, the hold of vantage among all creatures, and clung to it with great tenacity. the snake knew that its best tactics was to get upon dry land as soon as possible. it could not swallow its victim alive, and it could not strangle it in the water. for a while it tried to kill its game by holding it up out of the water, but the fish grew heavy, and every few moments its struggles brought down the snake's head. this would not do. compressing the fish's throat would not shut off its breath under such circumstances, so the wily serpent tried to get ashore with it, and after several attempts succeeded in effecting a landing on a flat rock. but the fish died hard. cat-fish do not give up the ghost in a hurry. its throat was becoming congested, but the snake's distended jaws must have ached. it was like a petrified gape. then the spectators became very curious and close in their scrutiny, and the snake determined to withdraw from the public gaze and finish the business in hand to its own notions. but, when gently but firmly remonstrated with by my friend with his walking-stick, it dropped the fish and retreated in high dudgeon beneath a stone in the bed of the creek. the fish, with a swollen and angry throat, went its way also. birds, i say, have wonderfully keen eyes. throw a fresh bone or a piece of meat upon the snow in winter, and see how soon the crows will discover it and be on hand. if it be near the house or barn, the crow that first discovers it will alight near it, to make sure he is not deceived; then he will go away, and soon return with a companion. the two alight a few yards from the bone, and after some delay, during which the vicinity is sharply scrutinized, one of the crows advances boldly to within a few feet of the coveted prize. here he pauses, and if no trick is discovered, and the meat be indeed meat, he seizes it and makes off. one midwinter i cleared away the snow under an apple-tree near the house and scattered some corn there. i had not seen a blue-jay for weeks, yet that very day one found my corn, and after that several came daily and partook of it, holding the kernels under their feet upon the limbs of the trees and pecking them vigorously. of course the woodpecker and his kind have sharp eyes; still i was surprised to see how quickly downy found out some bones that were placed in a convenient place under the shed to be pounded up for the hens. in going out to the barn i often disturbed him making a meal off the bite of meat that still adhered to them. "look intently enough at anything," said a poet to me one day, "and you will see something that would otherwise escape you." i thought of the remark as i sat on a stump in an opening of the woods one spring day. i saw a small hawk approaching; he flew to a tall tulip-tree and alighted on a large limb near the top. he eyed me and i eyed him. then the bird disclosed a trait that was new to me: he hopped along the limb to a small cavity near the trunk, when he thrust in his head and pulled out some small object and fell to eating it. after he had partaken of it for some minutes he put the remainder back in his larder and flew away. i had seen something like feathers eddying slowly down as the hawk ate, and on approaching the spot found the feathers of a sparrow here and there clinging to the bushes beneath the tree. the hawk then--commonly called the chicken hawk--is as provident as a mouse or a squirrel, and lays by a store against a time of need, but i should not have discovered the fact had i not held my eye on him. an observer of the birds is attracted by any unusual sound or commotion among them. in may or june, when other birds are most vocal, the jay is a silent bird; he goes sneaking about the orchards and the groves as silent as a pickpocket; he is robbing bird's-nests and he is very anxious that nothing should be said about it; but in the fall none so quick and loud to cry "thief, thief!" as he. one december morning a troop of jays discovered a little screech-owl secreted in the hollow trunk of an old apple-tree near my house. how they found the owl out is a mystery, since it never ventures forth in the light of day; but they did, and proclaimed the fact with great emphasis. i suspect the bluebirds first told them, for these birds are constantly peeping into holes and crannies, both spring and fall. some unsuspecting bird had probably entered the cavity prospecting for a place for next year's nest, or else looking out a likely place to pass a cold night, and then had rushed out with important news. a boy who should unwittingly venture into a bear's den when bruin was at home could not be more astonished and alarmed than a bluebird would be on finding itself in the cavity of a decayed tree with an owl. at any rate the bluebirds joined the jays in calling the attention of all whom it might concern to the fact that a culprit of some sort was hiding from the light of day in the old apple-tree. i heard the notes of warning and alarm and approached to within eye-shot. the bluebirds were cautious and hovered about uttering their peculiar twittering calls; but the jays were bolder and took turns looking in at the cavity, and deriding the poor shrinking owl. a jay would alight in the entrance of the hole and flirt and peer and attitudinize, and then flyaway crying "thief, thief, thief!" at the top of his voice. i climbed up and peered into the opening, and could just descry the owl clinging to the inside of the tree. i reached in and took him out, giving little heed to the threatening snapping of his beak. he was as red as a fox and as yellow-eyed as a cat. he made no effort to escape, but planted his claws in my forefinger and clung there with a grip that soon grew uncomfortable. i placed him in the loft of an out-house in hopes of getting better acquainted with him. by day he was a very willing prisoner, scarcely moving at all, even when approached and touched with the hand, but looking out upon the world with half-closed, sleepy eyes. but at night what a change; how alert, how wild, how active! he was like another bird; he darted about with wide, fearful eyes, and regarded me like a cornered cat. i opened the window, and swiftly, but as silent as a shadow, he glided out into the congenial darkness, and perhaps, ere this, has revenged himself upon the sleeping jay or bluebird that first betrayed his hiding-place. the apple. lo! sweetened with the summer light, the full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, drops in a silent autumn night.--tennyson. not a little of the sunshine of our northern winters is surely wrapped up in the apple. how could we winter over without it! how is life sweetened by its mild acids! a cellar well filled with apples is more valuable than a chamber filled with flax and wool. so much sound ruddy life to draw upon, to strike one's roots down into, as it were. especially to those whose soil of life is inclined to be a little clayey and heavy, is the apple a winter necessity. it is the natural antidote of most of the ills the flesh is heir to. full of vegetable acids and aromatics, qualities which act as refrigerants and antiseptics, what an enemy it is to jaundice, indigestion, torpidity of liver, etc. it is a gentle spur and tonic to the whole biliary system. then i have read that it has been found by analysis to contain more phosphorus than any other vegetable. this makes it the proper food of the scholar and the sedentary man; it feeds his brain and it stimulates his liver. nor is this all. besides its hygienic properties, the apple is full of sugar and mucilage, which make it highly nutritious. it is said, "the operators of cornwall, england, consider ripe apples nearly as nourishing as bread, and far more so than potatoes. in the year 1801--which was a year of much scarcity--apples, instead of being converted into cider, were sold to the poor, and the laborers asserted that they could 'stand their work' on baked apples without meat; whereas a potato diet required either meat or some other substantial nutriment. the french and germans use apples extensively, so do the inhabitants of all european nations. the laborers depend upon them as an article of food, and frequently make a dinner of sliced apples and bread." yet the english apple is a tame and insipid affair compared with the intense, sun-colored and sun-steeped fruit our orchards yield. the english have no sweet apple, i am told, the saccharine element apparently being less abundant in vegetable nature in that sour and chilly climate than in our own. it is well known that the european maple yields no sugar, while both our birch and hickory have sweet in their veins. perhaps this fact accounts for our excessive love of sweets, which may be said to be a national trait. the russian apple has a lovely complexion, smooth and transparent, but the cossack is not yet all eliminated from it. the only one i have seen--the duchess of oldenburg--is as beautiful as a tartar princess, with a distracting odor, but it is the least bit puckery to the taste. the best thing i know about chili is not its guano beds, but this fact which i learn from darwin's "voyage," namely, that the apple thrives well there. darwin saw a town there so completely buried in a wood of apple-trees, that its streets were merely paths in an orchard. the tree indeed thrives so well, that large branches cut off in the spring and planted two or three feet deep in the ground send out roots and develop into fine full-bearing trees by the third year. the people know the value of the apple too. they make cider and wine of it and then from the refuse a white and finely flavored spirit; then by another process a sweet treacle is obtained called honey. the children and the pigs eat little or no other food. he does not add that the people are healthy and temperate, but i have no doubt they are. we knew the apple had many virtues, but these chilians have really opened a deep beneath a deep. we had found out the cider and the spirits, but who guessed the wine and the honey, unless it were the bees? there is a variety in our orchards called the winesap, a doubly liquid name that suggests what might be done with this fruit. the apple is the commonest and yet the most varied and beautiful of fruits. a dish of them is as becoming to the centre-table in winter as was the vase of flowers in the summer,--a bouquet of spitzenbergs and greenings and northern spies. a rose when it blooms, the apple is a rose when it ripens. it pleases every sense to which it can be addressed, the touch, the smell, the sight, the taste; and when it falls in the still october days it pleases the ear. it is a call to a banquet, it is a signal that the feast is ready. the bough would fain hold it, but it can now assert its independence; it can now live a life of its own. daily the stem relaxes its hold, till finally it lets go completely, and down comes the painted sphere with a mellow thump to the earth, towards which it has been nodding so long. it bounds away to seek its bed, to hide under a leaf, or in a tuft of grass. it will now take time to meditate and ripen! what delicious thoughts it has there nestled with its fellows under the fence, turning acid into sugar, and sugar into wine! how pleasing to the touch! i love to stroke its polished rondure with my hand, to carry it in my pocket on my tramp over the winter hills, or through the early spring woods. you are company, you red-cheeked spitz, or you salmon-fleshed greening! i toy with you; press your face to mine, toss you in the air, roll you on the ground, see you shine out where you lie amid the moss and dry leaves and sticks. you are so alive! you glow like a ruddy flower. you look so animated i almost expect to see you move. i postpone the eating of you, you are so beautiful! how compact; how exquisitely tinted! stained by the sun and varnished against the rains. an independent vegetable existence, alive and vascular as my own flesh; capable of being wounded, bleeding, wasting away, and almost of repairing damages! how it resists the cold! holding out almost as long as the red cheeks of the boys do. a frost that destroys the potatoes and other roots only makes the apple more crisp and vigorous; it peeps out from the chance november snows unscathed. when i see the fruit-vender on the street corner stamping his feet and beating his hands to keep them warm, and his naked apples lying exposed to the blasts, i wonder if they do not ache too to clap their hands and enliven their circulation. but they can stand it nearly as long as the vender can. noble common fruit, best friend of man and most loved by him, following him like his dog or his cow, wherever he goes. his homestead is not planted till you are planted, your roots intertwine with his; thriving best where he thrives best, loving the limestone and the frost, the plow and the pruning-knife, you are indeed suggestive of hardy, cheerful industry, and a healthy life in the open air. temperate, chaste fruit! you mean neither luxury nor sloth, neither satiety nor indolence, neither enervating heats nor the frigid zones. uncloying fruit, fruit whose best sauce is the open air, whose finest flavors only he whose taste is sharpened by brisk work or walking knows; winter fruit, when the fire of life burns brightest; fruit always a little hyperborean, leaning towards the cold; bracing, sub-acid, active fruit. i think you must come from the north, you are so frank and honest, so sturdy and appetizing. you are stocky and homely like the northern races. your quality is saxon. surely the fiery and impetuous south is not akin to you. not spices or olives or the sumptuous liquid fruits, but the grass, the snow, the grains, the coolness is akin to you. i think if i could subsist on you or the like of you, i should never have an intemperate or ignoble thought, never be feverish or despondent. so far as i could absorb or transmute your quality i should be cheerful, continent, equitable, sweet-blooded, long-lived, and should shed warmth and contentment around. is there any other fruit that has so much facial expression as the apple? what boy does not more than half believe they can see with that single eye of theirs? do they not look and nod to him from the bough? the swaar has one look, the rambo another, the spy another. the youth recognizes the seek-no-further buried beneath a dozen other varieties, the moment he catches a glance of its eye, or the bonny-cheeked newtown pippin, or the gentle but sharp-nosed gilliflower. he goes to the great bin in the cellar and sinks his shafts here and there in the garnered wealth of the orchards, mining for his favorites, sometimes coming plump upon them, sometimes catching a glimpse of them to the right or left, or uncovering them as keystones in an arch made up of many varieties. in the dark he can usually tell them by the sense of touch. there is not only the size and shape, but there is the texture and polish. some apples are coarse grained and some are fine; some are thin-skinned and some are thick. one variety is quick and vigorous beneath the touch; another gentle and yielding. the pinnock has a thick skin with a spongy lining, a bruise in it becomes like a piece of cork. the tallow apple has an unctuous feel, as its name suggests. it sheds water like a duck. what apple is that with a fat curved stem that blends so prettily with its own flesh,--the wine-apple? some varieties impress me as masculine,--weather-stained, freckled, lasting and rugged; others are indeed lady apples, fair, delicate, shining, mild-flavored, white-meated, like the egg-drop and the lady-finger. the practiced hand knows each kind by the touch. do you remember the apple hole in the garden or back of the house, ben bolt? in the fall after the bins in the cellar had been well stocked, we excavated a circular pit in the warm, mellow earth, and covering the bottom with clean rye straw, emptied in basketful after basketful of hardy choice varieties, till there was a tent-shaped mound several feet high of shining variegated fruit. then wrapping it about with a thick layer of long rye straw, and tucking it up snug and warm, the mound was covered, with a thin coating of earth, a flat stone on the top holding down the straw. as winter set in, another coating of earth was put upon it, with perhaps an overcoat of coarse dry stable manure, and the precious pile was left in silence and darkness till spring. no marmot hibernating under-ground in his nest of leaves and dry grass, more cosy and warm. no frost, no wet, but fragrant privacy and quiet. then how the earth tempers and flavors the apples! it draws out all the acrid unripe qualities, and infuses into them a subtle refreshing taste of the soil. some varieties perish; but the ranker, hardier kinds, like the northern spy, the greening, or the black apple, or the russet, or the pinnock, how they ripen and grow in grace, how the green becomes gold, and the bitter becomes sweet! as the supply in the bins and barrels gets low and spring approaches, the buried treasures in the garden are remembered. with spade and axe we go out and penetrate through the snow and frozen earth till the inner dressing of straw is laid bare. it is not quite as clear and bright as when we placed it there last fall, but the fruit beneath, which the hand soon exposes, is just as bright and far more luscious. then, as day after day you resort to the hole, and, removing the straw and earth from the opening, thrust your arm into the fragrant pit, you have a better chance than ever before to become acquainted with your favorites by the sense of touch. how you feel for them, reaching to the right and left! now you have got a tolman sweet; you imagine you can feel that single meridian line that divides it into two hemispheres. now a greening fills your hand, you feel its fine quality beneath its rough coat. now you have hooked a swaar, you recognize its full face; now a vandevere or a king rolls down from the apex above, and you bag it at once. when you were a school-boy you stowed these away in your pockets and ate them along the road and at recess, and again at noon time; and they, in a measure, corrected the effects of the cake and pie with which your indulgent mother filled your lunch-basket. the boy is indeed the true apple-eater, and is not to be questioned how he came by the fruit with which his pockets are filled. it belongs to him...his own juicy flesh craves the juicy flesh of the apple. sap draws sap. his fruit-eating has little reference to the state of his appetite. whether he be full of meat or empty of meat he wants the apple just the same. before meal or after meal it never comes amiss. the farm-boy munches apples all day long. he has nests of them in the hay-mow, mellowing, to which he makes frequent visits. sometimes old brindle, having access through the open door, smells them out and makes short work of them. in some countries the custom remains of placing a rosy apple in the hand of the dead that they may find it when they enter paradise. in northern mythology the giants eat apples to keep off old age. the apple is indeed the fruit of youth. as we grow old we crave apples less. it is an ominous sign. when you are ashamed to be seen eating them on the street; when you can carry them in your pocket and your hand not constantly find its way to them; when your neighbor has apples and you have none, and you make no nocturnal visits to his orchard; when your lunch-basket is without them, and you can pass a winter's night by the fireside with no thought of the fruit at your elbow, then be assured you are no longer a boy, either in heart or years. the genuine apple-eater comforts himself with an apple in their season as others with a pipe or cigar. when he has nothing else to do, or is bored, he eats an apple. while he is waiting for the train he eats an apple, sometimes several of them. when he takes a walk, he arms himself with apples. his traveling bag is full of apples. he offers an apple to his companion, and takes one himself. they are his chief solace when on the road. he sows their seed all along the route. he tosses the core from the car-window and from the top of the stage-coach. he would, in time, make the land one vast orchard. he dispenses with a knife. he prefers that his teeth shall have the first taste. then he knows the best flavor is immediately beneath the skin, and that in a pared apple this is lost. if you will stew the apple, he says, instead of baking it, by all means leave the skin on. it improves the color and vastly heightens the flavor of the dish. the apple is a masculine fruit; hence women are poor apple-eaters. it belongs to the open air, and requires an open-air taste and relish. i instantly sympathized with that clergyman i read of, who on pulling out his pocket-handkerchief in the midst of his discourse, pulled out two bouncing apples with it that went rolling across the pulpit floor and down the pulpit stairs. these apples were, no doubt, to be eaten after the sermon on his way home, or to his next appointment. they would take the taste of it out of his mouth. then, would a minister be apt to grow tiresome with two big apples in his coat-tail pockets? would he not naturally hasten along to "lastly," and the big apples? if they were the dominie apples, and it was april or may, he certainly.... how the early settlers prized the apple! when their trees broke down or were split asunder by the storms, the neighbors turned out, the divided tree was put together again and fastened with iron bolts. in some of the oldest orchards one may still occasionally see a large dilapidated tree with the rusty iron bolt yet visible. poor, sour fruit, too, but sweet in those early pioneer days. my grandfather, who was one of these heroes of the stump, used every fall to make a journey of forty miles for a few apples, which he brought home in a bag on horseback. he frequently started from home by two or three o'clock in the morning, and at one time both he and his horse were much frightened by the screaming of panthers in a narrow pass in the mountains through which the road led. emerson, i believe, has spoken of the apple as the social fruit of new england. indeed, what a promoter or abettor of social intercourse among our rural population the apple has been, the company growing more merry and unrestrained as soon as the basket of apples was passed round! when the cider followed, the introduction and good understanding were complete. then those rural gatherings that enlivened the autumn in the country, known as "apple cuts," now, alas! nearly obsolete, where so many things were cut and dried besides apples! the larger and more loaded the orchard, the more frequently the invitations went round and the higher the social and convivial spirit ran. ours is eminently a country of the orchard. horace greeley said he had seen no land in which the orchard formed such a prominent feature in the rural and agricultural districts. nearly every farmhouse in the eastern and northern states has its setting or its background of apple-trees, which generally date back to the first settlement of the farm. indeed, the orchard, more than almost any other thing, tends to soften and humanize the country, and to give the place of which it is an adjunct, a settled, domestic look. the apple-tree takes the rawness and wildness off any scene. on the top of a mountain, or in remote pastures, it sheds the sentiment of home. it never loses its domestic air, or lapses into a wild state. and in planting a homestead, or in choosing a building site for the new house, what a help it is to have a few old, maternal apple-trees near by; regular old grandmothers, who have seen trouble, who have been sad and glad through so many winters and summers, who have blossomed till the air about them is sweeter than elsewhere, and borne fruit till the grass beneath them has become thick and soft from human contact, and who have nourished robins and finches in their branches till they have a tender, brooding look. the ground, the turf, the atmosphere of an old orchard, seem several stages nearer to man than that of the adjoining field, as if the trees had given back to the soil more than they had taken from it; as if they had tempered the elements and attracted all the genial and beneficent influences in the landscape around. an apple orchard is sure to bear you several crops beside the apple. there is the crop of sweet and tender reminiscences dating from childhood and spanning the seasons from may to october, and making the orchard a sort of outlying part of the household. you have played there as a child, mused there as a youth or lover, strolled there as a thoughtful, sad-eyed man. your father, perhaps, planted the trees, or reared them from the seed, and you yourself have pruned and grafted them, and worked among them, till every separate tree has a peculiar history and meaning in your mind. then there is the never-failing crop of birds--robins, goldfinches, king-birds, cedar-birds, hair-birds, orioles, starlings--all nesting and breeding in its branches, and fitly described by wilson flagg as "birds of the garden and orchard." whether the pippin and sweetbough bear or not, the "punctual birds" can always be depended on. indeed, there are few better places to study ornithology than in the orchard. besides its regular occupants, many of the birds of the deeper forest find occasion to visit it during the season. the cuckoo comes for the tent-caterpillar, the jay for frozen apples, the ruffed grouse for buds, the crow foraging for birds' eggs, the woodpecker and chickadees for their food, and the high-hole for ants. the red-bird comes too, if only to see what a friendly covert its branches form; and the wood-thrush now and then comes out of the grove near by, and nests alongside of its cousin, the robin. the smaller hawks know that this is a most likely spot for their prey; and in spring the shy northern warblers may be studied as they pause to feed on the fine insects amid its branches. the mice love to dwell here also, and hither comes from the near woods the squirrel and the rabbit. the latter will put his head through the boy's slipper-noose any time for taste of the sweet apple, and the red squirrel and chipmunk esteem its seeds a great rarity. all the domestic animals love the apple, but none so much so as the cow. the taste of it wakes her up as few other things do, and bars and fences must be well looked after. no need to assort them or pick out the ripe ones for her. an apple is an apple, and there is no best about it. i heard of a quick-witted old cow that learned to shake them down from the tree. while rubbing herself she had observed that an apple sometimes fell. this stimulated her to rub a little harder, when more apples fell. she then took the hint and rubbed her shoulder with such vigor that the farmer had to check her and keep an eye on her to save his fruit. but the cow is the friend of the apple. how many trees she has planted about the farm, in the edge of the woods, and in remote fields and pastures. the wild apples, celebrated by thoreau, are mostly of her planting. she browses them down to be sure, but they are hers, and why should she not? what an individuality the apple-tree has, each variety being nearly as marked by its form as by its fruit. what a vigorous grower, for instance, is the ribston pippin, an english apple. wide branching like the oak, and its large ridgy fruit, in late fall or early winter, is one of my favorites. or the thick and more pendent top of the belleflower, with its equally rich, sprightly uncloying fruit. sweet apples are perhaps the most nutritious, and when baked are a feast in themselves. with a tree of the jersey sweet or of tolman's sweeting in bearing, no man's table need be devoid of luxuries and one of the most wholesome of all deserts. or the red astrachan, an august apple, what a gap may be filled in the culinary department of a household at this season, by a single tree of this fruit! and what a feast is its shining crimson coat to the eye before its snow-white flesh has reached the tongue. but the apple of apples for the household is the spitzenberg. in this casket pomona has put her highest flavors. it can stand the ordeal of cooking and still remain a spitz. i recently saw a barrel of these apples from the orchard of a fruit-grower in the northern part of new york, who has devoted special attention to this variety. they were perfect gems. not large, that had not been the aim, but small, fair, uniform, and red to the core. how intense, how spicy and aromatic! but all the excellences of the apple are not confined to the cultivated fruit. occasionally a seedling springs up about the farm that produces fruit of rare beauty and worth. in sections peculiarly adapted to the apple, like a certain belt along the hudson river, i have noticed that most of the wild unbidden trees bear good, edible fruit. in cold and ungenial districts, the seedlings are mostly sour and crabbed, but in more favorable soils they are oftener mild and sweet. i know wild apples that ripen in august, and that do not need, if it could be had, thoreau's sauce of sharp november air to be eaten with. at the foot of a hill near me and striking its roots deep in the shale, is a giant specimen of native tree that bears an apple that has about the clearest, waxiest, most transparent complexion i ever saw. it is good size, and the color of a tea-rose. its quality is best appreciated in the kitchen. i know another seedling of excellent quality and so remarkable for its firmness and density, that it is known on the farm where it grows as the "heavy apple." i have alluded to thoreau, to whom all lovers of the apple and its tree are under obligation. his chapter on wild apples is a most delicious piece of writing. it has a "tang and smack" like the fruit it celebrates, and is dashed and streaked with color in the same manner. it has the hue and perfume of the crab, and the richness and raciness of the pippin. but thoreau loved other apples than the wild sorts and was obliged to confess that his favorites could not be eaten in-doors. late in november he found a blue-pearmain tree growing within the edge of a swamp, almost as good as wild. "you would not suppose," he says, "that there was any fruit left there on the first survey, but you must look according to system. those which lie exposed are quite brown and rotten now, or perchance a few still show one blooming cheek here and there amid the wet leaves. nevertheless, with experienced eyes i explore amid the bare alders, and the huckleberry bushes, and the withered sedge, and in the crevices of the rocks, which are full of leaves, and pry under the fallen and decayed ferns which, with apple and alder leaves, thickly strew the ground. for i know that they lie concealed, fallen into hollows long since, and covered up by the leaves of the tree itself--a proper kind of packing. from these lurking places, everywhere within the circumference of the tree, i draw forth the fruit all wet and glossy, maybe nibbled by rabbits and hollowed out by crickets, and perhaps a leaf or two cemented to it (as curzon an old manuscript from a monastery's mouldy cellar), but still with a rich bloom on it, and at least as ripe and well kept, if no better than those in barrels, more crisp and lively than they. if these resources fail to yield anything, i have learned to look between the leaves of the suckers which spring thickly from some horizontal limb, for now and then one lodges there, or in the very midst of an alder-clump, where they are covered by leaves, safe from cows which may have smelled them out. if i am sharp-set, for i do not refuse the blue-pearmain, i fill my pockets on each side; and as i retrace my steps, in the frosty eve being perhaps four or five miles from home, i eat one first from this side, and then from that, to keep my balance." a taste of maine birch. the traveler and camper-out in maine, unless he penetrates its more northern portions, has less reason to remember it as a pine-tree state than a birch-tree state. the white-pine forests have melted away like snow in the spring and gone down stream, leaving only patches here and there in the more remote and inaccessible parts. the portion of the state i saw--the valley of the kennebec and the woods about moxie lake--had been shorn of its pine timber more than forty years before, and is now covered with a thick growth of spruce and cedar and various deciduous trees. but the birch abounds. indeed, when the pine goes out the birch comes in; the race of men succeeds the race of giants. this tree has great stay-at-home virtues. let the sombre, aspiring, mysterious pine go; the birch has humble every-day uses. in maine, the paper or canoe birch is turned to more account than any other tree. i read in gibbon that the natives of ancient assyria used to celebrate in verse or prose the three hundred and sixty uses to which the various parts and products of the palm-tree were applied. the maine birch is turned to so many accounts that it may well be called the palm of this region. uncle nathan, our guide, said it was made especially for the camper-out; yes, and for the wood-man and frontiersman generally. it is a magazine, a furnishing store set up in the wilderness, whose goods are free to every comer. the whole equipment of the camp lies folded in it, and comes forth at the beck of the woodman's axe; tent, waterproof roof, boat, camp utensils, buckets, cups, plates, spoons, napkins, table cloths, paper for letters or your journal, torches, candles, kindling-wood, and fuel. the canoe-birch yields you its vestments with the utmost liberality. ask for its coat, and it gives you its waistcoat also. its bark seems wrapped about it layer upon layer, and comes off with great ease. we saw many rude structures and cabins shingled and sided with it, and haystacks capped with it. near a maple-sugar camp there was a large pile of birch-bark sap-buckets,--each bucket made of a piece of bark about a yard square, folded up as the tinman folds up a sheet of tin to make a square vessel, the corners bent around against the sides and held by a wooden pin. when, one day, we were overtaken by a shower in traveling through the woods, our guide quickly stripped large sheets of the bark from a near tree, and we had each a perfect umbrella as by magic. when the rain was over, and we moved on, i wrapped mine about me like a large leather apron, and it shielded my clothes from the wet bushes. when we came to a spring, uncle nathan would have a birch-bark cup ready before any of us could get a tin one out of his knapsack, and i think water never tasted so sweet as from one of these bark cups. it is exactly the thing. it just fits the mouth and it seems to give new virtues to the water. it makes me thirsty now when i think of it. in our camp at moxie we made a large birch-bark box to keep the butter in; and the butter in this box, covered with some leafy boughs, i think improved in flavor day by day. maine butter needs something to mollify and sweeten it a little, and i think birch bark will do it. in camp uncle nathan often drank his tea and coffee from a bark cup; the china closet in the birch-tree was always handy, and our vulgar tin ware was generally a good deal mixed, and the kitchen-maid not at all particular about dish-washing. we all tried the oatmeal with the maple syrup in one of these dishes, and the stewed mountain cranberries, using a birch-bark spoon, and never found service better. uncle nathan declared he could boil potatoes in a bark kettle, and i did not doubt him. instead of sending our soiled napkins and table-spreads to the wash, we rolled them up into candles and torches, and drew daily upon our stores in the forest for new ones. but the great triumph of the birch is of course the bark canoe. when uncle nathan took us out under his little wood-shed, and showed us, or rather modestly permitted us to see, his nearly finished canoe, it was like a first glimpse of some new and unknown genius of the woods or streams. it sat there on the chips and shavings and fragments of bark like some shy delicate creature just emerged from its hiding-place, or like some wild flower just opened. it was the first boat of the kind i had ever seen, and it filled my eye completely. what woodcraft it indicated, and what a wild free life, sylvan life, it promised! it had such a fresh, aboriginal look as i had never before seen in any kind of handiwork. its clear yellow-red color would have become the cheek of an indian maiden. then its supple curves and swells, its sinewy stays and thwarts, its bow-like contour, its tomahawk stem and stern rising quickly and sharply from its frame, were all vividly suggestive of the race from which it came. an old indian had taught uncle nathan the art, and the soul of the ideal red man looked out of the boat before us. uncle nathan had spent two days ranging the mountains looking for a suitable tree, and had worked nearly a week on the craft. it was twelve feet long, and would seat and carry five men nicely. three trees contribute to the making of a canoe besides the birch, namely, the white cedar for ribs and lining, the spruce for roots and fibres to sew its joints and bind its frame, and the pine for pitch or rosin to stop its seams and cracks. it is hand-made and home-made, or rather wood-made, in a sense that no other craft is, except a dug-out, and it suggests a taste and a refinement that few products of civilization realize. the design of a savage, it yet looks like the thought of a poet, and its grace and fitness haunt the imagination. i suppose its production was the inevitable result of the indian's wants and surroundings, but that does not detract from its beauty. it is, indeed, one of the fairest flowers the thorny plant of necessity ever bore. our canoe, as i have intimated, was not yet finished when we first saw it, nor yet when we took it up, with its architect, upon our metaphorical backs and bore it to the woods. it lacked part of its cedar lining and the rosin upon its joints, and these were added after we reached our destination. though we were not indebted to the birch-tree for our guide, uncle nathan, as he was known in all the country, yet he matched well these woodsy products and conveniences. the birch-tree had given him a large part of his tuition, and kneeling in his canoe and making it shoot noiselessly over the water with that subtle yet indescribably expressive and athletic play of the muscles of the back and shoulders, the boat and the man seemed born of the same spirit. he had been a hunter and trapper for over forty years; he had grown gray in the woods, had ripened and matured there, and everything about him was as if the spirit of the woods had had the ordering of it; his whole make-up was in a minor and subdued key, like the moss and the lichens, or like the protective coloring of the game,--everything but his quick sense and penetrative glance. he was as gentle and modest as a girl; his sensibilities were like plants that grow in the shade. the woods and the solitudes had touched him with their own softening and refining influence; had indeed shed upon his soil of life a rich deep leaf mould that was delightful, and that nursed, half concealed, the tenderest and wildest growths. there was grit enough back of and beneath it all, but he presented none of the rough and repelling traits of character of the conventional backwoods-man. in the spring he was a driver of logs on the kennebec, usually having charge of a large gang of men; in the winter he was a solitary trapper and hunter in the forests. our first glimpse of maine waters was pleasant pond, which we found by following a white, rapid, musical stream from the kennebec three miles back into the mountains. maine waters are for the most part dark-complexioned, indian-colored streams, but pleasant pond is a pale-face among them both in name and nature. it is the only strictly silver lake i ever saw. its waters seem almost artificially white and brilliant, though of remarkable transparency. i think i detected minute shining motes held in suspension in it. as for the trout they are veritable bars of silver until you have cut their flesh, when they are the reddest of gold. they have no crimson or other spots, and the straight lateral line is but a faint pencil mark. they appeared to be a species of lake trout peculiar to these waters, uniformly from ten to twelve inches in length. and these beautiful fish, at the time of our visit (last of august) at least, were to be taken only in deep water upon a hook baited with salt pork. and then you needed a letter of introduction to them. they were not to be tempted or cajoled by strangers. we did not succeed in raising a fish, although instructed how it was to be done, until one of the natives, a young and obliging farmer living hard by, came and lent his countenance to the enterprise. i sat in one end of the boat and he in the other; my pork was the same as his, and i maneuvered it as directed, and yet those fish knew his hook from mine in sixty feet of water, and preferred it four times in five. evidently they did not bite because they were hungry, but solely for old acquaintance' sake. pleasant pond is an irregular sheet of water, two miles or more in its greatest diameter, with high, rugged mountains rising up from its western shore, and low rolling hills sweeping back from its eastern and northern, covered by a few sterile farms. i was never tired, when the wind was still, of floating along its margin and gazing down into its marvelously translucent depths. the boulders and fragments of rocks were seen, at a depth of twenty-five or thirty feet, strewing its floor, and apparently as free from any covering of sediment as when they were dropped there by the old glaciers aeons ago. our camp was amid a dense grove of second growth of white pine on the eastern shore, where, for one, i found a most admirable cradle in a little depression, outside of the tent, carpeted with pine needles, in which to pass the night. the camper-out is always in luck if he can find, sheltered by the trees, a soft hole in the ground, even if he has a stone for a pillow. the earth must open its arms a little for us even in life, if we are to sleep well upon its bosom. i have often heard my grand-father, who was a soldier of the revolution, tell with great gusto how he once bivouacked in a little hollow made by the overturning of a tree, and slept so soundly that he did not wake up till his cradle was half full of water from a passing shower. what bird or other creature might represent the divinity of pleasant pond i do not know, but its demon, as of most northern inland waters, is the loon, and a very good demon he is too, suggesting something not so much malevolent, as arch, sardonic, ubiquitous, circumventing, with just a tinge of something inhuman and uncanny. his fiery red eyes gleaming forth from that jet-black head are full of meaning. then his strange horse laughter by day and his weird, doleful cry at night, like that of a lost and wandering spirit, recall no other bird or beast. he suggests something almost supernatural in his alertness and amazing quickness, cheating the shot and the bullet of the sportsman out of their aim. i know of but one other bird so quick, and that is the humming-bird, which i have never been able to kill with a gun. the loon laughs the shot-gun to scorn, and the obliging young farmer above referred to told me he had shot at them hundreds of times with his rifle, without effect,--they always dodged his bullet. we had in our party a breach-loading rifle, which weapon is perhaps an appreciable moment of time quicker than the ordinary muzzleloader, and this the poor loon could not or did not dodge. he had not timed himself to that species of fire-arm, and when, with his fellow, he swam about within rifle range of our camp, letting off volleys of his wild ironical ha-ha, he little suspected the dangerous gun that was matched against him. as the rifle cracked both loons made the gesture of diving, but only one of them disappeared beneath the water; and when he came to the surface in a few moments, a hundred or more yards away, and saw his companion did not follow, but was floating on the water where he had last seen him, he took the alarm and sped away in the distance. the bird i had killed was a magnificent specimen, and i looked him over with great interest. his glossy checkered coat, his banded neck, his snow-white breast, his powerful lance-shaped beak, his red eyes, his black, thin, slender, marvelously delicate feet and legs, issuing from his muscular thighs, and looking as if they had never touched the ground, his strong wings well forward while his legs were quite at the apex, and the neat, elegant model of the entire bird, speed and quickness and strength stamped upon every feature,--all delighted and lingered in the eye. the loon appears like anything but a silly bird, unless you see him in some collection, or in the shop of the taxidermist, where he usually looks very tame and goose-like. nature never meant the loon to stand up, or to use his feet and legs for other purposes than swimming. indeed, he cannot stand except upon his tail in a perpendicular attitude, but in the collections he is poised upon his feet like a barn-yard fowl, all the wildness and grace and alertness goes out of him. my specimen sits upon a table as upon the surface of the water, his feet trailing behind him, his body low and trim, his head elevated and slightly turned as if in the act of bringing that fiery eye to bear upon you, and vigilance and power stamped upon every lineament. the loon is to the fishes what the hawk is to the birds; he swoops down to unknown depths upon them, and not even the wary trout can elude him. uncle nathan said he had seen the loon disappear and in a moment come up with a large trout, which he would cut in two with his strong beak, and swallow piecemeal. neither the loon nor the otter can bolt a fish under the water; he must come to the surface to dispose of it. (i once saw a man eat a cake under water in london.) our guide told me he had seen the parent loon swimming with a single young one upon its back. when closely pressed it dove, or "div" as he would have it, and left the young bird sitting upon the water. then it too disappeared, and when the old one returned and called, it came out from the shore. on the wing overhead, the loon looks not unlike a very large duck, but when it alights it ploughs into the water like a bombshell. it probably cannot take flight from the land, as the one gilbert white saw and describes in his letters was picked up in a field, unable to launch itself into the air. from pleasant pond we went seven miles through the woods to moxie lake, following an overgrown lumberman's "tote" road, our canoe and supplies, etc., hauled on a sled by the young farmer with his three-year-old steers. i doubt if birch-bark ever made rougher voyage than that. as i watched it above the bushes, the sled and the luggage being hidden, it appeared as if tossed in the wildest and most tempestuous sea. when the bushes closed above it i felt as if it had gone down, or been broken into a hundred pieces. billows of rocks and logs, and chasms of creeks and spring runs, kept it rearing and pitching in the most frightful manner. the steers went at a spanking pace; indeed, it was a regular bovine gale; but their driver clung to their side amid the brush and boulders with desperate tenacity, and seemed to manage them by signs and nudges, for he hardly uttered his orders aloud. but we got through without any serious mishap, passing mosquito creek and mosquito pond, and flanking mosquito mountain, but seeing no mosquitoes, and brought up at dusk at a lumberman's old hay-barn, standing in the midst of a lonely clearing on the shores of moxie lake. here we passed the night, and were lucky in having a good roof over our heads, for it rained heavily. after we were rolled in our blankets and variously disposed upon the haymow, uncle nathan lulled us to sleep by a long and characteristic yarn. i had asked him, half jocosely, if he believed in "spooks"; but he took my question seriously, and without answering it directly, proceeded to tell us what he himself had known and witnessed. it was, by the way, extremely difficult either to surprise or to steal upon any of uncle nathan's private opinions and beliefs about matters and things. he was as shy of all debatable subjects as a fox is of a trap. he usually talked in a circle, just as he hunted moose and caribou, so as not to approach his point too rudely and suddenly. he would keep on the lee side of his interlocutor in spite of all one could do. he was thoroughly good and reliable, but the wild creatures of the woods, in pursuit of which he had spent so much of his life, had taught him a curious gentleness and indirection, and to keep himself in the back-ground; he was careful that you should not scent his opinions upon any subject at all polemic, but he would tell you what he had seen and known. what he had seen and known about spooks was briefly this:--in company with a neighbor he was passing the night with an old recluse who lived somewhere in these woods. their host was an englishman, who had the reputation of having murdered his wife some years before in another part of the country, and, deserted by his grown-up children, was eking out his days in poverty amid these solitudes. the three men were sleeping upon the floor, with uncle nathan next to a rude partition that divided the cabin into two rooms. at his head there was a door that opened into this other apartment. late at night, uncle nathan said, he awoke and turned over, and his mind was occupied with various things, when he heard somebody behind the partition. he reached over and felt that both of his companions were in their places beside him, and he was somewhat surprised. the person, or whatever it was, in the other room moved about heavily, and pulled the table from its place beside the wall to the middle of the floor. "i was not dreaming," said uncle nathan; "i felt of my eyes twice to make sure, and they were wide open." presently the door opened; he was sensible of the draught upon his head, and a woman's form stepped heavily past him; he felt the "swirl" of her skirts as she went by. then there was a loud noise in the room as if some one had fallen their whole length upon the floor. "it jarred the house," said he, "and woke everybody up. i asked old mr. -----if he heard that noise. 'yes,' said he, 'it was thunder.' but it was not thunder, i know that;" and then added, "i was no more afraid than i am this minute. i never was the least mite afraid in my life. and my eyes were wide open," he repeated; "i felt of them twice; but whether that was the speret of that man's murdered wife or not i cannot tell. they said she was an uncommon heavy woman." uncle nathan was a man of unusually quick and acute senses, and he did not doubt their evidence on this occasion any more than he did when they prompted him to level his rifle at a bear or a moose. moxie lake lies much lower than pleasant pond, and its waters compared with those of the latter are as copper compared with silver. it is very irregular in shape; now narrowing to the dimensions of a slow moving grassy creek, then expanding into a broad deep basin with rocky shores, and commanding the noblest mountain scenery. it is rarely that the pond-lily and the speckled trout are found together,--the fish the soul of the purest spring water, the flower the transfigured spirit of the dark mud and slime of sluggish summer streams and ponds; yet in moxie they were both found in perfection. our camp was amid the birches, poplars, and white cedars near the head of the lake, where the best fishing at this season was to be had. moxie has a small oval head, rather shallow, but bumpy with rocks; a long, deep neck, full of springs, where the trout lie; and a very broad chest, with two islands tufted with pine-trees for breasts. we swam in the head, we fished in the neck, or in a small section of it, a space about the size of the adam's apple, and we paddled across and around the broad expanse below. our birch bark was not finished and christened till we reached moxie. the cedar lining was completed at pleasant pond, where we had the use of a bateau, but the rosin was not applied to the seams till we reached this lake. when i knelt down in it for the first time and put its slender maple paddle into the water, it sprang away with such quickness and speed that it disturbed me in my seat. i had spurred a more restive and spirited steed than i was used to. in fact, i had never been in a craft that sustained so close a relation to my will, and was so responsive to my slightest wish. when i caught my first large trout from it, it sympathized a little too closely, and my enthusiasm started a leak, which, however, with a live coal and a piece of rosin, was quickly ended. you cannot perform much of a war-dance in a birch-bark canoe: better wait till you get on dry land. yet as a boat it is not so shy and "ticklish" as i had imagined. one needs to be on the alert, as becomes a sportsman and an angler, and in his dealings with it must charge himself with three things,--precision, moderation, and circumspection. trout weighing four and five pounds have been taken at moxie, but none of that size came to our hand. i realized the fondest hopes i had dared to indulge in when i hooked the first two-pounder of my life, and my extreme solicitude lest he get away i trust was pardonable. my friend, in relating the episode in camp, said i implored him to row me down in the middle of the lake that i might have room to manoeuver my fish. but the slander has barely a grain of truth in it. the water near us showed several old stakes broken off just below the surface, and my fish was determined to wrap my leader about one of these stakes; it was only for the clear space a few yards farther out that i prayed. it was not long after that my friend found himself in an anxious frame of mind. he hooked a large trout, which came home on him so suddenly that he had not time to reel up his line, and in his extremity he stretched his tall form into the air and lifted up his pole to an incredible height. he checked the trout before it got under the boat, but dared not come down an inch, and then began his amusing further elongation in reaching for his reel with one hand while he carried it ten feet into the air with the other. a step-ladder would perhaps have been more welcome to him just then than at any other moment during his life. but the trout was saved, though my friend's buttons and suspenders suffered. we learned a new trick in fly-fishing here, worth disclosing. it was not one day in four that the trout would take the fly on the surface. when the south wind was blowing and the clouds threatened rain, they would at times, notably about three o'clock, rise handsomely. but on all other occasions it was rarely that we could entice them up through the twelve or fifteen feet of water. earlier in the season they are not so lazy and indifferent, but the august languor and drowsiness were now upon them. so we learned by a lucky accident to fish deep for them, even weighting our leaders with a shot, and allowing the flies to sink nearly to the bottom. after a moment's pause we would draw them slowly up, and when half or two thirds of the way to the top the trout would strike, when the sport became lively enough. most of our fish were taken in this way. there is nothing like the flash and the strike at the surface, and perhaps only the need of food will ever tempt the genuine angler into any more prosaic style of fishing; but if you must go below the surface, a shotted leader is the best thing to use. our camp-fire at night served more purposes than one; from its embers and flickering shadows, uncle nathan read us many a tale of his life in the woods. they were the same old hunter's stories, except that they evidently had the merit of being strictly true, and hence were not very thrilling or marvelous. uncle nathan's tendency was rather to tone down and belittle his experiences than to exaggerate them. if he ever bragged at all (and i suspect he did just a little, when telling us how he outshot one of the famous riflemen of the american team, whom he was guiding through these woods), he did it in such a sly, round-about way that it was hard to catch him at it. his passage with the rifleman referred to shows the difference between the practical off-hand skill of the hunter in the woods and the science of the long-range target hitter. mr. bull's eye had heard that his guide was a capital shot and had seen some proof of it, and hence could not rest till he had had a trial of skill with him. uncle nathan, being the challenged party, had the right to name the distance and the conditions. a piece of white paper the size of a silver dollar was put upon a tree twelve rods off, the contestants to fire three shots each off-hand. uncle nathan's first bullet barely missed the mark, but the other two were planted well into it. then the great rifleman took his turn, and missed every time. "by hemp!" said uncle nathan, "i was sorry i shot so well, mr. -----took it so to heart; and i had used his own rifle, too. he did not get over it for a week." but far more ignominious was the failure of mr. bull's eye when he saw his first bear. they were paddling slowly and silently down dead river, when the guide heard a slight noise in the bushes just behind a little bend. he whispered to the rifleman, who sat kneeling in the bow of the boat, to take his rifle. but instead of doing so he picked up his two-barreled shot-gun. as they turned the point, there stood a bear not twenty yards away, drinking from the stream. uncle nathan held the canoe, while the man who had come so far in quest of this very game was trying to lay down his shot-gun and pick up his rifle. "his hand moved like the hand of a clock," said uncle nathan, "and i could hardly keep my seat. i knew the bear would see us in a moment more, and run." instead of laying his gun by his side, where it belonged, he reached it across in front of him and laid it upon his rifle, and in trying to get the latter from under it a noise was made; the bear heard it and raised his head. still there was time, for as the bear sprang into the woods he stopped and looked back,--"as i knew he would," said the guide; yet the marksman was not ready. "by hemp! i could have shot three bears," exclaimed uncle nathan, "while he was getting that rifle to his face!" poor mr. bull's eye was deeply humiliated. "just the chance i had been looking for," he said, "and my wits suddenly left me." as a hunter uncle nathan always took the game on its own terms, that of still-hunting. he even shot foxes in this way, going into the fields in the fall just at break of day, and watching for them about their mousing haunts. one morning, by these tactics, he shot a black fox; a fine specimen, he said, and a wild one, for he stopped and looked and listened every few yards. he had killed over two hundred moose, a large number of them at night on the lakes. his method was to go out in his canoe and conceal himself by some point or island, and wait till he heard the game. in the fall the moose comes into the water to eat the large fibrous roots of the pond-lilies. he splashes along till he finds a suitable spot, when he begins feeding, sometimes thrusting his bead and neck several feet under water. the hunter listens, and when the moose lifts his head and the rills of water run from it, and he hears him "swash" the lily roots about to get off the mud, it is his time to start. silently as a shadow he creeps up on the moose, who by the way, it seems, never expects the approach of danger from the water side. if the hunter accidentally makes a noise the moose looks toward the shore for it. there is always a slight gleam on the water, uncle nathan says, even in the darkest night, and the dusky form of the moose can be distinctly seen upon it. when the hunter sees this darker shadow he lifts his gun to the sky and gets the range of its barrels, then lowers it till it covers the mark, and fires. the largest moose uncle nathan ever killed is mounted in the state house at augusta. he shot him while hunting in winter on snow-shoes. the moose was reposing upon the ground, with his head stretched out in front of him, as one may sometimes see a cow resting. the position was such that only a quartering shot through the animal's hip could reach its heart. studying the problem carefully, and taking his own time, the hunter fired. the moose sprang into the air, turned, and came with tremendous strides straight toward him. "i knew he had not seen or scented me," said uncle nathan, "but, by hemp, i wished myself somewhere else just then; for i was lying right down in his path." but the noble animal stopped, a few yards short, and fell dead with a bullet-hole through his heart. when the moose yard in the winter, that is, restrict their wanderings to a well-defined section of the forest or mountain, trampling down the snow and beating paths in all directions, they browse off only the most dainty morsels first; when they go over the ground a second time they crop a little cleaner; the third time they sort still closer, till by and by nothing is left. spruce, hemlock, poplar, the barks of various trees, everything within reach, is cropped close. when the hunter comes upon one of these yards the problem for him to settle is, where are the moose? for it is absolutely necessary that he keep on the lee side of them. so he considers the lay of the land, the direction of the wind, the time of day, the depth of the snow, examines the spoor, the cropped twigs, and studies every hint and clew like a detective. uncle nathan said he could not explain to another how he did it, but he could usually tell in a few minutes in what direction to look for the game. his experience had ripened into a kind of intuition or winged reasoning that was above rules. he said that most large game, deer, caribou, moose, bear, when started by the hunter and not much scared, were sure to stop and look back before disappearing from sight: he usually waited for this last and best chance to fire. he told us of a huge bear he had seen one morning while still-hunting foxes in the fields; the bear saw him, and got into the woods before he could get a good shot. in her course some distance up the mountain was a bald, open spot, and he felt sure when she crossed this spot she would pause and look behind her; and sure enough, like lot's wife, her curiosity got the better of her; she stopped to have a final look, and her travels ended there and then. uncle nathan had trapped and shot a great many bears, and some of his experiences revealed an unusual degree of sagacity in this animal. one april, when the weather began to get warm and thawy, an old bear left her den in the rocks and built a large, warm nest of grass, leaves, and the bark of the white cedar, under a tall balsam fir that stood in a low, sunny, open place amid the mountains. hither she conducted her two cubs, and the family began life in what might be called their spring residence. the tree above them was for shelter, and for refuge for the cubs in case danger approached, as it soon did in the form of uncle nathan. he happened that way soon after the bear had moved. seeing her track in the snow, he concluded to follow it. when the bear had passed, the snow had been soft and sposhy, and she had "slumped," he said, several inches. it was now hard and slippery. as he neared the tree the track turned and doubled, and tacked this way and that, and led through the worst brush and brambles to be found. this was a shrewd thought of the old bear; she could thus hear her enemy coming a long time before he drew very near. when uncle nathan finally reached the nest, he found it empty, but still warm. then he began to circle about and look for the bear's footprints or nail-prints upon the frozen snow. not finding them the first time, he took a larger circle, then a still larger; finally he made a long detour, and spent nearly an hour searching for some clew to the direction the bear had taken, but all to no purpose. then he returned to the tree and scrutinized it. the foliage was very dense, but presently he made out one of the cubs near the top, standing up amid the branches, and peering down at him. this he killed. further search only revealed a mass of foliage apparently more dense than usual, but a bullet sent into it was followed by loud whimpering and crying, and the other baby bear came tumbling down. in leaving the place, greatly puzzled as to what had become of the mother bear, uncle nathan followed another of her frozen tracks, and after about a quarter of a mile saw beside it, upon the snow, the fresh trail he had been in search of. in making her escape the bear had stepped exactly in her old tracks that were hard and icy, and had thus left no mark till she took to the snow again. during his trapping expeditions into the woods in midwinter, i was curious to know how uncle nathan passed the nights, as we were twice pinched with the cold at that season in our tent and blankets. it was no trouble to keep warm, he said, in the coldest weather. as night approached, he would select a place for his camp on the side of a hill. with one of his snow-shoes he would shovel out the snow till the ground was reached, carrying the snow out in front, as we scrape the earth out of the side of a hill to level up a place for the house and yard. on this level place, which, however, was made to incline slightly toward the hill, his bed of boughs was made. on the ground he had uncovered he built his fire. his bed was thus on a level with the fire, and the heat could not thaw the snow under him and let him down, or the burning logs roll upon him. with a steep ascent behind it the fire burned better, and the wind was not so apt to drive the smoke and blaze in upon him. then, with the long, curving branches of the spruce stuck thickly around three sides of the bed, and curving over and uniting their tops above it, a shelter was formed that would keep out the cold and the snow, and that would catch and retain the warmth of the fire. rolled in his blanket in such a nest, uncle nathan had passed hundreds of the most frigid winter nights. one day we made an excursion of three miles through the woods to bald mountain, following a dim trail. we saw, as we filed silently along, plenty of signs of caribou, deer, and bear, but were not blessed with a sight of either of the animals themselves. i noticed that uncle nathan, in looking through the woods, did not hold his head as we did, but thrust it slightly forward, and peered under the branches like a deer or other wild creature. the summit of bald mountain was the most impressive mountain-top i had ever seen, mainly, perhaps, because it was one enormous crown of nearly naked granite. the rock had that gray, elemental, eternal look which granite alone has. one seemed to be face to face with the gods of the fore-world. like an atom, like a breath of to-day, we were suddenly confronted by abysmal geologic time,--the eternities past and the eternities to come. the enormous cleavage of the rocks, the appalling cracks and fissures, the rent boulders, the smitten granite floors, gave one a new sense of the power of heat and frost. in one place we noticed several deep parallel grooves, made by the old glaciers. in the depressions on the summit there was a hard, black, peaty-like soil that looked indescribably ancient and unfamiliar. out of this mould, that might have come from the moon or the interplanetary spaces, were growing mountain cranberries and blueberries or huckleberries. we were soon so absorbed in gathering the latter that we were quite oblivious of the grandeurs about us. it is these blueberries that attract the bears. in eating them, uncle nathan said, they take the bushes in their mouths, and by an upward movement strip them clean of both leaves and berries. we were constantly on the lookout for the bears, but failed to see any. yet a few days afterward, when two of our party returned here and encamped upon the mountain, they saw five during their stay, but failed to get a good shot. the rifle was in the wrong place each time. the man with the shot-gun saw an old bear and two cubs lift themselves from behind a rock and twist their noses around for his scent, and then shrink away. they were too far off for his buckshot. i must not forget the superb view that lay before us, a wilderness of woods and waters stretching away to the horizon on every band. nearly a dozen lakes and ponds could be seen, and in a clearer atmosphere the foot of moosehead lake would have been visible. the highest and most striking mountain to be seen was mount bigelow, rising above dead river, far to the west, and its two sharp peaks notching the horizon like enormous saw-teeth. we walked around and viewed curiously a huge boulder on the top of the mountain that had been split in two vertically, and one of the halves moved a few feet out of its bed. it looked recent and familiar, but suggested gods instead of men. the force that moved the rock had plainly come from the north. i thought of a similar boulder i had seen not long before on the highest point of the shawangunk mountains in new york, one side of which is propped up with a large stone, as wall-builders prop up a rock to wrap a chain around it. the rock seems poised lightly, and has but a few points of bearing. in this instance, too, the power had come from the north. the prettiest botanical specimen my trip yielded was a little plant that bears the ugly name of horned bladderwort (utricularia cornuta), and which i found growing in marshy places along the shores of moxie lake. it has a slender, naked stem nearly a foot high, crowned by two or more large deep yellow flowers,--flowers the shape of little bonnets or hoods. one almost expected to see tiny faces looking out of them. this illusion is heightened by the horn or spur of the flower, which projects from the hood like a long tapering chin,--some masker's device. then the cape behind,--what a smart upward curve it has, as if spurned by the fairy shoulders it was meant to cover! but perhaps the most notable thing about the flower was its fragrance,--the richest and strongest perfume i have ever found in a wild flower. this our botanist, gray, does not mention; as if one should describe the lark and forget its song. the fragrance suggested that of white clover, but was more rank and spicy. the woods about moxie lake were literally carpeted with linnã¦a. i had never seen it in such profusion. in early summer, the period of its bloom, what a charming spectacle the mossy floors of these remote woods must present! the flowers are purple rose-color, nodding and fragrant. another very abundant plant in these woods was the clintonia borealis. uncle nathan said it was called "bear's corn," though he did not know why. the only noticeable flower by the maine roadsides at this season that is not common in other parts of the country is the harebell. its bright blue, bell-shaped corolla shone out from amid the dry grass and weeds all along the route. it was one of the most delicate roadside flowers i had ever seen. the only new bird i saw in maine was the pileated woodpecker, or black "log cock," called by uncle nathan "wood cock." i had never before seen or heard this bird, and its loud cackle in the woods about moxie was a new sound to me. it is the wildest and largest of our northern woodpeckers, and the rarest. its voice and the sound of its hammer are heard only in the depths of the northern woods. it is about as large as a crow, and nearly as black. we stayed a week at moxie, or until we became surfeited with its trout, and had killed the last merganser duck that lingered about our end of the lake. the trout that had accumulated on our hands we had kept alive in a large champagne basket submerged in the lake, and the morning we broke camp the basket was towed to the shore and opened; and after we had feasted our eyes upon the superb spectacle, every trout, twelve or fifteen in number, some of them two-pounders, was allowed to swim back into the lake. they went leisurely, in couples and in trios, and were soon kicking up their heels in their old haunts. i expect that the divinity who presides over moxie will see to it that every one of those trout, doubled in weight, comes to our basket in the future. winter neighbors. the country is more of a wilderness, more of a wild solitude, in the winter than in the summer. the wild comes out. the urban, the cultivated, is hidden or negatived. you shall hardly know a good field from a poor, a meadow from a pasture, a park from a forest. lines and boundaries are disregarded; gates and bar-ways are unclosed; man lets go his hold upon the earth; title-deeds are deep buried beneath the snow; the best-kept grounds relapse to a state of nature; under the pressure of the cold all the wild creatures become outlaws, and roam abroad beyond their usual haunts. the partridge comes to the orchard for buds; the rabbit comes to the garden and lawn; the crows and jays come to the ash-heap and corn-crib, the snow-buntings to the stack and to the barn-yard; the sparrows pilfer from the domestic fowls; the pine grosbeak comes down from the north and shears your maples of their buds; the fox prowls about your premises at night, and the red squirrels find your grain in the barn or steal the butternuts from your attic. in fact, winter, like some great calamity, changes the status of most creatures and sets them adrift. winter, like poverty, makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows. for my part, my nearest approach to a strange bedfellow is the little gray rabbit that has taken up her abode under my study floor. as she spends the day here and is out larking at night, she is not much of a bedfellow after all. it is probable that i disturb her slumbers more than she does mine. i think she is some support to me under there-a silent wild-eyed witness and backer; a type of the gentle and harmless in savage nature. she has no sagacity to give me or lend me, but that soft, nimble foot of hers, and that touch as of cotton wherever she goes, are worthy of emulation. i think i can feel her good-will through the floor, and i hope she can mine. when i have a happy thought i imagine her ears twitch, especially when i think of the sweet apple i will place by her doorway at night. i wonder if that fox chanced to catch a glimpse of her the other night when he stealthily leaped over the fence near by and walked along between the study and the house? how clearly one could read that it was not a little dog that had passed there. there was something furtive in the track; it shied off away from the house and around it, as if eying it suspiciously; and then it had the caution and deliberation of the fox--bold, bold, but not too bold; wariness was in every footprint. if it had been a little dog that had chanced to wander that way, when he crossed my path he would have followed it up to the barn and have gone smelling around for a bone; but this sharp, cautious track held straight across all others, keeping five or six rods from the house, up the hill, across the highway towards a neighboring farmstead, with its nose in the air and its eye and ear alert, so to speak. a winter neighbor of mine in whom i am interested, and who perhaps lends me his support after his kind, is a little red owl, whose retreat is in the heart of an old apple-tree just over the fence. where he keeps himself in spring and summer i do not know, but late every fall, and at intervals all winter, his hiding-place is discovered by the jays and nut-hatches, and proclaimed from the tree-tops for the space of half an hour or so, with all the powers of voice they can command. four times during one winter they called me out to behold this little ogre feigning sleep in his den, sometimes in one apple-tree, sometimes in another. whenever i heard their cries, i knew my neighbor was being berated. the birds would take turns at looking in upon him and uttering their alarm-notes. every jay within hearing would come to the spot and at once approach the hole in the trunk or limb, and with a kind of breathless eagerness and excitement take a peep at the owl, and then join the outcry. when i approached they would hastily take a final look and then withdraw and regard my movements intently. after accustoming my eye to the faint light of the cavity for a few moments, i could usually make out the owl at the bottom feigning sleep. feigning, i say, because this is what he really did, as i first discovered one day when i cut into his retreat with the axe. the loud blows and the falling chips did not disturb him at all. when i reached in a stick and pulled him over on his side, leaving one of his wings spread out, he made no attempt to recover himself, but lay among the chips and fragments of decayed wood, like a part of themselves. indeed, it took a sharp eye to distinguish him. nor till i had pulled him forth by one wing, rather rudely, did he abandon his trick of simulated sleep or death. then, like a detected pickpocket, he was suddenly transformed into another creature. his eyes flew wide open, his talons clutched my finger, his ears were depressed, and every motion and look said, "hands off, at your peril." finding this game did not work, he soon began to "play 'possum" again. i put a cover over my study wood-box and kept him captive for a week. look in upon him any time, night or day, and he was apparently wrapped in the profoundest slumber; but the live mice which i put into his box from time to time found his sleep was easily broken; there would be a sudden rustle in the box, a faint squeak, and then silence. after a week of captivity i gave him his freedom in the full sunshine: no trouble for him to see which way and where to go. just at dusk in the winter nights, i often hear his soft bur-r-r-r, very pleasing and bell-like. what a furtive, woody sound it is in the winter stillness, so unlike the harsh scream of the hawk. but all the ways of the owl are ways of softness and duskiness. his wings are shod with silence, his plumage is edged with down. another owl neighbor of mine, with whom i pass the time of day more frequently than with the last, lives farther away. i pass his castle every night on my way to the post-office, and in winter, if the hour is late enough, am pretty sure to see him standing in his doorway, surveying the passers-by and the landscape through narrow slits in his eyes. for four successive winters now have i observed him. as the twilight begins to deepen he rises out of his cavity in the apple-tree, scarcely faster than the moon rises from behind the hill, and sits in the opening, completely framed by its outlines of gray bark and dead wood, and by his protective coloring virtually invisible to every eye that does not know he is there. probably my own is the only eye that has ever penetrated his secret, and mine never would have done so had i not chanced on one occasion to see him leave his retreat and make a raid upon a shrike that was impaling a shrew-mouse upon a thorn in a neighboring tree and which i was watching. failing to get the mouse, the owl returned swiftly to his cavity, and ever since, while going that way, i have been on the lookout for him. dozens of teams and foot-passengers pass him late in the day, but he regards them not, nor they him. when i come alone and pause to salute him, he opens his eyes a little wider, and, appearing to recognize me, quickly shrinks and fades into the background of his door in a very weird and curious manner. when he is not at his outlook, or when he is, it requires the best powers of the eye to decide the point, as the empty cavity itself is almost an exact image of him. if the whole thing had been carefully studied it could not have answered its purpose better. the owl stands quite perpendicular, presenting a front of light mottled gray; the eyes are closed to a mere slit, the ear-feathers depressed, the beak buried in the plumage, and the whole attitude is one of silent, motionless waiting and observation. if a mouse should be seen crossing the highway, or scudding over any exposed part of the snowy surface in the twilight, the owl would doubtless swoop down upon it. i think the owl has learned to distinguish me from the rest of the passers-by; at least, when i stop before him, and he sees himself observed, he backs down into his den, as i have said, in a very amusing manner. whether bluebirds, nut-hatches, and chickadees--birds that pass the night in cavities of trees--ever run into the clutches of the dozing owl, i should be glad to know. my impression is, however, that they seek out smaller cavities. an old willow by the roadside blew down one summer, and a decayed branch broke open, revealing a brood of half-fledged owls, and many feathers and quills of bluebirds, orioles, and other songsters, showing plainly enough why all birds fear and berate the owl. the english house sparrows, that are so rapidly increasing among us, and that must add greatly to the food supply of the owls and other birds of prey, seek to baffle their enemies by roosting in the densest evergreens they can find, in the arbor-vitã¦, and in hemlock hedges. soft-winged as the owl is, he cannot steal in upon such a retreat without giving them warning. these sparrows are becoming about the most noticeable of my winter neighbors, and a troop of them every morning watch me put out the hens' feed, and soon claim their share. i rather encouraged them in their neighborliness, till one day i discovered the snow under a favorite plum-tree where they most frequently perched covered with the scales of the fruit-buds. on investigating i found that the tree had been nearly stripped of its buds--a very unneighborly act on the part of the sparrows, considering, too, all the cracked corn i had scattered for them. so i at once served notice on them that our good understanding was at an end. and a hint is as good as a kick with this bird. the stone i hurled among them, and the one with which i followed them up, may have been taken as a kick; but they were only a hint of the shot-gun that stood ready in the corner. the sparrows left in high dungeon, and were not back again in some days, and were then very shy. no doubt the time is near at hand when we shall have to wage serious war upon these sparrows, as they long have had to do on the continent of europe. and yet it will be hard to kill the little wretches, the only old world bird we have. when i take down my gun to shoot them i shall probably remember that the psalmist said, "i watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house-top," and maybe the recollection will cause me to stay my hand. the sparrows have the old world hardiness and prolificness; they are wise and tenacious of life, and we shall find it by and by no small matter to keep them in check. our native birds are much different, less prolific, less shrewd, less aggressive and persistent, less quick-witted and able to read the note of danger or hostility--in short, less sophisticated. most of our birds are yet essentially wild, that is, little changed by civilization. in winter, especially, they sweep by me and around me in flocks,--the canada sparrow, the snow-bunting, the shore-lark, the pine grosbeak, the red-poll, the cedar-bird,--feeding upon frozen apples in the orchard, upon cedar-berries, upon maple-buds, and the berries of the mountain ash, and the celtis, and upon the seeds of the weeds that rise above the snow in the field, or upon the hay-seed dropped where the cattle have been foddered in the barn-yard or about the distant stack; but yet taking no heed of man, in no way changing their habits so as to take advantage of his presence in nature. the pine grosbeak will come in numbers upon your porch, to get the black drupes of the honeysuckle or the woodbine, or within reach of your windows to get the berries of the mountain-ash, but they know you not; they look at you as innocently and unconcernedly as at a bear or moose in their native north, and your house is no more to them than a ledge of rocks. the only ones of my winter neighbors that actually rap at my door are the nut-hatches and woodpeckers, and these do not know that it is my door. my retreat is covered with the bark of young chestnut-trees, and the birds, i suspect, mistake it for a huge stump that ought to hold fat grubs (there is not even a bookworm inside of it), and their loud rapping often makes me think i have a caller indeed. i place fragments of hickory-nuts in the interstices of the bark, and thus attract the nut-hatches; a bone upon my window-sill attracts both nut-hatches and the downy woodpecker. they peep in curiously through the window upon me, pecking away at my bone, too often a very poor one. a bone nailed to a tree a few feet in front of the window attracts crows as well as lesser birds. even the slate-colored snow-bird, a seed-eater, comes and nibbles it occasionally. the bird that seems to consider he has the best right to the bone both upon the tree and upon the sill is the downy woodpecker, my favorite neighbor among the winter birds, to whom i will mainly devote the remainder of this chapter. his retreat is but a few paces from my own, in the decayed limb of an apple-tree which he excavated several autumns ago. i say "he" because the red plume on the top of his head proclaims the sex. it seems not to be generally known to our writers upon ornithology that certain of our woodpeckers--probably all the winter residents--each fall excavate a limb or the trunk of a tree in which to pass the winter, and that the cavity is abandoned in the spring, probably for a new one in which nidification takes place. so far as i have observed, these cavities are drilled out only by the males. where the females take up their quarters i am not so well informed, though i suspect that they use the abandoned holes of the males of the previous year. the particular woodpecker to which i refer drilled his first hole in my apple-tree one fall four or five years ago. this he occupied till the following spring when he abandoned it. the next fall he began a hole in an adjoining limb, later than before, and when it was about half completed a female took possession of his old quarters. i am sorry to say that this seemed to enrage the male, very much, and he persecuted the poor bird whenever she appeared upon the scene. he would fly at her spitefully and drive her off. one chilly november morning, as i passed under the tree, i heard the hammer of the little architect in his cavity, and at the same time saw the persecuted female sitting at the entrance of the other hole as if she would fain come out. she was actually shivering, probably from both fear and cold. i understood the situation at a glance; the bird was afraid to come forth and brave the anger of the male. not till i had rapped smartly upon the limb with my stick did she come out and attempt to escape; but she had not gone ten feet from the tree before the male was in hot pursuit, and in a few moments had driven her back to the same tree, where she tried to avoid him among the branches. a few days after, he rid himself of his unwelcome neighbor in the following ingenious manner: he fairly scuttled the other cavity; he drilled a hole into the bottom of it that let in the light and the cold, and i saw the female there no more. i did not see him in the act of rendering this tenement uninhabitable; but one morning, behold it was punctured at the bottom, and the circumstances all seemed to point to him as the author of it. there is probably no gallantry among the birds except at the mating season. i have frequently seen the male woodpecker drive the female away from the bone upon the tree. when she hopped around to the other end and timidly nibbled it, he would presently dart spitefully at her. she would then take up her position in his rear and wait till he had finished his meal. the position of the female among the birds is very much the same as that of woman among savage tribes. most of the drudgery of life falls upon her, and the leavings of the males are often her lot. my bird is a genuine little savage, doubtless, but i value him as a neighbor. it is a satisfaction during the cold or stormy winter nights to know he is warm and cosy there in his retreat. when the day is bad and unfit to be abroad in; he is there too. when i wish to know if he is at home, i go and rap upon his tree, and, if he is not too lazy or indifferent, after some delay he shows his head in his round doorway about ten feet above, and looks down inquiringly upon me--sometimes latterly i think half resentfully, as much as to say, "i would thank you not to disturb me so often." after sundown, he will not put his head out any more when i call, but as i step away i can get a glimpse of him inside looking cold and reserved. he is a late riser, especially if it is a cold or disagreeable morning, in this respect being like the fowls; it is sometimes near nine o'clock before i see him leave his tree. on the other hand, he comes home early, being in if the day is unpleasant by four p. m. he lives all alone; in this respect i do not commend his example. where his mate is i should like to know. i have discovered several other woodpeckers in adjoining orchards, each of which has a like home and leads a like solitary life. one of them has excavated a dry limb within easy reach of my hand, doing the work also in september. but the choice of tree was not a good one; the limb was too much decayed, and the workman had made the cavity too large; a chip had come out, making a hole in the outer wall. then he went a few inches down the limb and began again, and excavated a large, commodious chamber, but had again come too near the surface; scarcely more than the bark protected him in one place, and the limb was very much weakened. then he made another attempt still farther down the limb, and drilled in an inch or two, but seemed to change his mind; the work stopped, and i concluded the bird had wisely abandoned the tree. passing there one cold, rainy november day, i thrust in my two fingers and was surprised to feel something soft and warm: as i drew away my hand the bird came out, apparently no more surprised than i was. it had decided, then, to make its home in the old limb; a decision it had occasion to regret, for not long after, on a stormy night, the branch gave way and fell to the ground. "when the bough breaks the cradle will fall, and down will come baby, cradle and all." such a cavity makes a snug, warm home, and when the entrance is on the under side if the limb, as is usual, the wind and snow cannot reach the occupant. late in december, while crossing a high, wooded mountain, lured by the music of fox-hounds, i discovered fresh yellow chips strewing the new-fallen snow, and at once thought of my woodpeckers. on looking around i saw where one had been at work excavating a lodge in a small yellow birch. the orifice was about fifteen feet from the ground, and appeared as round as if struck with a compass. it was on the east side of the tree, so as to avoid the prevailing west and northeast winds. as it was nearly two inches in diameter, it could not have been the work of the downy, but must have been that of the hairy, or else the yellow-bellied woodpecker. his home had probably been wrecked by some violent wind, and he was thus providing himself another. in digging out these retreats the woodpeckers prefer a dry, brittle, trunk, not too soft. they go in horizontally to the centre and then turn downward, enlarging the tunnel as they go, till when finished it is the shape of a long, deep pear. another trait our woodpeckers have that endears them to me, and that has never been pointedly noticed by our ornithologists, is their habit of drumming in the spring. they are songless birds, and yet all are musicians; they make the dry limbs eloquent of the coming change. did you think that loud, sonorous hammering which proceeded from the orchard or from the near woods on that still march or april morning was only some bird getting its breakfast? it is downy, but he is not rapping at the door of a grub; he is rapping at the door of spring, and the dry limb thrills beneath the ardor of his blows. or, later in the season, in the dense forest or by some remote mountain lake, does that measured rhythmic beat that breaks upon the silence, first three strokes following each other rapidly, succeeded by two louder ones with longer intervals between them, and that has an effect upon the alert ear as if the solitude itself had at last found a voice--does that suggest anything less than a deliberate musical performance? in fact, our woodpeckers are just as characteristically drummers as is the ruffed grouse, and they have their particular limbs and stubs to which they resort for that purpose. their need of expression is apparently just as great as that of the song-birds, and it is not surprising that they should have found out that there is music in a dry, seasoned limb which can be evoked beneath their beaks. a few seasons ago a downy woodpecker, probably the individual one who is now my winter neighbor, began to drum early in march in a partly decayed apple-tree that stands in the edge of a narrow strip of woodland near me. when the morning was still and mild i would often hear him through my window before i was up, or by half-past six o'clock, and he would keep it up pretty briskly till nine or ten o'clock, in this respect resembling the grouse, which do most of their drumming in the forenoon. his drum was the stub of a dry limb about the size of one's wrist. the heart was decayed and gone, but the outer shell was hard and resonant. the bird would keep his position there for an hour at a time. between his drummings he would preen his plumage and listen as if for the response of the female, or for the drum of some rival. how swift his head would go when he was delivering his blows upon the limb! his beak wore the surface perceptibly. when he wished to change the key, which was quite often, he would shift his position an inch or two to a knot which gave out a higher, shriller note. when i climbed up to examine his drum he was much disturbed. i did not know he was in the vicinity, but it seems he saw me from a near tree, and came in haste to the neighboring branches, and with spread plumage and a sharp note demanded plainly enough what my business was with his drum. i was invading his privacy, desecrating his shrine, and the bird was much put out. after some weeks the female appeared; he had literally drummed up a mate; his urgent and oft-repeated advertisement was answered. still the drumming did not cease, but was quite as fervent as before. if a mate could be won by drumming she could be kept and entertained by more drumming; courtship should not end with marriage. if the bird felt musical before, of course he felt much more so now. besides that, the gentle deities needed propitiating in behalf of the nest and young as well as in behalf of the mate. after a time a second female came, when there was war between the two. i did not see them come to blows, but i saw one female pursuing the other about the place, and giving her no rest for several days. she was evidently trying to run her out of the neighborhood. now and then she, too, would drum briefly as if sending a triumphant message to her mate. the woodpeckers do not each have a particular dry limb to which they resort at all times to drum, like the one i have described. the woods are full of suitable branches, and they drum more or less here and there as they are in quest of food; yet i am convinced each one has its favorite spot, like the grouse, to which it resorts, especially in the morning. the sugar-maker in the maple-woods may notice that their sound proceeds from the same tree or trees about his camp with great regularity. a woodpecker in my vicinity has drummed for two seasons on a telegraph pole, and he makes the wires and glass insulators ring. another drums on a thin board on the end of a long grape-arbor, and on still mornings can be heard a long distance. a friend of mine in a southern city tells me of a red-headed woodpecker that drums upon a lightning-rod on his neighbor's house. nearly every clear, still morning at certain seasons, he says, this musical rapping may be heard. "he alternates his tapping with his stridulous call, and the effect on a cool, autumn-like morning is very pleasing." the high-hole appears to drum more promiscuously than does the downy. he utters his long, loud spring call, whick--whick--whick--whick, and then begins to rap with his beak upon his perch before the last note has reached your ear. i have seen him drum sitting upon the ridge of the barn. the log cock, or pileated woodpecker, the largest and wildest of our northern species, i have never heard drum. his blows should wake the echoes. when the woodpecker is searching for food, or laying siege to some hidden grub, the sound of his hammer is dead or muffled, and is heard but a few yards. it is only upon dry, seasoned timber, freed of its bark, that he beats his reveille to spring and wooes his mate. wilson was evidently familiar with this vernal drumming of the woodpeckers, but quite misinterprets it. speaking of the red-bellied species, he says: "it rattles like the rest of the tribe on the dead limbs, and with such violence as to be heard in still weather more than half a mile off; and listens to hear the insect it has alarmed." he listens rather to hear the drum of his rival or the brief and coy response of the female; for there are no insects in these dry limbs. on one occasion i saw downy at his drum when a female flew quickly through the tree and alighted a few yards beyond him. he paused instantly, and kept his place, apparently without moving a muscle. the female, i took it, had answered his advertisement. she flitted about from limb to limb (the female may be known by the absence of the crimson spot on the back of the head), apparently full of business of her own, and now and then would drum in a shy, tentative manner. the male watched her a few moments and, convinced perhaps that she meant business, struck up his liveliest tune, then listened for her response. as it came back timidly but promptly, he left his perch and sought a nearer acquaintance with the prudent female. whether or not a match grew out of this little flirtation i cannot say. our smaller woodpeckers are sometimes accused of injuring the apple and other fruit trees, but the depredator is probably the larger and rarer yellow-bellied species. one autumn i caught one of these fellows in the act of sinking long rows of his little wells in the limb of an apple-tree. there were series of rings of them, one above another, quite around the stem, some of them the third of an inch across. they are evidently made to get at the tender, juicy bark, or cambium layer, next to the hard wood of the tree. the health and vitality of the branch are so seriously impaired by them that it often dies. in the following winter the same bird (probably) tapped a maple-tree in front of my window in fifty-six places; and when the day was sunny, and the sap oozed out, he spent most of his time there. he knew the good sap-days, and was on hand promptly for his tipple; cold and cloudy days he did not appear. he knew which side of the tree to tap, too, and avoided the sunless northern exposure. when one series of well-holes failed to supply him, he would sink another, drilling through the bark with great ease and quickness. then, when the day was warm, and the sap ran freely, he would have a regular sugar-maple debauch, sitting there by his wells hour after hour, and as fast as they became filled sipping out the sap. this he did in a gentle, caressing manner that was very suggestive. he made a row of wells near the foot of the tree, and other rows higher up, and he would hop up and down the trunk as these became filled. he would hop down the tree backward with the utmost ease, throwing his tail outward and his head inward at each hop. when the wells would freeze or his thirst become slaked, he would ruffle his feathers, draw himself together, and sit and doze in the sun on the side of the tree. he passed the night in a hole in an apple-tree not far off. he was evidently a young bird not yet having the plumage of the mature male or female, and yet he knew which tree to tap and where to tap it. i saw where he had bored several maples in the vicinity, but no oaks or chestnuts. i nailed up a fat bone near his sap-works: the downy woodpecker came there several times a day to dine; the nut-hatch came, and even the snow-bird took a taste occasionally; but this sap-sucker never touched it; the sweet of the tree sufficed for him. this woodpecker does not breed or abound in my vicinity; only stray specimens are now and then to be met with in the colder months. as spring approached, the one i refer to took his departure. i must bring my account of my neighbor in the tree down to the latest date; so after the lapse of a year i add the following notes. the last day of february was bright and springlike. i heard the first sparrow sing that morning and the first screaming of the circling hawks, and about seven o'clock the first drumming of my little friend. his first notes were uncertain and at long intervals, but by and by he warmed up and beat a lively tattoo. as the season advanced he ceased to lodge in his old quarters. i would rap and find nobody at home. was he out on a lark, i said, the spring fever working in his blood? after a time his drumming grew less frequent, and finally, in the middle of april, ceased entirely. had some accident befallen him, or had he wandered away to fresh fields, following some siren of his species? probably the latter. another bird that i had under observation also left his winter-quarters in the spring. this, then, appears to be the usual custom. the wrens and the nut-hatches and chickadees succeed to these abandoned cavities, and often have amusing disputes over them. the nut-hatches frequently pass the night in them, and the wrens and chickadees nest in them. i have further observed that in excavating a cavity for a nest the downy woodpecker makes the entrance smaller than when he is excavating his winter-quarters. this is doubtless for the greater safety of the young birds. the next fall, the downy excavated another limb in the old apple-tree, but had not got his retreat quite finished, when the large hairy woodpecker appeared upon the scene. i heard his loud click, click, early one frosty november morning. there was something impatient and angry in the tone that arrested my attention. i saw the bird fly to the tree where downy had been at work, and fall with great violence upon the entrance to his cavity. the bark and the chips flew beneath his vigorous blows, and before i fairly woke up to what he was doing, he had completely demolished the neat, round doorway of downy. he had made a large ragged opening large enough for himself to enter. i drove him away and my favorite came back, but only to survey the ruins of his castle for a moment and then go away. he lingered about for a day or two and then disappeared. the big hairy usurper passed a night in the cavity, but on being hustled out of it the next night by me, he also left, but not till he had demolished the entrance to a cavity in a neighboring tree where downy and his mate had reared their brood that summer, and where i had hoped the female would pass the winter. notes by the way. i. the weather-wise muskrat i am more than half persuaded that the muskrat is a wise little animal, and that on the subject of the weather, especially, he possesses some secret that i should be glad to know. in the fall of 1878 i noticed that he built unusually high and massive nests. i noticed them in several different localities. in a shallow, sluggish pond by the roadside, which i used to pass daily in my walk, two nests were in process of construction throughout the month of november. the builders worked only at night, and i could see each day that the work had visibly advanced. when there was a slight skim of ice over the pond, this was broken up about the nests, with trails through it in different directions where the material had been brought. the houses were placed a little to one side of the main channel, and were constructed entirely of a species of coarse wild grass that grew all about. so far as i could see, from first to last they were solid masses of grass, as if the interior cavity or nest was to be excavated afterward, as doubtless it was. as they emerged from the pond they gradually assumed the shape of a miniature mountain, very bold and steep on the south side, and running down a long gentle grade to the surface of the water on the north. one could see that the little architect hauled all his material up this easy slope, and thrust it out boldly around the other side. every mouthful was distinctly defined. after they were two feet or more above the water, i expected each day to see that the finishing stroke had been given and the work brought to a close. but higher yet, said the builder. december drew near, the cold became threatening, and i was apprehensive that winter would suddenly shut down upon those unfinished nests. but the wise rats knew better than i did; they had received private advices from headquarters that i knew not of. finally, about the 6th of december, the nests assumed completion; the northern incline was absorbed or carried up, and each structure became a strong massive cone, three or four feet high, the largest nest of the kind i had ever seen. does it mean a severe winter? i inquired. an old farmer said it meant "high water," and he was right once, at least, for in a few days afterward we had the heaviest rainfall known in this section for half a century. the creeks rose to an almost unprecedented height. the sluggish pond became a seething, turbulent watercourse; gradually the angry element crept up the sides of these lake dwellings, till, when the rain ceased, about four o'clock they showed above the flood no larger than a man's hat. during the night the channel shifted till the main current swept over them, and next day not a vestige of the nests was to be seen; they had gone down-stream, as had many other dwellings of a less temporary character. the rats had built wisely, and would have been perfectly secure against any ordinary high water, but who can foresee a flood? the oldest traditions of their race did not run back to the time of such a visitation. nearly a week afterward another dwelling was begun, well away from the treacherous channel, but the architects did not work at it with much heart; the material was very scarce, the ice hindered, and before the basement-story was fairly finished, winter had the pond under his lock and key. in other localities i noticed that where the nests were placed on the banks of streams, they were made secure against the floods by being built amid a small clump of bushes. when the fall of 1879 came, the muskrats were very tardy about beginning their house, laying the corner-stone--or the corner-sod-about december 1st, and continuing the work slowly and indifferently. on the 15th of the month the nest was not yet finished. this, i said, indicates a mild winter; and, sure enough, the season was one of the mildest known for many years. the rats had little use for their house. again, in the fall of 1880, while the weather-wise were wagging their heads, some forecasting a mild, some a severe winter, i watched with interest for a sign from my muskrats. about november 1st, a month earlier than the previous year, they began their nest, and worked at it with a will. they appeared to have just got tidings of what was coming. if i had taken the hint so palpably given, my celery would not have been frozen in the ground, and my apples caught in unprotected places. when the cold wave struck us, about november 20th, my four-legged "i-told-you-so's" had nearly completed their dwelling; it lacked only the ridge-board, so to speak; it needed a little "topping out," to give it a finished look. but this it never got. the winter had come to stay, and it waxed more and more severe, till the unprecedented cold of the last days of december must have astonished even the wise muskrats in their snug retreat. i approached their nest at this time, a white mound upon the white, deeply frozen surface of the pond, and wondered if there was any life in that apparent sepulchre. i thrust my walking-stick sharply into it, when there was a rustle and a splash into the water, as the occupant made his escape. what a damp basement that house has, i thought, and what a pity to rout out a peaceful neighbor out of his bed in this weather and into such a state of things as this! but water does not wet the muskrat; his fur is charmed, and not a drop penetrates it. where the ground is favorable, the muskrats do not build these mound-like nests, but burrow into the bank a long distance, and establish their winter-quarters there. shall we not say, then, in view of the above facts, that this little creature is weather-wise? the hitting of the mark twice might be mere good luck; but three bull's-eyes in succession is not a mere coincidence; it is a proof of skill. the muskrat is not found in the old world, which is a little singular, as other rats so abound there, and as those slow-going english streams especially, with their grassy banks, are so well suited to him. the water-rat of europe is smaller, but of similar nature and habits. the muskrat does not hibernate like some rodents, but is pretty active all winter. in december i noticed in my walk where they had made excursions of a few yards to an orchard for frozen apples. one day, along a little stream, i saw a mink track amid those of the muskrat; following it up, i presently came to blood and other marks of strife upon the snow beside a stone wall. looking in between the stones, i found the carcass of the luckless rat, with its head and neck eaten away. the mink had made a meal of him. ii. cheating the squirrels. for the largest and finest chestnuts i had last fall i was indebted to the gray squirrels. walking through the early october woods one day, i came upon a place where the ground was thickly strewn with very large unopened chestnut burs. on examination i found that every bur had been cut square off with about an inch of the stem adhering, and not one had been left on the tree. it was not accident, then, but design. whose design? the squirrels'. the fruit was the finest i had ever seen in the woods, and some wise squirrel had marked it for his own. the burs were ripe, and had just begun to divide, not "threefold," but fourfold, "to show the fruit within." the squirrel that had taken all this pains had evidently reasoned with himself thus: "now, these are extremely fine chestnuts, and i want them; if i wait till the burs open on the tree the crows and jays will be sure to carry off a great many of the nuts before they fall; then, after the wind has rattled out what remain, there are the mice, the chipmunks, the red squirrels, the raccoons, the grouse, to say nothing of the boys and the pigs, to come in for their share; so i will forestall events a little; i will cut off the burs when they have matured, and a few days of this dry october weather will cause everyone of them to open on the ground; i shall be on hand in the nick of time to gather up my nuts." the squirrel, of course, had to take the chances of a prowler like myself coming along, but he had fairly stolen a march on his neighbors. as i proceeded to collect and open the burs, i was half prepared to hear an audible protest from the trees about, for i constantly fancied myself watched by shy but jealous eyes. it is an interesting inquiry how the squirrel knew the burs would open if left to know, but thought the experiment worth trying. the gray squirrel is peculiarly an american product, and might serve very well as a national emblem. the old world can beat us on rats and mice, but we are far ahead on squirrels, having five or six species to europe's one. iii. fox and hound. i stood on a high hill or ridge one autumn day and saw a hound run a fox through the fields far beneath me. what odors that fox must have shaken out of himself, i thought, to be traced thus easily, and how great their specific gravity not to have been blown away like smoke by the breeze! the fox ran a long distance down the hill, keeping within a few feet of a stone wall; then turned a right angle and led off for the mountain, across a plowed field and a succession of pasture lands. in about fifteen minutes the hound came in full blast with her nose in the air, and never once did she put it to the ground while in my sight. when she came to the stone wall she took the other side from that taken by the fox, and kept about the same distance from it, being thus separated several yards from his track, with the fence between her and it. at the point where the fox turned sharply to the left, the hound overshot a few yards, then wheeled, and feeling the air a moment with her nose, took up the scent again and was off on his trail as unerringly as fate. it seemed as if the fox must have sowed himself broadcast as he went along, and that his scent was so rank and heavy that it settled in the hollows and clung tenaciously to the bushes and crevices in the fence. i thought i ought to have caught a remnant of it as i passed that way some minutes later, but i did not. but i suppose it was not that the light-footed fox so impressed himself upon the ground he ran over, but that the sense of the hound was so keen. to her sensitive nose these tracks steamed like hot cakes, and they would not have cooled off so as to be undistinguishable for several hours. for the time being she had but one sense: her whole soul was concentrated in her nose. it is amusing when the hunter starts out of a winter morning to see his hound probe the old tracks to determine how recent they are. he sinks his nose down deep in the snow so as to exclude the air from above, then draws a long full breath, giving sometimes an audible snort. if there remains the least effluvium of the fox the hound will detect it. if it be very slight it only sets his tail wagging; if it be strong it unloosens his tongue. such things remind one of the waste, the friction that is going on all about us, even when the wheels of life run the most smoothly. a fox cannot trip along the top of a stone wall so lightly but that he will leave enough of himself to betray his course to the hound for hours afterward. when the boys play "hare and hounds" the hare scatters bits of paper to give a clew to the pursuers, but he scatters himself much more freely if only our sight and scent were sharp enough to detect the fragments. even the fish leave a trail in the water, and it is said the otter will pursue them by it. the birds make a track in the air, only their enemies hunt by sight rather than by scent. the fox baffles the hound most upon a hard crust of frozen snow; the scent will not hold to the smooth, bead-like granules. judged by the eye alone, the fox is the lightest and most buoyant creature that runs. his soft wrapping of fur conceals the muscular play and effort that is so obvious in the hound that pursues him, and he comes bounding along precisely as if blown by a gentle wind. his massive tail is carried as if it floated upon the air by its own lightness. the hound is not remarkable for his fleetness, but how he will hang!--often running late into the night and sometimes till morning, from ridge to ridge, from peak to peak; now on the mountain, now crossing the valley, now playing about a large slope of uplying pasture fields. at times the fox has a pretty well-defined orbit, and the hunter knows where to intercept him. again he leads off like a comet, quite beyond the system of hills and ridges upon which he was started, and his return is entirely a matter of conjecture; but if the day be not more than half spent, the chances are that the fox will be back before night, though the sportsman's patience seldom holds out that long. the hound is a most interesting dog. how solemn and long-visaged he is--how peaceful and well-disposed! he is the quaker among dogs. all the viciousness and currishness seem to have been weeded out of him; he seldom quarrels, or fights, or plays, like other dogs. two strange hounds, meeting for the first time, behave as civilly toward each other as if two men. i know a hound that has an ancient, wrinkled, human, far-away look that reminds one of the bust of homer among the elgin marbles. he looks like the mountains toward which his heart yearns so much. the hound is a great puzzle to the farm dog; the latter, attracted by his baying, comes barking and snarling up through the fields bent on picking a quarrel; he intercepts the hound, snubs and insults and annoys him in every way possible, but the hound heeds him not; if the dog attacks him he gets away as best he can, and goes on with the trail; the cur bristles and barks and struts about for a while, then goes back to the house, evidently thinking the hound a lunatic, which he is for the time being--a monomaniac, the slave and victim of one idea. i saw the master of a hound one day arrest him in full course to give one of the hunters time to get to a certain runaway; the dog cried and struggled to free himself and would listen neither to threats nor caresses. knowing he must be hungry, i offered him my lunch, but he would not touch it. i put it in his mouth, but he threw it contemptuously from him. we coaxed and petted and reassured him, but he was under a spell; he was bereft of all thought or desire but the one passion to pursue that trail. iv. the woodchuck writers upon rural england and her familiar natural history make no mention of the marmot or woodchuck. in europe this animal seems to be confined to high mountainous districts, as on our pacific slope, burrowing near the snow line. it is more social or gregarious than the american species, living in large families like our prairie-dog. in the middle and eastern states our woodchuck takes the place, in some respects, of the english rabbit, burrowing in every hillside and under every stone wall and jutting ledge and large bowlder, from whence it makes raids upon the grass and clover and sometimes upon the garden vegetables. it is quite solitary in its habits, seldom more than one inhabiting the same den, unless it be a mother and her young. it is not now so much a wood chuck as a field chuck. occasionally, however, one seems to prefer the woods, and is not seduced by the sunny slopes and the succulent grass, but feeds, as did his fathers before him, upon roots and twigs, the bark of young trees, and upon various wood plants. one summer day, as i was swimming across a broad, deep pool in the creek in a secluded place in the woods, i saw one of these sylvan chucks amid the rocks but a few feet from the edge of the water where i proposed to touch. he saw my approach, but doubtless took me for some water-fowl, or for some cousin of his of the muskrat tribe; for he went on with his feeding, and regarded me not till i paused within ten feet of him and lifted myself up. then he did not know me; having, perhaps, never seen adam in his simplicity, but he twisted his nose around to catch my scent; and the moment he had done so he sprang like a jumping-jack and rushed into his den with the utmost precipitation. the woodchuck is the true serf among our animals; he belongs to the soil, and savors of it. he is of the earth, earthy. there is generally a decided odor about his dens and lurking-places, but it is not at all disagreeable in the clover-scented air, and his shrill whistle, as he takes to his hole or defies the farm dog from the interior of the stone wall, is a pleasant summer sound. in form and movement the woodchuck is not captivating. his body is heavy and flabby. indeed, such a flaccid, fluid, pouchy carcass, i have never before seen. it has absolutely no muscular tension or rigidity, but is as baggy and shaky as a skin filled with water. let the rifleman shoot one while it lies basking on a sidelong rock, and its body slumps off, and rolls and spills down the hill, as if it were a mass of bowels only. the legs of the woodchuck are short and stout, and made for digging rather than running. the latter operation he performs by short leaps, his belly scarcely clearing the ground. for a short distance he can make very good time, but he seldom trusts himself far from his hole, and when surprised in that predicament, makes little effort to escape, but, grating his teeth, looks the danger squarely in the face. i knew a farmer in new york who had a very large bob-tailed churn-dog by the name of cuff. the farmer kept a large dairy and made a great deal of butter, and it was the business of cuff to spend nearly the half of each summer day treading the endless round of the churning-machine. during the remainder of the day he had plenty of time to sleep, and rest, and sit on his hips and survey the landscape. one day, sitting thus, he discovered a woodchuck about forty rods from the house, on a steep side-hill, feeding about near his hole, which was beneath a large rock. the old dog, forgetting his stiffness, and remembering the fun he had had with woodchucks in his earlier days, started off at his highest speed, vainly hoping to catch this one before he could get to his hole. but the woodchuck, seeing the dog come laboring up the hill, sprang to the mouth of his den, and, when his pursuer was only a few rods off, whistled tauntingly and went in. this occurred several times, the old dog marching up the hill, and then marching down again, having had his labor for his pains. i suspect that he revolved the subject in his mind while he revolved the great wheel of the churning-machine, and that some turn or other brought him a happy thought, for next time he showed himself a strategist. instead of giving chase to the woodchuck when first discovered, he crouched down to the ground, and, resting his head on his paws, watched him. the woodchuck kept working away from the hole, lured by the tender clover, but, not unmindful of his safety, lifted himself up on his haunches every few moments and surveyed the approaches. presently, after the woodchuck had let himself down from one of these attitudes of observation, and resumed his feeding, cuff started swiftly but stealthily up the hill, precisely in the attitude of a cat when she is stalking a bird. when the woodchuck rose up again, cuff was perfectly motionless and half hid by the grass. when he again resumed his clover, cuff sped up the hill as before, this time crossing a fence, but in a low place, and so nimbly that he was not discovered. again the wood chuck was on the outlook, again cuff was motionless and hugging the ground. as the dog nears his victim he is partially hidden by a swell in the earth, but still the woodchuck from his outlook reports "all right," when cuff, having not twice as far to run as the 'chuck, throws all stealthiness aside and rushes directly for the hole. at that moment the woodchuck discovers his danger, and, seeing that it is a race for life, leaps as i never saw marmot leap before. but he is two seconds too late, his retreat is cut off, and the powerful jaws of the old dog close upon him. the next season cuff tried the same tactics again with like success; but when the third woodchuck had taken up his abode at the fatal hole, the old churner's wits and strength had begun to fail him, and he was baffled in each attempt to capture the animal. the woodchuck always burrows on a side-hill. this enables him to guard against being drowned out, by making the termination of the hole higher than the entrance. he digs in slantingly for about two or three feet, then makes a sharp upward turn and keeps nearly parallel with the surface of the ground for a distance of eight or ten feet farther, according to the grade. here he makes his nest and passes the winter, holing up in october or november and coming out again in april. this is a long sleep, and is rendered possible only by the amount of fat with which the system has become stored during the summer. the fire of life still burns, but very faintly and slowly, as with the draughts all closed and the ashes heaped up. respiration is continued, but at longer intervals, and all the vital processes are nearly at a standstill. dig one out during hibernation (audubon did so), and you find it a mere inanimate ball, that suffers itself to be moved and rolled about without showing signs of awakening. but bring it in by the fire, and it presently unrolls and opens its eyes, and crawls feebly about, and if left to itself will seek some dark hole or corner, roll itself up again, and resume its former condition. the life of the bee by maurice maeterlinck translated by alfred sutro new york 1914 _published may, 1901_ contents i. on the threshold of the hive ii. the swarm iii. the foundation of the city iv. the life of the bee v. the young queens vi. the nuptial flight vii. the massacre of the males viii. the progress of the race appendix i -on the threshold of the hive {1} it is not my intention to write a treatise on apiculture, or on practical bee-keeping. excellent works of the kind abound in all civilised countries, and it were useless to attempt another. france has those of dadant, georges de layens and bonnier, bertrand, hamet, weber, clement, the abbe collin, etc. english-speaking countries have langstroth, bevan, cook, cheshire, cowan, root, etc. germany has dzierzon, van berlespoch, pollmann, vogel, and many others. nor is this book to be a scientific monograph on apis mellifica, ligustica, fasciata, dorsata, etc., or a collection of new observations and studies. i shall say scarcely anything that those will not know who are somewhat familiar with bees. the notes and experiments i have made during my twenty years of beekeeping i shall reserve for a more technical work; for their interest is necessarily of a special and limited nature, and i am anxious not to over-burden this essay. i wish to speak of the bees very simply, as one speaks of a subject one knows and loves to those who know it not. i do not intend to adorn the truth, or merit the just reproach reaumur addressed to his predecessors in the study of our honey-flies, whom he accused of substituting for the marvellous reality marvels that were imaginary and merely plausible. the fact that the hive contains so much that is wonderful does not warrant our seeking to add to its wonders. besides, i myself have now for a long time ceased to look for anything more beautiful in this world, or more interesting, than the truth; or at least than the effort one is able to make towards the truth. i shall state nothing, therefore, that i have not verified myself, or that is not so fully accepted in the text-books as to render further verification superfluous. my facts shall be as accurate as though they appeared in a practical manual or scientific monograph, but i shall relate them in a somewhat livelier fashion than such works would allow, shall group them more harmoniously together, and blend them with freer and more mature reflections. the reader of this book will not learn therefrom how to manage a hive; but he will know more or less all that can with any certainty be known of the curious, profound, and intimate side of its inhabitants. nor will this be at the cost of what still remains to be learned. i shall pass over in silence the hoary traditions that, in the country and many a book, still constitute the legend of the hive. whenever there be doubt, disagreement, hypothesis, when i arrive at the unknown, i shall declare it loyally; you will find that we often shall halt before the unknown. beyond the appreciable facts of their life we know but little of the bees. and the closer our acquaintance becomes, the nearer is our ignorance brought to us of the depths of their real existence; but such ignorance is better than the other kind, which is unconscious, and satisfied. does an analogous work on the bee exist? i believe i have read almost all that has been written on bees; but of kindred matter i know only michelet's chapter at the end of his book "the insect," and ludwig buchner's essay in his "mind in animals." michelet merely hovers on the fringe of his subject; buchner's treatise is comprehensive enough, but contains so many hazardous statements, so much long-discarded gossip and hearsay, that i suspect him of never having left his library, never having set forth himself to question his heroines, or opened one of the many hundreds of rustling, wing-lit hives which we must profane before our instinct can be attuned to their secret, before we can perceive the spirit and atmosphere, perfume and mystery, of these virgin daughters of toil. the book smells not of the bee, or its honey; and has the defects of many a learned work, whose conclusions often are preconceived, and whose scientific attainment is composed of a vast array of doubtful anecdotes collected on every side. but in this essay of mine we rarely shall meet each other; for our starting-point, our aim, and our point of view are all very different. {2} the bibliography of the bee (we will begin with the books so as to get rid of them as soon as we can and go to the source of the books) is very extensive. from the beginning this strange little creature, that lived in a society under complicated laws and executed prodigious labours in the darkness, attracted the notice of men. aristotle, cato, varro, pliny, columella, palladius all studied the bees; to say nothing of aristomachus, who, according to cicero, watched them for fifty-eight years, and of phyliscus, whose writings are lost. but these dealt rather with the legend of the bee; and all that we can gather therefrom--which indeed is exceedingly little--we may find condensed in the fourth book of virgil's georgics. the real history of the bee begins in the seventeenth century, with the discoveries of the great dutch savant swammerdam. it is well, however, to add this detail, but little known: before swammerdam a flemish naturalist named clutius had arrived at certain important truths, such as the sole maternity of the queen and her possession of the attributes of both sexes, but he had left these unproved. swammerdam founded the true methods of scientific investigation; he invented the microscope, contrived injections to ward off decay, was the first to dissect the bees, and by the discovery of the ovaries and the oviduct definitely fixed the sex of the queen, hitherto looked upon as a king, and threw the whole political scheme of the hive into most unexpected light by basing it upon maternity. finally he produced woodcuts and engravings so perfect that to this day they serve to illustrate many books on apiculture. he lived in the turbulent, restless amsterdam of those days, regretting "het zoete buiten leve "--the sweet life of the country--and died, worn-out with work, at the age of forty-three. he wrote in a pious, formal style, with beautiful, simple outbursts of a faith that, fearful of falling away, ascribed all things to the glory of the creator; and embodied his observations and studies in his great work "bybel der natuure," which the doctor boerhave, a century later, caused to be translated from the dutch into latin under the title of "biblia naturae." (leyden, 1737.) then came reaumur, who, pursuing similar methods, made a vast number of curious experiments and researches in his gardens at charenton, and devoted to the bees an entire volume of his "notes to serve for a history of insects." one may read it with profit to-day, and without fatigue. it is clear, direct, and sincere, and possessed of a certain hard, arid charm of its own. he sought especially the destruction of ancient errors; he himself was responsible for several new ones; he partially understood the formation of swarms and the political establishment of queens; in a word, he discovered many difficult truths, and paved the way for the discovery of more. he fully appreciated the marvellous architecture of the hive; and what he said on the subject has never been better said. it is to him, too, that we owe the idea of the glass hives, which, having since been perfected, enable us to follow the entire private life of these fierce insects, whose work, begun in the dazzling sunshine, receives its crown in the darkness. to be comprehensive, one should mention also the somewhat subsequent works and investigations of charles bonnet and schirach (who solved the enigma of the royal egg); but i will keep to the broad lines, and pass at once to francois huber, the master and classic of contemporary apiarian science. huber was born in geneva in 1750, and fell blind in his earliest youth. the experiments of reaumur interested him; he sought to verify them, and soon becoming passionately absorbed in these researches, eventually, with the assistance of an intelligent and faithful servant, francois burnens, devoted his entire life to the study of the bee. in the annals of human suffering and human triumph there is nothing more touching, no lesson more admirable, than the story of this patient collaboration, wherein the one who saw only with immaterial light guided with his spirit the eyes and hands of the other who had the real earthly vision; where he who, as we are assured, had never with his own eyes beheld a comb of honey, was yet able, notwithstanding the veil on his dead eyes that rendered double the veil in which nature enwraps all things, to penetrate the profound secrets of the genius that had made this invisible comb; as though to teach us that no condition in life can warrant our abandoning our desire and search for the truth. i will not enumerate all that apiarian science owes to huber; to state what it does not owe were the briefer task. his "new observations on bees," of which the first volume was written in 1789, in the form of letters to charles bonnet, the second not appearing till twenty years later, have remained the unfailing, abundant treasure into which every subsequent writer has dipped. and though a few mistakes may be found therein, a few incomplete truths; though since his time considerable additions have been made to the micrography and practical culture of bees, the handling of queens, etc., there is not a single one of his principal statements that has been disproved, or discovered in error; and in our actual experience they stand untouched, and indeed at its very foundation. {3} some years of silence followed these revelations; but soon a german clergyman, dzierzon, discovered parthenogenesis, _i. e._ the virginal parturition of queens, and contrived the first hive with movable combs, thereby enabling the bee-keeper henceforth to take his share of the harvest of honey, without being forced to destroy his best colonies and in one instant annihilate the work of an entire year. this hive, still very imperfect, received masterly improvement at the hands of langstroth, who invented the movable frame properly so called, which has been adopted in america with extraordinary success. root, quinby, dadant, cheshire, de layens, cowan, heddon, howard, etc., added still further and precious improvement. then it occurred to mehring that if bees were supplied with combs that had an artificial waxen foundation, they would be spared the labour of fashioning the wax and constructing the cells, which costs them much honey and the best part of their time; he found that the bees accepted these combs most readily, and adapted them to their requirements. major de hruschka invented the honey-extractor, which enables the honey to be withdrawn by centrifugal force without breaking the combs, etc. and thus, in a few years, the methods of apiculture underwent a radical change. the capacity and fruitfulness of the hives were trebled. great and productive apiaries arose on every side. an end was put to the useless destruction of the most industrious cities, and to the odious selection of the least fit which was its result. man truly became the master of the bees, although furtively, and without their knowledge; directing all things without giving an order, receiving obedience but not recognition. for the destiny once imposed by the seasons he has substituted his will. he repairs the injustice of the year, unites hostile republics, and equalises wealth. he restricts or augments the births, regulates the fecundity of the queen, dethrones her and instals another in her place, after dexterously obtaining the reluctant consent of a people who would be maddened at the mere suspicion of an inconceivable intervention. when he thinks fit, he will peacefully violate the secret of the sacred chambers, and the elaborate, tortuous policy of the palace. he will five or six times in succession deprive the bees of the fruit of their labour, without harming them, without their becoming discouraged or even impoverished. he proportions the store-houses and granaries of their dwellings to the harvest of flowers that the spring is spreading over the dip of the hills. he compels them to reduce the extravagant number of lovers who await the birth of the royal princesses. in a word he does with them what he will, he obtains what he will, provided always that what he seeks be in accordance with their laws and their virtues; for beyond all the desires of this strange god who has taken possession of them, who is too vast to be seen and too alien to be understood, their eyes see further than the eyes of the god himself; and their one thought is the accomplishment, with untiring sacrifice, of the mysterious duty of their race. {4} let us now, having learned from books all that they had to teach us of a very ancient history, leave the science others have acquired and look at the bees with our own eyes. an hour spent in the midst of the apiary will be less instructive, perhaps; but the things we shall see will be infinitely more stimulating and more actual. i have not yet forgotten the first apiary i saw, where i learned to love the bees. it was many years ago, in a large village of dutch flanders, the sweet and pleasant country whose love for brilliant colour rivals that of zealand even, the concave mirror of holland; a country that gladly spreads out before us, as so many pretty, thoughtful toys, her illuminated gables, and waggons, and towers; her cupboards and clocks that gleam at the end of the passage; her little trees marshalled in line along quays and canal-banks, waiting, one almost might think, for some quiet, beneficent ceremony; her boats and her barges with sculptured poops, her flower-like doors and windows, immaculate dams, and elaborate, many-coloured drawbridges; and her little varnished houses, bright as new pottery, from which bell-shaped dames come forth, all a-glitter with silver and gold, to milk the cows in the white-hedged fields, or spread the linen on flowery lawns, cut into patterns of oval and lozenge, and most astoundingly green. to this spot, where life would seem more restricted than elsewhere--if it be possible for life indeed to become restricted--a sort of aged philosopher had retired; an old man somewhat akin to virgil's- "man equal to kings, and approaching the gods;" whereto lafontaine might have added,- "and, like the gods, content and at rest." here had he built his refuge, being a little weary; not disgusted, for the large aversions are unknown to the sage; but a little weary of interrogating men, whose answers to the only interesting questions one can put concerning nature and her veritable laws are far less simple than those that are given by animals and plants. his happiness, like the scythian philosopher's, lay all in the beauties of his garden; and best-loved and visited most often, was the apiary, composed of twelve domes of straw, some of which he had painted a bright pink, and some a clear yellow, but most of all a tender blue; having noticed, long before sir john lubbock's demonstrations, the bees' fondness for this colour. these hives stood against the wall of the house, in the angle formed by one of those pleasant and graceful dutch kitchens whose earthenware dresser, all bright with copper and tin, reflected itself through the open door on to the peaceful canal. and the water, burdened with these familiar images beneath its curtain of poplars, led one's eyes to a calm horizon of mills and of meadows. here, as in all places, the hives lent a new meaning to the flowers and the silence, the balm of the air and the rays of the sun. one seemed to have drawn very near to the festival spirit of nature. one was content to rest at this radiant crossroad, where the aerial ways converge and divide that the busy and tuneful bearers of all country perfumes unceasingly travel from dawn unto dusk. one heard the musical voice of the garden, whose loveliest hours revealed their rejoicing soul and sang of their gladness. one came hither, to the school of the bees, to be taught the preoccupations of all-powerful nature, the harmonious concord of the three kingdoms, the indefatigable organisation of life, and the lesson of ardent and disinterested work; and another lesson too, with a moral as good, that the heroic workers taught there, and emphasised, as it were, with the fiery darts of their myriad wings, was to appreciate the somewhat vague savour of leisure, to enjoy the almost unspeakable delights of those immaculate days that revolved on themselves in the fields of space, forming merely a transparent globe, as void of memory as the happiness without alloy. {5} in order to follow, as simply as possible, the life of the bees through the year, we will take a hive that awakes in the spring and duly starts on its labours; and then we shall meet, in their natural order, all the great episodes, viz.: the formation and departure of the swarm, the foundation of the new city, the birth, combat and nuptial flight of the young queens, the massacre of the males, and finally, the return of the sleep of winter. with each of these episodes there will go the necessary explanations as to the laws, habits, peculiarities and events that produce and accompany it; so that, when arrived at the end of the bee's short year, which extends only from april to the last days of september, we shall have gazed upon all the mysteries of the palace of honey. before we open it, therefore, and throw a general glance around, we only need say that the hive is composed of a queen, the mother of all her people; of thousands of workers or neuters who are incomplete and sterile females; and lastly of some hundreds of males, from whom one shall be chosen as the sole and unfortunate consort of the queen that the workers will elect in the future, after the more or less voluntary departure of the reigning mother. {6} the first time that we open a hive there comes over us an emotion akin to that we might feel at profaning some unknown object, charged perhaps with dreadful surprise, as a tomb. a legend of menace and peril still clings to the bees. there is the distressful recollection of her sting, which produces a pain so characteristic that one knows not wherewith to compare it; a kind of destroying dryness, a flame of the desert rushing over the wounded limb, as though these daughters of the sun had distilled a dazzling poison from their father's angry rays, in order more effectively to defend the treasure they gather from his beneficent hours. it is true that were some one who neither knows nor respects the customs and character of the bee suddenly to fling open the hive, it would turn at once into a burning bush of heroism and anger; but the slight amount of skill needed to handle it with impunity can be most readily acquired. let but a little smoke be deftly applied, much coolness and gentleness be shown, and our well-armed workers will suffer themselves to be despoiled without dreaming of drawing their sting. it is not the fact, as some have maintained, that the bees recognise their master; nor have they any fear of man; but at the smell of the smoke, at the large slow gestures that traverse their dwellings without threatening them, they imagine that this is not the attack of an enemy against whom defence is possible, but that it is a force or a natural catastrophe whereto they do well to submit. instead of vainly struggling, therefore, they do what they can to safeguard the future; and, obeying a foresight that for once is in error, they fly to their reserves of honey, into which they eagerly dip in order to possess within themselves the wherewithal to start a new city, immediately and no matter where, should the ancient one be destroyed or they be compelled to forsake it. {7} the first impression of the novice before whom an observation-hive* is opened will be one of some disappointment. he had been told that this little glass case contained an unparalleled activity, an infinite number of wise laws, and a startling amalgam of mystery, experience, genius, calculation, science, of various industries, of certitude and prescience, of intelligent habits and curious feelings and virtues. all that he sees is a confused mass of little reddish groups, somewhat resembling roasted coffee-berries, or bunches of raisins piled against the glass. they look more dead than alive; their movements are slow, incoherent, and incomprehensible. can these be the wonderful drops of light he had seen but a moment ago, unceasingly flashing and sparkling, as they darted among the pearls and the gold of a thousand wide-open calyces? by observation-hive is meant a hive of glass, furnished with black curtains or shutters. the best kind have only one comb, thus permitting both faces to be studied. these hives can be placed in a drawing-room, library, etc., without inconvenience or danger. the bees that inhabit the one i have in my study in paris are able even in the stony desert of that great city, to find the wherewithal to nourish themselves and to prosper. they appear to be shivering in the darkness, to be numbed, suffocated, so closely are they huddled together; one might fancy they were ailing captives, or queens dethroned, who have had their one moment of glory in the midst of their radiant garden, and are now compelled to return to the shameful squalor of their poor overcrowded home. it is with them as with all that is deeply real; they must be studied, and one must learn how to study them. the inhabitant of another planet who should see men and women coming and going almost imperceptibly through our streets, crowding at certain times around certain buildings, or waiting for one knows not what, without apparent movement, in the depths of their dwellings, might conclude therefrom that they, too, were miserable and inert. it takes time to distinguish the manifold activity contained in this inertia. and indeed every one of the little almost motionless groups in the hive is incessantly working, each at a different trade. repose is unknown to any; and such, for instance, as seem the most torpid, as they hang in dead clusters against the glass, are intrusted with the most mysterious and fatiguing task of all: it is they who secrete and form the wax. but the details of this universal activity will be given in their place. for the moment we need only call attention to the essential trait in the nature of the bee which accounts for the extraordinary agglomeration of the various workers. the bee is above all, and even to a greater extent than the ant, a creature of the crowd. she can live only in the midst of a multitude. when she leaves the hive, which is so densely packed that she has to force her way with blows of her head through the living walls that enclose her, she departs from her proper element. she will dive for an instant into flower-filled space, as the swimmer will dive into the sea that is filled with pearls, but under pain of death it behoves her at regular intervals to return and breathe the crowd as the swimmer must return and breathe the air. isolate her, and however abundant the food or favourable the temperature, she will expire in a few days not of hunger or cold, but of loneliness. from the crowd, from the city, she derives an invisible aliment that is as necessary to her as honey. this craving will help to explain the spirit of the laws of the hive. for in them the individual is nothing, her existence conditional only, and herself, for one indifferent moment, a winged organ of the race. her whole life is an entire sacrifice to the manifold, everlasting being whereof she forms part. it is strange to note that it was not always so. we find even to-day, among the melliferous hymenoptera, all the stages of progressive civilisation of our own domestic bee. at the bottom of the scale we find her working alone, in wretchedness, often not seeing her offspring (the prosopis, the colletes, etc.); sometimes living in the midst of the limited family that she produces annually (as in the case of the humble-bee). then she forms temporary associations (the panurgi, the dasypodoe, the hacliti, etc.) and at last we arrive, through successive stages, at the almost perfect but pitiless society of our hives, where the individual is entirely merged in the republic, and the republic in its turn invariably sacrificed to the abstract and immortal city of the future. {8} let us not too hastily deduce from these facts conclusions that apply to man. he possesses the power of withstanding certain of nature's laws; and to know whether such resistance be right or wrong is the gravest and obscurest point in his morality. but it is deeply interesting to discover what the will of nature may be in a different world; and this will is revealed with extraordinary clearness in the evolution of the hymenoptera, which, of all the inhabitants of this globe, possess the highest degree of intellect after that of man. the aim of nature is manifestly the improvement of the race; but no less manifest is her inability, or refusal, to obtain such improvement except at the cost of the liberty, the rights, and the happiness of the individual. in proportion as a society organises itself, and rises in the scale, so does a shrinkage enter the private life of each one of its members. where there is progress, it is the result only of a more and more complete sacrifice of the individual to the general interest. each one is compelled, first of all, to renounce his vices, which are acts of independence. for instance, at the last stage but one of apiarian civilisation, we find the humble-bees, which are like our cannibals. the adult workers are incessantly hovering around the eggs, which they seek to devour, and the mother has to display the utmost stubbornness in their defence. then having freed himself from his most dangerous vices, each individual has to acquire a certain number of more and more painful virtues. among the humble-bees, for instance, the workers do not dream of renouncing love, whereas our domestic bee lives in a state of perpetual chastity. and indeed we soon shall show how much more she has to abandon, in exchange for the comfort and security of the hive, for its architectural, economic, and political perfection; and we shall return to the evolution of the hymenoptera in the chapter devoted to the progress of the species. ii -the swarm {9} we will now, so as to draw more closely to nature, consider the different episodes of the swarm as they come to pass in an ordinary hive, which is ten or twenty times more populous than an observation one, and leaves the bees entirely free and untrammelled. here, then, they have shaken off the torpor of winter. the queen started laying again in the very first days of february, and the workers have flocked to the willows and nut-trees, gorse and violets, anemones and lungworts. then spring invades the earth, and cellar and stream with honey and pollen, while each day beholds the birth of thousands of bees. the overgrown males now all sally forth from their cells, and disport themselves on the combs; and so crowded does the too prosperous city become that hundreds of belated workers, coming back from the flowers towards evening, will vainly seek shelter within, and will be forced to spend the night on the threshold, where they will be decimated by the cold. restlessness seizes the people, and the old queen begins to stir. she feels that a new destiny is being prepared. she has religiously fulfilled her duty as a good creatress; and from this duty done there result only tribulation and sorrow. an invincible power menaces her tranquillity; she will soon be forced to quit this city of hers, where she has reigned. but this city is her work, it is she, herself. she is not its queen in the sense in which men use the word. she issues no orders; she obeys, as meekly as the humblest of her subjects, the masked power, sovereignly wise, that for the present, and till we attempt to locate it, we will term the "spirit of the hive." but she is the unique organ of love; she is the mother of the city. she founded it amid uncertainty and poverty. she has peopled it with her own substance; and all who move within its walls--workers, males, larvae, nymphs, and the young princesses whose approaching birth will hasten her own departure, one of them being already designed as her successor by the "spirit of the hive"--all these have issued from her flanks. {10} what is this "spirit of the hive"--where does it reside? it is not like the special instinct that teaches the bird to construct its well planned nest, and then seek other skies when the day for migration returns. nor is it a kind of mechanical habit of the race, or blind craving for life, that will fling the bees upon any wild hazard the moment an unforeseen event shall derange the accustomed order of phenomena. on the contrary, be the event never so masterful, the "spirit of the hive" still will follow it, step by step, like an alert and quickwitted slave, who is able to derive advantage even from his master's most dangerous orders. it disposes pitilessly of the wealth and the happiness, the liberty and life, of all this winged people; and yet with discretion, as though governed itself by some great duty. it regulates day by day the number of births, and contrives that these shall strictly accord with the number of flowers that brighten the country-side. it decrees the queen's deposition or warns her that she must depart; it compels her to bring her own rivals into the world, and rears them royally, protecting them from their mother's political hatred. so, too, in accordance with the generosity of the flowers, the age of the spring, and the probable dangers of the nuptial flight, will it permit or forbid the first-born of the virgin princesses to slay in their cradles her younger sisters, who are singing the song of the queens. at other times, when the season wanes, and flowery hours grow shorter, it will command the workers themselves to slaughter the whole imperial brood, that the era of revolutions may close, and work become the sole object of all. the "spirit of the hive" is prudent and thrifty, but by no means parsimonious. and thus, aware, it would seem, that nature's laws are somewhat wild and extravagant in all that pertains to love, it tolerates, during summer days of abundance, the embarrassing presence in the hive of three or four hundred males, from whose ranks the queen about to be born shall select her lover; three or four hundred foolish, clumsy, useless, noisy creatures, who are pretentious, gluttonous, dirty, coarse, totally and scandalously idle, insatiable, and enormous. but after the queen's impregnation, when flowers begin to close sooner, and open later, the spirit one morning will coldly decree the simultaneous and general massacre of every male. it regulates the workers' labours, with due regard to their age; it allots their task to the nurses who tend the nymphs and the larvae, the ladies of honour who wait on the queen and never allow her out of their sight; the house-bees who air, refresh, or heat the hive by fanning their wings, and hasten the evaporation of the honey that may be too highly charged with water; the architects, masons, wax-workers, and sculptors who form the chain and construct the combs; the foragers who sally forth to the flowers in search of the nectar that turns into honey, of the pollen that feeds the nymphs and the larvae, the propolis that welds and strengthens the buildings of the city, or the water and salt required by the youth of the nation. its orders have gone to the chemists who ensure the preservation of the honey by letting a drop of formic acid fall in from the end of their sting; to the capsule-makers who seal down the cells when the treasure is ripe, to the sweepers who maintain public places and streets most irreproachably clean, to the bearers whose duty it is to remove the corpses; and to the amazons of the guard who keep watch on the threshold by night and by day, question comers and goers, recognise the novices who return from their very first flight, scare away vagabonds, marauders and loiterers, expel all intruders, attack redoubtable foes in a body, and, if need be, barricade the entrance. finally, it is the spirit of the hive that fixes the hour of the great annual sacrifice to the genius of the race: the hour, that is, of the swarm; when we find a whole people, who have attained the topmost pinnacle of prosperity and power, suddenly abandoning to the generation to come their wealth and their palaces, their homes and the fruits of their labour; themselves content to encounter the hardships and perils of a new and distant country. this act, be it conscious or not, undoubtedly passes the limits of human morality. its result will sometimes be ruin, but poverty always; and the thrice-happy city is scattered abroad in obedience to a law superior to its own happiness. where has this law been decreed, which, as we soon shall find, is by no means as blind and inevitable as one might believe? where, in what assembly, what council, what intellectual and moral sphere, does this spirit reside to whom all must submit, itself being vassal to an heroic duty, to an intelligence whose eyes are persistently fixed on the future? it comes to pass with the bees as with most of the things in this world; we remark some few of their habits; we say they do this, they work in such and such fashion, their queens are born thus, their workers are virgin, they swarm at a certain time. and then we imagine we know them, and ask nothing more. we watch them hasten from flower to flower, we see the constant agitation within the hive; their life seems very simple to us, and bounded, like every life, by the instinctive cares of reproduction and nourishment. but let the eye draw near, and endeavour to see; and at once the least phenomenon of all becomes overpoweringly complex; we are confronted by the enigma of intellect, of destiny, will, aim, means, causes; the incomprehensible organisation of the most insignificant act of life. {11} our hive, then, is preparing to swarm; making ready for the great immolation to the exacting gods of the race. in obedience to the order of the spirit--an order that to us may well seem incomprehensible, for it is entirely opposed to all our own instincts and feelings--60,000 or 70,000 bees out of the 80,000 or 90,000 that form the whole population, will abandon the maternal city at the prescribed hour. they will not leave at a moment of despair; or desert, with sudden and wild resolve, a home laid waste by famine, disease, or war. no, the exile has long been planned, and the favourable hour patiently awaited. were the hive poor, had it suffered from pillage or storm, had misfortune befallen the royal family, the bees would not forsake it. they leave it only when it has attained the apogee of its prosperity; at a time when, after the arduous labours of the spring, the immense palace of wax has its 120,000 well-arranged cells overflowing with new honey, and with the many-coloured flour, known as "bees' bread," on which nymphs and larvae are fed. never is the hive more beautiful than on the eve of its heroic renouncement, in its unrivalled hour of fullest abundance and joy; serene for all its apparent excitement and feverishness. let us endeavour to picture it to ourselves, not as it appears to the bees,--for we cannot tell in what magical, formidable fashion things may be reflected in the 6,000 or 7,000 facets of their lateral eyes and the triple cyclopean eye on their brow,--but as it would seem to us, were we of their stature. from the height of a dome more colossal than that of st. peter's at rome waxen walls descend to the ground, balanced in the void and the darkness; gigantic and manifold, vertical and parallel geometric constructions, to which, for relative precision, audacity, and vastness, no human structure is comparable. each of these walls, whose substance still is immaculate and fragrant, of virginal, silvery freshness, contains thousands of cells, that are stored with provisions sufficient to feed the whole people for several weeks. here, lodged in transparent cells, are the pollens, love-ferment of every flower of spring, making brilliant splashes of red and yellow, of black and mauve. close by, in twenty thousand reservoirs, sealed with a seal that shall only be broken on days of supreme distress, the honey of april is stored, most limpid and perfumed of all, wrapped round with long and magnificent embroidery of gold, whose borders hang stiff and rigid. still lower the honey of may matures, in great open vats, by whose side watchful cohorts maintain an incessant current of air. in the centre, and far from the light whose diamond rays steal in through the only opening, in the warmest part of the hive, there stands the abode of the future; here does it sleep, and wake. for this is the royal domain of the brood-cells, set apart for the queen and her acolytes; about 10,000 cells wherein the eggs repose, 15,000 or 16,000 chambers tenanted by larvae, 40,000 dwellings inhabited by white nymphs to whom thousands of nurses minister.* and finally, in the holy of holies of these partss are the three, four, six, or twelve sealed palaces, vast in size compared with the others, where the adolescent princesses lie who await their hour, wrapped in a kind of shroud, all of them motionless and pale, and fed in the darkness. *the figures given here are scrupulously exact. they are those of a well-filled hive in full prosperity. on the day, then, that the spirit of the hive has ordained, a certain part of the population will go forth, selected in accordance with sure and immovable laws, and make way for hopes that as yet are formless. in the sleeping city there remain the males, from whose ranks the royal lover shall come, the very young bees that tend the brood-cells, and some thousands of workers who continue to forage abroad, to guard the accumulated treasure, and preserve the moral traditions of the hive. for each hive has its own code of morals. there are some that are very virtuous and some that are very perverse; and a careless bee-keeper will often corrupt his people, destroy their respect for the property of others, incite them to pillage, and induce in them habits of conquest and idleness which will render them sources of danger to all the little republics around. these things result from the bee's discovery that work among distant flowers, whereof many hundreds must be visited to form one drop of honey, is not the only or promptest method of acquiring wealth, but that it is easier to enter ill-guarded cities by stratagem, or force her way into others too weak for self-defence. nor is it easy to restore to the paths of duty a hive that has become thus depraved. {13} all things go to prove that it is not the queen, but the spirit of the hive, that decides on the swarm. with this queen of ours it happens as with many a chief among men, who though he appear to give orders, is himself obliged to obey commands far more mysterious, far more inexplicable, than those he issues to his subordinates. the hour once fixed, the spirit will probably let it be known at break of dawn, or the previous night, if indeed not two nights before; for scarcely has the sun drunk in the first drops of dew when a most unaccustomed stir, whose meaning the bee-keeper rarely will fail to grasp, is to be noticed within and around the buzzing city. at times one would almost appear to detect a sign of dispute, hesitation, recoil. it will happen even that for day after day a strange emotion, apparently without cause, will appear and vanish in this transparent, golden throng. has a cloud that we cannot see crept across the sky that the bees are watching; or is their intellect battling with a new regret? does a winged council debate the necessity of the departure? of this we know nothing; as we know nothing of the manner in which the spirit conveys its resolution to the crowd. certain as it may seem that the bees communicate with each other, we know not whether this be done in human fashion. it is possible even that their own refrain may be inaudible to them: the murmur that comes to us heavily laden with perfume of honey, the ecstatic whisper of fairest summer days that the bee-keeper loves so well, the festival song of labour that rises and falls around the hive in the crystal of the hour, and might almost be the chant of the eager flowers, hymn of their gladness and echo of their soft fragrance, the voice of the white carnations, the marjoram, and the thyme. they have, however, a whole gamut of sounds that we can distinguish, ranging from profound delight to menace, distress, and anger; they have the ode of the queen, the song of abundance, the psalms of grief, and, lastly, the long and mysterious war-cries the adolescent princesses send forth during the combats and massacres that precede the nuptial flight. may this be a fortuitous music that fails to attain their inward silence? in any event they seem not the least disturbed at the noises we make near the hive; but they regard these perhaps as not of their world, and possessed of no interest for them. it is possible that we on our side hear only a fractional part of the sounds that the bees produce, and that they have many harmonies to which our ears are not attuned. we soon shall see with what startling rapidity they are able to understand each other, and adopt concerted measures, when, for instance, the great honey thief, the huge sphinx atropos, the sinister butterfly that bears a death's head on its back, penetrates into the hive, humming its own strange note, which acts as a kind of irresistible incantation; the news spreads quickly from group to group, and from the guards at the threshold to the workers on the furthest combs, the whole population quivers. {14} it was for a long time believed that when these wise bees, generally so prudent, so far-sighted and economical, abandoned the treasures of their kingdom and flung themselves upon the uncertainties of life, they were yielding to a kind of irresistible folly, a mechanical impulse, a law of the species, a decree of nature, or to the force that for all creatures lies hidden in the revolution of time. it is our habit, in the case of the bees no less than our own, to regard as fatality all that we do not as yet understand. but now that the hive has surrendered two or three of its material secrets, we have discovered that this exodus is neither instinctive nor inevitable. it is not a blind emigration, but apparently the well-considered sacrifice of the present generation in favour of the generation to come. the bee-keeper has only to destroy in their cells the young queens that still are inert, and, at the same time, if nymphs and larvae abound, to enlarge the store-houses and dormitories of the nation, for this unprofitable tumult instantaneously to subside, for work to be at once resumed, and the flowers revisited; while the old queen, who now is essential again, with no successor to hope for, or perhaps to fear, will renounce for this year her desire for the light of the sun. reassured as to the future of the activity that will soon spring into life, she will tranquilly resume her maternal labours, which consist in the laying of two or three thousand eggs a day, as she passes, in a methodical spiral, from cell to cell, omitting none, and never pausing to rest. where is the fatality here, save in the love of the race of to-day for the race of to-morrow? this fatality exists in the human species also, but its extent and power seem infinitely less. among men it never gives rise to sacrifices as great, as unanimous, or as complete. what far-seeing fatality, taking the place of this one, do we ourselves obey? we know not; as we know not the being who watches us as we watch the bees. but the hive that we have selected is disturbed in its history by no interference of man; and as the beautiful day advances with radiant and tranquil steps beneath the trees, its ardour, still bathed in dew, makes the appointed hour seem laggard. over the whole surface of the golden corridors that divide the parallel walls the workers are busily making preparation for the journey. and each one will first of all burden herself with provision of honey sufficient for five or six days. from this honey that they bear within them they will distil, by a chemical process still unexplained, the wax required for the immediate construction of buildings. they will provide themselves also with a certain amount of propolis, a kind of resin with which they will seal all the crevices in the new dwelling, strengthen weak places, varnish the walls, and exclude the light; for the bees love to work in almost total obscurity, guiding themselves with their many-faceted eyes, or with their antennae perhaps, the seat, it would seem, of an unknown sense that fathoms and measures the darkness. {16} they are not without prescience, therefore, of what is to befall them on this the most dangerous day of all their existence. absorbed by the cares, the prodigious perils of this mighty adventure, they will have no time now to visit the gardens and meadows; and to-morrow, and after tomorrow, it may happen that rain may fall, or there may be wind; that their wings may be frozen or the flowers refuse to open. famine and death would await them were it not for this foresight of theirs. none would come to their help, nor would they seek help of any. for one city knows not the other, and assistance never is given. and even though the bee-keeper deposit the hive, in which he has gathered the old queen and her attendant cluster of bees, by the side of the abode they have but this moment quitted, they would seem, be the disaster never so great that shall now have befallen them, to have wholly forgotten the peace and the happy activity that once they had known there, the abundant wealth and the safety that had then been their portion; and all, one by one, and down to the last of them, will perish of hunger and cold around their unfortunate queen rather than return to the home of their birth, whose sweet odour of plenty, the fragrance, indeed, of their own past assiduous labour, reaches them even in their distress. {17} that is a thing, some will say, that men would not do,--a proof that the bee, notwithstanding the marvels of its organisation, still is lacking in intellect and veritable consciousness. is this so certain? other beings, surely, may possess an intellect that differs from ours, and produces different results, without therefore being inferior. and besides, are we, even in this little human parish of ours, such infallible judges of matters that pertain to the spirit? can we so readily divine the thoughts that may govern the two or three people we may chance to see moving and talking behind a closed window, when their words do not reach us? or let us suppose that an inhabitant of venus or mars were to contemplate us from the height of a mountain, and watch the little black specks that we form in space, as we come and go in the streets and squares of our towns. would the mere sight of our movements, our buildings, machines, and canals, convey to him any precise idea of our morality, intellect, our manner of thinking, and loving, and hoping,--in a word, of our real and intimate self? all he could do, like ourselves when we gaze at the hive, would be to take note of some facts that seem very surprising; and from these facts to deduce conclusions probably no less erroneous, no less uncertain, than those that we choose to form concerning the bee. this much at least is certain; our "little black specks" would not reveal the vast moral direction, the wonderful unity, that are so apparent in the hive. "whither do they tend, and what is it they do?" he would ask, after years and centuries of patient watching. "what is the aim of their life, or its pivot? do they obey some god? i can see nothing that governs their actions. the little things that one day they appear to collect and build up, the next they destroy and scatter. they come and they go, they meet and disperse, but one knows not what it is they seek. in numberless cases the spectacle they present is altogether inexplicable. there are some, for instance, who, as it were, seem scarcely to stir from their place. they are to be distinguished by their glossier coat, and often too by their more considerable bulk. they occupy buildings ten or twenty times larger than ordinary dwellings, and richer, and more ingeniously fashioned. every day they spend many hours at their meals, which sometimes indeed are prolonged far into the night. they appear to be held in extraordinary honour by those who approach them; men come from the neighbouring houses, bringing provisions, and even from the depths of the country, laden with presents. one can only assume that these persons must be indispensable to the race, to which they render essential service, although our means of investigation have not yet enabled us to discover what the precise nature of this service may be. there are others, again, who are incessantly engaged in the most wearisome labour, whether it be in great sheds full of wheels that forever turn round and round, or close by the shipping, or in obscure hovels, or on small plots of earth that from sunrise to sunset they are constantly delving and digging. we are led to believe that this labour must be an offence, and punishable. for the persons guilty of it are housed in filthy, ruinous, squalid cabins. they are clothed in some colourless hide. so great does their ardour appear for this noxious, or at any rate useless activity, that they scarcely allow themselves time to eat or to sleep. in numbers they are to the others as a thousand to one. it is remarkable that the species should have been able to survive to this day under conditions so unfavourable to its development. it should be mentioned, however, that apart from this characteristic devotion to their wearisome toil, they appear inoffensive and docile; and satisfied with the leavings of those who evidently are the guardians, if not the saviours, of the race." {18} is it not strange that the hive, which we vaguely survey from the height of another world, should provide our first questioning glance with so sure and profound a reply? must we not admire the manner in which the thought or the god that the bees obey is at once revealed by their edifices, wrought with such striking conviction, by their customs and laws, their political and economical organisation, their virtues, and even their cruelties? nor is this god, though it be perhaps the only one to which man has as yet never offered serious worship, by any means the least reasonable or the least legitimate that we can conceive. the god of the bees is the future. when we, in our study of human history, endeavour to gauge the moral force or greatness of a people or race, we have but one standard of measurement--the dignity and permanence of their ideal, and the abnegation wherewith they pursue it. have we often encountered an ideal more conformable to the desires of the universe, more widely manifest, more disinterested or sublime; have we often discovered an abnegation more complete and heroic? {19} strange little republic, that, for all its logic and gravity, its matured conviction and prudence, still falls victim to so vast and precarious a dream! who shall tell us, o little people that are so profoundly in earnest, that have fed on the warmth and the light and on nature's purest, the soul of the flowers, wherein matter for once seems to smile, and put forth it? most wistful effort towards beauty and happiness,--who shall tell us what problems you have resolved, but we not yet, what certitudes you have acquired that we still have to conquer? and if you have truly resolved these problems, and acquired these certitudes, by the aid of some blind and primitive impulse and not through the intellect, then to what enigma, more insoluble still, are you not urging us on? little city abounding in faith and mystery and hope, why do your myriad virgins consent to a task that no human slave has ever accepted? another spring might be theirs, another summer, were they only a little less wasteful of strength, a little less self-forgetful in their ardour for toil; but at the magnificent moment when the flowers all cry to them, they seem to be stricken with the fatal ecstasy of work; and in less than five weeks they almost all perish, their wings broken, their bodies shrivelled and covered with wounds. "tantus amor florum, et generandi gloria mellis!" cries virgil in the fourth book of the georgics, wherein he devotes himself to the bees, and hands down to us the charming errors of the ancients, who looked on nature with eyes still dazzled by the presence of imaginary gods. {20} why do they thus renounce sleep, the delights of honey and love, and the exquisite leisure enjoyed, for instance, by their winged brother, the butterfly? why will they not live as he lives? it is not hunger that urges them on. two or three flowers suffice for their nourishment, and in one hour they will visit two or three hundred, to collect a treasure whose sweetness they never will taste. why all this toil and distress, and whence comes this mighty assurance? is it so certain, then, that the new generation whereunto you offer your lives will merit the sacrifice; will be more beautiful, happier, will do something you have not done? your aim is clear to us, clearer far than our own; you desire to live, as long as the world itself, in those that come after; but what can the aim be of this great aim; what the mission of this existence eternally renewed? and yet may it not be that these questions are idle, and we who are putting them to you mere childish dreamers, hedged round with error and doubt? and, indeed, had successive evolutions installed you all-powerful and supremely happy; had you gained the last heights, whence at length you ruled over nature's laws; nay, were you immortal goddesses, we still should be asking you what your desires might be, your ideas of progress; still wondering where you imagined that at last you would rest and declare your wishes fulfilled. we are so made that nothing contents us; that we can regard no single thing as having its aim self-contained, as simply existing, with no thought beyond existence. has there been, to this day, one god out of all the multitude man has conceived, from the vulgarest to the most thoughtful, of whom it has not been required that he shall be active and stirring, that he shall create countless beings and things, and have myriad aims outside himself? and will the time ever come when we shall be resigned for a few hours tranquilly to represent in this world an interesting form of material activity; and then, our few hours over, to assume, without surprise and without regret, that other form which is the unconscious, the unknown, the slumbering, and the eternal? {21} but we are forgetting the hive wherein the swarming bees have begun to lose patience, the hive whose black and vibrating waves are bubbling and overflowing, like a brazen cup beneath an ardent sun. it is noon; and the heat so great that the assembled trees would seem almost to hold back their leaves, as a man holds his breath before something very tender but very grave. the bees give their honey and sweet-smelling wax to the man who attends them; but more precious gift still is their summoning him to the gladness of june, to the joy of the beautiful months; for events in which bees take part happen only when skies are pure, at the winsome hours of the year when flowers keep holiday. they are the soul of the summer, the clock whose dial records the moments of plenty; they are the untiring wing on which delicate perfumes float; the guide of the quivering light-ray, the song of the slumberous, languid air; and their flight is the token, the sure and melodious note, of all the myriad fragile joys that are born in the heat and dwell in the sunshine. they teach us to tune our ear to the softest, most intimate whisper of these good, natural hours. to him who has known them and loved them, a summer where there are no bees becomes as sad and as empty as one without flowers or birds. {22} the man who never before has beheld the swarm of a populous hive must regard this riotous, bewildering spectacle with some apprehension and diffidence. he will be almost afraid to draw near; he will wonder can these be the earnest, the peace-loving, hard-working bees whose movements he has hitherto followed? it was but a few moments before he had seen them troop in from all parts of the country, as pre-occupied, seemingly, as little housewives might be, with no thoughts beyond household cares. he had watched them stream into the hive, imperceptibly almost, out of breath, eager, exhausted, full of discreet agitation; and had seen the young amazons stationed at the gate salute them, as they passed by, with the slightest wave of antennae. and then, the inner court reached, they had hurriedly given their harvest of honey to the adolescent portresses always stationed within, exchanging with these at most the three or four probably indispensable words; or perhaps they would hasten themselves to the vast magazines that encircle the brood-cells, and deposit the two heavy baskets of pollen that depend from their thighs, thereupon at once going forth once more, without giving a thought to what might be passing in the royal palace, the work-rooms, or the dormitory where the nymphs lie asleep; without for one instant joining in the babel of the public place in front of the gate, where it is the wont of the cleaners, at time of great heat, to congregate and to gossip. {23} to-day this is all changed. a certain number of workers, it is true, will peacefully go to the fields, as though nothing were happening; will come back, clean the hive, attend to the brood-cells, and hold altogether aloof from the general ecstasy. these are the ones that will not accompany the queen; they will remain to guard the old home, feed the nine or ten thousand eggs, the eighteen thousand larvae, the thirty-six thousand nymphs and seven or eight royal princesses, that to-day shall all be abandoned. why they have been singled out for this austere duty, by what law, or by whom, it is not in our power to divine. to this mission of theirs they remain inflexibly, tranquilly faithful; and though i have many times tried the experiment of sprinkling a colouring matter over one of these resigned cinderellas, that are moreover easily to be distinguished in the midst of the rejoicing crowds by their serious and somewhat ponderous gait, it is rarely indeed that i have found one of them in the delirious throng of the swarm. and yet, the attraction must seem irresistible. it is the ecstasy of the perhaps unconscious sacrifice the god has ordained; it is the festival of honey, the triumph of the race, the victory of the future: the one day of joy, of forgetfulness and folly; the only sunday known to the bees. it would appear to be also the solitary day upon which all eat their fill, and revel, to heart's content, in the delights of the treasure themselves have amassed. it is as though they were prisoners to whom freedom at last had been given, who had suddenly been led to a land of refreshment and plenty. they exult, they cannot contain the joy that is in them. they come and go aimlessly,--they whose every movement has always its precise and useful purpose--they depart and return, sally forth once again to see if the queen be ready, to excite their sisters, to beguile the tedium of waiting. they fly much higher than is their wont, and the leaves of the mighty trees round about all quiver responsive. they have left trouble behind, and care. they no longer are meddling and fierce, aggressive, suspicious, untamable, angry. man--the unknown master whose sway they never acknowledge, who can subdue them only by conforming to their every law, to their habits of labour, and following step by step the path that is traced in their life by an intellect nothing can thwart or turn from its purpose, by a spirit whose aim is always the good of the morrow--on this day man can approach them, can divide the glittering curtain they form as they fly round and round in songful circles; he can take them up in his hand, and gather them as he would a bunch of grapes; for to-day, in their gladness, possessing nothing, but full of faith in the future, they will submit to everything and injure no one, provided only they be not separated from the queen who bears that future within her. {25} but the veritable signal has not yet been given. in the hive there is indescribable confusion; and a disorder whose meaning escapes us. at ordinary times each bee, once returned to her home, would appear to forget her possession of wings; and will pursue her active labours, making scarcely a movement, on that particular spot in the hive that her special duties assign. but to-day they all seem bewitched; they fly in dense circles round and round the polished walls like a living jelly stirred by an invisible hand. the temperature within rises rapidly,--to such a degree, at times, that the wax of the buildings will soften, and twist out of shape. the queen, who ordinarily never will stir from the centre of the comb, now rushes wildly, in breathless excitement, over the surface of the vehement crowd that turn and turn on themselves. is she hastening their departure, or trying to delay it? does she command, or haply implore? does this prodigious emotion issue from her, or is she its victim? such knowledge as we possess of the general psychology of the bee warrants the belief that the swarming always takes place against the old sovereign's will. for indeed the ascetic workers, her daughters, regard the queen above all as the organ of love, indispensable, certainly, and sacred, but in herself somewhat unconscious, and often of feeble mind. they treat her like a mother in her dotage. their respect for her, their tenderness, is heroic and boundless. the purest honey, specially distilled and almost entirely assimilable, is reserved for her use alone. she has an escort that watches over her by day and by night, that facilitates her maternal duties and gets ready the cells wherein the eggs shall be laid; she has loving attendants who pet and caress her, feed her and clean her, and even absorb her excrement. should the least accident befall her the news will spread quickly from group to group, and the whole population will rush to and fro in loud lamentation. seize her, imprison her, take her away from the hive at a time when the bees shall have no hope of filling her place, owing, it may be, to her having left no predestined descendants, or to there being no larvae less than three days old (for a special nourishment is capable of transforming these into royal nymphs, such being the grand democratic principle of the hive, and a counterpoise to the prerogatives of maternal predestination), and then, her loss once known, after two or three hours, perhaps, for the city is vast; work will cease in almost every direction. the young will no longer be cared for; part of the inhabitants will wander in every direction, seeking their mother, in quest of whom others will sally forth from the hive; the workers engaged in constructing the comb will fall asunder and scatter, the foragers no longer will visit the flowers, the guard at the entrance will abandon their post; and foreign marauders, all the parasites of honey, forever on the watch for opportunities of plunder, will freely enter and leave without any one giving a thought to the defence of the treasure that has been so laboriously gathered. and poverty, little by little, will steal into the city; the population will dwindle; and the wretched inhabitants soon will perish of distress and despair, though every flower of summer burst into bloom before them. but let the queen be restored before her loss has become an accomplished, irremediable fact, before the bees have grown too profoundly demoralised,--for in this they resemble men: a prolonged regret, or misfortune, will impair their intellect and degrade their character,--let her be restored but a few hours later, and they will receive her with extraordinary, pathetic welcome. they will flock eagerly round her; excited groups will climb over each other in their anxiety to draw near; as she passes among them they will caress her with the long antennae that contain so many organs as yet unexplained; they will present her with honey, and escort her tumultuously back to the royal chamber. and order at once is restored, work resumed, from the central comb of the brood-cells to the furthest annex where the surplus honey is stored; the foragers go forth, in long black files, to return, in less than three minutes sometimes, laden with nectar and pollen; streets are swept, parasites and marauders killed or expelled; and the hive soon resounds with the gentle, monotonous cadence of the strange hymn of rejoicing, which is, it would seem, the hymn of the royal presence. {26} there are numberless instances of the absolute attachment and devotion that the workers display towards their queen. should disaster befall the little republic; should the hive or the comb collapse, should man prove ignorant, or brutal; should they suffer from famine, from cold or disease, and perish by thousands, it will still be almost invariably found that the queen will be safe and alive, beneath the corpses of her faithful daughters. for they will protect her, help her to escape; their bodies will provide both rampart and shelter; for her will be the last drop of honey, the wholesomest food. and be the disaster never so great, the city of virgins will not lose heart so long as the queen be alive. break their comb twenty times in succession, take twenty times from them their young and their food, you still shall never succeed in making them doubt of the future; and though they be starving, and their number so small that it scarcely suffices to shield their mother from the enemy's gaze, they will set about to reorganize the laws of the colony, and to provide for what is most pressing; they will distribute the work in accordance with the new necessities of this disastrous moment, and thereupon will immediately re-assume their labours with an ardour, a patience, a tenacity and intelligence not often to be found existing to such a degree in nature, true though it be that most of its creatures display more confidence and courage than man. but the presence of the queen is not even essential for their discouragement to vanish and their love to endure. it is enough that she should have left, at the moment of her death or departure, the very slenderest hope of descendants. "we have seen a colony," says langstroth, one of the fathers of modern apiculture, "that had not bees sufficient to cover a comb of three inches square, and yet endeavoured to rear a queen. for two whole weeks did they cherish this hope; finally, when their number was reduced by one-half, their queen was born, but her wings were imperfect, and she was unable to fly. impotent as she was, her bees did not treat her with the less respect. a week more, and there remained hardly a dozen bees; yet a few days, and the queen had vanished, leaving a few wretched, inconsolable insects upon the combs." there is another instance, and one that reveals most palpably the ultimate gesture of filial love and devotion. it arises from one of the extraordinary ordeals that our recent and tyrannical intervention inflicts on these hapless, unflinching heroines. i, in common with all amateur bee-keepers, have more than once had impregnated queens sent me from italy; for the italian species is more prolific, stronger, more active, and gentler than our own. it is the custom to forward them in small, perforated boxes. in these some food is placed, and the queen enclosed, together with a certain number of workers, selected as far as possible from among the oldest bees in the hive. (the age of the bee can be readily told by its body, which gradually becomes more polished, thinner, and almost bald; and more particularly by the wings, which hard work uses and tears.) it is their mission to feed the queen during the journey, to tend her and guard her. i would frequently find, when the box arrived, that nearly every one of the workers was dead. on one occasion, indeed, they had all perished of hunger; but in this instance as in all others the queen was alive, unharmed, and full of vigour; and the last of her companions had probably passed away in the act of presenting the last drop of honey she held in her sac to the queen, who was symbol of a life more precious, more vast than her own. {28} 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 contains: the admirable political sense, the passion for work, the perseverance, magnanimity, 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 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 accordance 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 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. {29} these conjectures may perhaps be regarded as exceedingly venturesome, and possibly also as unduly human. it may be urged that the bees, in all probability, 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 assumed by the necessities of life, the fear of suffering or death, and the attraction of pleasure. let it be so; look on it all as a figure of speech; it is a matter to which i attach no importance. the one thing certain here, as it is the one thing certain in all other cases, is that, under special circumstances, the bees will treat their queen in a special manner. the rest is all mystery, around which we only can weave more or less ingenious and pleasant conjecture. and yet, were we speaking of man in the manner wherein it were wise perhaps to speak of the bee, is there very much more we could say? he too yields only to necessity, the attraction of pleasure, and the fear of suffering; and what we call our intellect has the same origin and mission as what in animals we choose to term instinct. we do certain things, whose results we conceive to be known to us; other things happen, and we flatter ourselves that we are better equipped than animals can be to divine their cause; but, apart from the fact that this supposition rests on no very solid foundation, events of this nature are rare and infinitesimal, compared with the vast mass of others that elude comprehension; and all, the pettiest and the most sublime, the best known and the most inexplicable, the nearest and the most distant, come to pass in a night so profound that our blindness may well be almost as great as that we suppose in the bee. {30} "all must agree," remarks buffon, who has a somewhat amusing prejudice against the bee,--"all must agree that these flies, individually considered, possess 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 apparent intelligence derives only from their assembled multitude; nor does this union even argue intelligence, for it is governed by no moral considerations, it being without their consent that they find themselves gathered together. this society, therefore, is no more than a physical assemblage 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 compelled, for the mere purpose of existence, to contrive some form of arrangement; and, assuming that they had begun by injuring 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 movement; and from thence the gradation is easy to proclaiming them marvels, or monsters, of innumerable ideas. whereas the truth is that these ten thousand individuals, that have been produced simultaneously, that have lived together, and undergone metamorphosis at more or less the same time, cannot fail all to do the same thing, and are compelled, however slight the sentiment within them, to adopt common habits, to live in accord and union, to busy themselves with their dwelling, 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 almost 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 intelligence. and does not this intelligence appear the more remarkable to us as we more closely examine the fashion in which these "ten thousand individuals" avoid hurting each other, and end by giving assistance? 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 societies? 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 without abandoning this conjecture of ours, that at least has the advantage of connecting in our mind certain actions that have evident 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. when the queen has become completely 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 apiarists 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 protect 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. 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. {32} 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 suppressed around us. what are the bees to do when we, by force or by fraud, introduce a second queen into the city? it is probable that, in a state of nature, thanks to the sentinels at the gate, such an event has never occurred since they first came into the world. but this prodigious conjuncture does not scatter their wits; they still contrive to reconcile the two principles 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 exceptionally; the second is more curious still, and, although never transgressed, susceptible 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 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 infinite subdivision of the crime, to render it almost anonymous. they will, therefore, to use the picturesque expression of the apiarist, "ball" the queenly intruder; in other words, they will entirely surround her with their innumerable interlaced bodies. they will 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 of the queens appear anxious to make her escape, then, be she the legitimate sovereign 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 numerous 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 impartial 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. {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. remove 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 at once detect the imposture; the intruder will be seized, and immediately enclosed 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 unswerving 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 notwithstanding, in the desperate confusion that may follow one of these hazardous expedients, it is on the admirable good sense of the bee that man always, and almost empirically, relies; on the inexhaustible 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 untiring devotion with which they fulfil their duty. but the enumeration of such procedures belongs rather to technical treatises on apiculture, and would take us too far.* *the stranger queen is usually brought into the hive enclosed in a little cage, with iron wires, which is hung between two combs. the cage has a door made of wax and honey, which the workers, their anger over, proceed to gnaw, thus freeing the prisoner, whom they will often receive without any ill-will. mr. simmins, manager of the great apiary at rottingdean, has recently discovered another method of introducing 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 introduction a matter of so great difficulty. she is almost distracted, flies to and fro, hides, and generally comports 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, deceived by her assurance, do not examine her, but probably 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 investigators, 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 questions that deal with life, we can draw one conclusion only: that, till better obtain, curiosity still must rule in our heart. {34} as regards this personal affection of which we have spoken, there is one word more to be said. that such affection 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 represents 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 tragic and distant quest of love. this they will never do, however, if they be provided with a fragment of comb containing 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 instance, at times, that apiarists for various reasons will prevent the queen from joining 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 corpulent than her daughters, it offers an impassable barrier. the bees, when they find that the queen has not followed, will return to the hive, and scold the unfortunate prisoner, hustle and ill-treat her, accusing her of laziness, probably, or suspecting 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, particularly when we remember in how startling and supernatural a light our recent intervention 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 inability 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 thousands of years to invent a sufficiently plausible explanation for the thunderbolt? there is a certain feebleness that overwhelms 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 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 symmetrically piled; and in the case of the still more extraordinary innovation of foundation wax, where the cells are indicated 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 instance; an event, that, though occurring in nature, is still in itself wholly abnormal. 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 methodically 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 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 dimension as to prevent the passage of the nocturnal marauder's enormous abdomen. {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 captive 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 custodian. her people serve her and venerate her; but they never forget that it is not to her person that their homage is given, but to the mission that she fulfils, 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 democracy that offered an independence more perfect and rational, combined with a submission 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 suffering. 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 existence. the bees regard it as a great common duty, impartially distributed amongst them all, and tending towards a future that goes further and further back ever since the world began. and, for the sake of this future, each one renounces more than half of her rights and her joys. the queen bids farewell to freedom, the light of day, and the calyx of flowers; the workers give five or six years of their life, and shall never know love, or the joys of maternity. the queen's brain turns to pulp, that the reproductive organs may profit; in the workers these organs atrophy, to the benefit 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 elections take place every day in the golden shade of the hive. it is not chance that controls them, but a wisdom whose deep loyalty, gravity, and unsleeping watchfulness 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 enlarged. often they will be retained so long as the young queen have not accomplished, or succeeded in, her marriage flight,--to be at once annihilated when she returns, trailing behind her, trophy-wise, the infallible sign of her impregnation. who shall say where the wisdom resides that can thus balance present and future, and prefer what is not yet visible 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 elsewhere 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 perhaps have studied so closely the habits of this royal republic. it was enough to place under the microscope, as dujardin, brandt, girard, vogel, and other entomologists have done, the little uncouth and careworn head of the virgin worker side by side with the somewhat empty skull of the queen and the male's magnificent cranium, glistening with its twenty-six thousand eyes. within this tiny head we should find the workings of the vastest and most magnificent brain of the hive: the most beautiful and complex, 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 wisdom. and here again it is an almost invisible atom of this mysterious substance 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.* *the brain of the bee, according to the calculation of dujardin, constitutes the 1-174th part of the insect's weight, and that of the ant the 1-296th. on the other hand the peduncular parts, whose development 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 to result from these estimates--which are of course hypothetical, and deal with a matter that is exceedingly obscure--that the intellectual value of the bee and the ant must be more or less equal. {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, furious wings weave a tissue throbbing with sound. and this for some moments will quiver right over the hive, with prodigious rustle of gossamer silks that countless electrified hands might be ceaselessly rending and stitching; it floats undulating, it trembles and flutters like a veil of gladness invisible fingers support in the sky, and wave to and fro, from the flowers to the blue, expecting sublime advent or departure. 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 master's command, it steers its straight course, bending forward a little as though to hide in its folds the sacred presence of the future, towards the willow, the pear-tree, or lime whereon the queen has alighted; and round her each rhythmical wave comes to rest, as though on a nail of gold, and suspends its fabric of pearls and of luminous wings. 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 bewildering golden hail that streamed upon every object near--all these become merely a great, inoffensive, peaceful cluster of bees, composed of thousands of little motionless groups, that patiently wait, as they hang from the branch of a tree, for the scouts to return who have gone in search of a place of shelter. {38} this is the first stage of what is known as the "primary swarm" at whose head the old queen is always to be found. they will settle as a rule on the shrub or the tree that is nearest the hive; for the queen, besides being weighed down by her eggs, has dwelt in constant darkness ever since her marriage-flight, or the swarm of the previous year; and is naturally 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, having covered his head with a large straw hat (for the most inoffensive bee will conceive 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 precaution 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 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 holiday would seem to animate these mysterious 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 happiness, 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 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 maternal retreat. the majority will hasten to her, with utmost eagerness; but large numbers will pause for an instant on the threshold of the unknown abode, and there will describe the circles of solemn rejoicing with which it is their habit to celebrate happy events. "they are beating 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 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 until 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 spectacle that they present. we may regard it as probable, therefore, that most careful attention is given to the reports of the various scouts. one of them it may be, dwells on the advantage of some hollow tree it has seen; another is in favour of a crevice in a ruinous wall, of a cavity in a grotto, or an abandoned burrow. the assembly often will pause and deliberate until the following morning. then at last the choice is made, and approved by all. at a given moment the entire mass stirs, disunites, sets in motion, and then, in one sustained and impetuous flight, that this time knows no obstacle, it will steer its straight course, over hedges and cornfields, over haystack and lake, over river and village, to its determined and always distant goal. it is rarely indeed that this second stage can be followed by man. the swarm returns to nature; and we lose the track of its destiny. iii -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 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 120 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 precious 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 nothing; not a drop of honey, not a morsel of wax; neither guiding-mark nor point of support. there is only the dreary emptiness 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 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, become 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 descends 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 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 thousands of a terrible bowel-disease. the males alone are incurably careless, and will impudently bestrew the surface of the comb with their droppings, which the workers are obliged to sweep as they hasten behind them. the cleaning over, the bees of the profane 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 mysterious 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 calculation and industry our little people 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 scattering 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 contrived to all parts, and careful attention be given to the distribution of stores and houses, passages and streets,--this however is in some measure pre-established, the plan already arrived at being organically the best,--and there are countless 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 today. an edifice, this, that can contain more than three hundred pounds of honey, in three or four stories of superposed 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 restored to their place like a book in a well-ordered library. and one fine day the industry or caprice of man will install a docile swarm in one of these disconcerting abodes. and there the little insect is expected to learn its bearings, to find its way, to establish its home; to modify the seemingly unchangeable 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, horizontal gallery; and it finds itself now in a tower-shaped edifice, whose roof is lost in gloom. or, to take a case that is more usual, perhaps, and one that will give some idea of the surprise habitually 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 confused scaffolding of superposed frames, some running parallel to the entrance and some perpendicular; the whole forming a bewildering network that obscures the surfaces of their dwelling. 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 surroundings, except only in the case of the new dwelling being absolutely uninhabitable, or impregnated with evil odours. and even then the bees will not be disheartened or bewildered; even then they will not abandon their mission. the swarm will simply forsake the inhospitable 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 pyramid, 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 speaking 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 factories, bristling with frames, that we mentioned 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 advantage 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 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 deviation from the strictest vertical. proceeding 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 construct so great a profusion of dwellings and storehouses of shining wax. {43} this power of appropriation may well be considered to overstep the limit of instinct; and indeed there can be nothing more arbitrary than the distinction we draw between instinct and intelligence properly so-called. sir john lubbock, whose observations on ants, bees, and wasps are so interesting and so personal, is reluctant to credit the bee, from the moment it forsakes the routine of its habitual labour, with any power of discernment or reasoning. this attitude of his may be due in some measure to an unconscious 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 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 extricating 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 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 supernatural mystery they never have met with in nature; they have had no experience of this suddenly impenetrable atmosphere; and, the greater their intelligence, the more inadmissible, more incomprehensible, will the strange obstacle appear. whereas the featherbrained 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 the friendly opening that restores their liberty to them. the same naturalist cites yet another proof of the bees' lack of intelligence, and discovers it in the following quotation from the great american apiarist, the venerable and paternal langstroth:-"as the fly was not intended to banquet 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 infatuation until he has seen a confectioner's shop assailed by myriads of hungry bees. 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 windows 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 alcoholism, to a superhuman observer bent on establishing the limits of human understanding. indeed, less so, perhaps; for the situation of the bee, when compared with our own, is strange in this world. it was intended to live in the midst of an indifferent and unconscious nature, and not by the side of an extraordinary being who is forever disturbing the most constant laws, and producing grandiose, inexplicable phenomena. in the natural order of things, in the monotonous life of the forest, the madness langstroth describes would be possible only were some accident suddenly to destroy a hive full of honey. but in this case, even, there would be no fatal glass, no boiling sugar or cloying syrup; no death or danger, therefore, other than that to which every animal is exposed while seeking its prey. should we be more successful than they in preserving our presence of mind if some strange power were at every step to ensnare our reason? let us not be too hasty in condemning the bees for the folly whereof we are the authors, or in deriding 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 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 unreasonable, 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 dissimilar whose distinction escapes us as readily. and finally, to end this apology, wherein i seem somewhat to have fallen into the error i laid to sir john lubbock's charge, does not the capacity for folly so great in itself argue intelligence? for thus it is ever in the uncertain domain of the intellect, apparently the most vacillating 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 themselves 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 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 industry, their policy, their sacrifice, one thing exists that must always check and weaken our admiration; and this is the indifference with which they regard the misfortunes or death of their comrades. there is a strange duality in the character of the bee. in the heart of the hive all help and love each other. they are as united as the good thoughts that dwell in the same soul. wound one of them, and a thousand will sacrifice themselves to avenge its injury. but outside the hive they no longer recognise each other. mutilate them, crush them,--or rather, do nothing of the kind; it would be a useless cruelty, for the fact is established beyond any doubt,--but were you to mutilate, or crush, on a piece of comb placed a few steps from their dwelling, twenty or thirty bees that have all issued from the same hive, those you have left untouched will not even turn their heads. with their tongue, fantastic as a chinese weapon, they will tranquilly continue to absorb the liquid they hold more precious than life, heedless of the agony whose last gestures almost are touching them, of the cries of distress that arise all around. and when the comb is empty, so great is their anxiety that nothing shall be lost, that their eagerness to gather the honey which clings to the victims will induce 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, seeing that they are wholly untroubled by the death that is scattered about them, and they have not the slightest sense of solidarity 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 condescension and forbearance. they will avoid whatever disturbs them, and affect to ignore its existence, so long as it come not too close; as though aware that this universe 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 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 obstinacy, 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 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 blameworthy. 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? iv -the life of the bee {45} let us now, in order to form a clearer conception of the bees' intellectual power, proceed to consider their methods of inter-communication. there can be no doubting that they understand each other; and indeed it were surely impossible for a republic so considerable, wherein the labours are so varied and so marvellously combined, to subsist amid the silence and spiritual isolation of so many thousand creatures. they must be able, therefore, to give expression to thoughts and feelings, by means either of a phonetic vocabulary or more probably of some kind of tactile language or magnetic intuition, corresponding perhaps to senses and properties of matter wholly unknown to ourselves. and such intuition well might lodge in the mysterious antennae--containing, in the case of the workers, according to cheshire's calculation, twelve thousand tactile hairs and five thousand "smell-hollows," wherewith they probe and fathom the darkness. for the mutual understanding of the bees is not confined to their habitual labours; the extraordinary also has a name and place in their language; as is proved by the manner in which news, good or bad, normal or supernatural, will at once spread in the hive; the loss or return of the mother, for instance, the entrance of an enemy, the intrusion of a strange queen, the approach of a band of marauders, the discovery of treasure, etc. and so characteristic is their attitude, so essentially different their murmur at each of these special events, that the experienced apiarist can without difficulty tell what is troubling the crowd that moves distractedly to and fro in the shadow. if you desire a more definite proof, you have but to watch a bee that shall just have discovered a few drops of honey on your window-sill or the corner of your table. she will immediately gorge herself with it; and so eagerly, that you will have time, without fear of disturbing her, to mark her tiny belt with a touch of paint. but this gluttony of hers is all on the surface; the honey will not pass into the stomach proper, into what we might call her personal stomach, but remains in the sac, the first stomach,--that of the community, 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, will 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, disgorge her plunder into one of the provision-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 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 disappointment 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 wonderful. 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 embellishment it lies in our power to bestow, the fault must rest with ourselves who still are unable to perceive the astonishing 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 experiment, 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, whatever 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 discovery. the learned naturalist does not name the race of bees which he selected for his experiments, or tell us whether the conditions were especially unfavourable. as for myself i only can say that my own tables, compiled with great care,--and every possible precaution having been taken that the bees should not be directly attracted by the odour of the honey,--establish that on an average one bee will bring others four times out of ten. i even one day came across an extraordinary 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 interfering 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, counting 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 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 accompanied 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 experiments that the friends who appear to obey the behests of good fortune do not always fly together, and that there will often be an interval of several seconds between 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 treasure 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 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 expedient 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 definite and satisfactory conclusions. my study in the country is on the first floor, above a somewhat lofty room; sufficiently 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 attracted, or induced the visit of, a single bee. then i went to a glass hive that was close to the house, took an italian bee, brought her to my study, set her on the comb, and marked her while she was feeding. when satisfied, she flew away and returned 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 compartments. 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 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 evident that if a verbal or magnetic communication had passed, indicating the place, describing the way, etc., a certain number 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 prevented 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. we need not concern ourselves with this incomplete attempt of mine, for many other curious traits compel us to recognise the existence among the bees of spiritual communications that go beyond a mere "yes" or "no," and that are manifest in cases where mere example or gesture would not be sufficient. of such, for instance, are the remarkable harmony of their work in the hive, the extraordinary division of labour, the regularity with which one worker will take the place of another, etc. i have often marked bees that went foraging in the morning, and found that, in the afternoon, unless flowers were specially abundant, they would be engaged in heating and fanning the brood-cells, or perhaps would form part of the mysterious, motionless curtain in whose midst the wax-makers and sculptors would be at work. similarly i have noticed that workers whom i have seen gathering 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." whereupon the bees must organise quickly, and arrange to divide the work. five thousand of the sturdiest will sully 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 accordance 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 locality, the relative melliferous value, and the distance of every melliferous plant within a certain radius from the hive. "if we carefully note the different directions 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 possible wealth of saccharine liquid. in the spring, for instance, after the willows have bloomed, when the fields still are bare, and the first flowers of the woods are the one resource of the bees, we shall see them eagerly visiting gorse and violets, lungworts and anemones. but, a few days later, when fields of cabbage and colza begin to flower in sufficient abundance, we shall find that the bees will almost entirely forsake the plants in the woods, though these be still in full blossom, and will confine 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 greatest 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 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 considerable. 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 endeavour to understand the intellect of the bees, we are studying in them that which is most precious in our own substance: an atom of the extraordinary matter which possesses, wherever it attach itself, the magnificent power of transfiguring blind necessity, of organising, embellishing, and multiplying life; and, most striking of all, of holding in suspense the obstinate force of death, and the mighty, irresponsible wave that 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 incandescence, we term the intellect, we should to some extent be entitled to look on ourselves as privileged beings, and to imagine that in us nature achieved some kind of aim; but here we discover, in the hymenoptera, 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 honourable place in the mass of tiny facts that help to throw light on our position in this world. it affords even, if considered from a certain point of view, a fresh proof of the most enigmatic part of our being; for the superpositions of destinies that we find in the hive are surveyed by us from an eminence loftier than any we can attain 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, evolution 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 nature; 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? {50} let us go on, then, with the story of our hive; let us take it up where we left it; and raise, as high as we may, a fold of the festooned curtain in whose midst a strange sweat, white as snow and airier than the down of a wing, is beginning to break over the swarm. for the wax that is now being born is not like the wax that we know; it is immaculate, it has no weight; seeming truly to be the soul of the honey, that itself is the spirit of flowers. and this motionless incantation has called it forth that it may serve us, later--in memory of its origin, doubtless, wherein it is one with the azure sky, and heavy with perfumes of magnificence and purity--as the fragrant light of the last of our altars. {51} to follow the various phases of the secretion and employment of wax by a swarm that is beginning to build, is a matter of very great difficulty. all comes to pass in the blackest depths of the crowd, whose agglomeration, growing denser and denser, produces the temperature 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 confine myself generally to relating what is 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 extending from eighteen to twenty-four hours, in a temperature so high that one might almost believe that a fire was burning 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 pinnacle of the cupola. to this she will fix herself solidly, dislodging, with repeated 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 substance, thus treated, appears to her to possess the required dimensions and consistency, 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, hanging down from the sky, and not rising from the bosom of earth like a city of men. to this keystone, depending in the 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. another 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 completing the work, but each bringing her share to the task in which all combine. {52} 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 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 herself and is content to deal with the materials others provide. she locates the first cell, scoops into the block for an instant, lays the wax she has removed from the cavity on the borders around it; and then, like the foundresses, abruptly departs 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 attacking the rest of the surface and the opposite side of the wall; each one obeying 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 thickness 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 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 hundredths 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 difficulty. they will often leave too much 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 subject, "and herein we may find yet another fact which appears to prove that they reason." {54} we know that the bees construct four kinds of cells. first of all, the royal cells, which are exceptional, and contrived somewhat in the shape of an acorn; then the large cells destined for the rearing of males and storing of provisions when flowers super-abound; and the small cells, serving as workers' cradles and ordinary store-rooms, which occupy normally about four-fifths of the built-over surface of the 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.* *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. each of the cells is an hexagonal tube 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 prismatic 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 horizontal as they appear to be,--the bees incline them slightly, to an angle of 4 deg or 5 deg. "besides the economy of wax," says reaumur, when considering this marvellous construction in its entirety, "besides the economy of wax that results from the disposition of the cells, and the fact that this arrangement allows the bees to fill the comb without leaving a single spot vacant, 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 triangles, 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 outwards; 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." {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 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 possible saving, or the least expense of material and labour.* this is one of the problems which belong to the higher parts of mathematics. it has accordingly been resolved by some mathematicians, particularly by the ingenious maclaurin, by a fluctionary calculation which is to be found in the transactions of the royal society of london. he has determined precisely the angle required, and he found, by the most exact mensuration the subject would admit, that it is the very angle in which the three planes at the bottom of the cell of a honey comb do actually meet." *reaumur suggested the following problem to the celebrated mathematician koenig: "of all possible hexagonal cells with pyramidal base composed of three equal and similar rhombs, to find the one whose construction would need the least material." koenig's answer was, the cell that had for its base three rhombs whose large angle was 109 deg 26', and the small 70 deg 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 deg 28', and the other 70 deg 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 another mathematician, cramer, whose solution came even closer to that of the bees, viz., 109 deg 28 1/2' for the large angle, and 70 deg 31 1/2' for the small. {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 results can be due to chance alone, or to the mere force of circumstance. the wasps, for instance, also build combs with hexagonal 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 wastefully constructed that, besides loss of material, 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 veritable and domesticated bees, though of less advanced civilisation, erect only one row of rearing-cells, and support their horizontal, superposed combs on shapeless and costly columns of wax. their provision-cells are merely great pots, gathered together 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, result 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 propounded by buffon and now revived, which assumes that the bees have not the least intention of constructing hexagons with a pyramidal base, but that their 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 moment and with the same intentions, the points where the cells meet must of necessity become hexagonal. besides, it is said, this is precisely what happens to crystals, the scales of certain kinds of fish, soap-bubbles, etc., as it happens in the following experiment that buffon suggested. "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 carefully and then boil the water, you will find that all these cylinders have become six-sided columns. and the reason is evident, being indeed purely mechanical; each of the cylindrical beans tends, as it swells, to occupy the utmost possible space within a given space; wherefore it follows that the reciprocal compression compels them all to become hexagonal. similarly each bee seeks to occupy the utmost possible space within a given space, with the necessary result that, its body being cylindrical, the cells become hexagonal for the same reason as before, viz., the working of reciprocal obstacles." {58} these reciprocal obstacles, it would seem, are capable of marvellous achievement; 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 reason that in both cases the pressure produces only irregular forms, and in no wise explains the existence of the prismatic base of the cells. but above all we might answer that there are more ways than one of dealing with rigid necessity; that the wasp, the humble-bee, the trigonae and meliponae of mexico and brazil achieve very different and manifestly inferior results, although the circumstances, 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 inclination, obeys many other laws that are not to be found in matter. may we not say, too, of man that all his genius is comprised in his fashion of handling kindred necessities? and if it appear to us that his manner of treating these is the best there can possibly be, the reason only can lie in the absence of a judge superior to ourselves. but it is well that argument 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 hexagonal 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 bending or twisting it. then i replaced the slice of comb, duly furnished with its 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 examine this curious chasm; day after day they wandered agitatedly to and fro, apparently 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, distinguished sculptors, and wax-workers, and invited them to turn this useless cavity to profitable account. the wax-makers having gathered around and formed themselves into a dense festoon, so that the necessary heat might be maintained, other bees descended into the hole and proceeded solidly to attach the metal, and connect it with the walls of adjacent cells, by means of little waxen hooks which they distributed regularly over its surface. in the upper semicircle of the disc they then began to construct three or four cells, uniting these to the hooks. each of these transition, or accommodation, cells was more or less deformed at the top, to allow of its being soldered to the adjoining cell on the comb; but its lower portion already designed on the tin three very clear angles, whence there ran three little straight lines that correctly indicated the first half of the following cell. after forty-eight hours, and notwithstanding the fact that only three bees at a time were able to work in the cavity, the entire surface of the tin was covered with outlined cells. these were less regular, certainly, than those of an ordinary comb; wherefore the queen, having inspected them, wisely declined to lay any eggs there, for the generation that would have arisen therefrom would necessarily have been deformed. each cell, however, was a perfect hexagon; nor did it contain a single crooked line, a single curved figure or angle. and yet the ordinary conditions had all been changed; the cells had neither been scooped out of a block, according to huber's description, nor had they been designed within a waxen hood, and, from being circular at first, been subsequently converted into hexagons by the pressure of adjoining cells, as explained by darwin. neither could there be question here of reciprocal obstacles, the cells having been formed one by one, and their first lines traced on what practically was a bare table. it would seem incontestable, therefore, that the hexagon is not merely the result of mechanical necessities, but that it has its true place in the plans, the experience, the intellect and will of the bee. i may relate here another curious instance of the workers' sagacity: the cells they built on the tin had no other base than the metal itself. the engineers of the corps had evidently decided that the tin could adequately retain the honey; and had considered that, the substance being impermeable, they need not waste the material they value so highly by covering the metal with a layer of wax. but, a short time after, some drops of honey having been placed in two of these cells, the bees discovered, in tasting it, that the contact of the metal had a deteriorating effect. thereupon they reconsidered the matter, and covered over with wax the entire surface of the tin. {59} were it our desire to throw light upon all the secrets of this geometric architecture, we should have more than one curious question still to consider; as for instance the shape of the first cells, which, being attached to the roof, are modified in such a manner as to touch the roof at the greatest possible number of points. the design of the principal thoroughfares is determined by the parallelism of the combs; but we must admire the ingenious construction of alleys and gangways through and around the comb, so skilfully contrived as to provide short cuts in every direction and prevent congestion of traffic, while ensuring free circulation of air. and finally we should have to study the construction of transition cells, wherein we see a unanimous instinct at work that impels the bees at a given moment to increase the size of their dwellings. three reasons may dictate this step: an extraordinary harvest may call for larger receptacles, the workers may consider the population to be sufficiently numerous, or it may have become necessary that males should be born. nor can we in such cases refrain from wondering at the ingenious economy, the unerring, harmonious conviction, with which the bees will pass from the small to the large, from the large to the small; from perfect symmetry to, where unavoidable, its very reverse, returning to ideal regularity so soon as the laws of a live geometry will allow; and all the time not losing a cell, not suffering a single one of their numerous structures to be sacrificed, to be ridiculous, uncertain, or barbarous, or any section thereof to become unfit for use. but i fear that i have already wandered into many details that will have but slender interest for the reader, whose eyes perhaps may never have followed a flight of bees; or who may have regarded them only with the passing interest with which we are all of us apt to regard the flower, the bird or the precious stone, asking of these no more than a slight superficial assurance, and forgetting that the most trivial secret of the non-human object we behold in nature connects more closely perhaps with the profound enigma of our origin and our end, than the secret of those of our passions that we study the most eagerly and the most passionately. {60} and i will pass over too--in my desire that this essay shall not become too didactic--the remarkable instinct that induces the bees at times to thin and demolish the extremity of their combs, when these are to be enlarged or lengthened; though it must be admitted that in this case the "blind building instinct" fails signally to account for their demolishing in order that they may rebuild, or undoing what has been done that it may be done afresh, and with more regularity. i will content myself also with a mere reference to the remarkable experiment that enables us, with the aid of a piece of glass, to compel the bees to start their combs at a right angle; when they most ingeniously contrive that the enlarged cells on the convex side shall coincide with the reduced cells on the concave side of the comb. but before finally quitting this subject let us pause, though it be but for an instant, and consider the mysterious fashion in which they manage to act in concert and combine their labour, when simultaneously carving two opposite sides of a comb, and unable therefore to see each other. take a finished comb to the light, fix your eyes on the diaphanous wax; you will see, most clearly designed, an entire network of sharply cut prisms, a whole system of concordances so infallible that one might almost believe them to be stamped on steel. i wonder whether those who never have seen the interior of a hive can form an adequate conception of the arrangement and aspect of the combs. let them imagine--we will take a peasant's hive, where the bee is left entirely to its own resources--let them imagine a dome of straw or osier, divided from top to bottom by five, six, eight, sometimes ten, strips of wax, resembling somewhat great slices of bread, that run in strictly parallel lines from the top of the dome to the floor, espousing closely the shape of the ovoid walls. between these strips is contrived a space of about half an inch, to enable the bees to stand and to pass each other. at the moment when they begin to construct one of these strips at the top of the hive, the waxen wall (which is its rough model, and will later be thinned and extended) is still very thick, and completely excludes the fifty or sixty bees at work on its inner face from the fifty or sixty simultaneously engaged in carving the outer, so that it is wholly impossible for one group to see the other, unless indeed their sight be able to penetrate opaque matter. and yet there is not a hole that is scooped on the inner surface, not a fragment of wax that is added, but corresponds with mathematical precision to a protuberance or cavity on the outer surface, and vice versa. how does this happen? how is it that one does not dig too deep, another not deep enough? whence the invariable magical coincidence between the angles of the lozenges? what is it tells the bees that at this point they must begin, and at that point stop? once again we must content ourselves with the reply, that is no reply: "it is a mystery of the hive." huber has sought to explain this mystery by suggesting that the pressure of the bees' hooks and teeth may possibly produce slight projections, at regular intervals, on the opposite side of the comb; or that they may be able to estimate the thickness of the block by the flexibility, elasticity, or some other physical quality of the wax; or again, that their antennae, which seem so well adapted for the questioning of the finer, less evident side of things, may serve as a compass in the invisible; or, lastly, that the position of every cell may derive mathematically from the arrangement and dimensions of the cells on the first row, and thus dispense with the need for further measurement. but these explanations are evidently insufficient; the first are mere hypotheses that cannot be verified, the others do no more than transplant the mystery. and useful as it may be to transplant mystery as often as we possibly can, it were not wise to imagine that a mystery has ceased to be because we have shifted its home. {61} now let us leave these dreary building grounds, this geometrical desert of cells. the combs have been started, and are becoming habitable. though it be here the infinitely little that, without apparent hope, adds itself to the infinitely little; though our eye with its limited vision look and see nothing, the work of wax, halting neither by day nor by night, will advance with incredible quickness. the impatient queen already has more than once paced the stockades that gleam white in the darkness; and no sooner is the first row of dwellings complete than she takes possession with her escort of counsellors, guardians, or servants--for we know not whether she lead or be led, be venerated or supervised. when the spot has been reached that she, or her urgent advisers, may regard as favourable, she arches her back, bends forward, and introduces the extremity of her long spindle-shaped abdomen into one of the cells; the-little eager heads of her escort meanwhile forming a passionate circle around her, watching her with their enormous black eyes, supporting her, caressing her wings, and waving their feverish antennae as though to encourage, incite, or congratulate. you may easily discover the spot where the queen shall be found by the sort of starry cockade, or oval brooch perhaps of the imposing kind our grandmothers used to wear, of which she forms the central stone. and one may mention here the curious fact that the workers always avoid turning their back on the queen. no sooner has she approached a group than they will invariably arrange themselves so as to face her with eyes and antennae, and to walk backwards before her. it is a token of respect, or of solicitude, that, unlikely as it may seem, is nevertheless constant and general. but to return to the queen. during the slight spasm that visibly accompanies the emission of an egg, one of her daughters will often throw her arms round her and appear to be whispering to her, brow pressed to brow and mouth to mouth. but the queen, in no wise disturbed by this somewhat bold demonstration, takes her time, tranquilly, calmly, wholly absorbed by the mission that would seem amorous delight to her rather than labour. and after some seconds she will rise, very quietly, take a step back, execute a slight turn on herself, and proceed to the next cell, into which she will first, before introducing her abdomen, dip her head to make sure that all is in order and that she is not laying twice in the same cell; and in the meanwhile two or three of her escort will have plunged into the cell she has quitted to see whether the work be duly accomplished, and to care for, and tenderly house, the little bluish egg she has laid. from this moment, up to the first frosts of autumn, she does not cease laying; she lays while she is being fed, and even in her sleep, if indeed she sleeps at all, she still lays. she represents henceforth the devouring force of the future, which invades every corner of the kingdom. step by step she pursues the unfortunate workers who are exhaustedly, feverishly erecting the cradles her fecundity demands. we have here the union of two mighty instincts; and their workings throw into light, though they leave unresolved, many an enigma of the hive. it will happen, for instance, that the workers will distance her, and acquire a certain start; whereupon, mindful of their duties as careful housewives to provide for the bad days ahead, they hasten to fill with honey the cells they have wrested from the avidity of the species. but the queen approaches; material wealth must give way to the scheme of nature; and the distracted workers are compelled with all speed to remove the importunate treasure. but assume them to be a whole comb ahead, and to have no longer before them her who stands for the tyranny of days they shall none of them see; we find then that they eagerly, hurriedly, build a zone of large cells, cells for males; whose construction is very much easier, and far more rapid. when the queen in her turn attains this unthankful zone, she will regretfully lay a few eggs there, then cease, pass beyond, and clamour for more workers' cells. her daughters obey; little by little they reduce the cells; and then the pursuit starts afresh, till at last the insatiable mother shall have traversed the whole circumference of the hive, and have returned to the first cells. these, by this time, will be empty; for the first generation will have sprung into life, soon to go forth, from their shadowy corner of birth, disperse over the neighbouring blossoms, people the rays of the sun and quicken the smiling hours; and then sacrifice themselves in their turn to the new generations that are already filling their place in the cradles. {62} and whom does the queen-bee obey? she is ruled by nourishment given her; for she does not take her own food, but is fed like a child by the very workers whom her fecundity harasses. and the food these workers deal out is nicely proportioned to the abundance of flowers, to the spoil brought back by those who visit the calyces. here, then, as everywhere else in the world, one part of the circle is wrapped in darkness; here, as everywhere, it is from without, from an unknown power, that the supreme order issues; and the bees, like ourselves, obey the nameless lord of the wheel that incessantly turns on itself, and crushes the wills that have set it in motion. some little time back, i conducted a friend to one of my hives of glass, and showed him the movements of this wheel, which was as readily perceptible as the great wheel of a clock; showed him, in all its bareness, the universal agitation on every comb, the perpetual, frantic, bewildered haste of the nurses around the brood-cells; the living gangways and ladders formed by the makers of wax, the abounding, unceasing activity of the entire population, and their pitiless, useless effort; the ardent, feverish coming and going of all, the general absence of sleep save in the cradles alone, around which continuous labour kept watch; the denial of even the repose of death in a home which permits no illness and accords no grave; and my friend, his astonishment over, soon turned his eyes away, and in them i could read the signs of i know not what saddened fear. and truly, underlying the gladness that we note first of all in the hive, underlying the dazzling memories of beautiful days that render it the storehouse of summer's most precious jewels, underlying the blissful journeys that knit it so close to the flowers and to running water, to the sky, to the peaceful abundance of all that makes for beauty and happiness--underlying all these exterior joys, there reposes a sadness as deep as the eye of man can behold. and we, who dimly gaze on these things with our own blind eyes, we know full well that it is not they alone that we are striving to see, not they alone that we cannot understand, but that before us there lies a pitiable form of the great power that quickens us also. sad let it be, as all things in nature are sad, when our eyes rest too closely upon them. and thus it ever shall be so long as we know not her secret, know not even whether secret truly there be. and should we discover some day that there is no secret, or that the secret is monstrous, other duties will then arise that, as yet, perhaps, have no name. let our heart, if it will, in the meanwhile repeat, "it is sad;" but let our reason be content to add, "thus it is." at the present hour the duty before us is to seek out that which perhaps may be hiding behind these sorrows; and, urged on by this endeavour, we must not turn our eyes away, but steadily, fixedly, watch these sorrows and study them, with a courage and interest as keen as though they were joys. it is right that before we judge nature, before we complain, we should at least ask every question that we can possibly ask. {63} we have seen that the workers, when free for the moment from the threatening fecundity of the queen, hasten to erect cells for provisions, whose construction is more economical and capacity greater. we have seen, too, that the queen prefers to lay in the smaller cells, for which she is incessantly clamouring. when these are wanting, however, or till they be provided, she resigns herself to laying her eggs in the large cells she finds on her road. these eggs, though absolutely identical with those from which workers are hatched, will give birth to males, or drones. now, conversely to what takes place when a worker is turned into queen, it is here neither the form nor the capacity of the cell that produces this change; for from an egg laid in a large cell and afterwards transferred to that of a worker (a most difficult operation, because of the microscopic minuteness and extreme fragility of the egg, but one that i have four or five times successfully accomplished) there will issue an undeniable male, though more or less atrophied. it follows, therefore, that the queen must possess the power, while laying, of knowing or determining the sex of the egg, and of adapting it to the cell over which she is bending. she will rarely make a mistake. how does she contrive, from among the myriad eggs her ovaries contain, to separate male from female, and lower them, at will, into the unique oviduct? here, yet again, there confronts us an enigma of the hive; and in this case one of the most unfathomable. we know that the virgin queen is not sterile; but the eggs that she lays will produce only males. it is not till after the impregnation of the nuptial flight that she can produce workers or drones at will. the nuptial flight places her permanently in possession, till death, of the spermatozoa torn from her unfortunate lover. these spermatozoa, whose number dr. leuckart estimates at twenty-five millions, are preserved alive in a special gland known as the spermatheca, that is situate under the ovaries, at the entrance to the common oviduct. it is imagined that the narrow aperture of the smaller cells, and the manner in which the form of this aperture compels the queen to bend forward, exercise a certain pressure upon the spermatheca, in consequence of which the spermatozoa spring forth and fecundate the egg as it passes. in the large cells this pressure would not take place, and the spermatheca would therefore not open. others, again, believe that the queen has perfect control over the muscles that open and close the spermatheca on the vagina; and these muscles are certainly very numerous, complex, and powerful. for myself, i incline to the second of these hypotheses, though i do not for a moment pretend to decide which is the more correct; for indeed, the further we go and the more closely we study, the more plainly is it brought home to us that we merely are waifs shipwrecked on the ocean of nature; and ever and anon, from a sudden wave that shall be more transparent than others, there leaps forth a fact that in an instant confounds all we imagined we knew. but the reason of my preferring the second theory is that, for one thing, the experiments of a bordeaux bee-keeper, m. drory, have shown that in cases where all the large cells have been removed from the hive, the mother will not hesitate, when the moment for laying male eggs has come, to deposit these in workers' cells; and that, inversely, she will lay workers' eggs in cells provided for males, if she have no others at her disposal. and, further, we learn from the interesting observations of m. fabre on the osmiae, which are wild and olitary bees of the gastrilegidae family, that not only does the osmia know in advance the sex of the egg she will lay, but that this sex is "optional for the mother, who decides it in accordance with the space of which she disposes; this space being often governed by chance and not to be modified; and she will deposit a male egg here and a female there." i shall not enter into the details of the great french entomologist's experiments, for they are exceedingly minute, and would take us too far. but whichever be the hypothesis we prefer to accept, either will serve to explain the queen's inclination to lay her eggs in workers' cells, without it being necessary to credit her with the least concern for the future. it is not impossible that this slave-mother, whom we are inclined to pity, may be indeed a great amorist, a great voluptuary, deriving a certain enjoyment, an after-taste, as it were, of her one marriage-flight, from the union of the male and female principle that thus comes to pass in her being. here again nature, never so ingenious, so cunningly prudent and diverse, as when contriving her snares of love, will not have failed to provide a certain pleasure as a bait in the interest of the species. and yet let us pause for a moment, and not become the dupes of our own explanation. for indeed, to attribute an idea of this kind to nature, and regard that as sufficient, is like flinging a stone into an unfathomable gulf we may find in the depths of a grotto, and imagining that the sounds it creates as it falls shall answer our every question, or reveal to us aught beside the immensity of the abyss. when we say to ourselves, "this thing is of nature's devising; she has ordained this marvel; those are her desires that we see before us!" the fact is merely that our special attention has been drawn to some tiny manifestation of life upon the boundless surface of matter that we deem inactive, and choose to describe, with evident inaccuracy, as nothingness and death. a purely fortuitous chain of events has allowed this special manifestation to attract our attention; but a thousand others, no less interesting, perhaps, and informed with no less intelligence, have vanished, not meeting with a like good-fortune, and have lost for ever the chance of exciting our wonder. it were rash to affirm aught beside; and all that remains, our reflections, our obstinate search for the final cause, our admiration and hopes--all these in truth are no more than our feeble cry as, in the depths of the unknown, we clash against what is more unknowable still; and this feeble cry declares the highest degree of individual existence attainable for us on this mute and impenetrable surface, even as the flight of the condor, the song of the nightingale, reveal to them the highest degree of existence their species allows. but the evocation of this feeble cry, whenever opportunity offers, is none the less one of our most unmistakable duties; nor should we let ourselves be discouraged by its apparent futility. v -the young queens {64} here let us close our hive, where we find that life is reassuming its circular movement, is extending and multiplying, to be again divided as soon as it shall attain the fulness of its happiness and strength; and let us for the last time reopen the mother-city, and see what is happening there after the departure of the swarm. the tumult having subsided, the hapless city, that two thirds of her children have abandoned for ever, becomes feeble, empty, moribund; like a body from which the blood has been drained. some thousands of bees have remained, however; and these, though a trifle languid perhaps, are still immovably faithful to the duty a precise destiny has laid upon them, still conscious of the part that they have themselves to play; they resume their labours, therefore, fill as best they can the place of those who have gone, remove all trace of the orgy, carefully house the provisions that have escaped pillage, sally forth to the flowers again, and keep scrupulous guard over the hostages of the future. and for all that the moment may appear gloomy, hope abounds wherever the eye may turn. we might be in one of the castles of german legend, whose walls are composed of myriad phials containing the souls of men about to be born. for we are in the abode of life that goes before life. on all sides, asleep in their closely sealed cradles, in this infinite superposition of marvellous six-sided cells, lie thousands of nymphs, whiter than milk, who with folded arms and head bent forward await the hour of awakening. in their uniform tombs, that, isolated, become nearly transparent, they seem almost like hoary gnomes, lost in deep thought, or legions of virgins whom the folds of the shroud have contorted, who are buried in hexagonal prisms that some inflexible geometrician has multiplied to the verge of delirium. over the entire area that the vertical walls enclose, and in the midst of this growing world that so soon shall transform itself, that shall four or five times in succession assume fresh vestments, and then spin its own winding-sheet in the shadow, hundreds of workers are dancing and flapping their wings. they appear thus to generate the necessary heat, and accomplish some other object besides that is still more obscure; for this dance of theirs contains some extraordinary movements, so methodically conceived that they must infallibly answer some purpose which no observer has as yet, i believe, been able to divine. a few days more, and the lids of these myriad urns--whereof a considerable hive will contain from sixty to eighty thousand--will break, and two large and earnest black eyes will appear, surmounted by antennae that already are groping at life, while active jaws are busily engaged in enlarging the opening from within. the nurses at once come running; they help the young bee to emerge from her prison, they clean her and brush her, and at the tip of their tongue present the first honey of the new life. but the bee, that has come from another world, is bewildered still, trembling and pale; she wears the feeble look of a little old man who might have escaped from his tomb, or perhaps of a traveller strewn with the powdery dust of the ways that lead unto life. she is perfect, however, from head to foot; she knows at once all that has to be known; and, like the children of the people, who learn, as it were, at their birth, that for them there shall never be time to play or to laugh, she instantly makes her way to the cells that are closed, and proceeds to beat her wings and to dance in cadence, so that she in her turn may quicken her buried sisters; nor does she for one instant pause to decipher the astounding enigma of her destiny, or her race. {65} the most arduous labours will, however, at first be spared her. a week must elapse from the day of her birth before she will quit the hive; she will then perform her first "cleansing flight," and absorb the air into her tracheae, which, filling, expand her body, and proclaim her the bride of space. thereupon she returns to the hive, and waits yet one week more; and then, with her sisters born the same day as herself, she will for the first time set forth to visit the flowers. a special emotion now will lay hold of her; one that french apiarists term the "soleil d'artifice," but which might more rightly perhaps be called the "sun of disquiet." for it is evident that the bees are afraid, that these daughters of the crowd, of secluded darkness, shrink from the vault of blue, from the infinite loneliness of the light; and their joy is halting, and woven of terror. they cross the threshold and pause; they depart, they return, twenty times. they hover aloft in the air, their head persistently turned to the home; they describe great soaring circles that suddenly sink beneath the weight of regret; and their thirteen thousand eyes will question, reflect, and retain the trees and the fountain, the gate and the walls, the neighbouring windows and houses, till at last the aerial course whereon their return shall glide have become as indelibly stamped in their memory as though it were marked in space by two lines of steel. {66} a new mystery confronts us here, which we shall do well to challenge; for though it reply not, its silence still will extend the field of our conscious ignorance, which is the most fertile of all that our activity knows. how do the bees contrive to find their way back to the hive that they cannot possibly see, that is hidden, perhaps, by the trees, that in any event must form an imperceptible point in space? how is it that if taken in a box to a spot two or three miles from their home, they will almost invariably succeed in finding their way back? do obstacles offer no barrier to their sight; do they guide themselves by certain indications and landmarks; or do they possess that peculiar, imperfectly understood sense that we ascribe to the swallows and pigeons, for instance, and term the "sense of direction"? the experiments of j. h. fabre, of lubbock, and, above all, of romanes (nature, 29 oct. 1886) seem to establish that it is not this strange instinct that guides them. i have, on the other hand, more than once noticed that they appear to pay no attention to the colour or form of the hive. they are attracted rather by the ordinary appearance of the platform on which their home reposes, by the position of the entrance, and of the alighting-board. but this even is merely subsidiary; were the front of the hive to be altered from top to bottom, during the workers' absence, they would still unhesitatingly direct their course to it from out the far depths of the horizon; and only when confronted by the unrecognisable threshold would they seem for one instant to pause. such experiments as lie in our power point rather to their guiding themselves by an extraordinarily minute and precise appreciation of landmarks. it is not the hive that they seem to remember, but its position, calculated to the minutest fraction, in its relation to neighbouring objects. and so marvellous is this appreciation, so mathematically certain, so profoundly inscribed in their memory, that if, after five months' hibernation in some obscure cellar, the hive, when replaced on the platform, should be set a little to right or to left of its former position, all the workers, on their return from the earliest flowers, will infallibly steer their direct and unwavering course to the precise spot that it filled the previous year; and only after some hesitation and groping will they discover the door which stands not now where it once had stood. it is as though space had preciously preserved, the whole winter through, the indelible track of their flight: as though the print of their tiny, laborious footsteps, still lay graven in the sky. if the hive be displaced, therefore, many bees will lose their way; except in the case of their having been carried far from their former home, and finding the country completely transformed that they had grown to know perfectly within a radius of two or three miles; for then, if care be taken to warn them, by means of a little gangway connecting with the alighting-board, at the entrance to the hive, that some change has occurred, they will at once proceed to seek new bearings and create fresh landmarks. {67} and now let us return to the city that is being repeopled, where myriad cradles are incessantly opening, and the solid walls even appear to be moving. but this city still lacks a queen. seven or eight curious structures arise from the centre of one of the combs, and remind us, scattered as they are over the surface of the ordinary cells, of the circles and protuberances that appear so strange on the photographs of the moon. they are a species of capsule, contrived of wrinkled wax or of inclined glands, hermetically sealed, which fills the place of three or four workers' cells. as a rule, they are grouped around the same point; and a numerous guard keep watch, with singular vigilance and restlessness, over this region that seems instinct with an indescribable prestige. it is here that the mothers are formed. in each one of these capsules, before the swarm departs, an egg will be placed by the mother, or more probably--though as to this we have no certain knowledge--by one of the workers; an egg that she will have taken from some neighbouring cell, and that is absolutely identical with those from which workers are hatched. from this egg, after three days, a small larva will issue, and receive a special and very abundant nourishment; and henceforth we are able to follow, step by step, the movements of one of those magnificently vulgar methods of nature on which, were we dealing with men, we should bestow the august name of fatality. the little larva, thanks to this regimen, assumes an exceptional development; and in its ideas, no less than in its body, there ensues so considerable a change that the bee to which it will give birth might almost belong to an entirely different race of insects. four or five years will be the period of her life, instead of the six or seven weeks of the ordinary worker. her abdomen will be twice as long, her colour more golden, and clearer; her sting will be curved, and her eyes have seven or eight thousand facets instead of twelve or thirteen thousand. her brain will be smaller, but she will possess enormous ovaries, and a special organ besides, the spermatheca, that will render her almost an hermaphrodite. none of the instincts will be hers that belong to a life of toil; she will have no brushes, no pockets wherein to secrete the wax, no baskets to gather the pollen. the habits, the passions, that we regard as inherent in the bee, will all be lacking in her. she will not crave for air, or the light of the sun; she will die without even once having tasted a flower. her existence will pass in the shadow, in the midst of a restless throng; her sole occupation the indefatigable search for cradles that she must fill. on the other hand she alone will know the disquiet of love. not even twice, it may be, in her life shall she look on the light--for the departure of the swarm is by no means inevitable; on one occasion only, perhaps, will she make use of her wings, but then it will be to fly to her lover. it is strange to see so many things--organs, ideas, desires, habits, an entire destiny--depending, not on a germ, which were the ordinary miracle of the plant, the animal, and man, but on a curious inert substance: a drop of honey.* *it is generally admitted to-day that workers and queens, after the hatching of the egg, receive the same nourishment,--a kind of milk, very rich in nitrogen, that a special gland in the nurses' head secretes. but after a few days the worker larvae are weaned, and put on a coarser diet of honey and pollen; whereas the future queen, until she be fully developed, is copiously fed on the precious milk known as "royal jelly." {68} about a week has passed since the departure of the old queen. the royal nymphs asleep in the capsules are not all of the same age, for it is to the interest of the bees that the births should be nicely gradationed, and take place at regular intervals, in accordance with their possible desire for a second swarm, a third, or even a fourth. the workers have for some hours now been actively thinning the walls of the ripest cell, while the young queen, from within, has been simultaneously gnawing the rounded lid of her prison. and at last her head appears; she thrusts herself forward; and, with the help of the guardians who hasten eagerly to her, who brush her, caress her, and clean her, she extricates herself altogether and takes her first steps on the comb. at the moment of birth she too, like the workers, is trembling and pale, but after ten minutes or so her legs become stronger, and a strange restlessness seizes her; she feels that she is not alone, that her kingdom has yet to be conquered, that close by pretenders are hiding; and she eagerly paces the waxen walls in search of her rivals. but there intervene here the mysterious decisions and wisdom of instinct, of the spirit of the hive, or of the assembly of workers. the most surprising feature of all, as we watch these things happening before us in a hive of glass, is the entire absence of hesitation, of the slightest division of opinion. there is not a trace of discussion or discord. the atmosphere of the city is one of absolute unanimity, preordained, which reigns over all; and every one of the bees would appear to know in advance the thought of her sisters. and yet this moment is the gravest, the most vital, in their entire history. they have to choose between three or four courses whose results, in the distant future, will be totally different; which, too, the slightest accident may render disastrous. they have to reconcile the multiplication of species--which is their passion, or innate duty--with the preservation of the hive and its people. they will err at times; they will successively send forth three or four swarms, thereby completely denuding the mother-city; and these swarms, too feeble to organise, will succumb, it may be, at the approach of winter, caught unawares by this climate of ours, which is different far from their original climate, that the bees, notwithstanding all, have never forgotten. in such cases they suffer from what is known as "swarming fever;" a condition wherein life, as in ordinary fever, reacting too ardently on itself, passes its aim, completes the circle, and discovers only death. {69} of all the decisions before them there is none that would seem imperative; nor can man, if content to play the part of spectator only, foretell in the slightest degree which one the bees will adopt. but that the most careful deliberation governs their choice is proved by the fact that we are able to influence, or even determine it, by for instance reducing or enlarging the space we accord them; or by removing combs full of honey, and setting up, in their stead, empty combs which are well supplied with workers' cells. the question they have to consider is not whether a second or third swarm shall be immediately launched,--for in arriving at such a decision they would merely be blindly and thoughtlessly yielding to the caprice or temptation of a favourable moment,--but the instantaneous, unanimous adoption of measures that shall enable them to issue a second swarm or "cast" three or four days after the birth of the first queen, and a third swarm three days after the departure of the second, with this first queen at their head. it must be admitted, therefore, that we discover here a perfectly reasoned system, and a mature combination of plans extending over a period considerable indeed when compared with the brevity of the bee's existence. these measures concern the care of the youthful queens who still lie immured in their waxen prisons. let us assume that the "spirit of the hive" has pronounced against the despatch of a second swarm. two courses still remain open. the bees may permit the first-born of the royal virgins, the one whose birth we have witnessed, to destroy her sister-enemies; or they may elect to wait till she have performed the perilous ceremony known as the "nuptial flight," whereon the nation's future depends. the immediate massacre will be authorised often, and often denied; but in the latter case it is of course not easy for us to pronounce whether the bees' decision be due to a desire for a second swarm, or to their recognition of the dangers attending the nuptial flight; for it will happen at times that, on account of the weather unexpectedly becoming less favourable, or for some other reason we cannot divine, they will suddenly change their mind, renounce the cast that they had decreed, and destroy the royal progeny they had so carefully preserved. but at present we will suppose that they have determined to dispense with a second swarm, and that they accept the risks of the nuptial flight. our young queen hastens towards the large cradles, urged on by her great desire, and the guard make way before her. listening only to her furious jealousy, she will fling herself on to the first cell she comes across, madly strip off the wax with her teeth and claws, tear away the cocoon that carpets the cell, and divest the sleeping princess of every covering. if her rival should be already recognisable, the queen will turn so that her sting may enter the capsule, and will frantically stab it with her venomous weapon until the victim perish. she then becomes calmer, appeased by the death that puts a term to the hatred of every creature; she withdraws her sting, hurries to the adjoining cell, attacks it and opens it, passing it by should she find in it only an imperfect larva or nymph; nor does she pause till, at last, exhausted and breathless, her claws and teeth glide harmless over the waxen walls. the bees that surround her have calmly watched her fury, have stood by, inactive, moving only to leave her path clear; but no sooner has a cell been pierced and laid waste than they eagerly flock to it, drag out the corpse of the ravished nymph, or the still living larva, and thrust it forth from the hive, thereupon gorging themselves with the precious royal jelly that adheres to the sides of the cell. and finally, when the queen has become too weak to persist in her passion, they will themselves complete the massacre of the innocents; and the sovereign race, and their dwellings, will all disappear. this is the terrible hour of the hive; the only occasion, with that of the more justifiable execution of the drones, when the workers suffer discord and death to be busy amongst them; and here, as often in nature, it is the favoured of love who attract to themselves the most extraordinary shafts of violent death. it will happen at times that two queens will be hatched simultaneously, the occurrence being rare, however, for the bees take special care to prevent it. but whenever this does take place, the deadly combat will begin the moment they emerge from their cradles; and of this combat huber was the first to remark an extraordinary feature. each time, it would seem that the queens, in their passes, present their chitrinous cuirasses to each other in such a fashion that the drawing of the sting would prove mutually fatal; one might almost believe that, even as a god or goddess was wont to interpose in the combats of the iliad, so a god or a goddess, the divinity of the race, perhaps, interposes here; and the two warriors, stricken with simultaneous terror, divide and fly, to meet shortly after and separate again should the double disaster once more menace the future of their people; till at last one of them shall succeed in surprising her clumsier or less wary rival, and in killing her without risk to herself. for the law of the race has called for one sacrifice only. the cradles having thus been destroyed and the rivals all slain, the young queen is accepted by her people; but she will not truly reign over them, or be treated as was her mother before her, until the nuptial flight be accomplished; for until she be impregnated the bees will hold her but lightly, and render most passing homage. her history, however, will rarely be as uneventful as this, for the bees will not often renounce their desire for a second swarm. in that case, as before, quick with the same desires, the queen will approach the royal cells; but instead of meeting with docile servants who second her efforts, she will find her path blocked by a numerous and hostile guard. in her fury, and urged on by her fixed idea, she will endeavour to force her way through, or to outflank them; but everywhere sentinels are posted to protect the sleeping princesses. she persists, she returns to the charge, to be repulsed with ever increasing severity, to be somewhat roughly handled even, until at last she begins vaguely to understand that these little inflexible workers stand for a law before which that law must bend whereby she is inspired. and at last she goes, and wanders from comb to comb, her unsatisfied wrath finding vent in a war-song, or angry complaint, that every bee-keeper knows; resembling somewhat the note of a distant trumpet of silver; so intense, in its passionate feebleness, as to be clearly audible, in the evening especially, two or three yards from the double walls of the most carefully enclosed hive. upon the workers this royal cry has a magical effect. it terrifies them, it induces a kind of respectful stupor; and when the queen sends it forth, as she halts in front of the cells whose approach is denied her, the guardians who have but this moment been hustling her, pushing her back, will at once desist, and wait, with bent head, till the cry shall have ceased to resound. indeed, some believe that it is thanks to the prestige of this cry, which the sphinx atropos imitates, that the latter is able to enter the hive, and gorge itself with honey, without the least molestation on the part of the bees. for two or three days, sometimes even for five, this indignant lament will be heard, this challenge that the queen addresses to her well protected rivals. and as these in their turn develop, in their turn grow anxious to see the light, they too set to work to gnaw the lids of their cells. a mighty disorder would now appear to threaten the republic. but the genius of the hive, at the time that it formed its decision, was able to foretell every consequence that might ensue; and the guardians have had their instructions: they know exactly what must be done, hour by hour, to meet the attacks of a foiled instinct, and conduct two opposite forces to a successful issue. they are fully aware that if the young queens should escape who now clamour for birth, they would fall into the hands of their elder sister, by this time irresistible, who would destroy them one by one. the workers, therefore, will pile on fresh layers of wax in proportion as the prisoner reduces, from within, the walls of her tower; and the impatient princess will ardently persist in her labour, little suspecting that she has to deal with an enchanted obstacle, that rises ever afresh from its ruin. she hears the war-cry of her rival; and already aware of her royal duty and destiny, although she has not yet looked upon life, nor knows what a hive may be, she answers the challenge from within the depths of her prison. but her cry is different; it is stifled and hollow, for it has to traverse the walls of a tomb; and, when night is falling, and noises are hushed, and high over all there reigns the silence of the stars, the apiarist who nears these marvellous cities and stands, questioning, at their entrance, recognises and understands the dialogue that is passing between the wandering queen and the virgins in prison. {72} to the young princesses, however, this prolonged reclusion is of material benefit; for when they at last are freed they have grown mature and vigorous, and are able to fly. but during this period of waiting the strength of the first queen has also increased, and is sufficient now to enable her to face the perils of the voyage. the time has arrived, therefore, for the departure of the second swarm, or "cast," with the first-born of the queens at its head. no sooner has she gone than the workers left in the hive will set one of the prisoners free; and she will evince the same murderous desires, send forth the same cries of anger, until, at last, after three or four days, she will leave the hive in her turn, at the head of the tertiary swarm; and so in succession, in the case of "swarming fever," till the mother-city shall be completely exhausted. swammerdam cites a hive that, through its swarms and the swarms of its swarms, was able in a single season to found no less than thirty colonies. such extraordinary multiplication is above all noticeable after disastrous winters; and one might almost believe that the bees, forever in touch with the secret desires of nature, are conscious of the dangers that menace their race. but at ordinary times this fever will rarely occur in a strong and well-governed hive. there are many that swarm only once; and some, indeed, not at all. after the second swarm the bees, as a rule, will renounce further division, owing either to their having observed the excessive feebleness of their own stock, or to the prudence urged upon them by threatening skies. in that case they will allow the third queen to slaughter the captives; ordinary life will at once be resumed, and pursued with the more ardour for the reason that the workers are all very young, that the hive is depopulated and impoverished, and that there are great voids to fill before the arrival of winter. {73} the departure of the second and third swarms resembles that of the first, and the conditions are identical, with the exception that the bees are fewer in number, less circumspect, and lacking in scouts; and also that the young and virgin queen, being unencumbered and ardent, will fly much further, and in the first stage lead the swarm to a considerable distance from the hive. the conduct of these second and third migrations will be far more rash, and their future more problematical. the queen at their head, the representative of the future, has not yet been impregnated. their entire destiny depends on the ensuing nuptial flight. a passing bird, a few drops of rain, a mistake, a cold wind--any one of these may give rise to irremediable disaster. of this the bees are so well aware that when the young queen sallies forth in quest of her lover, they often will abandon the labours they have begun, will forsake the home of a day that already is dear to them, and accompany her in a body, dreading to let her pass out of their sight, eager, as they form closely around her, and shelter her beneath their myriad devoted wings, to lose themselves with her, should love cause her to stray so far from the hive that the as yet unfamiliar road of return shall grow blurred and hesitating in every memory. {74} but so potent is the law of the future that none of these uncertainties, these perils of death, will cause a single bee to waver. the enthusiasm displayed by the second and third swarms is not less than that of the first. no sooner has the mother-city pronounced its decision than a battalion of workers will flock around each dangerous young queen, eager to follow her fortunes, to accompany her on the voyage where there is so much to lose, and so little to gain beyond the desire of a satisfied instinct. whence do they derive the energy we ourselves never possess, whereby they break with the past as though with an enemy? who is it selects from the crowd those who shall go forth, and declares who shall remain? no special class divides those who stay from those who wander abroad; it will be the younger here and the elder there; around each queen who shall never return veteran foragers jostle tiny workers, who for the first time shall face the dizziness of the blue. nor is the proportionate strength of a swarm controlled by chance or accident, by the momentary dejection or transport of an instinct, thought, or feeling. i have more than once tried to establish a relation between the number of bees composing a swarm and the number of those that remain; and although the difficulties of this calculation are such as to preclude anything approaching mathematical precision, i have at least been able to gather that this relation--if we take into account the brood-cells, or in other words the forthcoming births--is sufficiently constant to point to an actual and mysterious reckoning on the part of the genius of the hive. {75} we will not follow these swarms on their numerous, and often most complicated, adventures. two swarms, at times, will join forces; at others, two or three of the imprisoned queens will profit by the confusion attending the moment of departure to elude the watchfulness of their guardians and join the groups that are forming. occasionally, too, one of the young queens, finding herself surrounded by males, will cause herself to be impregnated in the swarming flight, and will then drag all her people to an extraordinary height and distance. in the practice of apiculture these secondary and tertiary swarms are always returned to the mother-hive. the queens will meet on the comb; the workers will gather around and watch their combat; and, when the stronger has overcome the weaker they will then, in their ardour for work and hatred of disorder, expel the corpses, close the door on the violence of the future, forget the past, return to their cells, and resume their peaceful path to the flowers that await them. {76} we will now, in order to simplify matters, return to the queen whom the bees have permitted to slaughter her sisters, and resume the account of her adventures. as i have already stated, this massacre will be often prevented, and often sanctioned, at times even when the bees apparently do not intend to issue a second swarm; for we notice the same diversity of political spirit in the different hives of an apiary as in the different human nations of a continent. but it is clear that the bees will act imprudently in giving their consent; for if the queen should die, or stray in the nuptial flight, it will be impossible to fill her place, the workers' larvae having passed the age when they are susceptible of royal transformation. let us assume, however, that the imprudence has been committed; and behold our first-born, therefore, unique sovereign, and recognised as such in the spirit of her people. but she is still a virgin. to become as was the mother before her, it is essential that she should meet the male within the first twenty days of her life. should the event for some reason be delayed beyond this period, her virginity becomes irrevocable. and yet we have seen that she is not sterile, virgin though she be. there confronts us here the great mystery--or precaution--of nature, that is known as parthenogenesis, and is common to a certain number of insects, such as the aphides, the lepidoptera of the psyche genus, the hymenoptera of the cynipede family, etc. the virgin queen is able to lay; but from all the eggs that she will deposit in the cells, be these large or small, there will issue males alone; and as these never work, as they live at the expense of the females, as they never go foraging except on their own account, and are generally incapable of providing for their subsistence, the result will be, at the end of some weeks, that the last exhausted worker will perish, and the colony be ruined and totally annihilated. the queen, we have said, will produce thousands of drones; and each of these will possess millions of the spermatozoa whereof it is impossible that a single one can have penetrated into the organism of the mother. that may not be more astounding, perhaps, than a thousand other and analogous phenomena; and, indeed, when we consider these problems, and more especially those of generation, the marvellous and the unexpected confront us so constantly--occurring far more frequently, and above all in far less human fashion, than in the most miraculous fairy stories--that after a time astonishment becomes so habitual with us that we almost cease to wonder. the fact, however, is sufficiently curious to be worthy of notice. but, on the other hand, how shall we explain to ourselves the aim that nature can have in thus favouring the valueless drones at the cost of the workers who are so essential? is she afraid lest the females might perhaps be induced by their intellect unduly to limit the number of their parasites, which, destructive though they be, are still necessary for the preservation of the race? or is it merely an exaggerated reaction against the misfortune of the unfruitful queen? can we have here one of those blind and extreme precautions which, ignoring the cause of the evil, overstep the remedy; and, in the endeavour to prevent an unfortunate accident, bring about a catastrophe? in reality--though we must not forget that the natural, primitive reality is different: from that of the present, for in the original forest the colonies might well be far more scattered than they are to-day--in reality the queen's unfruitfulness will rarely be due to the want of males, for these are very numerous always, and will flock from afar; but rather to the rain, or the cold, that will have kept her too long in the hive, and more frequently still to the imperfect state of her wings, whereby she will be prevented from describing the high flight in the air that the organ of the male demands. nature, however, heedless of these more intrinsic causes, is so deeply concerned with the multiplication of males, that we sometimes find, in motherless hives, two or three workers possessed of so great a desire to preserve the race that, their atrophied ovaries notwithstanding, they will still endeavour to lay; and, their organs expanding somewhat beneath the empire of this exasperated sentiment, they will succeed in depositing a few eggs in the cells; but from these eggs, as from those of the virgin mother, there will, issue only males. {77} here we behold the active intervention of a superior though perhaps imprudent will, which offers irresistible obstruction to the intelligent will of a life. in the insect world such interventions are comparatively frequent, and much can be gained from their study; for this world being more densely peopled and more complex than others, certain special desires of nature are often more palpably revealed to us there; and she may even at times be detected in the midst of experiments we might almost be warranted in regarding as incomplete. she has one great and general desire, for instance, that she displays on all sides; the amelioration of each species through the triumph of the stronger. this struggle, as a rule, is most carefully organised. the hecatomb of the weak is enormous, but that matters little so long as the victors' reward be effectual and certain. but there are cases when one might almost imagine that nature had not had time enough to disentangle her combinations; cases where reward is impossible, and the fate of the victor no less disastrous than that of the vanquished. and of such, selecting an instance that will not take us too far from our bees, i know of no instance more striking than that of the triongulins of the _sitaris colletes._ and it will be seen that, in many details, this story is less foreign to the history of man than might perhaps be imagined. these triongulins are the primary larvae of a parasite proper to a wild, obtuse-tongued, solitary bee, the colletes, which builds its nest in subterranean galleries. it is their habit to lie in wait for the bee at the approach to these galleries; and then, to the number of three, four, five, or often of more, they will leap on her back, and bury themselves in her hair. were the struggle of the weak against the strong to take place at this moment there would be no more to be said, and all would pass in accordance with universal law. but, for a reason we know not, their instinct requires, and nature has consequently ordained, that they should hold themselves tranquil so long as they remain on the back of the bee. they patiently bide their time while she visits the flowers, and constructs and provisions her cells. but no sooner has an egg been laid than they all spring upon it; and the innocent colletes carefully seals down her cell, which she has duly supplied with food, never suspecting that she has at the same time ensured the death of her offspring. the cell has scarcely been closed when the triongulins grouped round the egg engage in the inevitable and salutary combat of natural selection. the stronger, more agile, will seize its adversary beneath the cuirass, and, raising it aloft, will maintain it for hours in its mandibles until the victim expire. but, while this fight is in progress, another of the triongulins, that had either no rival to meet, or already has conquered, takes possession of the egg and bursts it open. the ultimate victor has therefore this fresh enemy to subdue; but the conquest is easy, for the triongulin, deep in the satisfaction of its pre-natal hunger, clings obstinately to the egg, and does not even attempt to defend itself. it is quickly despatched; and the other is at last alone, and possessor of the precious egg it has won so well. it eagerly plunges its head into the opening its predecessor had made; and begins the lengthy repast that shall transform it into a perfect insect. but nature, that has decreed this ordeal of battle, has, on the other hand, established the prize of victory with such miserly precision that nothing short of an entire egg will suffice for the nourishment of a single triongulin. so that, as we are informed by m. mayet, to whom we owe the account of these disconcerting adventures, there is lacking to our conqueror the food its last victim consumed before death; and incapable therefore of achieving the first stage of its transformation, it dies in its turn, adhering to the skin of the egg, or adding itself, in the sugary liquid, to the number of the drowned. {78} this case, though rarely to be followed so closely, is not unique in natural history. we have here, laid bare before us, the struggle between the conscious will of the triongulin, that seeks to live, and the obscure and general will of nature, that not only desires that the triongulin should live, but is anxious even that its life should be improved, and fortified, to a degree beyond that to which its own will impels it. but, through some strange inadvertence, the amelioration nature imposes suppresses the life of even the fittest, and the sitaris colletes would have long since disappeared had not chance, acting in opposition to the desires of nature, permitted isolated individuals to escape from the excellent and far-seeing law that ordains on all sides the triumph of the stronger. can this mighty power err, then, that seems unconscious to us, but necessarily wise, seeing that the life she organises and maintains is forever proving her to be right? can feebleness at times overcome that supreme reason, which we are apt to invoke when we have attained the limits of our own? and if that be so, by whom shall this feebleness be set right? but let us return to that special form of her resistless intervention that we find in parthenogenesis. and we shall do well to remember that, remote as the world may seem in which these problems confront us, they do indeed yet concern ourselves very nearly. who would dare to affirm that no interventions take place in the sphere of man--interventions that may be more hidden, but not the less fraught with danger? and in the case before us, which is right, in the end,--the insect, or nature? what would happen if the bees, more docile perhaps, or endowed with a higher intelligence, were too clearly to understand the desires of nature, and to follow them to the extreme; to multiply males to infinity, seeing that nature is imperiously calling for males? would they not risk the destruction of their species? are we to believe that there are intentions in nature that it is dangerous to understand too clearly, fatal to follow with too much ardour; and that it is one of her desires that we should not divine, and follow, all her desires? is it not possible that herein there may lie one of the perils of the human race? we too are aware of unconscious forces within us, that would appear to demand the reverse of what our intellect urges. and this intellect of ours, that, as a rule, its own boundary reached, knows not whither to go--can it be well that it should join itself to these forces, and add to them its unexpected weight? {79} have we the right to conclude, from the dangers of parthenogenesis, that nature is not always able to proportion the means to the end; and that what she intends to preserve is preserved at times by means of precautions she has to contrive against her own precautions, and often through foreign circumstances she has not herself foreseen? but is there anything she does foresee, anything she does intend to preserve? nature, some may say, is a word wherewith we clothe the unknowable; and few things authorise our crediting it with intelligence, or with aim. that is true. we touch here the hermetically sealed vases that furnish our conception of the universe. reluctant, over and over again, to label these with the inscription "unknown," that disheartens us and compels us to silence, we engrave upon them, in the degree of their size and grandeur, the words "nature, life, death, infinite, selection, spirit of the race," and many others, even as those who went before us affixed the words "god, providence, destiny, reward," etc. let it be so, if one will, and no more. but, though the contents of the vases remain obscure, there is gain at least in the fact that the inscriptions to-day convey less menace to us, that we are able therefore to approach them and touch them, and lay our ears close to them and listen, with wholesome curiosity. but whatever the name we attach to these vases, it is certain that one of them, at least, and the greatest--that which bears on its flank the name "nature"--encloses a very real force, the most real of all, and one that is able to preserve an enormous and marvellous quantity and quality of life on our globe, by means so skilful that they surpass all that the genius of man could contrive. could this quantity and quality be maintained by other means? is it we who deceive ourselves when we imagine that we see precautions where perhaps there is truly no more than a fortunate chance, that has survived a million unfortunate chances? {80} that may be; but these fortunate chances teach us a lesson in admiration as valuable as those we might learn in regions superior to chance. if we let our gaze travel beyond the creatures that are possessed of a glimmer of intellect and consciousness, beyond the protozoa even, which are the first nebulous representatives of the dawning animal kingdom, we find, as has been abundantly proved by the experiments of mr. h. j. carter, the celebrated microscopist, that the very lowest embryos, such as the myxomycetes, manifest a will and desires and preferences; and that infusoria, which apparently have no organism whatever, give evidence of a certain cunning. the amoebae, for instance, will patiently lie in wait for the new-born acinetes, as they leave the maternal ovary; being aware that these must as yet be lacking their poisonous tentacles. now, the amoebae have neither a nervous system nor distinguishable organs of any kind. or if we turn to the plants, which, being motionless, would seem exposed to every fatality,--without pausing to consider carnivorous species like the drusera, which really act as animals,--we are struck by the genius that some of our humblest flowers display in contriving that the visit of the bee shall infallibly procure them the crossed fertilisation they need. see the marvellous fashion in which the orchis moris, our humble country orchid, combines the play of its rostellum and retinacula; observe the mathematical and automatic inclination and adhesion of its pollinia; as also the unerring double seesaw of the anthers of the wild sage, which touch the body of the visiting insect at a particular spot in order that the insect may, in its turn, touch the stigma of the neighbouring flower at another particular spot; watch, too, in the case of the pedicularis sylvatica, the successive, calculated movements of its stigma; and indeed the entrance of the bee into any one of these three flowers sets every organ vibrating, just as the skilful marksman who hits the black spot on the target will cause all the figures to move in the elaborate mechanisms we see in our village fairs. we might go lower still, and show, as ruskin has shown in his "ethics of the dust," the character, habits, and artifices of crystals; their quarrels, and mode of procedure, when a foreign body attempts to oppose their plans, which are more ancient by far than our imagination can conceive; the manner in which they admit or repel an enemy, the possible victory of the weaker over the stronger, as, for instance, when the all-powerful quartz submits to the humble and wily epidote, and allows this last to conquer it; the struggle, terrible sometimes and sometimes magnificent, between the rock-crystal and iron; the regular, immaculate expansion and uncompromising purity of one hyaline block, which rejects whatever is foul, and the sickly growth, the evident immorality, of its brother, which admits corruption, and writhes miserably in the void; as we might quote also the strange phenomena of crystalline cicatrisation and reintegration mentioned by claude bernard, etc. but the mystery here becomes too foreign to us. let us keep to our flowers, which are the last expression of a life that has yet some kinship with our own. we are not dealing now with animals or insects, to which we attribute a special, intelligent will, thanks to which they survive. we believe, rightly or wrongly, that the flowers possess no such will; at least we cannot discover in them the slightest trace of the organs wherein will, intellect, and initiative of action, are usually born and reside. it follows, therefore, that all that acts in them in so admirable a fashion must directly proceed from what we elsewhere call nature. we are no longer concerned with the intellect of the individual; here we find the un conscious, undivided force in the act of ensnaring other forms of itself. shall we on that account refuse to believe that these snares are pure accidents, occurring in accordance with a routine that is also incidental? we are not yet entitled to such a deduction. it might be urged that these flowers, had these miraculous combinations not been, would not have survived, but would have had their place filled by others that stood in no need of crossed fertilisation; and the non-existence of the first would have been perceived by none, nor would the life that vibrates on the earth have seemed less incomprehensible to us, less diverse, or less astounding. and yet it would be difficult not to admit that acts which bear all the appearance of acts of intelligence and prudence produce and support these fortunate chances. whence do they issue,--from the being itself, or from the force whence that being draws life? i will not say "it matters but little," for, on the contrary, to know the answer were of supreme importance to us. but, in the meantime, and till we shall learn whether it be the flower that endeavours to maintain and perfect the life that nature has placed within it, or whether it be nature that puts forth an effort to maintain and improve the degree of existence the flower has assumed, or finally whether it be chance that ultimately governs chance, a multitude of semblances invite us to believe that something equal to our loftiest thoughts issues at times from a common source, that we are compelled to admire without knowing where it resides. there are moments when what seems error to us comes forth from this common source. but, although we know very few things, proofs abound that the seeming error was in reality an act of prudence that we at first could not grasp. in the little circle, even, that our eyes embrace we are constantly shown that what we regarded as nature's blunder close by was due to her deeming it well to adjust the presumed inadvertence out yonder. she has placed the three flowers we mentioned under conditions of such difficulty that they are unable to fertilise themselves; she considers it beneficial, therefore, for reasons beyond our powers of perception, that they should cause themselves to be fertilised by their neighbours; and, inasmuch as she enhances the intelligence of her victims, she displays on our right the genius she failed to display on our left. the byways of this genius of hers remain incomprehensible to us, but its level is always the same. it will appear to fall into error--assuming that error be possible--thereupon rising again at once in the organ charged to repair this error. turn where we may, it towers high over our heads. it is the circular ocean, the tideless water, whereon our boldest and most independent thoughts will never be more than mere abject bubbles. we call it nature to-day; to-morrow, perhaps, we shall give it another name, softer or more alarming. in the meanwhile it holds simultaneous, impartial sway over life and death; furnishing the two irreconcilable sisters with the magnificent and familiar weapons that adorn and distract its bosom. {81} does this force take measures to maintain what may be struggling on its surface, or must we say, arguing in the strangest of circles, that what floats on its surface must guard itself against the genius that has given it life? that question must be left open. we have no means of ascertaining whether it be notwithstanding the efforts of the superior will, or independently of these, or lastly because of these, that a species has been able to survive. all we can say is that such a species exists, and that, on this point, therefore, nature would seem to be right. but who shall tell us how many others that we have not known have fallen victim to her restless and forgetful intellect? beyond this, we can recognise only the surprising and occasionally hostile forms that the extraordinary fluid we call life assumes, in utter unconsciousness sometimes, at others with a kind of consciousness: the fluid which animates us equally with all the rest, which produces the very thoughts that judge it, and the feeble voice that attempts to tell its story. vi -the nuptial flight we will now consider the manner in which the impregnation of the queen-bee comes to pass. here again nature has taken extraordinary measures to favour the union of males with females of a different stock; a strange law, whereto nothing would seem to compel her; a caprice, or initial inadvertence, perhaps, whose reparation calls for the most marvellous forces her activity knows. if she had devoted half the genius she lavishes on crossed fertilisation and other arbitrary desires to making life more certain, to alleviating pain, to softening death and warding off horrible accidents, the universe would probably have presented an enigma less incomprehensible, less pitiable, than the one we are striving to solve. but our consciousness, and the interest we take in existence, must grapple, not with what might have been, but with what is. around the virgin queen, and dwelling with her in the hive, are hundreds of exuberant males, forever drunk on honey; the sole reason for their existence being one act of love. but, notwithstanding the incessant contact of two desires that elsewhere invariably triumph over every obstacle, the union never takes place in the hive, nor has it been possible to bring about the impregnation of a captive queen.* *professor mclain has recently succeeded in causing a few queens to be artificially impregnated; but this has been the result of a veritable surgical operation, of the most delicate and complicated nature. moreover, the fertility of the queens was restricted and ephemeral. while she lives in their midst the lovers about her know not what she is. they seek her in space, in the remote depths of the horizon, never suspecting that they have but this moment quitted her, have shared the same comb with her, have brushed against her, perhaps, in the eagerness of their departure. one might almost believe that those wonderful eyes of theirs, that cover their head as though with a glittering helmet, do not recognise or desire her save when she soars in the blue. each day, from noon till three, when the sun shines resplendent, this plumed horde sallies forth in search of the bride, who is indeed more royal, more difficult of conquest, than the most inaccessible princess of fairy legend; for twenty or thirty tribes will hasten from all the neighbouring cities, her court thus consisting of more than ten thousand suitors; and from these ten thousand one alone will be chosen for the unique kiss of an instant that shall wed him to death no less than to happiness; while the others will fly helplessly round the intertwined pair, and soon will perish without ever again beholding this prodigious and fatal apparition. {83} i am not exaggerating this wild and amazing prodigality of nature. the best-conducted hives will, as a rule, contain four to five hundred males. weaker or degenerate ones will often have as many as four or five thousand; for the more a hive inclines to its ruin, the more males will it produce. it may be said that, on an average, an apiary composed of ten colonies will at a given moment send an army of ten thousand males into the air, of whom ten or fifteen at most will have the occasion of performing the one act for which they were born. in the meanwhile they exhaust the supplies of the city; each one of the parasites requiring the unceasing labour of five or six workers to maintain it in its abounding and voracious idleness, its activity being indeed solely confined to its jaws. but nature is always magnificent when dealing with the privileges and prerogatives of love. she becomes miserly only when doling out the organs and instruments of labour. she is especially severe on what men have termed virtue, whereas she strews the path of the most uninteresting lovers with innumerable jewels and favours. "unite and multiply; there is no other law, or aim, than love," would seem to be her constant cry on all sides, while she mutters to herself, perhaps: "and exist afterwards if you can; that is no concern of mine." do or desire what else we may, we find, everywhere on our road, this morality that differs so much from our own. and note, too, in these same little creatures, 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 useless 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 instant, 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 olfactory cavities, while the worker has only five thousand in both. there we have an instance of the almost universal disproportion 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 extraordinary 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 able to witness the hesitating departure of the bride-elect and the murderous return 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 lingered from sunrise. then she appears on the threshold--in the midst of indifferent foragers, if she have left sisters in the hive; or surrounded by a delirious throng of workers, should it be impossible to fill her place. 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 kingdom she has never yet seen from without, she departs like an arrow to the zenith of the blue. she soars to a height, a luminous 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. immediately crowds collect, and follow her into the sea of gladness, whose limpid boundaries 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 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 renounce the pursuit and disappear in the void. only a small, indefatigable cluster remain, suspended in infinite opal. she summons her wings for one final effort; and now the chosen of incomprehensible forces has reached her, has seized her, and bounding aloft with united impetus, the ascending spiral of their intertwined flight whirls for one second in the hostile madness of love. {85} most creatures have a vague belief that a very precarious hazard, a kind of transparent 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 parthenogenesis, sacrificed the future of the hive to the unwonted multiplication of males, now sacrifices the male to the future of the hive. 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 before the unexpected and the irreconcilable. would you have before you the nobly humiliating spectacle of human genius battling with infinite power, you have but to follow darwin's endeavours to unravel the strange, incoherent, inconceivably mysterious laws of the sterility and fecundity of hybrids, or of the variations 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 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 competition, in geologic succession and the geographic distribution of organised beings, in mutual affinities, as indeed in every other direction, the idea of nature reveals itself, in one and the same phenomenon and at the very same time, as circumspect and shiftless, niggard and prodigal, prudent and careless, fickle and stable, agitated and immovable, one and innumerable, magnificent and squalid. there lay open before her the immense and virgin fields of simplicity; she chose to people them with trivial errors, with petty contradictory laws that stray through existence like a flock of blind sheep. it is true that our eye, before which these things happen, can only reflect a reality proportionate to our needs and our stature; nor have we any warrant for believing 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 illogical or dangerous regions. she disposes of two forces that never can err; and when the phenomenon shall have trespassed beyond certain limits, she will beckon to life or to death--which arrives, re-establishes order, and unconcernedly marks out the path afresh. {86} she eludes us on every side; she repudiates 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 mountain-high above them. she appears to 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 obscure 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 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 nothing that would tend to lessen itself. he wonders whether the moment may not have arrived for submitting to a more judicious examination his convictions, his principles, and his dreams. once more, he has not the slightest desire 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 sufficiently 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 themselves more freely in his thoughts; and he can descend with impunity, for he has the presentiment that numbers of successive valleys will lead him to the plateau that he expects. and, while he thus seeks for conviction, while his researches even conduct him to the very reverse of that which he loves, he directs his conduct by the most humanly beautiful truth, and clings to the one that provisionally seems to be highest. all that may add to beneficent virtue enters his heart at once; all that would tend to lessen it remaining there in suspense, like insoluble salts that change not till the hour for decisive experiment. he may accept an inferior truth, but before he will act in accordance 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 former that only which is greater and more beautiful than was there before. and blameworthy as it may be to separate the two orders in cases, only too frequent in life, where we suffer our conduct to be inferior 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 experience 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 be 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 to equalise, or allot more methodically, the share he attributes to the universe and to himself. {87} let us return to the tragic nuptials of the queen. here it is evidently nature's wish, in the interests of crossed fertilisation, that the union of the drone and the queen-bee should be possible only in the open sky. but her desires blend network-fashion, and her most valued laws have to pass through the meshes of other laws, which, in their turn, the moment after, are compelled to pass through the first. in the sky she has planted so many dangers--cold winds, storm-currents, birds, insects, drops of water, all of which also obey invincible laws--that she must of necessity arrange for this union to be as brief as possible. it is so, thanks to the startlingly sudden death of the male. 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--buchner, 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 consistent prudence in all things, till the 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 gladness 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 record. 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 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 relating 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 festivity in which the bees take part, is entering 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, practical brain. she has but one thought, which is to rid herself as quickly as possible of the embarrassing souvenirs her consort has left her, whereby her movements 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, until her last day, will issue one by one, as the eggs pass by, and in the obscurity of her body accomplish the mysterious union of the male and female element, whence the worker-bees are born. through a curious inversion, it is she who furnishes the male principle, and the drone who provides the female. two days after the union she lays her first eggs, and her people immediately surround her with the most particular care. from that moment, possessed of a dual sex, having within her an inexhaustible male, she begins her veritable life; she will never again leave the hive, unless to accompany a swarm; and her fecundity will cease only at the approach of death. {88} prodigious nuptials these, the most fairylike that can be conceived, azure and tragic, raised high above life by the impetus of desire; imperishable and terrible, unique and bewildering, solitary and infinite. an admirable ecstasy, wherein death supervening in all that our sphere has of most limpid and loveliest, in virginal, limitless space, stamps the instant of happiness in the sublime transparence of the great sky; purifying in that immaculate light the something of wretchedness that always hovers around love, 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 introduce 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 resplendent 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 contrived 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 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 physiological 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 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 imaginary beauties, that humanity welcomes today 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 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 admire. 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 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 today 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 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 fertilisation 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 explanation, something that should prolong it, and conduct us to the beauty and grandeur 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 interpretation of these marvellous nuptials. they evidently misjudge the form and colour of the truth, but they live in its atmosphere and its influence far more than the others, who complacently believe that 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 meanwhile it cannot be unwise to devote to its 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. "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 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,' bowers 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 despoiled, 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 plateau in the "pays de caux," in normandy, 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 erecting 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 replies to the noble song of the leaves as they whisper over our heads. above 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, overlooking 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 monument of life underneath the monuments of their dead, who made the same gestures and still are with them. take in the whole picture. there are no special, characteristic features, such as we find in england, provence, or holland. it is the presentment, large and ordinary enough to be symbolic, of a natural and happy life. observe how rhythmic human existence becomes in its useful moments. look at the man who is 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." {92} "let us draw nearer. can you distinguish 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 obscene 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 that, to the alcohol, are due the children whom you see there: the dwarf, the one with the hare-lip, the others who are knock-kneed, scrofulous, imbecile. all of them, men and women, young and old, have the ordinary vices of the peasant. they are brutal, suspicious, grasping, and envious; hypocrites, liars, and slanderers; inclined to petty, illicit profits, mean interpretations, and coarse flattery of the stronger. necessity brings them together, and compels them to help each other; but the secret wish of every individual 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 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 experience 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 underlie this picture of ethereal, peaceful toil. do not imagine that the sight of this marvellous 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 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 wherewithal 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 discovered 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 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 desire 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 semblance that some will call the real truth. it is the truth of practical life. it undoubtedly is based on the most precise, the only, facts that one can observe and test." {93} "let us sit on these sheaves," he continued, "and look again. let us reject not a single one of the little facts that build up the reality of which i have spoken. let us permit them to depart of their own accord into space. they cumber the foreground, and yet we cannot 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; 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. besides, a mere trifle that we may discover to-morrow may render these poisons innocuous. 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 feelings they avail themselves only to hurt each other, and to persist in their present mediocrity; but thus does it often happen in nature. the gifts she accords are employed for evil at first, for the rendering worse what she had apparently sought to improve; but, from this evil, a certain good will always result in the end. besides, i am by no means anxious to prove that there has been progress, which may be a very small thing or a very great thing, according to the place whence we regard it. it is a vast achievement, the surest ideal, perhaps, to render the condition of men a little less servile, a little less painful; but let the mind detach itself for an instant from material results, and the difference between the man who marches in the van of progress and the other who is blindly dragged at its tail ceases to be very considerable. among these young rustics, whose mind is haunted only by formless ideas, there are many who have in themselves the possibility of attaining, in a short space of time, the degree of consciousness that we both enjoy. one is often struck by the narrowness of the dividing line between what we regard as the unconsciousness of these people and the consciousness that to us is the highest of 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 dignity, our most veritable greatness; it is probably the most surprising phenomenon this world contains. it is this which permits us to raise our head before the unknown principle, and say to it: 'what you are i know not; but there is something within me that already enfolds you. you will destroy me, perhaps, but if your object be not to construct from my ruins an organism better than mine, you will prove yourself inferior to what i am; and the silence that will follow the death of the race to which i belong will declare to you that you have been judged. and if you are not capable even of caring whether you be justly judged or not, of what value can your secret be? it must be stupid or hideous. chance has enabled you to produce a creature that you yourself lacked the quality to produce. it is fortunate for him that a contrary chance should have permitted you to suppress him before he had fathomed the depths of your unconsciousness; more fortunate still that he does not survive the infinite series of your awful experiments. he had nothing to do in a world where his intellect corresponded 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 confronts 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 unaltered; and from the experience of thousands 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. "that is the name it bears to-day, wherefore 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 {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. indelicate 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 jostled, fatuously pompous, swelled with foolish, good-natured contempt; harbouring 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 lassitude beneath the invincible gaze of a july or august sun, the drones will appear on the threshold. they have a helmet made of enormous black pearls, two lofty, quivering plumes, a doublet of iridescent, yellowish velvet, an heroic tuft, and a fourfold mantle, translucent and rigid. they create a prodigious stir, brush the sentry aside, overturn the cleaners, and collide with the foragers as these return laden with their humble spoil. they have the busy air, the extravagant, contemptuous gait, of indispensable gods who should be simultaneously venturing towards some destiny 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 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 workers 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 uttered than every heart throbs with it, inspired with the genius of the unanimous republic. one part of the people renounce 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 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 ambrosia of thyme and sage, of marjoram and white clover. where the path once lay open to the kindly, abundant reservoirs, that so invitingly offered their waxen and sugary mouths, there stands now a burning-bush all alive with poisonous, bristling stings. the atmosphere of the city is changed; in lieu of the friendly perfume of honey, the acrid odour 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 crumbled, 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 petiole 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 relentless enemies clinging doggedly to them, they will use their powerful claws to shift them from side to side; or, turning on themselves, they will drag the whole group round and round in wild circles, which exhaustion soon brings to an end. and, in a very brief space, their appearance becomes so deplorable that pity, never far from justice in the depths of our heart, quickly returns, and would seek forgiveness, though vainly, of the stern workers who recognise only nature's harsh and profound laws. the wings of the wretched creatures are torn, their antennae bitten, the segments of their legs wrenched off; and their magnificent eyes, mirrors once of the exuberant flowers, flashing back the blue light and the innocent 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 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 pitiless guard. the next morning, before setting forth on their journey, the workers will clear the threshold, strewn with the corpses of the useless giants; and all recollection of the idle race disappear till the following spring. {96} in very many colonies of the apiary this massacre will often take place on the same day. the richest, best-governed hive will give the signal; to be followed, some days after, by the little 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 obscurity 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 provisions, is accumulating within the hospitable walls; and the last reservoirs are sealed with the seal of white, incorruptible wax. building ceases, births diminish, deaths multiply; the nights lengthen, and days grow shorter. rain and inclement winds, the mists of the morning, the ambushes laid by a hastening twilight, carry off hundreds of workers who never return; 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 sometimes even give two hundred, which represent an enormous expanse of liquefied light, immense fields of flowers that have been visited daily one or two thousand times. he throws a last glance over the colonies, which are becoming torpid. from the richest he takes their superfluous wealth to distribute it among those whom misfortune, unmerited always in this laborious world, may have rendered necessitous. he covers the dwellings, 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 themselves, and cling to the combs that contain the faithful urns; whence there shall issue, during days of frost, the transmuted substance of summer. the queen is in the midst of them, surrounded by her guard. the first row of the workers attach themselves to the sealed cells; a second row cover the first, a third the second, and so in succession to the last row of all, which form the envelope. when the bees of this envelope feel the cold stealing over them, they re-enter the mass, and others take their place. the suspended cluster is like a sombre sphere that the walls of the comb divide; 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 concerted beating of their wings--little sisters that have survived the flames of the sun--which go quickly or slowly in accordance as the temperature without may 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 extremity of the group in whose thousands of hearts one destiny, one thought, is scattered 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 uninterrupted circle that joins death to life has turned and begun afresh. 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 industry 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 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 instance of their having contrived some new feature or modified their habitual routine, and we will cheerfully yield, and admit that they not only possess an admirable 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 submissive matter. this language is not even confined to the profane; it is made use of by entomologists 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 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 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 formulated 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 collection of propolis, and exclusively using this unknown matter, which they had quickly tested and adopted, and found in abundant quantities, ready prepared, in the vicinity of their dwelling. and indeed, one-half of the science and practice of apiculture consists in giving free rein to the spirit of initiative possessed by the bees, and in providing their enterprising intellect with opportunities 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 enormous quantity. in a state of nature, in the heart of their native forests in the asiatic valleys, where they existed probably 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 unexpected, incomprehensible food, which, in their hereditary memory, must be inseparable 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 rational, 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 improvements of the microscope, of the entomologist's laboratory, revealed the precise secret of the principal organs of the workers, of the mother, and the males. need we wonder if our knowledge be as scanty as our experience? the bees have existed many thousands of years; we have watched them for ten or twelve lustres. and if it could even be proved that no change has occurred in the hive since we first opened it, should we have the right to conclude that nothing had changed before our first questioning glance? do we not know that in the evolution of species a century is but as a drop of rain that is caught in the whirl of the river, and that millenaries glide as swiftly over the life of universal matter as single years over the history of a people? {99} but there is no warrant for the statement that the habits of the bees are unchanged. if we examine them with an unbiassed eye, and without emerging from the small area lit by our actual experience, we shall, on the contrary, discover marked variations. and who shall tell how many escape us? were an observer 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 unable 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 transformations more extraordinary than those of our human evolution. but for the moment we will limit ourselves to our domestic 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, except for the slight modifications induced by the climate and by the conditions whereto it has had to conform.* *the scientific classification of the domestic bee is as follows: class....... insecta order....... hymenoptera family...... apidae genus....... apis species..... mellifica the term "mellifica" is that of the linnaean classification. it is not of the happiest, for all the apidae, with the exception of certain parasites perhaps, are producers of honey. scopoli uses the term "cerifera "; reaumur "domestica "; geoffroy "gregaria." the "apis ligustica," the italian bee, is another variety of the "mellifica." 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 ourselves to what actually lies within the range of our eyes, refusing the aid of hypothesis, be this never so probable or so imperious. we shall mention no facts that are not susceptible of immediate proof; and of such facts we will only rapidly refer to some of the more significant. {100} 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 envelope. in a state of nature, however, in an ideal climate, this is not the case. if they listened only to their essential instinct, 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 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 workers' own bodies provide. our northern bees have at times been known to revert to this instinct, under the deceptive influence 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 rearing the brood, that the apis dorsata, hanging thus from the branches, will construct 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 of the colony. and indeed we find that all species of bees existing in cold and temperate regions have abandoned this primitive 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 obscure 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. {101} this great progress, not the less actual for being hereditary and ancient, was followed by an infinite variety of details which prove that the industry, and even the policy, of the hive have not crystallised into infrangible formulae. we have already mentioned the intelligent substitution of flour for pollen, and of an artificial cement for propolis. we have seen with what skill the bees are able to adapt to their needs the occasionally disconcerting dwellings into which they are introduced, and the surprising adroitness wherewith they turn combs of foundation-wax to good account. they display extraordinary 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 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 concentrated, as to be more disconcerting almost than had it been incoherent. our habitual plan is there; in fact, we find everything that we had expected; but all has been put together by some antecedent force that would seem to have crushed it, arrested it in the mould, and to have hindered its completion. the houses whose height must attain some four or five yards are the merest protuberances, that our two hands can cover. thousands of walls are indicated by signs that hint at once of their plan and material. elsewhere 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 executed them clumsily, being hampered by its very vastness. we must disentangle, therefore, what now is obscure, we must develop the least intentions of the supernatural 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 the help thus offered by a magnificent providence. yet that is, more or less, what the bees are doing in our modern hives.* *as we are now concerned with the construction of the bee, we may note, in passing, a strange peculiarity of the apis florea. certain walls of its cells for males are cylindrical instead of hexagonal. apparently she has not yet succeeded in passing from one form to the other, and indefinitely adopting the better. {102} i have said that even the policy of the bees is probably subject to change. this point is the obscurest of all, and the most difficult to verify. i shall not dwell on their various methods of treating the queens, or the laws as to swarming that are peculiar to the inhabitants of every hive, and apparently transmitted from generation to generation, etc.; but by the side of these facts which are not sufficiently established are others so precise and unvarying as to prove that the same degree of political civilisation has not been attained by all races of the domestic bee, and that, among some of them, the public spirit still is groping its way, seeking 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 concerned, the cyprian bee approximates to the syrian. and finally, there is yet another fact which establishes still more clearly that the customs and prudent organisation of the hive are not the results of a primitive impulse, mechanically followed 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 triumphing over hereditary experience, she will cease to make provision for the winter.* in fact it becomes necessary, in order to stimulate her activity, to deprive her systematically of the fruits of her labour. *buchner cites an analogous fact. in the barbadoes, the bees whose hives are in the midst of the refineries, where they find sugar in abundance during the whole year, will entirely abandon their visits to the flowers. {103} so much for what our own eyes can see. it will be admitted that we have mentioned some curious facts, which by no means support the theory that every intelligence is arrested, every future clearly defined, save only the intelligence and future of man. but if we choose to accept for one moment the hypothesis of evolution, the spectacle widens, and its uncertain, grandiose 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 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 facilitates the existence of all that is. there can be no certainty, and yet many instances invite us to believe that, were an actual estimate possible, the quantity of matter that has raised itself from its beginnings would be found to be ever increasing. 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 certitude to the contrary reach us, must remain the first of all our duties, at times even when life itself conveys no encouraging clearness to us. i know all that may be urged against the theory of evolution. in its favour are numerous proofs and most powerful arguments, which yet do not carry irresistible 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 lessened 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 useful 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 ingenious suppositions, simply to say the profound truth, which is that we do not know. but this truth could only be helpful were it written that we never shall know. in the meanwhile it would induce a state of stagnation within us more pernicious 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 human hostelry, it matters little whether he 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 ignorance, 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 the other, banishes for all time the living elements of the problem, and explains nothing. {104} of wild bees approximately 4500 varieties 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 observations of a kind hitherto unknown, that would demand more than one lifetime, will throw a decisive light upon the history of the bee's evolution. all that we can do now is to enter this veiled region of supposition, and, discarding all positive statement, attempt to follow a tribe of hymenoptera in their progress towards a more intelligent existence, towards a little more security and comfort, lightly indicating the salient features of this ascension that is spread over many thousands of years. the tribe in question is already known to us; it is that of the "apiens," whose essential characteristics are so distinct and well-marked that one is inclined to credit all its members with one common ancestor.* *it is important that the terms we shall successively employ, adopting the classification of m. emile blanchard,- "apiens, apidae and apitae,--should not be confounded. the tribe of the apiens comprises all families of bees. the apidae constitute the first of these families, and are subdivided into three groups: the meliponae, the apitae, and the bombi (humble-bees). and, finally, the apitae include all the different varieties of our domestic bees. the disciples of darwin, hermann muller 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 or less in the same relation to the inhabitants 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 probably 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 intertwine. 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 dad in a warm and sumptuous fleece. she has not, like the 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 laboriously 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 accomplished 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. we shall pass over many intermediary species, wherein we may see the gradual lengthening of the tongue, enabling more nectar to be extracted from the cups of corollas, and the dawning formation and subsequent development of the apparatus 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 hesitating endeavours of the will to live and be happier result in the birth, development, and affirmation of social intelligence. 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 implements of labour, and that it exists solely at the expense of the working type of its race.* *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." among the bees, however, which are somewhat too arbitrarily termed the "solitary apidae," the social instinct already is smouldering, like a flame crushed beneath 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 oppresses it, the pyre that some day shall feed its triumph. if in this world all things be matter, this is surely its most immaterial movement. 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 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.... {106} 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 cyanescens, 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 exceptional, but among the ceratinae, which are of their nearest kindred, it has become a constant habit. the idea is germinating. it halts immediately; and hitherto has not succeeded, among the xylocopae, 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 understanding, 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 together 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. such assemblies merely result from a great number of individuals inhabiting the same locality." but when we come to the panurgi, which are cousins of the dasypodae, a little ray of light suddenly reveals the birth of a new sentiment in this fortuitous crowd. they collect in the same way as the others, and each one digs its own subterranean chambers; but the entrance is common to all, as also the gallery 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 this preliminary work be not executed in common, by relays of females, relieving 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 unrecognisable, 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 beginning of march the impregnated female who has survived the winter starts to construct 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 carpets 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 honeybee. but the model is still in the rough. the prosperity of the humble-bees never exceeds a certain limit, their laws are ill-defined and ill-obeyed, primitive cannibalism 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 humble-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 useless 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 immediately undergo a sort of unwearying metempsychosis, and re-incarnate itself, trembling with its last triumph, rendered all-powerful now and nearly perfect, in another group, the last but one of the race, that which immediately precedes our domestic bee wherein it attains its crown; the group of the 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. certain 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 life less assured, prosperity more limited, than with our bees; and wherever these are introduced, the meliponitae tend to disappear before them. in both races the fraternal idea has undergone equal and magnificent development, save in one point alone, wherein it achieves no further advance among the meliponitae than among the limited offspring of the humble-bees. in the mechanical organisation of distributed labour, in the precise economy of effort; briefly, in the architecture of the city, they display manifest 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 nymphs are destroyed after these have been hatched.* *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 impossibility of rearing the meliponitae in our climate. it is in our domestic bees, therefore, that the idea, of whose movements we have given a cursory and incomplete picture, attains its most perfect form. are these movements definitely, and for all time, arrested in each one of these species, and does the connecting-line exist in our imagination alone? let us not be too eager to establish a system in this ill-explored region. let our conclusions be only provisional, and preferentially such as convey the utmost hope, for, were a choice forced upon us, occasional 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 fraternal effort of the panurgi? and if we imposed abnormal conditions upon the panurgi, would these, in their turn, progress 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 understanding, a mutual division of labour? have 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 attention. reaumur was acquainted with only a few of them; we have since then observed a few more; but hundreds, thousands 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 sun's delectable murmur, that in the year 1730 gorged themselves with honey in the gardens of charenton, were absolutely identical with those that to-morrow, when april returns, will be humming in the woods of vincennes, but a few yards away. from reaumur's day to our own, however, is but as the twinkling of an eye; and many lives of men, placed end to end, form but a second in the history of nature's thought. {109} although the idea that our eyes have followed attains its supreme expression in our domestic bees, it must not be inferred therefrom that the hive reveals no faults. there is one masterpiece, the hexagonal cell, that touches absolute perfection,--a perfection that all the geniuses in the world, were they to meet in conclave, could in no way enhance. no living 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 already dealt with a few faults and shortcomings, evident sometimes and sometimes mysterious, such as the ruinous superabundance 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, encumbers the surface of the comb; and further, the long sterile interregnum between the date of the first swarm and the impregnation of the second queen, etc., etc. of these faults the gravest, the only one which in our climates is invariably fatal, is the repeated swarming. but here we must bear in mind that the natural selection of the domestic bee has for thousands of years been thwarted by man. from the egyptian of the time of pharaoh 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 fulfilled their maternal duties, assured the maintenance of the stock and the necessary renewal of queens; they have guaranteed the future of the swarm, which, being precocious and ample in numbers, 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 different instincts; and the law of restricted swarming would therefore by slow degrees have established itself in our northern races. but it is precisely these prudent, opulent, acclimatised hives that man has always destroyed in order to possess himself of their treasure. he has permitted only--he does so to this day in ordinary practice--the feeblest colonies to survive; degenerate stock, secondary or tertiary swarms, which have just barely sufficient food to subsist through the winter, or whose miserable store he will supplement perhaps with a few droppings of honey. the result is, 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 activity to the collection of honey and pollen. {110} but for the other faults: might not an intelligence that possessed a clearer consciousness of the aim of common life 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 circumstances they give proof of understanding, but my curiosity would not be less were all that they do done blindly. it is interesting to watch a brain possessed of extraordinary resources within itself wherewith it may combat cold and hunger, death, time, space, and solitude, all the enemies of matter that is springing to life; but should a creature succeed in maintaining its little profound and complicated existence without overstepping the boundaries of instinct, without doing anything but what is ordinary, that would be very interesting too, and very extraordinary. 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 understand 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. {111} 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 perceiving them, longer still without effecting a remedy? if a being exist whom his destiny calls upon most specially, almost organically, to live and to organise common life in accordance with pure reason, that being is man. and yet see what he makes of it, compare the mistakes 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 surface, 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 products of this first labour; and the remaining seven-tenths condemned to a life of perpetual half-hunger, ceaselessly exhausting themselves in strange and sterile efforts whereby they never shall profit, but only shall render more complex and more inexplicable 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 hopelessly 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. {112} the evolution of the apiens, or at least of the apitae, being admitted, or regarded as more probable than that they should have remained stationary, let us now consider the general, constant direction 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 individual, 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 individually prospering in the midst of a languishing state. it protects the hardworking slave in the powerful city, while those who have no duties, whose association 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 discuss 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 appearance 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 the inevitable recoil. this progress, whose existence among the most intelligent species can scarcely be denied, has perhaps no aim beyond its initial impetus, and knows not whither it goes. but at least, in a world where nothing save a few facts of this kind indicates a precise will, it is significant enough that we should see certain creatures rising thus, slowly and continuously; and should the bees have revealed to us only this mysterious spiral of light in the overpowering darkness, that were enough to induce us not to regret 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. {113} 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 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 inform this effort with definitive meaning, or definitively destroy it. but we must proceed on our way as though nothing abnormal could ever befall us. did we know that to-morrow some revelation, a message, 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 destiny imposed on us, which is to subdue, and to some extent raise within and around us the obscure forces of life. none of these, perhaps, will survive the new revelation; but the soul of those who shall up to the end have fulfilled the mission 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 indifference, or resignation to the unknown, is the veritable duty, they will be better equipped than the others for the comprehension of this final resignation and indifference, better able to turn these to account. {114} but such speculations may well be avoided. let not the possibility of general 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 imagination notwithstanding, we have always been left to ourselves, to our own resources. it is to our humblest efforts that every useful, enduring achievement of this earth is due. it is open to us, if we choose, to await the better or worse that may follow some alien accident, but on condition that such expectation shall not hinder our human task. here again do the bees, as nature always, provide a most excellent lesson. in the hive there has truly been prodigious intervention. the bees are in the hands of a power capable of annihilating or modifying their race, of transforming their destinies; the bees' thraldom is far more definite than our own. therefore none the less do they perform their profound and primitive duty. and, among them, it is precisely those whose obedience to duty is most complete who are able most fully to profit by the supernatural intervention that to-day has raised the destiny of their 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 marrow, 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 can need, let us go from reality to reality seeking food for the incomprehensible flame, and thus, certain of having fulfilled our organic duty, preparing ourselves for whatever befall. let us nourish 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 simple human duty, that the very suspicion of the possible aimlessness of its exhausting effort will only render the duty the clearer, will only add more purity, power, disinterestedness, and freedom to the ardour wherewith it still seeks. appendix to give a complete bibliography of the bee were outside the scope of this book; we shall be satisfied, therefore, merely to indicate the more interesting works:-1. the historical development of apiarian science: (a) the ancient writers: aristotle, "history 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 l'histoire des insectes," 1740; ch. bonnet, "oeuvres d'histoire naturelle," 1779-1783; a. g. schirach, "physikalische 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 honeybee"(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'apiculture;" frank cheshire, "bees and bee-keeping" (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 alien, "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'apiulture;" hamet, "cours complet d'api-culture;" de bauvoys, "guide de l'apiculteur;" pollmann, "die biene und ihre zucht;" jeker, kramer, and theiler, "der schweizerische bienenvater;" s. simmins, "a modern bee farm;" f. w. vogel, "die honigbiene und die vermehrung der bienvolker;" baron a. von berlepsch, "die biene und ihre frucht," etc. 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, "anatomie et physiologic de l'abeille;" f. cheshire, "diagrams on the anatomy of the honeybee;" gunderach, "die naturgeschichte der honigbiene;" l. buchner, "geistes-leben der thiere;" o. butschli, "zur entwicklungsgeschichte der biene;" j. d. haviland, "the social instincts of bees, their origin and natural selection." 4. special monographs (organs, functions, 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 anatomiques sur le systeme nerveux des insectes;" l. r. d. brougham, "observations, demonstrations, and experiences upon the structure of the cells of bees;" p. cameron, "on parthenogenesis in the hymenoptera" (transactions natural society of glasgow, 1888); erichson, "de fabrica et usu antennarum in insectis;" b. t. lowne, "on the simple and compound eyes of insects "(philosophical 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." 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. muller, "ein beitrag zur lebensgeschichte der dasypoda hirtipes;" e. hoffer, "biologische beobachtungen an hummeln und schmarotzerhummeln;" 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 l'intelligence des betes;" espinas, "animal communities," etc. bramble-bees and others by j. henri fabre translated by alexander teixeira de mattos, f.z.s. translator's note. in this volume i have collected all the essays on wild bees scattered through the "souvenirs entomologiques," with the exception of those on the chalicodomae, or mason-bees proper, which form the contents of a separate volume entitled "the mason-bees." the first two essays on the halicti (chapters 12 and 13) have already appeared in an abbreviated form in "the life and love of the insect," translated by myself and published by messrs. a. & c. black (in america by the macmillan co.) in 1911. with the greatest courtesy and kindness, messrs. black have given me their permission to include these two chapters in the present volume; they did so without fee or consideration of any kind, merely on my representation that it would be a great pity if this uniform edition of fabre's works should be rendered incomplete because certain essays formed part of volumes of extracts previously published in this country. their generosity is almost unparalleled in my experience; and i wish to thank them publicly for it in the name of the author, of the french publishers and of the english and american publishers, as well as in my own. of the remaining chapters, one or two have appeared in the "english review" or other magazines; but most of them now see the light in english for the first time. i have once more, as in the case of "the mason-bees," to thank miss frances rodwell for the help which she has given me in the work of translation and research; and i am also grateful for much kind assistance received from the staff of the natural history museum and from mr. geoffrey meade-waldo in particular. alexander teixeira de mattos. chelsea, 1915. contents. translator's note. chapter 1. bramble-dwellers. chapter 2. the osmiae. chapter 3. the distribution of the sexes. chapter 4. the mother decides the sex of the egg. chapter 5. permutations of sex. chapter 6. instinct and discernment. chapter 7. economy of energy. chapter 8. the leaf-cutters. chapter 9. the cotton-bees. chapter 10. the resin-bees. chapter 11. the poison of the bee. chapter 12. the halicti: a parasite. chapter 13. the halicti: the portress. chapter 14. the halicti: parthenogenesis. index. chapter 1. bramble-dwellers. the peasant, as he trims his hedge, whose riotous tangle threatens to encroach upon the road, cuts the trailing stems of the bramble a foot or two from the ground and leaves the root-stock, which soon dries up. these bramble-stumps, sheltered and protected by the thorny brushwood, are in great demand among a host of hymenoptera who have families to settle. the stump, when dry, offers to any one that knows how to use it a hygienic dwelling, where there is no fear of damp from the sap; its soft and abundant pith lends itself to easy work; and the top offers a weak spot which makes it possible for the insect to reach the vein of least resistance at once, without cutting away through the hard ligneous wall. to many, therefore, of the bee and wasp tribe, whether honey-gatherers or hunters, one of these dry stalks is a valuable discovery when its diameter matches the size of its would-be inhabitants; and it is also an interesting subject of study to the entomologist who, in the winter, pruning-shears in hand, can gather in the hedgerows a faggot rich in small industrial wonders. visiting the bramble-bushes has long been one of my favourite pastimes during the enforced leisure of the wintertime; and it is seldom but some new discovery, some unexpected fact, makes up to me for my torn fingers. my list, which is still far from being complete, already numbers nearly thirty species of bramble-dwellers in the neighbourhood of my house; other observers, more assiduous than i, exploring another region and one covering a wider range, have counted as many as fifty. i give at foot an inventory of the species which i have noted. (bramble-dwelling insects in the neighbourhood of serignan [vaucluse]: 1. melliferous hymenoptera. osmia tridentata, duf. and per. osmia detrita, perez. anthidium scapulare, latr. heriades rubicola, perez. prosopis confusa, schenck. ceratina chalcites, germ. ceratina albilabris, fab. ceratina callosa, fab. ceratina coerulea, villers. 2. hunting hymenoptera. solenius vagus, fab. (provisions, diptera). solenius lapidarius, lep. (provisions, spiders?). cemonus unicolor, panz. (provisions, plant-lice). psen atratus (provisions, black plant-lice). tripoxylon figulus, lin. (provisions, spiders). a pompilus, unknown (provisions, spiders). odynerus delphinalis, giraud. 3. parasitical hymenoptera. a leucopsis, unknown (parasite of anthidium scapulare). a small scoliid, unknown (parasite of solenius vagus). omalus auratus (parasite of various bramble-dwellers). cryptus bimaculatus, grav. (parasite of osmia detrita). cryptus gyrator, duf. (parasite of tripoxylon figulus). ephialtes divinator, rossi (parasite of cemonus unicolor). ephialtes mediator, grav. (parasite of psen atratus). foenus pyrenaicus, guerin. euritoma rubicola, j. giraud (parasite of osmia detrita). 4. coleoptera. zonitis mutica, fab. (parasite of osmia tridentata). most of these insects have been submitted to a learned expert, professor jean perez, of bordeaux. i take this opportunity of renewing my thanks for his kindness in identifying them for me.--author's note.) they include members of very diverse corporations. some, more industrious and equipped with better tools, remove the pith from the dry stem and thus obtain a vertical cylindrical gallery, the length of which may be nearly a cubit. this sheath is next divided, by partitions, into more or less numerous storeys, each of which forms the cell of a larva. others, less well-endowed with strength and implements, avail themselves of the old galleries of other insects, galleries that have been abandoned after serving as a home for their builder's family. their only work is to make some slight repairs in the ruined tenement, to clear the channel of its lumber, such as the remains of cocoons and the litter of shattered ceilings, and lastly to build new partitions, either with a plaster made of clay or with a concrete formed of pith-scrapings cemented with a drop of saliva. you can tell these borrowed dwellings by the unequal size of the storeys. when the worker has herself bored the channel, she economizes her space: she knows how costly it is. the cells, in that case, are all alike, the proper size for the tenant, neither too large nor too small. in this box, which has cost weeks of labour, the insect has to house the largest possible number of larvae, while allotting the necessary amount of room to each. method in the superposition of the floors and economy of space are here the absolute rule. but there is evidence of waste when the insect makes use of a bramble hollowed by another. this is the case with tripoxylon figulus. to obtain the store-rooms wherein to deposit her scanty stock of spiders, she divides her borrowed cylinder into very unequal cells, by means of slender clay partitions. some are a centimetre (.39 inch.--translator's note.) deep, the proper size for the insect; others are as much as two inches. these spacious rooms, out of all proportion to the occupier, reveal the reckless extravagance of a casual proprietress whose title-deeds have cost her nothing. but, whether they be the original builders or labourers touching up the work of others, they all alike have their parasites, who constitute the third class of bramble-dwellers. these have neither galleries to excavate nor victuals to provide; they lay their egg in a strange cell; and their grub feeds either on the provisions of the lawful owner's larva or on that larva itself. at the head of this population, as regards both the finish and the magnitude of the structure, stands the three-pronged osmia (osmia tridentata, duf. and per.), to whom this chapter shall be specially devoted. her gallery, which has the diameter of a lead pencil, sometimes descends to a depth of twenty inches. it is at first almost exactly cylindrical; but, in the course of the victualling, changes occur which modify it slightly at geometrically determined distances. the work of boring possesses no great interest. in the month of july, we see the insect, perched on a bramble-stump, attack the pith and dig itself a well. when this is deep enough, the osmia goes down, tears off a few particles of pith and comes up again to fling her load outside. this monotonous labour continues until the bee deems the gallery long enough, or until, as often happens, she finds herself stopped by an impassable knot. next comes the ration of honey, the laying of the egg and the partitioning, the last a delicate operation to which the insect proceeds by degrees from the base to the top. at the bottom of the gallery, a pile of honey is placed and an egg laid upon the pile; then a partition is built to separate this cell from the next, for each larva must have its special chamber, about a centimetre and a half (.58 inch.--translator's note.) long, having no communication with the chambers adjoining. the materials employed for this partition are bramble-sawdust, glued into a paste with the insects' saliva. whence are these materials obtained? does the osmia go outside, to gather on the ground the rubbish which she flung out when boring the cylinder? on the contrary, she is frugal of her time and has better things to do than to pick up the scattered particles from the soil. the channel, as i said, is at first uniform in size, almost cylindrical; its sides still retain a thin coating of pith, forming the reserves which the osmia, as a provident builder, has economized wherewith to construct the partitions. so she scrapes away with her mandibles, keeping within a certain radius, a radius that corresponds with the dimensions of the cell which she is going to build next; moreover, she conducts her work in such a way as to hollow out more in the middle and leave the two ends contracted. in this manner, the cylindrical channel of the start is succeeded, in the worked portion, by an ovoid cavity flattened at both ends, a space resembling a little barrel. this space will form the second cell. as for the rubbish, it is utilized on the spot for the lid or cover that serves as a ceiling for one cell and a floor for the next. our own master-builders could not contrive more successfully to make the best use of their labourers' time. on the floor thus obtained, a second ration of honey is placed; and an egg is laid on the surface of the paste. lastly, at the upper end of the little barrel, a partition is built with the scrapings obtained in the course of the final work on the third cell, which itself is shaped like a flattened ovoid. and so the work goes on, cell upon cell, each supplying the materials for the partition separating it from the one below. on reaching the end of the cylinder, the osmia closes up the case with a thick layer of the same mortar. then that bramble-stump is done with; the bee will not return to it. if her ovaries are not yet exhausted, other dry stems will be exploited in the same fashion. the number of cells varies greatly, according to the qualities of the stalk. if the bramble-stump be long, regular and smooth, we may count as many as fifteen: that, at least, is the highest figure which my observations have supplied. to obtain a good idea of the internal distribution, we must split the stalk lengthwise, in the winter, when the provisions have long been consumed and when the larvae are wrapped in their cocoons. we then see that, at regular intervals, the case becomes slightly narrower; and in each of the necks thus formed a circular disk is fixed, a partition one or two millimetres thick. (.039 to.079 inch.--translator's note.) the rooms separated by these partitions form so many little barrels or kegs, each compactly filled with a reddish, transparent cocoon, through which the larva shows, bent into a fish-hook. the whole suggests a string of rough, oval amber beads, touching at their amputated ends. in this string of cocoons, which is the oldest, which the youngest? the oldest is obviously the bottom one, the one whose cell was the first built; the youngest is the one at the top of the row, the one in the cell last built. the oldest of the larvae starts the pile, down at the bottom of the gallery; the latest arrival ends it at the top; and those in between follow upon one another, according to age, from base to apex. let us next observe that there is no room in the shaft for two osmiae at a time on the same level, for each cocoon fills up the storey, the keg that belongs to it, without leaving any vacant space; let us also remark that, when they attain the stage of perfection, the osmiae must all emerge from the shaft by the only orifice which the bramble-stem boasts, the orifice at the top. there is here but one obstacle, easy to overcome: a plug of glued pith, of which the insect's mandibles make short work. down below, the stalk offers no ready outlet; besides, it is prolonged underground indefinitely by the roots. everywhere else is the ligneous fence, generally too hard and thick to break through. it is inevitable therefore that all the osmiae, when the time comes to quit their dwelling, should go out by the top; and, as the narrowness of the shaft bars the passage of the preceding insect as long as the next insect, the one above it, remains in position, the removal must begin at the top, extend from cell to cell and end at the bottom. consequently, the order of exit is the converse to the order of birth: the younger osmiae leave the nest first, their elders leave it last. the oldest, that is to say, the bottom one, was the first to finish her supply of honey and to spin her cocoon. taking precedence of all her sisters in the whole series of her actions, she was the first to burst her silken bag and to destroy the ceiling that closes her room: at least, that is what the logic of the situation takes for granted. in her anxiety to get out, how will she set about her release? the way is blocked by the nearest cocoons, as yet intact. to clear herself a passage through the string of those cocoons would mean to exterminate the remainder of the brood; the deliverance of one would mean the destruction of all the rest. insects are notoriously obstinate in their actions and unscrupulous in their methods. if the bee at the bottom of the shaft wants to leave her lodging, will she spare those who bar her road? the difficulty is great, obviously; it seems insuperable. thereupon we become suspicious: we begin to wonder if the emergence from the cocoon, that is to say, the hatching, really takes place in the order of primogeniture. might it not be--by a very singular exception, it is true, but one which is necessary in such circumstances--that the youngest of the osmiae bursts her cocoon first and the oldest last; in short, that the hatching proceeds from one chamber to the next in the inverse direction to that which the age of the occupants would lead us to presume? in that case, the whole difficulty would be removed: each osmia, as she rent her silken prison, would find a clear road in front of her, the osmiae nearer the outlet having gone out before her. but is this really how things happen? our theories very often do not agree with the insect's practice; even where our reasoning seems most logical, we should be more prudent to see what happens before venturing on any positive statements. leon dufour was not so prudent when he, the first in the field, took this little problem in hand. he describes to us the habits of an odynerus (odynerus rubicola, duf.) who piles up clay cells in the shaft of a dry bramble-stalk; and, full of enthusiasm for his industrious wasp, he goes on to say: 'picture a string of eight cement shells, placed end to end and closely wedged inside a wooden sheath. the lowest was undeniably made first and consequently contains the first-laid egg, which, according to rules, should give birth to the first winged insect. how do you imagine that the larva in that first shell was bidden to waive its right of primogeniture and only to complete its metamorphosis after all its juniors? what are the conditions brought into play to produce a result apparently so contrary to the laws of nature? humble yourself in the presence of the reality and confess your ignorance, rather than attempt to hide your embarrassment under vain explanations! 'if the first egg laid by the busy mother were destined to be the first-born of the odyneri, that one, in order to see the light immediately after achieving wings, would have had the option either of breaking through the double walls of his prison or of perforating, from bottom to top, the seven shells ahead of him, in order to emerge through the truncate end of the bramble-stem. now nature, while refusing any way of escape laterally, was also bound to veto any direct invasion, the brutal gimlet-work which would inevitably have sacrificed seven members of one family for the safety of an only son. nature is as ingenious in design as she is fertile in resource, and she must have foreseen and forestalled every difficulty. she decided that the last-built cradle should yield the first-born child; that this one should clear the road for his next oldest brother, the second for the third and so on. and this is the order in which the birth of our odyneri of the brambles actually takes place.' yes, my revered master, i will admit without hesitation that the bramble-dwellers leave their sheath in the converse order to that of their ages: the youngest first, the oldest last; if not invariably, at least very often. but does the hatching, by which i mean the emergence from the cocoon, take place in the same order? does the evolution of the elder wait upon that of the younger, so that each may give those who would bar his passage time to effect their deliverance and to leave the road clear? i very much fear that logic has carried your deductions beyond the bounds of reality. rationally speaking, my dear sir, nothing could be more accurate than your inferences; and yet we must forgo the theory of the strange inversion which you suggest. none of the bramble-bees with whom i have experimented behaves after that fashion. i know nothing personal about odynerus rubicola, who appears to be a stranger in my district; but, as the method of leaving must be almost the same when the habitation is exactly similar, it is enough, i think, to experiment with some of the bramble-dwellers in order to learn the history of the rest. my studies will, by preference, bear upon the three-pronged osmia, who lends herself more readily to laboratory experiments, both because she is stronger and because the same stalk will contain a goodly number of her cells. the first fact to be ascertained is the order of hatching. i take a glass tube, closed at one end, open at the other and of a diameter similar to that of the osmia's tunnel. in this i place, one above the other, exactly in their natural order, the ten cocoons, or thereabouts, which i extract from a stump of bramble. the operation is performed in winter. the larvae, at that time, have long been enveloped in their silken case. to separate the cocoons from one another, i employ artificial partitions consisting of little round disks of sorghum, or indian millet, about half a centimetre thick. (about one-fifth of an inch.--translator's note.) this is a white pith, divested of its fibrous wrapper and easy for the osmia's mandibles to attack. my diaphragms are much thicker than the natural partitions; this is an advantage, as we shall see. in any case, i could not well use thinner ones, for these disks must be able to withstand the pressure of the rammer which places them in position in the tube. on the other hand, the experiment showed me that the osmia makes short work of the material when it is a case of drilling a hole through it. to keep out the light, which would disturb my insects destined to spend their larval life in complete darkness, i cover the tube with a thick paper sheath, easy to remove and replace when the time comes for observation. lastly, the tubes thus prepared and containing either osmiae or other bramble-dwellers are hung vertically, with the opening at the top, in a snug corner of my study. each of these appliances fulfils the natural conditions pretty satisfactorily: the cocoons from the same bramble-stick are stacked in the same order which they occupied in the native shaft, the oldest at the bottom of the tube and the youngest close to the orifice; they are isolated by means of partitions; they are placed vertically, head upwards; moreover, my device has the advantage of substituting for the opaque wall of the bramble a transparent wall which will enable me to follow the hatching day by day, at any moment which i think opportune. the male osmia splits his cocoon at the end of june and the female at the beginning of july. when this time comes, we must redouble our watch and inspect the tubes several times a day if we would obtain exact statistics of the births. well, during the six years that i have studied this question, i have seen and seen again, ad nauseam; and i am in a position to declare that there is no order governing the sequence of hatchings, absolutely none. the first cocoon to burst may be the one at the bottom of the tube, the one at the top, the one in the middle or in any other part, indifferently. the second to be split may adjoin the first or it may be removed from it by a number of spaces, either above or below. sometimes several hatchings occur on the same day, within the same hour, some farther back in the row of cells, some farther forward; and this without any apparent reason for the simultaneity. in short, the hatchings follow upon one another, i will not say haphazard--for each of them has its appointed place in time, determined by impenetrable causes--but at any rate contrary to our calculations, based on this or the other consideration. had we not been deceived by our too shallow logic, we might have foreseen this result. the eggs are laid in their respective cells at intervals of a few days, of a few hours. how can this slight difference in age affect the total evolution, which lasts a year? mathematical accuracy has nothing to do with the case. each germ, each grub has its individual energy, determined we know not how and varying in each germ or grub. this excess of vitality belongs to the egg before it leaves the ovary. might it not, at the moment of hatching, be the cause why this or that larva takes precedence of its elders or its juniors, chronology being altogether a secondary consideration? when the hen sits upon her eggs, is the oldest always the first to hatch? in the same way, the oldest larva, lodged in the bottom storey, need not necessarily reach the perfect state first. a second argument, had we reflected more deeply on the matter, would have shaken our faith in any strict mathematical sequence. the same brood forming the string of cocoons in a bramble-stem contains both males and females; and the two sexes are divided in the series indiscriminately. now it is the rule among the bees for the males to issue from the cocoon a little earlier than the females. in the case of the three-pronged osmia, the male has about a week's start. consequently, in a populous gallery, there is always a certain number of males, who are hatched seven or eight days before the females and who are distributed here and there over the series. this would be enough to make any regular hatching-sequence impossible in either direction. these surmises accord with the facts: the chronological sequence of the cells tells us nothing about the chronological sequence of the hatchings, which take place without any definite order. there is, therefore, no surrender of rights of primogeniture, as leon dufour thought: each insect, regardless of the others, bursts its cocoon when its time comes; and this time is determined by causes which escape our notice and which, no doubt, depend upon the potentialities of the egg itself. it is the case with the other bramble-dwellers which i have subjected to the same test (osmia detrita, anthidium scapulare, solenius vagus, etc.); and it must also be the case with odynerus rubicola: so the most striking analogies inform us. therefore the singular exception which made such an impression on dufour's mind is a sheer logical illusion. an error removed is tantamount to a truth gained; and yet, if it were to end here, the result of my experiment would possess but slight value. after destruction, let us turn to construction; and perhaps we shall find the wherewithal to compensate us for an illusion lost. let us begin by watching the exit. the first osmia to leave her cocoon, no matter what place she occupies in the series, forthwith attacks the ceiling separating her from the floor above. she cuts a fairly clean hole in it, shaped like a truncate cone, having its larger base on the side where the bee is and its smaller base opposite. this conformation of the exit-door is a characteristic of the work. when the insect tries to attack the diaphragm, it first digs more or less at random; then, as the boring progresses, the action is concentrated upon an area which narrows until it presents no more than just the necessary passage. nor is the cone-shaped aperture special to the osmia: i have seen it made by the other bramble-dwellers through my thick disks of sorghum-pith. under natural conditions, the partitions, which, for that matter, are very thin, are destroyed absolutely, for the contraction of the cell at the top leaves barely the width which the insect needs. the truncate, cone-shaped breach has often been of great use to me. its wide base made it possible for me, without being present at the work, to judge which of the two neighbouring osmiae had pierced the partition; it told me the direction of a nocturnal migration which i had been unable to witness. the first-hatched osmia, wherever she may be, has made a hole in her ceiling. she is now in the presence of the next cocoon, with her head at the opening of the hole. in front of her sister's cradle, she usually stops, consumed with shyness; she draws back into her cell, flounders among the shreds of the cocoon and the wreckage of the ruined ceiling; she waits a day, two days, three days, more if necessary. should impatience gain the upper hand, she tries to slip between the wall of the tunnel and the cocoon that blocks the way. she even undertakes the laborious work of gnawing at the wall, so as to widen the interval, if possible. we find these attempts, in the shaft of a bramble, at places where the pith is removed down to the very wood, where the wood itself is gnawed to some depth. i need hardly say that, although these lateral inroads are perceptible after the event, they escape the eye at the moment when they are being made. if we would witness them, we must slightly modify the glass apparatus. i line the inside of the tube with a thick piece of whity-brown packing-paper, but only over one half of the circumference; the other half is left bare, so that i may watch the osmia's attempts. well, the captive insect fiercely attacks this lining, which to its eyes represents the pithy layer of its usual abode; it tears it away by tiny particles and strives to cut itself a road between the cocoon and the glass wall. the males, who are a little smaller, have a better chance of success than the females. flattening themselves, making themselves thin, slightly spoiling the shape of the cocoon, which, however, thanks to its elasticity, soon recovers its first condition, they slip through the narrow passage and reach the next cell. the females, when in a hurry to get out, do as much, if they find the tube at all amenable to the process. but no sooner is the first partition passed than a second presents itself. this is pierced in its turn. in the same way will the third be pierced and others after that, if the insect can manage them, as long as its strength holds out. too weak for these repeated borings, the males do not go far through my thick plugs. if they contrive to cut through the first, it is as much as they can do; and, even so, they are far from always succeeding. but, in the conditions presented by the native stalk, they have only feeble tissues to overcome; and then, slipping, as i have said, between the cocoon and the wall, which is slightly worn owing to the circumstances described, they are able to pass through the remaining occupied chambers and to reach the outside first, whatever their original place in the stack of cells. it is just possible that their early eclosion forces this method of exit upon them, a method which, though often attempted, does not always succeed. the females, furnished with stronger tools, make greater progress in my tubes. i see some who pierce three or four partitions, one after the other, and are so many stages ahead before those whom they have left behind are even hatched. while they are engaged in this long and toilsome operation, others, nearer to the orifice, have cleared a passage whereof those from a distance will avail themselves. in this way, it may happen that, when the width of the tube permits, an osmia in a back row will nevertheless be one of the first to emerge. in the bramble-stem, which is of exactly the same diameter as the cocoon, this escape by the side of the column appears hardly practicable, except to a few males; and even these have to find a wall which has so much pith that by removing it they can effect a passage. let us then imagine a tube so narrow as to prevent any exit save in the natural sequence of the cells. what will happen? a very simple thing. the newly-hatched osmia, after perforating his partition, finds himself faced with an unbroken cocoon that obstructs the road. he makes a few attempts upon the sides and, realizing his impotence, retires into his cell, where he waits for days and days, until his neighbour bursts her cocoon in her turn. his patience is inexhaustible. however, it is not put to an over long test, for within a week, more or less, the whole string of females is hatched. when two neighbouring osmiae are released at the same time, mutual visits are paid through the aperture between the two rooms: the one above goes down to the floor below; the one below goes up to the floor above; sometimes both of them are in the same cell together. might not this intercourse tend to cheer them and encourage them to patience? meanwhile, slowly, doors are opening here and there through the separating walls; the road is cleared by sections; and a moment arrives when the leader of the file walks out. the others follow, if ready; but there are always laggards who keep the rear-ranks waiting until they are gone. to sum up, first, the hatching of the larvae takes place without any order; secondly, the exodus proceeds regularly from summit to base, but only in consequence of the insect's inability to move forward so long as the upper cells are not vacated. we have here not an exceptional evolution, in the inverse ratio to age, but the simple impossibility of emerging otherwise. should a chance occur of going out before its turn, the insect does not fail to seize it, as we can see by the lateral movements which send the impatient ones a few ranks ahead and even release the more favoured altogether. the only remarkable thing that i perceive is the scrupulous respect shown to the as yet unopened neighbouring cocoon. however eager to come out, the osmia is most careful not to touch it with his mandibles: it is taboo. he will demolish the partition, he will gnaw the side-wall fiercely, even though there be nothing left but wood, he will reduce everything around him to dust; but touch a cocoon that obstructs his way? never! he will not make himself an outlet by breaking up his sisters' cradles. it may happen that the osmia's patience is in vain and that the barricade that blocks the way never disappears at all. sometimes, the egg in a cell does not mature; and the unconsumed provisions dry up and become a compact, sticky, mildewed plug, through which the occupants of the floors below could never clear themselves a passage. sometimes, again, a grub dies in its cocoon; and the cradle of the deceased, now turned into a coffin, forms an everlasting obstacle. how shall the insect cope with such grave circumstances? among the many bramble-stumps which i have collected, some few have presented a remarkable peculiarity. in addition to the orifice at the top, they had at the side one and sometimes two round apertures that looked as though they had been punched out with an instrument. on opening these stalks, which were old, deserted nests, i discovered the cause of these very exceptional windows. above each of them was a cell full of mouldy honey. the egg had perished and the provisions remained untouched: hence the impossibility of getting out by the ordinary road. walled in by the unsurmountable obstacle, the osmia on the floor below had contrived an outlet through the side of the shaft; and those in the lower storeys had benefited by this ingenious innovation. the usual door being inaccessible, a side-window had been opened by means of the insect's jaws. the cocoons, torn, but still in position in the lower rooms, left no doubt as to this eccentric mode of exit. the same fact, moreover, was repeated, in several bramble-stumps, in the case of osmia tridentata; it was likewise repeated in the case of anthidium scapulare. the observation was worth confirming by experiment. i select a bramble-stem with the thinnest rind possible, so as to facilitate the osmiae's work. i split it in half, thus obtaining a smooth-sided trough which will enable me to judge better of future exits. the cocoons are next laid out in one of the troughs. i separate them with disks of sorghum, covering both surfaces of the disk with a generous layer of sealing-wax, a material which the osmia's mandibles are not able to attack. the two troughs are then placed together and fastened. a little putty does away with the joint and prevents the least ray of light from penetrating. lastly, the apparatus is hung up perpendicularly, with the cocoons' heads up. we have now only to wait. none of the osmiae can get out in the usual manner, because each of them is confined between two partitions coated with sealing-wax. there is but one resource left to them if they would emerge into the light of day, that is, for each of them to open a side-window, provided always that they possess the instinct and the power to do so. in july, the result is as follows: of twenty osmiae thus immured, six succeed in boring a round hole through the wall and making their way out; the others perish in their cells, without managing to release themselves. but, when i open the cylinder, when i separate the two wooden troughs, i realize that all have attempted to escape through the side, for the wall of each cell bears traces of gnawing concentrated upon one spot. all, therefore, have acted in the same way as their more fortunate sisters; they did not succeed, because their strength failed them. lastly, in my glass tubes, part-lined with a thick piece of packing-paper, i often see attempts at making a window in the side of the cell: the paper is pierced right through with a round hole. this then is yet another result which i am glad to record in the history of the bramble-dwellers. when the osmia, the anthidium and probably others are unable to emerge through the customary outlet, they take an heroic decision and perforate the side of the shaft. it is the last resource, resolved upon after other methods have been tried in vain. the brave, the strong succeed; the weak perish in the attempt. supposing that all the osmiae possessed the necessary strength of jaw as well as the instinct for this sideward boring, it is clear that egress from each cell through a special window would be much more advantageous than egress through the common door. the bee could attend to his release as soon as he was hatched, instead of postponing it until after the emancipation of those who come before him; he would thus escape long waits, which too often prove fatal. in point of fact, it is no uncommon thing to find bramble-stalks in which several osmiae have died in their cells, because the upper storeys were not vacated in time. yes, there would be a precious advantage in that lateral opening, which would not leave each occupant at the mercy of his environment: many die that would not die. all the osmiae, when compelled by circumstances, resort to this supreme method; all have the instinct for lateral boring; but very few are able to carry the work through. only the favourites of fate succeed, those more generously endowed with strength and perseverance. if the famous law of natural selection, which is said to govern and transform the world, had any sure foundation; if really the fittest removed the less fit from the scene; if the future were to the strongest, to the most industrious, surely the race of osmiae, which has been perforating bramble-stumps for ages, should by this time have allowed its weaker members, who go on obstinately using the common outlet, to die out and should have replaced them, down to the very last one, by the stalwart drillers of side-openings. there is an opportunity here for immense progress; the insect is on the verge of it and is unable to cross the narrow intervening line. selection has had ample time to make its choice; and yet, though there be a few successes, the failures exceed them in very large measure. the race of the strong has not abolished the race of the weak: it remains inferior in numbers, as doubtless it has been since all time. the law of natural selection impresses me with the vastness of its scope; but, whenever i try to apply it to actual facts, it leaves me whirling in space, with nothing to help me to interpret realities. it is magnificent in theory, but it is a mere gas-bubble in the face of existing conditions. it is majestic, but sterile. then where is the answer to the riddle of the world? who knows? who will ever know? let us waste no more time in this darkness, which idle theorizing will not dispel; let us return to facts, humble facts, the only ground that does not give way under our feet. the osmia respects her neighbour's cocoon; and her scruples are so great that, after vainly trying to slip between that cocoon and the wall, or else to open a lateral outlet, she lets herself die in her cell rather than effect an egress by forcing her way through the occupied cells. when the cocoon that blocks the way contains a dead instead of a live grub, will the result be the same? in my glass tubes, i let osmia-cocoons containing a live grub alternate with osmia-cocoons in which the grub has been asphyxiated by the fumes of sulphocarbonic acid. as usual, the storeys are separated by disks of sorghum. the anchorites, when hatched, do not hesitate long. once the partition is pierced, they attack the dead cocoons, go right through them, reducing the dead grub, now dry and shrivelled, to dust, and at last emerge, after wrecking everything in their path. the dead cocoons, therefore, are not spared; they are treated as would be any other obstacle capable of attack by the mandibles. the osmia looks upon them as a mere barricade to be ruthlessly overturned. how is she apprised that the cocoon, which has undergone no outward change, contains a dead and not a live grub? it is certainly not by sight. can it be by sense of smell? i am always a little suspicious of that sense of smell of which we do not know the seat and which we introduce on the slightest provocation as a convenient explanation of that which may transcend our explanatory powers. my next test is made with a string of live cocoons. of course, i cannot take all these from the same species, for then the experiment would not differ from the one which we have already witnessed; i take them from two different species which leave their bramble-stem at separate periods. moreover, these cocoons must have nearly the same diameter to allow of their being stacked in a tube without leaving an empty space between them and the wall. the two species adopted are solenius vagus, which quits the bramble at the end of june, and osmia detrita, which comes a little earlier, in the first fortnight of the same month. i therefore alternate osmia-cocoons and solenius-cocoons, with the latter at the top of the series, either in glass tubes or between two bramble-troughs joined into a cylinder. the result of this promiscuity is striking. the osmiae, which mature earlier, emerge; and the solenius-cocoons, as well as their inhabitants, which by this time have reached the perfect stage, are reduced to shreds, to dust, wherein it is impossible for me to recognize a vestige, save perhaps here and there a head, of the exterminated unfortunates. the osmia, therefore, has not respected the live cocoons of a foreign species: she has passed out over the bodies of the intervening solenii. did i say passed over their bodies? she has passed through them, crunched the laggards between her jaws, treated them as cavalierly as she treats my disks. and yet those barricades were alive. no matter: when her hour came, the osmia went ahead, destroying everything upon her road. here, at any rate, is a law on which we can rely: the supreme indifference of the animal to all that does not form part of itself and its race. and what of the sense of smell, distinguishing the dead from the living? here, all are alive; and the bee pierces her way as through a row of corpses. if i am told that the smell of the solenii may differ from that of the osmiae, i shall reply that such extreme subtlety in the insect's olfactory apparatus seems to me a rather far-fetched supposition. then what is my explanation of the two facts? the explanation? i have none to give! i am quite content to know that i do not know, which at least spares me many vain lucubrations. and so i do not know how the osmia, in the dense darkness of her tunnel, distinguishes between a live cocoon and a dead cocoon of the same species; and i know just as little how she succeeds in recognizing a strange cocoon. ah, how clearly this confession of ignorance proves that i am behind the times! i am deliberately missing a glorious opportunity of stringing big words together and arriving at nothing. the bramble-stump is perpendicular, or nearly so; its opening is at the top. this is the rule under natural conditions. my artifices are able to alter that state of things; i can place the tube vertically or horizontally; i can turn its one orifice either up or down; lastly, i can leave the channel open at both ends, which will give two outlets. what will happen under these several conditions? that is what we shall examine with the three-pronged osmia. the tube is hung perpendicularly, but closed at the top and open at the bottom; in fact, it represents a bramble-stump turned upside down. to vary and complicate the experiment, the strings of cocoons are arranged differently in different tubes. in some of them, the heads of the cocoons are turned downwards, towards the opening; in others, they are turned upwards, towards the closed end; in others again, the cocoons alternate in direction, that is to say, they are placed head to head and rear to rear, turn and turn about. i need not say that the separating floors are of sorghum. the result is identical in all these tubes. if the osmiae have their heads pointing upwards, they attack the partition above them, as happens under normal conditions; if their heads point downwards, they turn round in their cells and set to work as usual. in short, the general outward trend is towards the top, in whatever position the cocoon be placed. we here see manifestly at work the influence of gravity, which warns the insect of its reversed position and makes it turn round, even as it would warn us if we ourselves happened to be hanging head downwards. in natural conditions, the insect has but to follow the counsels of gravity, which tells it to dig upwards, and it will infallibly reach the exit-door situated at the upper end. but, in my apparatus, these same counsels betray it: it goes towards the top, where there is no outlet. thus misled by my artifices, the osmiae perish, heaped up on the higher floors and buried in the ruins. it nevertheless happens that attempts are made to clear a road downwards. but it is rare for the work to lead to anything in this direction, especially in the case of the middle or upper cells. the insect is little inclined for this progress, the opposite to that to which it is accustomed; besides, a serious difficulty arises in the course of this reversed boring. as the bee flings the excavated materials behind her, these fall back of their own weight under her mandibles; the clearance has to be begun anew. exhausted by her sisyphean task, distrustful of this new and unfamiliar method, the osmia resigns herself and expires in her cell. i am bound to add, however, that the osmiae in the lower storeys, those nearest the exit--sometimes one, sometimes two or three--do succeed in escaping. in that case, they unhesitatingly attack the partitions below them, while their companions, who form the great majority, persist and perish in the upper cells. it was easy to repeat the experiment without changing anything in the natural conditions, except the direction of the cocoons: all that i had to do was to hang up some bramble-stumps as i found them, vertically, but with the opening downwards. out of two stalks thus arranged and peopled with osmiae, not one of the insects succeeded in emerging. all the bees died in the shaft, some turned upwards, others downwards. on the other hand, three stems occupied by anthidia discharged their population safe and sound. the outgoing was effected at the bottom, from first to last, without the least impediment. must we take it that the two sorts of bees are not equally sensitive to the influences of gravity? can the anthidium, built to pass through the difficult obstacle of her cotton wallets, be better-adapted than the osmia to make her way through the wreckage that keeps falling under the worker's feet; or, rather, may not this very cotton-waste put a stop to these cataracts of rubbish which must naturally drive the insect back? this is all quite possible; but i can say nothing for certain. let us now experiment with vertical tubes open at both ends. the arrangements, save for the upper orifice, are the same as before. the cocoons, in some of the tubes, have their heads turned down; others, up; in others again, their positions alternate. the result is similar to what we have seen above. a few osmiae, those nearest the bottom orifice, take the lower road, whatever the direction first occupied by the cocoon; the others, composing by far the larger number, take the higher road, even when the cocoon is placed upside down. as both doors are free, the outgoing is effected at either end with success. what are we to conclude from all these experiments? first, that gravity guides the insect towards the top, where the natural door is, and makes it turn in its cell when the cocoon has been reversed. secondly, i seem to suspect an atmospheric influence and, in any case, some second cause that sends the insect to the outlet. let us admit that this cause is the proximity of the outer air acting upon the anchorite through the partitions. the animal then is subject, on the one hand, to the promptings of gravity, and this to an equal degree for all, whatever the storey inhabited. gravity is the common guide of the whole series from base to top. but those in the lower boxes have a second guide, when the bottom end is open. this is the stimulus of the adjacent air, a more powerful stimulus than that of gravity. the access of the air from without is very slight, because of the partitions; while it can be felt in the nethermost cells, it must decrease rapidly as the storeys ascend. wherefore the bottom insects, very few in number, obeying the preponderant influence, that of the atmosphere, make for the lower outlet and reverse, if necessary, their original position; those above, on the contrary, who form the great majority, being guided only by gravity when the upper end is closed, make for that upper end. it goes without saying that, if the upper end be open at the same time as the other, the occupants of the top storeys will have a double incentive to take the ascending path, though this will not prevent the dwellers on the lower floors from obeying, by preference, the call of the adjacent air and adopting the downward road. i have one means left whereby to judge of the value of my explanation, namely, to experiment with tubes open at both ends and lying horizontally. the horizontal position has a twofold advantage. in the first place, it removes the insect from the influence of gravity, inasmuch as it leaves it indifferent to the direction to be taken, the right or the left. in the second place, it does away with the descent of the rubbish which, falling under the worker's feet when the boring is done from below, sooner or later discourages her and makes her abandon her enterprise. there are a few precautions to be observed for the successful conduct of the experiment; i recommend them to any one who might care to make the attempt. it is even advisable to remember them in the case of the tests which i have already described. the males, those puny creatures, not built for work, are sorry labourers when confronted with my stout disks. most of them perish miserably in their glass cells, without succeeding in piercing their partitions right through. moreover, instinct has been less generous to them than to the females. their corpses, interspersed here and there in the series of the cells, are disturbing causes, which it is wise to eliminate. i therefore choose the larger, more powerful-looking cocoons. these, except for an occasional unavoidable error, belong to females. i pack them in tubes, sometimes varying their position in every way, sometimes giving them all a like arrangement. it does not matter whether the whole series comes from one and the same bramble-stump or from several: we are free to choose where we please; the result will not be altered. the first time that i prepared one of these horizontal tubes open at both ends, i was greatly struck by what happened. the series consisted of ten cocoons. it was divided into two equal batches. the five on the left went out on the left, the five on the right went out on the right, reversing, when necessary, their original direction in the cell. it was very remarkable from the point of view of symmetry; moreover, it was a very unlikely arrangement among the total number of possible arrangements, as mathematics will show us. let us take n to represent the number of osmiae. each of them, once gravity ceases to interfere and leaves the insect indifferent to either end of the tube, is capable of two positions, according as she chooses the exit on the right or on the left. with each of the two positions of this first osmia can be combined each of the two positions of the second, giving us, in all, 2 x 2 = (2 squared) arrangements. each of these (2 squared) arrangements can be combined, in its turn, with each of the two positions of the third osmia. we thus obtain 2 x 2 x 2 = (2 cubed) arrangements with three osmiae; and so on, each additional insect multiplying the previous result by the factor 2. with n osmiae, therefore, the total number of arrangements is (2 to the power n.) but note that these arrangements are symmetrical, two by two: a given arrangement towards the right corresponds with a similar arrangement towards the left; and this symmetry implies equality, for, in the problem in hand, it is a matter of indifference whether a fixed arrangement correspond with the right or left of the tube. the previous number, therefore, must be divided by 2. thus, n osmiae, according as each of them turns her head to the right or left in my horizontal tube, are able to adopt (2 to the power n 1) arrangements. if n = 10, as in my first experiment, the number of arrangements becomes (2 to the power 9) = 512. consequently, out of 512 ways which my ten insects can adopt for their outgoing position, there resulted one of those in which the symmetry was most striking. and observe that this was not an effect obtained by repeated attempts, by haphazard experiments. each osmia in the left half had bored to the left, without touching the partition on the right; each osmia in the right half had bored to the right, without touching the partition on the left. the shape of the orifices and the surface condition of the partition showed this, if proof were necessary. there had been a spontaneous decision, one half in favour of the left, one half in favour of the right. the arrangement presents another merit, one superior to that of symmetry: it has the merit of corresponding with the minimum expenditure of force. to admit of the exit of the whole series, if the string consists of n cells, there are originally n partitions to be perforated. there might even be one more, owing to a complication which i disregard. there are, i say, at least n partitions to be perforated. whether each osmia pierces her own, or whether the same osmia pierces several, thus relieving her neighbours, does not matter to us: the sum-total of the force expended by the string of bees will be in proportion to the number of those partitions, in whatever manner the exit be effected. but there is another task which we must take seriously into consideration, because it is often more troublesome than the boring of the partition: i mean the work of clearing a road through the wreckage. let us suppose the partitions pierced and the several chambers blocked by the resulting rubbish and by that rubbish only, since the horizontal position precludes any mixing of the contents of different chambers. to open a passage for itself through these rubbish-heaps, each insect will have the smallest effort to make if it passes through the smallest possible number of cells, in short, if it makes for the opening nearest to it. these smallest individual efforts amount, in the aggregate, to the smallest total effort. therefore, by proceeding as they did in my experiment, the osmiae effect their exit with the least expenditure of energy. it is curious to see an insect apply the 'principle of least action,' so often postulated in mechanics. an arrangement which satisfies this principle, which conforms to the law of symmetry and which possesses but one chance in 512, is certainly no fortuitous result. it is determined by a cause; and, as this cause acts invariably, the same arrangement must be reproduced if i renew the experiment. i renewed it, therefore, in the years that followed, with as many appliances as i could find bramble-stumps; and, at each new test, i saw once more what i had seen with such interest on the first occasion. if the number be even--and my column at that time consisted usually of ten--one half goes out on the right, the other on the left. if the number be odd--eleven, for instance--the osmia in the middle goes out indiscriminately by the right or left exit. as the number of cells to be traversed is the same on both sides, her expenditure of energy does not vary with the direction of the exit; and the principle of least action is still observed. it was important to discover if the three-pronged osmia shared her capacity, in the first place, with the other bramble-dwellers and, in the second, with bees differently housed, but also destined laboriously to cut a new road for themselves when the hour comes to quit the nest. well, apart from a few irregularities, due either to cocoons whose larva perished in my tubes before developing, or to those inexperienced workers, the males, the result was the same in the case of anthidium scapulare. the insects divided themselves into two equal batches, one going to the right, the other to the left. tripoxylon figulus left me undecided. this feeble insect is not capable of perforating my partitions; it nibbles at them a little; and i had to judge the direction from the marks of its mandibles. these marks, which are not always very plain, do not yet allow me to pronounce an opinion. solenius vagus, who is a skilful borer, behaved differently from the osmia. in a column of ten, the whole exodus was made in one direction. on the other hand, i tested the mason-bee of the sheds, who, when emerging under natural conditions, has only to pierce her cement ceiling and is not confronted with a series of cells. though a stranger to the environment which i created for her, she gave me a most positive answer. of a column of ten laid in a horizontal tube open at both ends, five made their way to the right and five to the left. dioxys cincta, a parasite in the buildings of both species of mason-bees, the chalicodoma of the sheds and the chalicodoma of the walls (cf. "the mason-bees" by j. henri fabre, translated by alexander teixeira de mattos: passim.--translator's note.), provided me with no precise result. the leaf-cutting bee (megachile apicalis, spin. (cf. chapter 8 of the present volume.--translator's note.)), who builds her leafy cups in the old cells of the chalicodoma of the walls, acts like the solenius and directs her whole column towards the same outlet. incomplete as it is, this symmetry shows us how unwise it were to generalize from the conclusions to which the three-pronged osmia leads us. whereas some bees, such as the anthidium and the chalicodoma, share the osmia's talent for using the twofold exit, others, such as the solenius and the leaf-cutter, behave like a flock of sheep and follow the first that goes out. the entomological world is not all of a piece; its gifts are very various: what one is capable of doing another cannot do; and penetrating indeed would be the eyes that saw the causes of these differences. be this as it may, increased research will certainly show us a larger number of species qualified to use the double outlet. for the moment, we know three; and that is enough for our purpose. i will add that, when the horizontal tube has one of its ends closed, the whole string of osmiae makes for the open end, turning round to do so, if need be. now that the facts are set forth, let us, if possible, trace the cause. in a horizontal tube, gravity no longer acts to determine the direction which the insect will take. is it to attack the partition on the right or that on the left? how shall it decide? the more i look into the matter, the more do my suspicions fall upon the atmospheric influence which is felt through the two open ends. of what does this influence consist? is it an effect of pressure, of hygrometry, of electrical conditions, of properties that escape our coarser physical attunement? he were a bold man who should undertake to decide. are not we ourselves, when the weather is about to alter, subject to subtle impressions, to sensations which we are unable to explain? and yet this vague sensitiveness to atmospheric changes would not be of much help to us in circumstances similar to those of my anchorites. imagine ourselves in the darkness and the silence of a prison-cell, preceded and followed by other similar cells. we possess implements wherewith to pierce the walls; but where are we to strike to reach the final outlet and to reach it with the least delay? atmospheric influence would certainly never guide us. and yet it guides the insect. feeble though it be, through the multiplicity of partitions, it is exercised on one side more than on the other, because the obstacles are fewer; and the insect, sensible to the difference between those two uncertainties, unhesitatingly attacks the partition which is nearer to the open air. thus is decided the division of the column into two converse sections, which accomplish the total liberation with the least aggregate of work. in short, the osmia and her rivals 'feel' the free space. this is yet one more sensory faculty which evolution might well have left us, for our greater advantage. as it has not done so, are we then really, as many contend, the highest expression of the progress accomplished, throughout the ages, by the first atom of glair expanded into a cell? chapter 2. the osmiae. february has its sunny days, heralding spring, to which rude winter will reluctantly yield place. in snug corners, among the rocks, the great spurge of our district, the characias of the greeks, the jusclo of the provencals, begins to lift its drooping inflorescence and discreetly opens a few sombre flowers. here the first midges of the year will come to slake their thirst. by the time that the tip of the stalks reaches the perpendicular, the worst of the cold weather will be over. another eager one, the almond-tree, risking the loss of its fruit, hastens to echo these preludes to the festival of the sun, preludes which are too often treacherous. a few days of soft skies and it becomes a glorious dome of white flowers, each twinkling with a roseate eye. the country, which still lacks green, seems dotted everywhere with white-satin pavilions. 'twould be a callous heart indeed that could resist the magic of this awakening. the insect nation is represented at these rites by a few of its more zealous members. there is first of all the honey-bee, the sworn enemy of strikes, who profits by the least lull of winter to find out if some rosemary is not beginning to open somewhere near the hive. the droning of the busy swarm fills the flowery vault, while a snow of petals falls softly to the foot of the tree. together with the population of harvesters there mingles another, less numerous, of mere drinkers, whose nesting-time has not yet begun. this is the colony of the osmiae, with their copper-coloured skin and bright-red fleece. two species have come hurrying up to take part in the joys of the almond-tree: first, the horned osmia, clad in black velvet on the head and breast and in red velvet on the abdomen; and, a little later, the three-horned osmia, whose livery must be red and red only. these are the first delegates despatched by the pollen-gleaners to ascertain the state of the season and attend the festival of the early blooms. 'tis but a moment since they burst their cocoon, the winter abode: they have left their retreats in the crevices of the old walls; should the north wind blow and set the almond-tree shivering, they will hasten to return to them. hail to you, o my dear osmiae, who yearly, from the far end of the harmas (the piece of waste ground in which the author studied his insects in their natural state. cf. "the life of the fly" by j. henri fabre, translated by alexander teixeira de mattos: chapter 1.--translator's note.), opposite snow-capped ventoux (a mountain in the provencal alps, near carpentras and serignan, 6,271 feet.--translator's note.), bring me the first tidings of the awakening of the insect world! i am one of your friends; let us talk about you a little. most of the osmiae of my region have none of the industry of their kinswomen of the brambles, that is to say, they do not themselves prepare the dwelling destined for the laying. they want ready-made lodgings, such as the old cells and old galleries of anthophorae and chalicodomae. if these favourite haunts are lacking, then a hiding-place in the wall, a round hole in some bit of wood, the tube of a reed, the spiral of a dead snail under a heap of stones are adopted, according to the tastes of the several species. the retreat selected is divided into chambers by partition-walls, after which the entrance to the dwelling receives a massive seal. that is the sum-total of the building done. for this plasterer's rather than mason's work, the horned and the three-horned osmia employ soft earth. this material is different from the mason-bee's cement, which will withstand wind and weather for many years on an exposed pebble; it is a sort of dried mud, which turns to pap on the addition of a drop of water. the mason-bee gathers her cementing-dust in the most frequented and driest portions of the road; she wets it with a saliva which, in drying, gives it the consistency of stone. the two osmiae who are the almond-tree's early visitors are no chemists: they know nothing of the making and mixing of hydraulic mortar; they limit themselves to gathering natural soaked earth, mud in short, which they allow to dry without any special preparation on their part; and so they need deep and well-sheltered retreats, into which the rain cannot penetrate, or the work would fall to pieces. while exploiting, in friendly rivalry with the three-horned osmia, the galleries which the mason-bee of the sheds good-naturedly surrenders to both, latreille's osmia uses different materials for her partitions and her doors. she chews the leaves of some mucilaginous plant, some mallow perhaps, and then prepares a sort of green putty with which she builds her partitions and finally closes the entrance to the dwelling. when she settles in the spacious cells of the masked anthophora (anthophora personata, illig.), the entrance to the gallery, which is wide enough to admit one's finger, is closed with a voluminous plug of this vegetable paste. on the earthy banks, hardened by the sun, the home is then betrayed by the gaudy colour of the lid. it is as though the authorities had closed the door and affixed to it their great seals of green wax. so far then as their building-materials are concerned, the osmiae whom i have been able to observe are divided into two classes: one building compartments with mud, the other with a green-tinted vegetable putty. the first section includes the horned osmia and the three-horned osmia, both so remarkable for the horny tubercles on their faces. the great reed of the south, the arundo donax, is often used, in the country, for rough garden-shelters against the mistral or just for fences. these reeds, the ends of which are chopped off to make them all the same length, are planted perpendicularly in the earth. i have often explored them in the hope of finding osmia-nests. my search has very seldom succeeded. the failure is easily explained. the partitions and the closing-plug of the horned and of the three-horned osmia are made, as we have seen, of a sort of mud which water instantly reduces to pap. with the upright position of the reeds, the stopper of the opening would receive the rain and would become diluted; the ceilings of the storeys would fall in and the family would perish by drowning. therefore the osmia, who knew of these drawbacks before i did, refuses the reeds when they are placed perpendicularly. the same reed is used for a second purpose. we make canisses of it, that is to say, hurdles, which, in spring, serve for the rearing of silk-worms and, in autumn, for the drying of figs. at the end of april and during may, which is the time when the osmiae work, the canisses are indoors, in the silk-worm nurseries, where the bee cannot take possession of them; in autumn, they are outside, exposing their layers of figs and peeled peaches to the sun; but by that time the osmiae have long disappeared. if, however, during the spring, an old, disused hurdle is left out of doors, in a horizontal position, the three-horned osmia often takes possession of it and makes use of the two ends, where the reeds lie truncated and open. there are other quarters that suit the three-horned osmia, who is not particular, it seems to me, and will make shift with any hiding-place, so long as it has the requisite conditions of diameter, solidity, sanitation and kindly darkness. the most original dwellings that i know her to occupy are disused snail-shells, especially the house of the common snail (helix aspersa). let us go to the slope of the hills thick with olive-trees and inspect the little supporting-walls which are built of dry stones and face the south. in the crevices of this insecure masonry, we shall reap a harvest of old snail-shells, plugged with earth right up to the orifice. the family of the three-horned osmia is settled in the spiral of those shells, which is subdivided into chambers by mud partitions. let us inspect the stone-heaps, especially those which come from the quarry-works. here we often find the field-mouse sitting on a grass mattress, nibbling acorns, almonds, olive-stones and apricot-stones. the rodent varies his diet: to oily and farinaceous foods he adds the snail. when he is gone, he has left behind him, under the overhanging stones, mixed up with the remains of other victuals, an assortment of empty shells, sometimes plentiful enough to remind me of the heap of snails which, cooked with spinach and eaten country-fashion on christmas eve, are flung away next day by the housewife. this gives the three-horned osmia a handsome collection of tenements; and she does not fail to profit by them. then again, even if the field-mouse's conchological museum be lacking, the same broken stones serve as a refuge for garden-snails who come to live there and end by dying there. when we see three-horned osmiae enter the crevices of old walls and of stone-heaps, there is no doubt about their occupation: they are getting free lodgings out of the old snail-shells of those labyrinths. the horned osmia, who is less common, might easily also be less ingenious, that is to say, less rich in varieties of houses. she seems to scorn empty shells. the only homes that i know her to inhabit are the reeds of the hurdles and the deserted cells of the masked anthophora. all the other osmiae whose method of nest-building i know work with green putty, a paste made of some crushed leaf or other; and none of them, except latreille's osmia, is provided with the horned or tubercled armour of the mud-kneaders. i should like to know what plants are used in making the putty; probably each species has its own preferences and its little professional secrets; but hitherto observation has taught me nothing concerning these details. whatever worker prepare it, the putty is very much the same in appearance. when fresh, it is always a clear dark green. later, especially in the parts exposed to the air, it changes, no doubt through fermentation, to the colour of dead leaves, to brown, to dull-yellow; and the leafy character of its origin is no longer apparent. but uniformity in the materials employed must not lead us to believe in uniformity in the lodging; on the contrary, this lodging varies greatly with the different species, though there is a marked predilection in favour of empty shells. thus latreille's osmia, together with the three-horned osmia, uses the spacious structures of the mason-bee of the sheds; she likes the magnificent cells of the masked anthophora; and she is always ready to establish herself in the cylinder of any reed lying flat on the ground. i have already spoken of an osmia (o. cyanoxantha, perez) who elects to make her home in the old nests of the mason-bee of the pebbles. (cf. "the mason-bees": chapter 10.--translator's note.) her closing-plug is made of a stout concrete, consisting of fair-sized bits of gravel sunk in the green paste; but for the inner partitions she employs only unalloyed putty. as the outer door, situated on the curve of an unprotected dome, is exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, the mother has to think of fortifying it. danger, no doubt, is the originator of that gritty concrete. the golden osmia (o. aurulenta, latr.) absolutely insists on an empty snail-shell as her residence. the brown or girdled snail, the garden snail and especially the common snail, who has a more spacious spiral, all scattered at random in the grass, at the foot of the walls and of the sun-swept rocks, furnish her with her usual dwelling-house. her dried putty is a kind of felt full of short white hairs. it must come from some hairy-leaved plant, one of the boragineae perhaps, rich both in mucilage and the necessary bristles. the red osmia (o. rufo-hirta, latr.) has a weakness for the brown snail and the garden snail, in whose shells i find her taking refuge in april when the north-wind blows. i am not yet much acquainted with her work, which should resemble that of the golden osmia. the green osmia (o. viridana, morawitz) takes up her quarters, tiny creature that she is, in the spiral staircase of bulimulus radiatus. it is a very elegant, but very small lodging, to say nothing of the fact that a considerable portion is taken up with the green-putty plug. there is just room for two. the andrenoid osmia (o. andrenoides, latr.), who looks so curious, with her naked red abdomen, appears to build her nest in the shell of the common snail, where i discover her refuged. the variegated osmia (o. versicolor, latr.) settles in the garden snail's shell, almost right at the bottom of the spiral. the blue osmia (o. cyanea, kirb.) seems to me to accept many different quarters. i have extracted her from old nests of the mason-bee of the pebbles, from the galleries dug in a roadside bank by the colletes (a short-tongued burrowing-bee known also as the melitta.--translator's note.) and lastly from the cavities made by some digger or other in the decayed trunk of a willow-tree. morawitz' osmia (o. morawitzi, perez) is not uncommon in the old nests of the mason-bee of the pebbles, but i suspect her of favouring other lodgings besides. the three-pronged osmia (o. tridentata, duf. and per.) creates a home of her own, digging herself a channel with her mandibles in dry bramble and sometimes in danewort. it mixes a few scrapings of perforated pith with the green paste. its habits are shared by the ragged osmia (o. detrita, perez) and by the tiny osmia (o. parvula, duf.) the chalicodoma works in broad daylight, on a tile, on a pebble, on a branch in the hedge; none of her trade-practises is kept a secret from the observer's curiosity. the osmia loves mystery. she wants a dark retreat, hidden from the eye. i would like, nevertheless, to watch her in the privacy of her home and to witness her work with the same facility as if she were nest-building in the open air. perhaps there are some interesting characteristics to be picked up in the depths of her retreats. it remains to be seen whether my wish can be realized. when studying the insect's mental capacity, especially its very retentive memory for places, i was led to ask myself whether it would not be possible to make a suitably-chosen bee build in any place that i wished, even in my study. and i wanted, for an experiment of this sort, not an individual but a numerous colony. my preference leant towards the three-horned osmia, who is very plentiful in my neighbourhood, where, together with latreille's osmia, she frequents in particular the monstrous nests of the chalicodoma of the sheds. i therefore thought out a scheme for making the three-horned osmia accept my study as her settlement and build her nests in glass tubes, through which i could easily watch the progress. to these crystal galleries, which might well inspire a certain distrust, were to be added more natural retreats: reeds of every length and thickness and disused chalicodoma-cells taken from among the biggest and the smallest. a scheme like this sounds mad. i admit it, while mentioning that perhaps none ever succeeded so well with me. we shall see as much presently. my method is extremely simple. all i ask is that the birth of my insects, that is to say, their first seeing the light, their emerging from the cocoon, should take place on the spot where i propose to make them settle. here there must be retreats of no matter what nature, but of a shape similar to that in which the osmia delights. the first impressions of sight, which are the most long-lived of any, shall bring back my insects to the place of their birth. and not only will the osmiae return, through the always open windows, but they will always nidify on the natal spot if they find something like the necessary conditions. and so, all through the winter, i collect osmia-cocoons, picked up in the nests of the mason-bee of the sheds; i go to carpentras to glean a more plentiful supply in the nests of the hairy-footed anthophora, that old acquaintance whose wonderful cities i used to undermine when i was studying the history of the oil-beetles. (this study is not yet translated into english; but cf. "the life of the fly": chapters 2 and 4.--translator's note.) later, at my request, a pupil and intimate friend of mine, m. henri devillario, president of the civil court at carpentras, sends me a case of fragments broken off the banks frequented by the hairy-footed anthophora and the anthophora of the walls, useful clods which furnish a handsome adjunct to my collection. indeed, at the end, i find myself with handfuls of cocoons of the three-horned osmia. to count them would weary my patience without serving any particular purpose. i spread out my stock in a large open box on a table which receives a bright diffused light but not the direct rays of the sun. the table stands between two windows facing south and overlooking the garden. when the moment of hatching comes, those two windows will always remain open to give the swarm entire liberty to go in and out as it pleases. the glass tubes and the reed-stumps are laid here and there, in fine disorder, close to the heap of cocoons and all in a horizontal position, for the osmia will have nothing to do with upright reeds. the hatching of some of the osmiae will therefore take place under cover of the galleries destined to be the building-yard later; and the site will be all the more deeply impressed on their memory. when i have made these comprehensive arrangements, there is nothing more to be done; and i wait patiently for the building-season to open. my osmiae leave their cocoons in the second half of april. under the immediate rays of the sun, in well-sheltered nooks, the hatching would occur a month earlier, as we can see from the mixed population of the snowy almond-tree. the constant shade in my study has delayed the awakening, without, however, making any change in the nesting-period, which synchronizes with the flowering of the thyme. we now have, around my working-table, my books, my jars and my various appliances, a buzzing crowd that goes in and out of the windows at every moment. i enjoin the household henceforth not to touch a thing in the insects' laboratory, to do no more sweeping, no more dusting. they might disturb the swarm and make it think that my hospitality was not to be trusted. i suspect that the maid, wounded in her self-esteem at seeing so much dust accumulating in the master's study, did not always respect my prohibitions and came in stealthily, now and again, to give a little sweep of the broom. at any rate, i came across a number of osmiae who seemed to have been crushed under foot while taking a sunbath on the floor in front of the window. perhaps it was i myself who committed the misdeed in a heedless moment. there is no great harm done, for the population is a numerous one; and, notwithstanding those crushed by inadvertence, notwithstanding the parasites wherewith many of the cocoons are infested, notwithstanding those who may have come to grief outside or been unable to find their way back, notwithstanding the deduction of one-half which we must make for the males: notwithstanding all this, during four or five weeks i witness the work of a number of osmiae which is much too large to allow of my watching their individual operations. i content myself with a few, whom i mark with different-coloured spots to distinguish them; and i take no notice of the others, whose finished work will have my attention later. the first to appear are the males. if the sun is bright, they flutter around the heap of tubes as if to take careful note of the locality; blows are exchanged and the rival swains indulge in mild skirmishing on the floor, then shake the dust off their wings and fly away. i find them, opposite my window, in the refreshment-bar of the lilac-bush, whose branches bend with the weight of their scented panicles. here the bees get drunk with sunshine and draughts of honey. those who have had their fill come home and fly assiduously from tube to tube, placing their heads in the orifices to see if some female will at last make up her mind to emerge. one does, in point of fact. she is covered with dust and has the disordered toilet that is inseparable from the hard work of the deliverance. a lover has seen her, so has a second, likewise a third. all crowd round her. the lady responds to their advances by clashing her mandibles, which open and shut rapidly, several times in succession. the suitors forthwith fall back; and they also, no doubt to keep up their dignity, execute savage mandibular grimaces. then the beauty retires into the arbour and her wooers resume their places on the threshold. a fresh appearance of the female, who repeats the play with her jaws; a fresh retreat of the males, who do the best they can to flourish their own pincers. the osmiae have a strange way of declaring their passion: with that fearsome gnashing of their mandibles, the lovers look as though they meant to devour each other. it suggests the thumps affected by our yokels in their moments of gallantry. the ingenious idyll is soon over. by turns greeting and greeted with a clash of jaws, the female leaves her gallery and begins impassively to polish her wings. the rivals rush forward, hoist themselves on top of one another and form a pyramid of which each struggles to occupy the base by toppling over the favoured lover. he, however, is careful not to let go; he waits for the strife overhead to calm down; and, when the supernumeraries realize that they are wasting their time and throw up the game, the couple fly away far from the turbulent rivals. this is all that i have been able to gather about the osmia's nuptials. the females, who grow more numerous from day to day, inspect the premises; they buzz outside the glass galleries and the reed dwellings; they go in, stay for a while, come out, go in again and then fly away briskly into the garden. they return, first one, then another. they halt outside, in the sun, on the shutters fastened back against the wall; they hover in the window-recess, come inside, go to the reeds and give a glance at them, only to set off again and to return soon after. thus do they learn to know their home, thus do they fix their birthplace in their memory. the village of our childhood is always a cherished spot, never to be effaced from our recollection. the osmia's life endures for a month; and she acquires a lasting remembrance of her hamlet in a couple of days. 'twas there that she was born; 'twas there that she loved; 'tis there that she will return. dulces reminiscitur argos. ('now falling by another's wound, his eyes he casts to heaven, on argos thinks and dies.'--"aeneid," book 10 dryden's translation.) at last each has made her choice. the work of construction begins; and my expectations are fulfilled far beyond my wishes. the osmiae build nests in all the retreats which i have placed at their disposal. the glass tubes, which i cover with a sheet of paper to produce the shade and mystery favourable to concentrated toil, do wonderfully well. all, from first to last, are occupied. the osmiae quarrel for the possession of these crystal palaces, hitherto unknown to their race. the reeds and the paper tubes likewise do wonderfully. the number provided is too small; and i hasten to increase it. snail-shells are recognized as excellent abodes, though deprived of the shelter of the stone-heap; old chalicodoma-nests, down to those of the chalicodoma of the shrubs (cf. "the mason-bees": chapters 4 and 10.--translator's note.), whose cells are so small, are eagerly occupied. the late-comers, finding nothing else free, go and settle in the locks of my table-drawers. there are daring ones who make their way into half-open boxes containing ends of glass tubes in which i have stored my most recent acquisitions: grubs, pupae and cocoons of all kinds, whose evolution i wished to study. whenever these receptacles have an atom of free space, they claim the right to build there, whereas i formally oppose the claim. i hardly reckoned on such a success, which obliges me to put some order into the invasion with which i am threatened. i seal up the locks, i shut my boxes, i close my various receptacles for old nests, in short i remove from the building-yard any retreat of which i do not approve. and now, o my osmiae, i leave you a free field! the work begins with a thorough spring-cleaning of the home. remnants of cocoons, dirt consisting of spoilt honey, bits of plaster from broken partitions, remains of dried mollusc at the bottom of a shell: these and much other insanitary refuse must first of all disappear. violently the osmia tugs at the offending object and tears it out; and then off she goes, in a desperate hurry, to dispose of it far away from the study. they are all alike, these ardent sweepers: in their excessive zeal, they fear lest they should block up the place with a speck of dust which they might drop in front of the new house. the glass tubes, which i myself have rinsed under the tap, are not exempt from a scrupulous cleaning. the osmia dusts them, brushes them thoroughly with her tarsi and then sweeps them out backwards. what does she pick up? not a thing. it makes no difference: as a conscientious housewife, she gives the place a touch of the broom nevertheless. now for the provisions and the partition-walls. here the order of the work changes according to the diameter of the cylinder. my glass tubes vary greatly in dimensions. the largest have an inner width of a dozen millimetres (nearly half an inch.--translator's note.); the narrowest measure six or seven. (about a quarter of an inch.--translator's note.) in the latter, if the bottom suit her, the osmia sets to work bringing pollen and honey. if the bottom do not suit her, if the sorghum-pith plug with which i have closed the rear-end of the tube be too irregular and badly-joined, the bee coats it with a little mortar. when this small repair is made, the harvesting begins. in the wider tubes, the work proceeds quite differently. at the moment when the osmia disgorges her honey and especially at the moment when, with her hind-tarsi, she rubs the pollen-dust from her ventral brush, she needs a narrow aperture, just big enough to allow of her passage. i imagine that, in a straitened gallery, the rubbing of her whole body against the sides gives the harvester a support for her brushing-work. in a spacious cylinder, this support fails her; and the osmia starts with creating one for herself, which she does by narrowing the channel. whether it be to facilitate the storing of the victuals or for any other reason, the fact remains that the osmia housed in a wide tube begins with the partitioning. her division is made by a dab of clay placed at right angles to the axis of the cylinder, at a distance from the bottom determined by the ordinary length of a cell. this wad is not a complete round; it is more crescent-shaped, leaving a circular space between it and one side of the tube. fresh layers are swiftly added to the dab of clay; and soon the tube is divided by a partition which has a circular opening at the side of it, a sort of dog-hole through which the osmia will proceed to knead the bee-bread. when the victualling is finished and the egg laid upon the heap, the hole is closed and the filled-up partition becomes the bottom of the next cell. then the same method is repeated, that is to say, in front of the just completed ceiling a second partition is built, again with a side-passage, which is stouter, owing to its distance from the centre, and better able to withstand the numerous comings and goings of the housewife than a central orifice, deprived of the direct support of the wall, could hope to be. when this partition is ready, the provisioning of the second cell is effected; and so on until the wide cylinder is completely stocked. the building of this preliminary party-wall, with a narrow, round dog-hole, for a chamber to which the victuals will not be brought until later is not restricted to the three-horned osmia; it is also frequently found in the case of the horned osmia and of latreille's osmia. nothing could be prettier than the work of the last-named, who goes to the plants for her material and fashions a delicate sheet in which she cuts a graceful arch. the chinaman partitions his house with paper screens; latreille's osmia divides hers with disks of thin green cardboard perforated with a serving-hatch which remains until the room is completely furnished. when we have no glass houses at our disposal, we can see these little architectural refinements in the reeds of the hurdles, if we open them at the right season. by splitting the bramble-stumps in the course of july, we perceive also that the three-pronged osmia, notwithstanding her narrow gallery, follows the same practice as latreille's osmia, with a difference. she does not build a party-wall, which the diameter of the cylinder would not permit; she confines herself to putting up a frail circular pad of green putty, as though to limit, before any attempt at harvesting, the space to be occupied by the bee-bread, whose depth could not be calculated afterwards if the insect did not first mark out its confines. can there really be an act of measuring? that would be superlatively clever. let us consult the three-horned osmia in her glass tubes. the osmia is working at her big partition, with her body outside the cell which she is preparing. from time to time, with a pellet of mortar in her mandibles, she goes in and touches the previous ceiling with her forehead, while the tip of her abdomen quivers and feels the pad in course of construction. one might well say that she is using the length of her body as a measure, in order to fix the next ceiling at the proper distance. then she resumes her work. perhaps the measure was not correctly taken; perhaps her memory, a few seconds old, has already become muddled. the bee once more ceases laying her plaster and again goes and touches the front wall with her forehead and the back wall with the tip of her abdomen. looking at that body trembling with eagerness, extended to its full length to touch the two ends of the room, how can we fail to grasp the architect's grave problem? the osmia is measuring; and her measure is her body. has she quite done, this time? oh dear no! ten times, twenty times, at every moment, for the least particle of mortar which she lays, she repeats her mensuration, never being quite certain that her trowel is going just where it should. meanwhile, amid these frequent interruptions, the work progresses and the partition gains in width. the worker is bent into a hook, with her mandibles on the inner surface of the wall and the tip of her abdomen on the outer surface. the soft masonry stands between the two points of purchase. the insect thus forms a sort of rolling-press, in which the mud wall is flattened and shaped. the mandibles tap and furnish mortar; the end of the abdomen also pats and gives brisk trowel-touches. this anal extremity is a builder's tool; i see it facing the mandibles on the other side of the partition, kneading and smoothing it all over, flattening the little lump of clay. it is a singular implement, which i should never have expected to see used for this purpose. it takes an insect to conceive such an original idea, to do mason's work with its behind! during this curious performance, the only function of the legs is to keep the worker steady by spreading out and clinging to the walls of the tunnel. the partition with the hole in it is finished. let us go back to the measuring of which the osmia was so lavish. what a magnificent argument in favour of the reasoning-power of animals! to find geometry, the surveyor's art, in an osmia's tiny brain! an insect that begins by taking the measurements of the room to be constructed, just as any master-builder might do! why, it's splendid, it's enough to cover with confusion those horrible sceptics who persist in refusing to admit the animal's 'continuous little flashes of atoms of reason!' o common-sense, veil your face! it is with this gibberish about continuous flashes of atoms of reason that men pretend to build up science to-day! very well, my masters; the magnificent argument with which i am supplying you lacks but one little detail, the merest trifle: truth! not that i have not seen and plainly seen all that i am relating; but measuring has nothing to do with the case. and i can prove it by facts. if, in order to see the osmia's nest as a whole, we split a reed lengthwise, taking care not to disturb its contents; or, better still, if we select for examination the string of cells built in a glass tube, we are forthwith struck by one detail, namely, the uneven distances between the partitions, which are placed almost at right angles to the axis of the cylinder. it is these distances which fix the size of the chambers, which, with a similar base, have different heights and consequently unequal holding-capacities. the bottom partitions, the oldest, are farther apart; those of the front part, near the orifice, are closer together. moreover, the provisions are plentiful in the loftier cells, whereas they are niggardly and reduced to one-half or even one-third in the cells of lesser height. here are a few examples of these inequalities. a glass tube with a diameter of 12 millimetres (.468 inch.--translator's note.), inside measurement, contains ten cells. the five lower ones, beginning with the bottom-most, have as the respective distances between their partitions, in millimetres: 11, 12, 16, 13, 11. (.429,.468,.624,.507,.429 inch.--translator's note.) the five upper ones measure between their partitions: 7, 7, 5, 6, 7. (.273,.273,.195,.234,.273 inch.--translator's note.) a reed-stump 11 millimetres (.429 inch.--translator's note.) across the inside contains fifteen cells; and the respective distances between the partitions of those cells, starting from the bottom, are: 13, 12, 12, 9, 9, 11, 8, 8, 7, 7, 7, 6, 6, 6, 7. (.507,.468,.468, .351,.351,.429,.312,.312,.273,.273,.273,.234,.234,.234, .273 inch.--translator's note.) when the diameter of the tunnel is less, the partitions can be still further apart, though they retain the general characteristic of being closer to one another the nearer they are to the orifice. a reed of five millimetres (.195 inch.--translator's note.) in diameter, gives me the following distances, always starting from the bottom: 22, 22, 20, 20, 12, 14. (.858,.858,.78,.78,.468,.546 inch.--translator's note.) another, of 9 millimetres (.351 inch.--translator's note.), gives me: 15, 14, 11, 10, 10, 9, 10. (.585,.546,.429,.39,.39,.351,.39 inch.--translator's note.) a glass tube of 8 millimetres (.312 inch.--translator's note.) yields: 15, 14, 20, 10, 10, 10. (.585,.546,.78,.39,.39,.39 inch.--translator's note.). i could fill pages and pages with such figures, if i cared to print all my notes. do they prove that the osmia is a geometrician, employing a strict measure based on the length of her body? certainly not, because many of those figures exceed the length of the insect; because sometimes a higher number follows suddenly upon a lower; because the same string contains a figure of one value and another figure of but half that value. they prove only one thing: the marked tendency of the insect to shorten the distance between the party-walls as the work proceeds. we shall see later that the large cells are destined for the females and the small ones for the males. is there not at least a measuring adapted to each sex? again, not so; for in the first series, where the females are housed, instead of the interval of 11 millimetres, which occurs at the beginning and the end, we find, in the middle of the series, an interval of 16 millimetres, while in the second series, reserved for the males, instead of the interval of 7 millimetres at the beginning and the end, we have an interval of 5 millimetres in the middle. it is the same with the other series, each of which shows a striking discrepancy in its figures. if the osmia really studied the dimensions of her chambers and measured them with the compasses of her body, how could she, with her delicate mechanism, fail to notice mistakes of 5 millimetres, almost half her own length? besides, all idea of geometry vanishes if we consider the work in a tube of moderate width. here, the osmia does not fix the front partition in advance; she does not even lay its foundation. without any boundary-pad, with no guiding mark for the capacity of the cell, she busies herself straightway with the provisioning. when the heap of bee-bread is judged sufficient, that is, i imagine, when her tired body tells her that she has done enough harvesting, she closes up the chamber. in this case, there is no measuring; and yet the capacity of the cell and the quantity of the victuals fulfil the regular requirements of one or the other sex. then what does the osmia do when she repeatedly stops to touch the front partition with her forehead and the back partition, the one in the course of building, with the tip of her abdomen? i have no idea what she does or what she has in view. i leave the interpretation of this performance to others, more venturesome than i. plenty of theories are based on equally shaky foundations. blow on them and they sink into the quagmire of oblivion. the laying is finished, or perhaps the cylinder is full. a final partition closes the last cell. a rampart is now built, at the orifice of the tube itself, to forbid the ill-disposed all access to the home. this is a thick plug, a massy work of fortification, whereon the osmia spends enough mortar to partition off any number of cells. a whole day is not too long for making this barricade, especially in view of the minute finishing-touches, when the osmia fills up with putty every chink through which the least atom could slip. the mason completing a wall smooths his plaster and brings it to a fine surface while it is still wet; the osmia does the same, or almost. with little taps of the mandibles and a continual shaking of her head, a sign of her zest for the work, she smooths and polishes the surface of the lid for hours at a time. after such pains, what foe could visit the dwelling? and yet there is one, an anthrax, a. sinuata (cf. "the life of the fly": chapters 2 and 4.--translator's note.), who will come later on, in the height of summer, and succeed, invisible bit of thread that she is, in making her way to the grub through the thickness of the door and the web of the cocoon. in many cells, mischief of another kind has already been done. during the progress of the works, an impudent midge, one of the tachina-flies, who feeds her family on the victuals amassed by the bee, hovers in front of the galleries. does she penetrate to the cells and lay her eggs there in the mother's absence? i could never catch the sneak in the act. does she, like that other tachina who ravages cells stocked with game (the cells of the hunting wasps.--translator's note.), nimbly deposit her eggs on the osmia's harvest at the moment when the bee is going indoors? it is possible, though i cannot say for certain. the fact remains that we soon see the midge's grub-worms swarming around the larva, the daughter of the house. there are ten, fifteen, twenty or more of them gnawing with their pointed mouths at the common dish and turning the food into a heap of fine, orange-coloured vermicelli. the bee's grub dies of starvation. it is life, life in all its ferocity even in these tiny creatures. what an expenditure of ardent labour, of delicate cares, of wise precautions, to arrive at...what? her offspring sucked and drained dry by the hateful anthrax; her family sweated and starved by the infernal tachina. the victuals consist mostly of yellow flour. in the centre of the heap, a little honey is disgorged, which turns the pollen-dust into a firm, reddish paste. on this paste the egg is laid, not flat, but upright, with the fore-end free and the hind-end lightly held and fixed in the plastic mass. when hatched, the young grub, kept in its place by its rear-end, need only bend its neck a little to find the honey-soaked paste under its mouth. when it grows stronger, it will release itself from its support and eat up the surrounding flour. all this is touching, in its maternal logic. for the new-born, dainty bread-and-honey; for the adolescent, dry bread. in cases where the provisions are all of a kind, these delicate precautions are superfluous. the victuals of the anthophorae and the chalicodomae consist of flowing honey, the same throughout. the egg is then laid at full length on the surface, without any particular arrangement, thus compelling the new-born grub to take its first mouthfuls at random. this has no drawback, as the food is of the same quality throughout. but, with the osmia's provisions--dry powder on the edges, jam in the centre--the grub would be in danger if its first meal were not regulated in advance. to begin with pollen not seasoned with honey would be fatal to its stomach. having no choice of its mouthfuls because of its immobility and being obliged to feed on the spot where it was hatched, the young grub must needs be born on the central mass, where it has only to bend its head a little way in order to find what its delicate stomach calls for. the place of the egg, therefore, fixed upright by its base in the middle of the red jam, is most judiciously chosen. what a contrast between this exquisite maternal forethought and the horrible destruction by the anthrax and the midge! the egg is rather large for the size of the osmia. it is cylindrical, slightly curved, rounded at both ends and transparent. it soon becomes cloudy, while remaining diaphanous at each extremity. fine lines, hardly perceptible to the most penetrating lens, show themselves in transverse circles. these are the first signs of segmentation. a contraction appears in the front hyaline part, marking the head. an extremely thin opaque thread runs down either side. this is the cord of tracheae communicating between one breathing-hole and another. at last, the segments show distinctly, with their lateral pads. the grub is born. at first, one would think that there was no hatching in the proper sense of the word--that is to say, no bursting and casting of a wrapper. the most minute attention is necessary to show that appearances are deceptive and that actually a fine membrane is thrown off from front to back. this infinitesimal shred is the shell of the egg. the grub is born. fixed by its base, it curves into an arc and bends its head, until now held erect, down to the red mass. the meal begins. soon a yellow cord occupying the front two-thirds of the body proclaims that the digestive apparatus is swelling out with food. for a fortnight, consume your provender in peace, my child; then spin your cocoon: you are now safe from the tachina! shall you be safe from the anthrax' sucker later on? alack! chapter 3. the distribution of the sexes. does the insect know beforehand the sex of the egg which it is about to lay? when examining the stock of food in the cells just now, we began to suspect that it does, for each little heap of provisions is carefully proportioned to the needs at one time of a male and at another of a female. what we have to do is to turn this suspicion into a certainty demonstrated by experiment. and first let us find out how the sexes are arranged. it is not possible to ascertain the chronological order of a laying, except by going to suitably-chosen species. digging up the burrows of cerceris-, bembexor philanthus-wasps will never tell us that this grub has taken precedence of that in point of time nor enable us to decide whether one cocoon in a colony belongs to the same family as another. to compile a register of births is absolutely impossible here. fortunately there are a few species in which we do not find this difficulty: these are the bees who keep to one gallery and build their cells in storeys. among the number are the different inhabitants of the bramble-stumps, notably the three-pronged osmiae, who form an excellent subject for observation, partly because they are of imposing-size--bigger than any other bramble-dwellers in my neighbourhood--partly because they are so plentiful. let us briefly recall the osmia's habits. amid the tangle of a hedge, a bramble-stalk is selected, still standing, but a mere withered stump. in this the insect digs a more or less deep tunnel, an easy piece of work owing to the abundance of soft pith. provisions are heaped up right at the bottom of the tunnel and an egg is laid on the surface of the food: that is the first-born of the family. at a height of some twelve millimetres (about half an inch.--translator's note.), a partition is fixed, formed of bramble saw-dust and of a green paste obtained by masticating particles of the leaves of some plant that has not yet been identified. this gives a second storey, which in its turn receives provisions and an egg, the second in order of primogeniture. and so it goes on, storey by storey, until the cylinder is full. then a thick plug of the same green material of which the partitions are formed closes the home and keeps out marauders. in this common cradle, the chronological order of births is perfectly clear. the first-born of the family is at the bottom of the series; the last-born is at the top, near the closed door. the others follow from bottom to top in the same order in which they followed in point of time. the laying is numbered automatically; each cocoon tells us its respective age by the place which it occupies. to know the sexes, we must wait for the month of june. but it would be unwise to postpone our investigations until that period. osmia-nests are not so common that we can hope to pick one up each time that we go out with that object; besides, if we wait for the hatching-period before examining the brambles, it may happen that the order has been disturbed through some insects' having tried to make their escape as soon as possible after bursting their cocoons; it may happen that the male osmiae, who are more forward than the females, are already gone. i therefore set to work a long time beforehand and devote my leisure in winter to these investigations. the bramble-sticks are split and the cocoons taken out one by one and methodically transferred to glass tubes, of approximately the same diameter as the native cylinder. these cocoons are arranged one on top of the other in exactly the same order that they occupied in the bramble; they are separated from one another by a cotton plug, an insuperable obstacle to the future insect. there is thus no fear that the contents of the cells may become mixed or transposed; and i am saved the trouble of keeping a laborious watch. each insect can hatch at its own time, in my presence or not: i am sure of always finding it in its place, in its proper order, held fast fore and aft by the cotton barrier. a cork or sorghum-pith partition would not fulfil the same purpose: the insect would perforate it and the register of births would be muddled by changes of position. any reader wishing to undertake similar investigations will excuse these practical details, which may facilitate his work. we do not often come upon complete series, comprising the whole laying, from the first-born to the youngest. as a rule, we find part of a laying, in which the number of cocoons varies greatly, sometimes falling as low as two, or even one. the mother has not deemed it advisable to confide her whole family to a single bramble-stump; in order to make the exit less toilsome, or else for reasons which escape me, she has left the first home and elected to make a second home, perhaps a third or more. we also find series with breaks in them. sometimes, in cells distributed at random, the egg has not developed and the provisions have remained untouched, but mildewed; sometimes, the larva has died before spinning its cocoon, or after spinning it. lastly, there are parasites, such as the unarmed zonitis (zonitis mutica, one of the oil-beetles.--translator's note.) and the spotted sapyga (a digger-wasp.--translator's note.), who interrupt the series by substituting themselves for the original occupant. all these disturbing factors make it necessary to examine a large number of nests of the three-pronged osmia, if we would obtain a definite result. i have been studying the bramble-dwellers for seven or eight years and i could not say how many strings of cocoons have passed through my hands. during a recent winter, in view particularly of the distribution of the sexes, i collected some forty of this osmia's nests, transferred their contents into glass tubes and made a careful summary of the sexes. i give some of my results. the figures start in their order from the bottom of the tunnel dug in the bramble and proceed upwards to the orifice. the figure 1 therefore denotes the first-born of the series, the oldest in date; the highest figure denotes the last-born. the letter m, placed under the corresponding figure, represents the male and the letter f the female sex. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 f f m f m f m m f f f f m f m this is the longest series that i have ever been able to procure. it is also complete, inasmuch as it comprises the entire laying of the osmia. my statement requires explaining, otherwise it would seem impossible to know whether a mother whose acts one has not watched, nay more, whom one has never seen, has or has not finished laying her eggs. the bramble-stump under consideration leaves a free space of nearly four inches above the continuous string of cocoons. beyond it, at the actual orifice, is the terminal stopper, the thick plug which closes the entrance to the gallery. in this empty portion of the tunnel there is ample accommodation for numerous cocoons. the fact that the mother has not made use of it proves that her ovaries were exhausted; for it is exceedingly unlikely that she has abandoned first-rate lodgings to go laboriously digging a new gallery elsewhere and there continue her laying. you may say that, if the unoccupied space marks the end of the laying, nothing tells us that the beginning is actually at the bottom of the cul-de-sac, at the other end of the tunnel. you may also say that the laying is done in shifts, separated by intervals of rest. the space left empty in the channel would mean that one of these shifts was finished and not that there were no more eggs ripe for hatching. in answer to these very plausible explanations, i will say that, the sum of my observations--and they have been extremely numerous--is that the total number of eggs laid not only by the osmiae but by a host of other bees fluctuates round about fifteen. besides, when we consider that the active life of these insects lasts hardly a month; when we remember that this period of activity is disturbed by dark, rainy or very windy days, during which all work is suspended; when lastly we ascertain, as i have done ad nauseam in the case of the three-horned osmia, the time required for building and victualling a cell, it becomes obvious that the total laying must be kept within narrow bounds and that the mother has no time to lose if she wishes to get fifteen cells satisfactorily built in three or four weeks interrupted by compulsory rests. i shall give some facts later which will dispel your doubts, if any remain. i assume, therefore, that a number of eggs bordering on fifteen represents the entire family of an osmia, as it does of many other bees. let us consult some other complete series. here are two: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 f f m f m f m f f f f m f f m f f f m f f m f m in both cases, the laying is taken as complete, for the same reasons as above. we will end with some series that appear to me incomplete, in view of the small number of cells and the absence of any free space above the pile of cocoons: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 m m f m m m m m m m f m f m m m f m f f m m m m m f m f f f f m m m f m these examples are more than sufficient. it is quite evident that the distribution of the sexes is not governed by any rule. all that i can say on consulting the whole of my notes, which contain a good many instances of complete layings--most of them, unfortunately, spoilt through gaps caused by parasites, the death of the larva, the failure of the egg to hatch and other accidents--all that i can say in general is that the complete series begins with females and nearly always ends with males. the incomplete series can teach us nothing in this respect, for they are only fragments starting we know not whence; and it is impossible to tell whether they should be ascribed to the beginning, to the end, or to an intermediate period of the laying. to sum up: in the laying of the three-pronged osmia, no order governs the succession of the sexes; only, the series has a marked tendency to begin with females and to finish with males. the brambles, in my district, harbour two other osmiae, both of much smaller size: o. detrita, perez, and o. parvula, duf. the first is very common, the second very rare; and until now i have found only one of her nests, placed above a nest of o. detrita, in the same bramble. here, instead of the lack of order in the distribution of the sexes which we find with o. tridentata, we have an order remarkable for consistency and simplicity. i have before me the list of the series of o. detrita collected last winter. here are some of them: 1. a series of twelve: seven females, beginning with the bottom of the tunnel, and then five males. 2. a series of nine: three females first, then six males. 3. a series of eight: five females followed by three males. 4. a series of eight: seven females followed by one male. 5. a series of eight: one female followed by seven males. 6. a series of seven: six females followed by one male. the first series might very well be complete. the second and fifth appear to be the end of layings, of which the beginning has taken place elsewhere, in another bramble-stump. the males predominate and finish off the series. nos. 3, 4 and 6, on the other hand, look like the beginnings of layings: the females predominate and are at the head of the series. even if these interpretations should be open to doubt, one result at least is certain: with o. detrita, the laying is divided into two groups, with no intermingling of the sexes; the first group laid yields nothing but females, the second, or more recent, yields nothing but males. what was only a sort of attempt with the three-pronged osmia--who, it is true, begins with females and ends with males, but muddles up the order and mixes the two sexes anyhow between the extreme points--becomes a regular law with her kinswoman. the mother occupies herself at the start with the stronger sex, the more necessary, the better-gifted, the female sex, to which she devotes the first flush of her laying and the fullness of her vigour; later, when she is perhaps already at the end of her strength, she bestows what remains of her maternal solicitude upon the weaker sex, the less-gifted, almost negligible male sex. o. parvula, of whom i unfortunately possess but one series, repeats what the previous witness has just shown us. this series, one of nine cocoons, comprises five females followed by four males, without any mixing of the sexes. next to these disgorgers of honey and gleaners of pollen-dust, it would be well to consult other hymenoptera, wasps who devote themselves to the chase and pile their cells one after the other, in a row, showing the relative age of the cocoons. the brambles house several of these: solenius vagus, who stores up flies; psen atratus, who provides her grubs with a heap of plant-lice; trypoxylon figulus, who feeds them with spiders. solenius vagus digs her gallery in a bramble-stick that is lopped short, but still fresh and green. the house of this fly-huntress, therefore, suffers from damp, as the sap enters, especially on the lower floors. this seems to me rather insanitary. to avoid the humidity, or for other reasons which escape me, the solenius does not dig very far into her bramble-stump and consequently can stack but a small number of cells in it. a series of five cocoons gives me first four females and then one male; another series, also of five, contains first three females, with two males following. these are the most complete that i have for the moment. i reckoned on the black psen, or psen atratus, whose series are pretty long; it is a pity that they are nearly always greatly interfered with by a parasite called ephialtes mediator. (cf. "the life of the fly": chapter 2.--translator's note.) i obtained only three series free from gaps: one of eight cocoons, comprising only females; one of six, likewise consisting wholly of females; lastly, one of eight, formed exclusively of males. these instances seem to show that the psen arranges her laying in a succession of females and a succession of males; but they tell us nothing of the relative order of the two series. from the spider-huntress, trypoxylon figulus, i learnt nothing decisive. she appeared to me to rove about from one bramble to the next, utilizing galleries which she has not dug herself. not troubling to be economical with a lodging which it has cost her nothing to acquire, she carelessly builds a few partitions at very unequal heights, stuffs three or four compartments with spiders and passes on to another bramble-stump, with no reason, so far as i know, for abandoning the first. her cells, therefore, occur in series that are too short to give us any useful information. this is all that the bramble-dwellers have to tell us; i have enumerated the list of the principal ones in my district. we will now look into some other bees who arrange their cocoons in single files: the megachiles (cf. chapter 8 of the present volume.--translator's note.), who cut disks out of leaves and fashion the disks into thimble-shaped receptacles; the anthidia (cf. chapters 9 and 10 of the present volume.--translator's note.), who weave their honey-wallets out of cotton-wool and arrange their cells one after the other in some cylindrical gallery. in most cases, the home is the produce of neither the one nor the other. a tunnel in the upright, earthy banks, the old work of some anthophora, is the usual dwelling. there is no great depth to these retreats; and all my searches, zealously prosecuted during a number of winters, procured me only series containing a small number of cocoons, four or five at most, often one alone. and, what is quite as serious, nearly all these series are spoilt by parasites and allow me to draw no well-founded deductions. i remembered finding, at rare intervals, nests of both the anthidium and the megachile in the hollows of cut reeds. i thereupon installed some hives of a new kind on the sunniest walls of my enclosure. they consisted of stumps of the great reed of the south, open at one end, closed at the other by the natural knot and gathered into a sort of enormous pan-pipe, such as polyphemus might have employed. the invitation was accepted: osmiae, anthidia and megachiles came in fairly large numbers, especially the first, to benefit by the queer installation. in this way i obtained some magnificent series of anthidia and megachiles, running up to a dozen. there was a melancholy side to this success. all my series, with not one exception, were ravaged by parasites. those of the megachile (m. sericans, fonscol), who fashions her goblets with robinia-, holm-, and terebinth-leaves, were inhabited by coelioxys octodentata (a parasitic bee.--translator's note.); those of the anthidium (a. florentinum, latr.) were occupied by a leucopsis. both kinds were swarming with a colony of pigmy parasites whose name i have not yet been able to discover. in short, my pan-pipe hives, though very useful to me from other points of view, taught me nothing about the order of the sexes among the leaf-cutters and the cotton-weavers. i was more fortunate with three osmiae (o. tricornis, latr., o. cornuta, latr., and o. latreillii, spin.), all of whom gave me splendid results, with reed-stumps arranged either against the walls of my garden, as i have just said, or near their customary abode, the huge nests of the mason-bee of the sheds. one of them, the three-horned osmia, did better still: as i have described, she built her nests in my study, as plentifully as i could wish, using reeds, glass tubes and other retreats of my selecting for her galleries. we will consult this last, who has furnished me with documents beyond my fondest hopes, and begin by asking her of how many eggs her average laying consists. of the whole heap of colonized tubes in my study, or else out of doors, in the hurdle-reeds and the pan-pipe appliances, the best-filled contains fifteen cells, with a free space above the series, a space showing that the laying is ended, for, if the mother had any more eggs available, she would have lodged them in the room which she leaves unoccupied. this string of fifteen appears to be rare; it was the only one that i found. my attempts at indoor rearing, pursued during two years with glass tubes or reeds, taught me that the three-horned osmia is not much addicted to long series. as though to decrease the difficulties of the coming deliverance, she prefers short galleries, in which only a part of the laying is stacked. we must then follow the same mother in her migration from one dwelling to the next if we would obtain a complete census of her family. a spot of colour, dropped on the bee's thorax with a paint-brush while she is absorbed in closing up the mouth of the tunnel, enables us to recognize the osmia in her various homes. in this way, the swarm that resided in my study furnished me, in the first year, with an average of twelve cells. next year, the summer appeared to be more favourable and the average became rather higher, reaching fifteen. the most numerous laying performed under my eyes, not in a tube, but in a succession of snail-shells, reached the figure of twenty-six. on the other hand, layings of between eight and ten are not uncommon. lastly, taking all my records together, the result is that the family of the osmia fluctuates round about fifteen in number. i have already spoken of the great differences in size apparent in the cells of one and the same series. the partitions, at first widely spaced, draw gradually nearer to one another as they come closer to the aperture, which implies roomy cells at the back and narrow cells in front. the contents of these compartments are no less uneven between one portion and another of the string. without any exception known to me, the large cells, those with which the series starts, have more abundant provisions than the straitened cells with which the series ends. the heap of honey and pollen in the first is twice or even thrice as large as that in the second. in the last cells, the most recent in date, the victuals are but a pinch of pollen, so niggardly in amount that we wonder what will become of the larva with that meagre ration. one would think that the osmia, when nearing the end of the laying, attaches no importance to her last-born, to whom she doles out space and food so sparingly. the first-born receive the benefit of her early enthusiasm: theirs is the well-spread table, theirs the spacious apartments. the work has begun to pall by the time that the last eggs are laid; and the last-comers have to put up with a scurvy portion of food and a tiny corner. the difference shows itself in another way after the cocoons are spun. the large cells, those at the back, receive the bulky cocoons; the small ones, those in front, have cocoons only a half or a third as big. before opening them and ascertaining the sex of the osmia inside, let us wait for the transformation into the perfect insect, which will take place towards the end of summer. if impatience gets the better of us, we can open them at the end of july or in august. the insect is then in the nymphal stage; and it is easy, under this form, to distinguish the two sexes by the length of the antennae, which are larger in the males, and by the glassy protuberances on the forehead, the sign of the future armour of the females. well, the small cocoons, those in the narrow front cells, with their scanty store of provisions, all belong to males; the big cocoons, those in the spacious and well-stocked cells at the back, all belong to females. the conclusion is definite: the laying of the three-horned osmia consists of two distinct groups, first a group of females and then a group of males. with my pan-pipe apparatus displayed on the walls of my enclosure and with old hurdle-reeds left lying flat out of doors, i obtained the horned osmia in fair quantities. i persuaded latreille's osmia to build her nest in reeds, which she did with a zeal which i was far from expecting. all that i had to do was to lay some reed-stumps horizontally within her reach, in the immediate neighbourhood of her usual haunts, namely, the nests of the mason-bee of the sheds. lastly, i succeeded without difficulty in making her build her nests in the privacy of my study, with glass tubes for a house. the result surpassed my hopes. with both these osmiae, the division of the gallery is the same as with the three-horned osmia. at the back are large cells with plentiful provisions and widely-spaced partitions; in front, small cells, with scanty provisions and partitions close together. also, the larger cells supplied me with big cocoons and females; the smaller cells gave me little cocoons and males. the conclusion therefore is exactly the same in the case of all three osmiae. before dismissing the osmiae, let us devote a moment to their cocoons, a comparison of which, in the matter of bulk, will furnish us with fairly accurate evidence as to the relative size of the two sexes, for the thing contained, the perfect insect, is evidently proportionate to the silken wrapper in which it is enclosed. these cocoons are oval-shaped and may be regarded as ellipsoids formed by a revolution around the major axis. the volume of one of these solids is expressed in the following formula: 4 / 3 x pi x a x (b squared), in which 2a is the major axis and 2b the minor axis. now, the average dimensions of the cocoons of the three-horned osmia are as follows: 2a = 13 mm. (.507 inch.--translator's note.), 2b = 7 mm. (.273 inch.--translator's note.) in the females; 2a = 9 mm. (.351 inch.--translator's note.), 2b = 5 mm. (.195 inch.--translator's note.) in the males. the ratio therefore between 13 x 7 x 7 = 637 and 9 x 5 x 5 = 225 will be more or less the ratio between the sizes of the two sexes. this ratio is somewhere between 2 to 1 and 3 to 1. the females therefore are two or three times larger than the males, a proportion already suggested by a comparison of the mass of provisions, estimated simply by the eye. the horned osmia gives us the following average dimensions: 2a = 15 mm. (.585 inch.--translator's note.), 2b = 9 mm. (.351 inch.--translator's note.) in the females; 2a = 12 mm. (.468 inch.--translator's note.), 2b = 7 mm. (.273 inch.--translator's note.) in the males. once again, the ratio between 15 x 9 x 9 = 1215 and 12 x 7 x 7 = 588 lies between 2 to 1 and 3 to 1. besides the bees who arrange their laying in a row, i have consulted others whose cells are grouped in a way that makes it possible to ascertain the relative order of the two sexes, though not quite so precisely. one of these is the mason-bee of the walls. i need not describe again her dome-shaped nest, built on a pebble, which is now so well-known to us. (cf. "the mason-bees": chapter 1.--translator's note.) each mother chooses her stone and works on it in solitude. she is an ungracious landowner and guards her site jealously, driving away any mason who even looks as though she might alight on it. the inhabitants of the same nest are therefore always brothers and sisters; they are the family of one mother. moreover, if the stone presents a large enough surface--a condition easily fulfilled--the mason-bee has no reason to leave the support on which she began her laying and go in search of another whereon to deposit the rest of her eggs. she is too thrifty of her time and of her mortar to involve herself in such expenditure except for grave reasons. consequently, each nest, at least when it is new, when the bee herself has laid the first foundations, contains the entire laying. it is a different thing when an old nest is restored and made into a place for depositing the eggs. i shall come back later to such houses. a newly-built nest then, with rare exceptions, contains the entire laying of one female. count the cells and we shall have the total list of the family. their maximum number fluctuates round about fifteen. the most luxuriant series will occasionally reach as many as eighteen, though these are very scarce. when the surface of the stone is regular all around the site of the first cell, when the mason can add to her building with the same facility in every direction, it is obvious that the groups of cells, when finished, will have the oldest in the central portion and the more recent in the surrounding portion. because of this juxtaposition of the cells, which serve partly as a wall to those which come next, it is possible to form some estimate of the chronological order of the cells in the chalicodoma's nest and thus to discover the sequence of the two sexes. in winter, by which time the bee has long been in the perfect state, i collect chalicodoma-nests, removing them bodily from their support with a few smart sideward taps of the hammer on the pebbles. at the base of the mortar dome the cells are wide agape and display their contents. i take the cocoon from its box, open it and take note of the sex of the insect enclosed. i should probably be accused of exaggeration if i mentioned the total number of the nests which i have gathered and the cells which i have inspected by this method during the last six or seven years. i will content myself with saying that the harvest of a single morning sometimes consisted of as many as sixty nests of the mason-bee. i had to have help in carrying home my spoils, even though the nests were removed from their stones on the spot. from the enormous number of nests which i have examined, i am able to state that, when the cluster is regular, the female cells occupy the centre and the male cells the edges. where the irregularity of the pebble has prevented an even distribution around the initial point, the same rule has been observed. a male cell is never surrounded on every side by female cells: either it occupies the edges of the nest, or else it adjoins, at least on some sides, other male cells, of which the last form part of the exterior of the cluster. as the surrounding cells are obviously of a later date than the inner cells, it follows that the mason-bee acts like the osmiae: she begins her laying with females and ends it with males, each of the sexes forming a series of its own, independent of the other. some further circumstances add their testimony to that of the surrounded and surrounding cells. when the pebble projects sharply and forms a sort of dihedral angle, one of whose faces is more or less vertical and the other horizontal, this angle is a favourite site with the mason, who thus finds greater stability for her edifice in the support given her by the double plane. these sites appear to me to be in great request with the chalicodoma, considering the number of nests which i find thus doubly supported. in nests of this kind, all the cells, as usual, have their foundations fixed to the horizontal surface; but the first row, the row of cells first built, stands with its back against the vertical surface. well, these older cells, which occupy the actual edge of the dihedral angle, are always female, with the exception of those at either end of the row, which, as they belong to the outside, may be male cells. in front of this first row come others. the female cells occupy the middle portion and the male the ends. finally, the last row, closing in the remainder, contains only male cells. the progress of the work is very visible here: the mason has begun by attending to the central group of female cells, the first row of which occupies the dihedral angle, and has finished her task by distributing the male cells round the outside. if the perpendicular face of the dihedral angle be high enough, it sometimes happens that a second row of cells is placed above the first row backing on to that plane; a third row occurs less often. the nest is then one of several storeys. the lower storeys, the older, contain only females; the upper, the more recent storey, contains none but males. it goes without saying that the surface layer, even of the lower storeys, can contain males without invalidating the rule, for this layer may always be looked upon as the chalicodoma's last work. everything therefore contributes to show that, in the mason-bee, the females take the lead in the order of primogeniture. theirs is the central and best-protected part of the clay fortress; the outer part, that most exposed to the inclemencies of the weather and to accidents, is for the males. the males' cells do not differ from the females' only by being placed at the outside of the cluster; they differ also in their capacity, which is much smaller. to estimate the respective capacities of the two sorts of cells, i go to work as follows: i fill the empty cell with very fine sand and pour this sand back into a glass tube measuring 5 millimetres (.195 inch.--translator's note.) in diameter. from the height of the column of sand we can estimate the comparative capacity of the two kinds of cells. i will take one at random among my numerous examples of cells thus gauged. it comprises thirteen cells and occupies a dihedral angle. the female cells give me the following figures, in millimetres, as the height of the columns of sand: 40, 44, 43, 48, 48, 46, 47 (1.56, 1.71, 1.67, 1.87, 1.87, 1.79, 1.83 inches.--translator's note.), averaging 45. (1.75 inches.--translator's note.) the male cells give me: 32, 35, 28, 30, 30, 31 (1.24, 1.36, 1.09, 1.17, 1.17, 1.21 inches.--translator's note.), averaging 31. (1.21 inches.--translator's note.) the ratio of the capacity of the cells for the two sexes is therefore roughly a ratio of 4 to 3. the actual contents of the cell being proportionate to its capacity, the above ratio must also be more or less the ratio of provisions and sizes between females and males. these figures will assist us presently to tell whether an old cell, occupied for a second or third time, belonged originally to a female or a male. the chalicodoma of the sheds cannot give us any information on this matter. she builds under the same eaves, in excessively populous colonies; and it is impossible to follow the labours of any single mason, whose cells, distributed here and there, are soon covered up with the work of her neighbours. all is muddle and confusion in the individual output of the swarming throng. i have not watched the work of the chalicodoma of the shrubs with close enough attention to be able to state definitely that this bee is a solitary builder. her nest is a ball of clay hanging from a bough. sometimes, this nest is the size of a large walnut and then appears to be the work of one alone; sometimes, it is the size of a man's fist, in which case i have no doubt that it is the work of several. those bulky nests, comprising more than fifty cells, can tell us nothing exact, as a number of workers must certainly have collaborated to produce them. the walnut-sized nests are more trustworthy, for everything seems to indicate that they were built by a single bee. here females are found in the centre of the group and males at the circumference, in somewhat smaller cells, thus repeating what the mason-bee of the pebbles has told us. one clear and simple rule stands out from this collection of facts. apart from the strange exception of the three-pronged osmia, who mixes the sexes without any order, the bees whom i studied and probably a crowd of others produce first a continuous series of females and then a continuous series of males, the latter with less provisions and smaller cells. this distribution of the sexes agrees with what we have long known of the hive-bee, who begins her laying with a long sequence of workers, or sterile females, and ends it with a long sequence of males. the analogy continues down to the capacity of the cells and the quantities of provisions. the real females, the queen-bees, have wax cells incomparably more spacious than the cells of the males and receive a much larger amount of food. everything therefore demonstrates that we are here in the presence of a general rule. but does this rule express the whole truth? is there nothing beyond a laying in two series? are the osmiae, the chalicodomae and the rest of them fatally bound by this distribution of the sexes into two distinct groups, the male group following upon the female group, without any mixing of the two? is the mother absolutely powerless to make a change in this arrangement, should circumstances require it? the three-pronged osmia already shows us that the problem is far from being solved. in the same bramble-stump, the two sexes occur very irregularly, as though at random. why this mixture in the series of cocoons of a bee closely related to the horned osmia and the three-horned osmia, who stack theirs methodically by separate sexes in the hollow of a reed? what the bee of the brambles does cannot her kinswomen of the reeds do too? nothing, so far as i know, can explain this difference in a physiological act of primary importance. the three bees belong to the same genus; they resemble one another in general outline, internal structure and habits; and, with this close similarity, we suddenly find a strange dissimilarity. there is just one thing that might possibly arouse a suspicion of the cause of this irregularity in the three-pronged osmia's laying. if i open a bramble-stump in the winter to examine the osmia's nest, i find it impossible, in the vast majority of cases, to distinguish positively between a female and a male cocoon: the difference in size is so small. the cells, moreover, have the same capacity: the diameter of the cylinder is the same throughout and the partitions are almost always the same distance apart. if i open it in july, the victualling-period, it is impossible for me to distinguish between the provisions destined for the males and those destined for the females. the measurement of the column of honey gives practically the same depth in all the cells. we find an equal quantity of space and food for both sexes. this result makes us foresee what a direct examination of the two sexes in the adult form tells us. the male does not differ materially from the female in respect of size. if he is a trifle smaller, it is scarcely noticeable, whereas, in the horned osmia and the three-horned osmia, the male is only half or a third the size of the female, as we have seen from the respective bulk of their cocoons. in the mason-bee of the walls there is also a difference in size, though less pronounced. the three-pronged osmia has not therefore to trouble about adjusting the dimensions of the dwelling and the quantity of the food to the sex of the egg which she is about to lay; the measure is the same from one end of the series to the other. it does not matter if the sexes alternate without order: one and all will find what they need, whatever their position in the row. the two other osmiae, with their great disparity in size between the two sexes, have to be careful about the twofold consideration of board and lodging. and that, i think, is why they begin with spacious cells and generous rations for the homes of the females and end with narrow, scantily-provisioned cells, the homes of the males. with this sequence, sharply defined for the two sexes, there is less fear of mistakes which might give to one what belongs to another. if this is not the explanation of the facts, i see no other. the more i thought about this curious question, the more probable it appeared to me that the irregular series of the three-pronged osmia and the regular series of the other osmiae, of the chalicodomae and of the bees in general were all traceable to a common law. it seemed to me that the arrangement in a succession first of females and then of males did not account for everything. there must be something more. and i was right: that arrangement in series is only a tiny fraction of the reality, which is remarkable in a very different way. this is what i am going to prove by experiment. chapter 4. the mother decides the sex of the egg. i will begin with the mason-bee of the pebbles. (this is the same insect as the mason-bee of the walls. cf. "the mason-bees": passim.--translator's note.) the old nests are often used, when they are in good enough repair. early in the season the mothers quarrel fiercely over them; and, when one of the bees has taken possession of the coveted dome, she drives any stranger away from it. the old house is far from being a ruin, only it is perforated with as many holes as it once had occupants. the work of restoration is no great matter. the heap of earth due to the destruction of the lid by the outgoing tenant is taken out of the cell and flung away at a distance, atom by atom. the remnants of the cocoon are also thrown away, but not always, for the delicate silken wrapper sometimes adheres closely to the masonry. the victualling of the renovated cell is now begun. next comes the laying; and lastly the orifice is sealed with a mortar plug. a second cell is utilized in the same way, followed by a third and so on, one after the other, as long as any remain unoccupied and the mother's ovaries are not exhausted. finally, the dome receives, mainly over the apertures already plugged, a coat of plaster which makes the nest look like new. if she has not finished her laying, the mother goes in search of other old nests to complete it. perhaps she does not decide to found a new establishment except when she can find no second-hand dwellings, which mean a great economy of time and labour. in short, among the countless number of nests which i have collected, i find many more ancient than recent ones. how shall we distinguish one from the other? the outward aspect tells you nothing, owing to the great care taken by the mason to restore the surface of the old dwelling equal to new. to resist the rigours of the winter, this surface must be impregnable. the mother knows that and therefore repairs the dome. inside, it is another matter: the old nest stands revealed at once. there are cells whose provisions, at least a year old, are intact, but dried up or musty, because the egg has never developed. there are others containing a dead larva, reduced by time to a blackened, curled-up cylinder. there are some whence the perfect insect was never able to issue: the chalicodoma wore herself out in trying to pierce the ceiling of her chamber; her strength failed her and she perished in the attempt. others again and very many are occupied by ravagers, leucopses (cf. "the mason-bees": chapter 11.--translator's note.) and anthrax-flies, who will come out a good deal later, in july. altogether, the house is far from having every room vacant; there are nearly always a considerable number occupied either by parasites that were still in the egg-stage at the time when the mason-bee was at work or by damaged provisions, dried grubs or chalicodomae in the perfect state who have died without being able to effect their deliverance. should all the rooms be available, a rare occurrence, there still remains a method of distinguishing between an ancient nest and a recent one. the cocoon, as i have said, adheres pretty closely to the walls; and the mother does not always take away this remnant, either because she is unable to do so, or because she considers the removal unnecessary. thus the base of the new cocoon is set in the bottom of the old cocoon. this double wrapper points very clearly to two generations, two separate years. i have even found as many as three cocoons fitting one into another at their bases. consequently, the nests of the mason-bee of the pebbles are able to do duty for three years, if not more. eventually they become utter ruins, abandoned to the spiders and to various smaller bees or wasps, who take up their quarters in the crumbling rooms. as we see, an old nest is hardly ever capable of containing the mason-bee's entire laying, which calls for some fifteen apartments. the number of rooms at her disposal is most unequal, but always very small. it is saying much when there are enough to receive about half the laying. four or five cells, sometimes two or even one: that is what the mason usually finds in a nest that is not her own work. this large reduction is explained when we remember the numerous parasites that live upon the unfortunate bee. now, how are the sexes distributed in those layings which are necessarily broken up between one old nest and another? they are distributed in such a way as utterly to upset the idea of an invariable succession first of females and then of males, the idea which occurs to us on examining the new nests. if this rule were a constant one, we should be bound to find in the old domes at one time only females, at another only males, according as the laying was at its first or at its second stage. the simultaneous presence of the two sexes would then correspond with the transition period between one stage and the next and should be very unusual. on the contrary, it is very common; and, however few cells there may be, we always find both females and males in the old nests, on the sole condition that the compartments have the regulation holding-capacity, a large capacity for the females, a lesser for the males, as we have seen. the old male cells can be recognized by their position on the outer edges and by their capacity, measuring on an average the same as a column of sand 31 millimetres high in a glass tube 5 millimetres wide. (1.21 x.195 inches.--translator's note.) these cells contain males of the second or third generation and none but males. in the old female cells, those in the middle, whose capacity is measured by a similar column of sand 45 millimetres high (1.75 inches.--translator's note.), are females and none but females. this presence of both sexes at a time, even when there are but two cells free, one spacious and the other small, proves in the plainest fashion that the regular distribution observed in the complete nests of recent production is here replaced by an irregular distribution, harmonizing with the number and holding-capacity of the chambers to be stocked. the mason-bee has before her, let me suppose, only five vacant cells: two larger and three smaller. the total space at her disposal would do for about a third of the laying. well, in the two large cells, she puts females; in the three small cells, she puts males. as we find the same sort of thing in all the old nests, we must needs admit that the mother knows the sex of the egg which she is going to lay, because that egg is placed in a cell of the proper capacity. we can go further and admit that the mother alters the order of succession of the sexes at her pleasure, because her layings, between one old nest and another, are broken up into small groups of males and females according to the exigencies of space in the actual nest which she happens to be occupying. just now, in the new nest, we saw the mason-bee arranging her total laying into series first of females and next of males; and here she is, mistress of an old nest of which she has not the power to alter the arrangement, breaking up her laying into sections comprising both sexes just as required by the conditions imposed upon her. she therefore decides the sex of the egg at will, for, without this prerogative, she could not, in the chambers of the nest which she owes to chance, deposit unerringly the sex for which those chambers were originally built; and this happens however small the number of chambers to be filled. when the nest is new, i think i see a reason why the mason-bee should seriate her laying into females and then males. her nest is a half-sphere. that of the mason-bee of the shrubs is very nearly a sphere. of all shapes, the spherical shape is the strongest. now these two nests require an exceptional power of resistance. without protection of any kind, they have to brave the weather, one on its pebble, the other on its bough. their spherical configuration is therefore very practical. the nest of the mason-bee of the walls consists of a cluster of upright cells backing against one another. for the whole to take a spherical form, the height of the chambers must diminish from the centre of the dome to the circumference. their elevation is the sine of the meridian arc starting from the plane of the pebble. therefore, if they are to have any solidity, there must be large cells in the middle and small cells at the edges. and, as the work begins with the central chambers and ends with those on the circumference, the laying of the females, destined for the large cells, must precede that of the males, destined for the small cells. so the females come first and the males at the finish. this is all very well when the mother herself founds the dwelling, when she lays the first rows of bricks. but, when she is in the presence of an old nest, of which she is quite unable to alter the general arrangement, how is she to make use of the few vacant rooms, the large and the small alike, if the sex of the egg be already irrevocably fixed? she can only do so by abandoning the arrangement in two consecutive rows and accommodating her laying to the varied exigencies of the home. either she finds it impossible to make an economical use of the old nest, a theory refuted by the evidence, or else she determines at will the sex of the egg which she is about to lay. the osmiae themselves will furnish the most conclusive evidence on the latter point. we have seen that these bees are not generally miners, who themselves dig out the foundation of their cells. they make use of the old structures of others, or else of natural retreats, such as hollow stems, the spirals of empty shells and various hiding-places in walls, clay or wood. their work is confined to repairs to the house, such as partitions and covers. there are plenty of these retreats; and the insect would always find first-class ones if it thought of going any distance to look for them. but the osmia is a stay-at-home: she returns to her birth-place and clings to it with a patience extremely difficult to exhaust. it is here, in this little familiar corner, that she prefers to settle her progeny. but then the apartments are few in number and of all shapes and sizes. there are long and short ones, spacious ones and narrow. short of expatriating herself, a spartan course, she has to use them all, from first to last, for she has no choice. guided by these considerations, i embarked on the experiments which i will now describe. i have said how my study, on two separate occasions, became a populous hive, in which the three-horned osmia built her nests in the various appliances which i had prepared for her. among these appliances, tubes, either of glass or reed, predominated. there were tubes of all lengths and widths. in the long tubes, entire or almost entire layings, with a series of females followed by a series of males, were deposited. as i have already referred to this result, i will not discuss it again. the short tubes were sufficiently varied in length to lodge one or other portion of the total laying. basing my calculations on the respective lengths of the cocoons of the two sexes, on the thickness of the partitions and the final lid, i shortened some of these to the exact dimensions required for two cocoons only, of different sexes. well, these short tubes, whether of glass or reed, were seized upon as eagerly as the long tubes. moreover, they yielded this splendid result: their contents, only a part of the total laying, always began with female and ended with male cocoons. this order was invariable; what varied was the number of cells in the long tubes and the proportion between the two sorts of cocoons, sometimes males predominating and sometimes females. the experiment is of paramount importance; and it will perhaps make the result clearer if i quote one instance from among a multitude of similar cases. i give the preference to this particular instance because of the rather exceptional fertility of the laying. an osmia marked on the thorax is watched, day by day, from the commencement to the end of her work. from the 1st to the 10th of may, she occupies a glass tube in which she lodges seven females followed by a male, which ends the series. from the 10th to the 17th of may, she colonizes a second tube, in which she lodges first three females and then three males. from the 17th to the 25th of may, a third tube, with three females and then two males. on the 26th of may, a fourth tube, which she abandons, probably because of its excessive width, after laying one female in it. lastly, from the 26th to the 30th of may, a fifth tube, which she colonizes with two females and three males. total: twenty-five osmiae, including seventeen females and eight males. and it will not be superfluous to observe that these unfinished series do not in any way correspond with periods separated by intervals of rest. the laying is continuous, in so far as the variable condition of the atmosphere allows. as soon as one tube is full and closed, another is occupied by the osmia without delay. the tubes reduced to the exact length of two cells fulfilled my expectation in the great majority of cases: the lower cell was occupied by a female and the upper by a male. there were a few exceptions. more discerning than i in her estimate of what was strictly necessary, better-versed in the economy of space, the osmia had found a way of lodging two females where i had only seen room for one female and a male. this experiment speaks volumes. when confronted with tubes too small to receive all her family, she is in the same plight as the mason-bee in the presence of an old nest. she thereupon acts exactly as the chalicodoma does. she breaks up her laying, divides it into series as short as the room at her disposal demands; and each series begins with females and ends with males. this breaking up, on the one hand, into sections in all of which both sexes are represented and the division, on the other hand, of the entire laying into just two groups, one female, the other male, when the length of the tube permits, surely provide us with ample evidence of the insect's power to regulate the sex of the egg according to the exigencies of space. and besides the exigencies of space one might perhaps venture to add those connected with the earlier development of the males. these burst their cocoons a couple of weeks or more before the females; they are the first who hasten to the sweets of the almond-tree. in order to release themselves and emerge into the glad sunlight without disturbing the string of cocoons wherein their sisters are still sleeping, they must occupy the upper end of the row; and this, no doubt, is the reason that makes the osmia end each of her broken layings with males. being next to the door, these impatient ones will leave the home without upsetting the shells that are slower in hatching. i experimented on latreille's osmia, using short and even very short stumps of reed. all that i had to do was to lay them just beside the nests of the mason-bee of the sheds, nests beloved by this particular osmia. old, disused hurdles supplied me with reeds inhabited from end to end by the horned osmia. in both cases i obtained the same results and the same conclusions as with the three-horned osmia. i return to the latter, nidifying under my eyes in some old nests of the mason-bee of the walls, which i had placed within her reach, mixed up with the tubes. outside my study, i had never yet seen the three-horned osmia adopt that domicile. this may be due to the fact that these nests are isolated one by one in the fields; and the osmia, who loves to feel herself surrounded by her kin and to work in plenty of company, refuses them because of this isolation. but on my table, finding them close to the tubes in which the others are working, she adopts them without hesitation. the chambers presented by those old nests are more or less spacious according to the thickness of the coat of mortar which the chalicodoma has laid over the assembled chambers. to leave her cell, the mason-bee has to perforate not only the plug, the lid built at the mouth of the cell, but also the thick plaster wherewith the dome is strengthened at the end of the work. the perforation results in a vestibule which gives access to the chamber itself. it is this vestibule which is sometimes longer and sometimes shorter, whereas the corresponding chamber is of almost constant dimensions, in the case of the same sex, of course. we will first consider the short vestibule, at the most large enough to receive the plug with which the osmia will close up the lodging. there is then nothing at her disposal except the cell proper, a spacious apartment in which one of the osmia's females will find ample accommodation, for she is much smaller than the original occupant of the chamber, no matter the sex; but there is not room for two cocoons at a time, especially in view of the space taken up by the intervening partition. well, in those large, well-built chambers, formerly the homes of chalicodomae, the osmia settles females and none but females. let us now consider the long vestibule. here, a partition is constructed, encroaching slightly on the cell proper, and the residence is divided into two unequal storeys, a large room below, housing a female, and a narrow cabin above, containing a male. when the length of the vestibule permits, allowing for the space required by the outer stopper, a third storey is built, smaller than the second; and another male is lodged in this cramped corner. in this way the old nest of the mason-bee of the pebbles is colonized, cell after cell, by a single mother. the osmia, as we see, is very frugal of the lodging that has fallen to her share; she makes the best possible use of it, giving to the females the spacious chambers of the mason-bee and to the males the narrow vestibules, subdivided into storeys when this is feasible. economy of space is the chief consideration, since her stay-at-home tastes do not allow her to indulge in distant quests. she has to employ the site which chance places at her disposal just as it is, now for a male and now for a female. here we see displayed, more clearly than ever, her power of deciding the sex of the egg, in order to adapt it judiciously to the conditions of the house-room available. i had offered at the same time to the osmiae in my study some old nests of the mason-bee of the shrubs, which are clay spheroids with cylindrical cavities in them. these cavities are formed, as in the old nests of the mason-bee of the pebbles, of the cell properly so-called and of the exit-way which the perfect insect cut through the outer coating at the time of its deliverance. their diameter is about seven millimetres (.273 inch.--translator's note.); their depth at the centre of the heap is 23 millimetres (.897 inch.--translator's note.); and at the edge averages 14 millimetres (.546 inch.--translator's note.) the deep central cells receive only the females of the osmia; sometimes even the two sexes together, with a partition in the middle, the female occupying the lower and the male the upper storey. true, in such cases economy of space is strained to the utmost, the apartments provided by the mason-bee of the shrubs being very small as it is, despite their entrance-halls. lastly, the deeper cavities on the circumference are allotted to females and the shallower to males. i will add that a single mother peoples each nest and also that she proceeds from cell to cell without troubling to ascertain the depth. she goes from the centre to the edges, from the edges to the centre, from a deep cavity to a shallow cavity and vice versa, which she would not do if the sexes were to follow upon each other in a settled order. for greater certainty, i numbered the cells of one nest as each of them was closed. on opening them later, i was able to see that the sexes were not subjected to a chronological arrangement. females were succeeded by males and these by females without its being possible for me to make out any regular sequence. only--and this is the essential point--the deep cavities were allotted to the females and the shallow ones to the males. we know that the three-horned osmia prefers to haunt the habitations of the bees who nidify in populous colonies, such as the mason-bee of the sheds and the hairy-footed anthophora. exercising the very greatest care, i broke up some great lumps of earth removed from the banks inhabited by the anthophora and sent to me from carpentras by my dear friend and pupil m. devillario. i examined them conscientiously in the quiet of my study. i found the osmia's cocoons arranged in short series, in very irregular passages, the original work of which is due to the anthophora. touched up afterwards, made larger or smaller, lengthened or shortened, intersected with a network of crossings by the numerous generations that had succeeded one another in the same city, they formed an inextricable labyrinth. sometimes these corridors did not communicate with any adjoining apartment; sometimes they gave access to the spacious chamber of the anthophora, which could be recognized, in spite of its age, by its oval shape and its coating of glazed stucco. in the latter case, the bottom cell, which once constituted, by itself, the chamber of the anthophora, was always occupied by a female osmia. beyond it, in the narrow corridor, a male was lodged, not seldom two, or even three. of course, clay partitions, the work of the osmia, separated the different inhabitants, each of whom had his own storey, his own closed cell. when the accommodation consisted of no more than a simple cylinder, with no state-bedroom at the end of it--a bedroom always reserved for a female--the contents varied with the diameter of the cylinder. the series, of which the longest were series of four, included, with a wider diameter, first one or two females, then one or two males. it also happened, though rarely, that the series was reversed, that is to say, it began with males and ended with females. lastly, there were a good many isolated cocoons, of one sex or the other. when the cocoon was alone and occupied the anthophora's cell, it invariably belonged to a female. i have observed the same thing in the nests of the mason-bee of the sheds, but not so easily. the series are shorter here, because the mason-bee does not bore galleries but builds cell upon cell. the work of the whole swarm thus forms a stratum of cells that grows thicker from year to year. the corridors occupied by the osmia are the holes which the mason-bee dug in order to reach daylight from the deep layers. in these short series, both sexes are usually present; and, if the mason-bee's chamber is at the end of the passage, it is inhabited by a female osmia. we come back to what the short tubes and the old nests of the mason-bee of the pebbles have already taught us. the osmia who, in tubes of sufficient length, divides her whole laying into a continuous sequence of females and a continuous sequence of males, now breaks it up into short series in which both sexes are present. she adapts her sectional layings to the exigencies of a chance lodging; she always places a female in the sumptuous chamber which the mason-bee or the anthophora occupied originally. facts even more striking are supplied by the old nests of the masked anthophora (a. personata, illig.), old nests which i have seen utilized by the horned osmia and the three-horned osmia at the same time. less frequently, the same nests serve for latreille's osmia. let us first describe the masked anthophora's nests. in a steep bank of sandy clay, we find a set of round, wide-open holes. there are generally only a few of them, each about half an inch in diameter. they are the entrance-doors leading to the anthophora's abode, doors always left open, even after the building is finished. each of them gives access to a short passage, sometimes straight, sometimes winding, nearly horizontal, polished with minute care and varnished with a sort of white glaze. it looks as if it had received a thin coat of whitewash. on the inner surface of this passage, in the thickness of the earthy bank, spacious oval niches have been excavated, communicating with the corridor by means of a narrow bottle-neck, which is closed, when the work is done, with a substantial mortar stopper. the anthophora polishes the outside of this stopper so well, smooths its surface so perfectly, bringing it to the same level as that of the passage, is so careful to give it the white tint of the rest of the wall that, when the job is finished, it becomes absolutely impossible to distinguish the entrance-door corresponding with each cell. the cell is an oval cavity dug in the earthy mass. the wall has the same polish, the same chalky whiteness as the general passage. but the anthophora does not limit herself to digging oval niches: to make her work more solid, she pours over the walls of the chamber a salivary liquid which not only whitens and varnishes but also penetrates to a depth of some millimetres into the sandy earth, which it turns into a hard cement. a similar precaution is taken with the passage; and therefore the whole is a solid piece of work capable of remaining in excellent condition for years. moreover, thanks to the wall hardened by the salivary fluid, the structure can be removed from its matrix by chipping it carefully away. we thus obtain, at least in fragments, a serpentine tube from which hangs a single or double row of oval nodules that look like large grapes drawn out lengthwise. each of these nodules is a cell, the entrance to which, carefully hidden, opens into the tube or passage. when she wishes to leave her cell, in the spring, the anthophora destroys the mortar disk that closes the jar and thus reaches the general corridor, which is quite open to the outer air. the abandoned nest provides a series of pear-shaped cavities, of which the distended part is the old cell and the contracted part the exit-neck, rid of its stopper. these pear-shaped hollows form splendid lodgings, impregnable strongholds, in which the osmiae find a safe and commodious retreat for their families. the horned osmia and the three-horned osmia establish themselves there at the same time. although it is a little too large for her, latrielle's osmia also appears very well satisfied with it. i have examined some forty of the superb cells utilized by each of the first two. the great majority are divided into two storeys by means of a transversal partition. the lower storey includes the larger portion of the anthophora's cell; the upper storey includes the rest of the cell and a little of the bottle-neck that surmounts it. the two-roomed dwelling is closed, in the passage, by a shapeless, bulky mass of dried mud. what a clumsy artist the osmia is, compared with the anthophora! against the exquisite work of the anthophora, partition and plug strike a note as hideously incongruous as a lump of dirt on polished marble. the two apartments thus obtained are of a very unequal capacity, which at once strikes the observer. i measured them with my five-millimetre tube. on an average, the bottom one is represented by a column of sand 50 millimetres deep (1.95 inches.--translator's note.) and the top one by a column of 15 millimetres (.585 inch.--translator's note.). the holding-capacity of the one is therefore about three times as large as that of the other. the cocoons enclosed present the same disparity. the bottom one is big, the top one small. lastly, the lower one belongs to a female osmia and the upper to a male osmia. occasionally the length of the bottle-neck allows of a fresh arrangement and the cavity is divided into three storeys. the bottom one, which is always the most spacious, contains a female; the two above, both smaller than the first and one smaller than the other, contain males. let us keep to the first case, which is always the most frequent. the osmia is in the presence of one of these pear-shaped hollows. it is a find that must be employed to the best advantage: a prize of this sort is rare and falls only to fortune's favourites. to lodge two females in it at once is impossible; there is not sufficient room. to lodge two males in it would be undue generosity to a sex that is entitled to but the smallest consideration. besides, the two sexes must be represented in almost equal numbers. the osmia decides upon one female, whose portion shall be the better room, the lower one, which is larger, better-protected and more nicely polished, and one male, whose portion shall be the upper storey, a cramped attic, uneven and rugged in the part which encroaches on the bottle-neck. this decision is proved by numerous undeniable facts. both osmiae therefore can choose the sex of the egg about to be laid, seeing that they are now breaking up the laying into groups of two, a female and a male, as required by the conditions of the lodging. i have only once found latreille's osmia established in the nest of the masked anthophora. she had occupied but a small number of cells, because the others were not free, being inhabited by the anthophora. the cells in question were divided into three storeys by partitions of green mortar; the lower storey was occupied by a female, the two others by males, with smaller cocoons. i came to an even more remarkable example. two anthidia of my district, a. septemdentatum, latr., and a. bellicosum, lep., adopt as the home of their offspring the empty shells of different snails: helix aspersa, h. algira, h. nemoralis, h. caespitum. the first-named, the common snail, is the most often used, under the stone-heaps and in the crevices of old walls. both anthidia colonize only the second whorl of the spiral. the central part is too small and remains unoccupied. even so with the front whorl, the largest, which is left completely empty, so much so that, on looking through the opening, it is impossible to tell whether the shell does or does not contain the bee's nest. we have to break this last whorl if we would perceive the curious nest tucked away in the spiral. we then find first a transversal partition, formed of tiny bits of gravel cemented by a putty made from resin, which is collected in fresh drops from the oxycedrus and the aleppo pine. beyond this is a stout barricade made up of rubbish of all kinds: bits of gravel, scraps of earth, juniper-needles, the catkins of the conifers, small shells, dried excretions of snails. next come a partition of pure resin, a large cocoon in a roomy chamber, a second partition of pure resin and, lastly, a smaller cocoon in a narrow chamber. the inequality of the two cells is the necessary consequence of the shape of the shell, whose inner space gains rapidly in width as the spiral gets nearer to the orifice. thus, by the mere general arrangement of the home and without any work on the bee's part beyond some slender partitions, a large room is marked out in front and a much smaller room at the back. by a very remarkable exception, which i have mentioned casually elsewhere, the males of the genus anthidium are generally larger than the females; and this is the case with the two species in particular that divide the snail's spiral with resin partitions. i collected some dozens of nests of both species. in at least half the cases, the two sexes were present together; the female, the smaller, occupied the front cell and the male, the bigger, the back cell. other cells, which were smaller or too much obstructed at the back by the dried-up remains of the mollusc, contained only one cell, occupied at one time by a female and at another by a male. a few, lastly, had both cells inhabited now by two males and now by two females. the most frequent arrangement was the simultaneous presence of both sexes, with the female in front and the male behind. the anthidia who make resin-dough and live in snail-shells can therefore alternate the sexes regularly to meet the exigencies of the spiral dwelling-house. one more thing and i have done. my apparatus of reeds, fixed against the walls of the garden, supplied me with a remarkable nest of the horned osmia. the nest is established in a bit of reed 11 millimetres wide inside. (.429 inch--translator's note.) it comprises thirteen cells and occupies only half the cylinder, although the orifice is plugged with the usual stopper. the laying therefore seems here to be complete. well, this laying is arranged in a most singular fashion. there is first, at a suitable distance from the bottom or the node of the reed, a transversal partition, perpendicular to the axis of the tube. this marks off a cell of unusual size, in which a female is lodged. after that, in view of the excessive width of the tunnel, which is too great for a series in single file, the osmia appears to alter her mind. she therefore builds a partition perpendicular to the transversal partition which she has just constructed and thus divides the second storey into two rooms, a larger room, in which she lodges a female, and a smaller, in which she lodges a male. she next builds a second transversal partition and a second longitudinal partition perpendicular to it. these once more give two unequal chambers, stocked likewise, the large one with a female, the smaller one with a male. from this third storey onwards, the osmia abandons geometrical accuracy; the architect seems to be a little out in her reckoning. the transversal partitions become more and more slanting and the work grows irregular, but always with a sprinkling of large chambers for the females and small chambers for the males. three females and two males are housed in this way, the sexes alternating. by the time that the base of the eleventh cell is reached, the transversal partition is once more almost perpendicular to the axis. here what happened at the bottom is repeated. there is no longitudinal partition; and the spacious cell, covering the whole diameter of the cylinder, receives a female. the edifice ends with two transversal partitions and one longitudinal partition, which mark out, on the same level, chambers twelve and thirteen, both of which contain males. there is nothing more curious than this mixing of the two sexes, when we know with what precision the osmia separates them in a linear series, where the narrow width of the cylinder demands that the cells shall be set singly, one above the other. here, the bee is making use of a tube whose diameter is not suited to her work; she is constructing a complex and difficult edifice, which perhaps would not possess the necessary solidity if the ceilings were too broad. the osmia therefore supports these ceilings with longitudinal partitions; and the unequal chambers resulting from the introduction of these partitions receive females at one time and males at another, according to their capacity. chapter 5. permutations of sex. the sex of the egg is optional. the choice rests with the mother, who is guided by considerations of space and, according to the accommodation at her disposal, which is frequently fortuitous and incapable of modification, places a female in this cell and a male in that, so that both may have a dwelling of a size suited to their unequal development. this is the unimpeachable evidence of the numerous and varied facts which i have set forth. people unfamiliar with insect anatomy--the public for whom i write--would probably give the following explanation of this marvellous prerogative of the bee: the mother has at her disposal a certain number of eggs, some of which are irrevocably female and the others irrevocably male: she is able to pick out of either group the one which she wants at the actual moment; and her choice is decided by the holding capacity of the cell that has to be stocked. everything would then be limited to a judicious selection from the heap of eggs. should this idea occur to him, the reader must hasten to reject it. nothing could be more false, as the merest reference to anatomy will show. the female reproductive apparatus of the hymenoptera consists generally of six ovarian tubes, something like glove-fingers, divided into bunches of three and ending in a common canal, the oviduct, which carries the eggs outside. each of these glove-fingers is fairly wide at the base, but tapers sharply towards the tip, which is closed. it contains, arranged in a row, one after the other, like beads on a string, a certain number of eggs, five or six for instance, of which the lower ones are more or less developed, the middle ones half-way towards maturity, and the upper ones very rudimentary. every stage of evolution is here represented, distributed regularly from bottom to top, from the verge of maturity to the vague outlines of the embryo. the sheath clasps its string of ovules so closely that any inversion of the order is impossible. besides, an inversion would result in a gross absurdity: the replacing of a riper egg by another in an earlier stage of development. therefore, in each ovarian tube, in each glove-finger, the emergence of the eggs occurs according to the order governing their arrangement in the common sheath; and any other sequence is absolutely impossible. moreover, at the nesting period, the six ovarian sheaths, one by one and each in its turn, have at their base an egg which in a very short time swells enormously. some hours or even a day before the laying, that egg by itself represents or even exceeds in bulk the whole of the ovigenous apparatus. this is the egg which is on the point of being laid. it is about to descend into the oviduct, in its proper order, at its proper time; and the mother has no power to make another take its place. it is this egg, necessarily this egg and no other, that will presently be laid upon the provisions, whether these be a mess of honey or a live prey; it alone is ripe, it alone is at the entrance to the oviduct; none of the others, since they are farther back in the row and not at the right stage of development, can be substituted at this crisis. its birth is inevitable. what will it yield, a male or a female? no lodging has been prepared, no food collected for it; and yet both food and lodging have to be in keeping with the sex that will proceed from it. and here is a much more puzzling condition: the sex of that egg, whose advent is predestined, has to correspond with the space which the mother happens to have found for a cell. there is therefore no room for hesitation, strange though the statement may appear: the egg, as it descends from its ovarian tube, has no determined sex. it is perhaps during the few hours of its rapid development at the base of its ovarian sheath, it is perhaps on its passage through the oviduct that it receives, at the mother's pleasure, the final impress that will produce, to match the cradle which it has to fill, either a female or a male. thereupon the following question presents itself. let us admit that, when the normal conditions remain, a laying would have yielded m females and n males. then, if my conclusions are correct, it must be in the mother's power, when the conditions are different, to take from the m group and increase the n group to the same extent; it must be possible for her laying to be represented as m-1, m-2, m-3, etc. females and by n+1, n+2, n+3, etc. males, the sum of m+n remaining constant, but one of the sexes being partly permuted into the other. the ultimate conclusion even cannot be disregarded: we must admit a set of eggs represented by m-m, or zero, females and of n+m males, one of the sexes being completely replaced by the other. conversely, it must be possible for the feminine series to be augmented from the masculine series to the extent of absorbing it entirely. it was to solve this question and some others connected with it that i undertook, for the second time, to rear the three-horned osmia in my study. the problem on this occasion is a more delicate one; but i am also better-equipped. my apparatus consists of two small, closed packing-cases, with the front side of each pierced with forty holes, in which i can insert my glass tubes and keep them in a horizontal position. i thus obtain for the bees the darkness and mystery which suit their work and for myself the power of withdrawing from my hive, at any time, any tube that i wish, with the osmia inside, so as to carry it to the light and follow, if need be with the aid of the lens, the operations of the busy worker. my investigations, however frequent and minute, in no way hinder the peaceable bee, who remains absorbed in her maternal duties. i mark a plentiful number of my guests with a variety of dots on the thorax, which enables me to follow any one osmia from the beginning to the end of her laying. the tubes and their respective holes are numbered; a list, always lying open on my desk, enables me to note from day to day, sometimes from hour to hour, what happens in each tube and particularly the actions of the osmiae whose backs bear distinguishing marks. as soon as one tube is filled, i replace it by another. moreover, i have scattered in front of either hive a few handfuls of empty snail-shells, specially chosen for the object which i have in view. reasons which i will explain later led me to prefer the shells of helix caespitum. each of the shells, as and when stocked, received the date of the laying and the alphabetical sign corresponding with the osmia to whom it belonged. in this way, i spent five or six weeks in continual observation. to succeed in an enquiry, the first and foremost condition is patience. this condition i fulfilled; and it was rewarded with the success which i was justified in expecting. the tubes employed are of two kinds. the first, which are cylindrical and of the same width throughout, will be of use for confirming the facts observed in the first year of my experiments in indoor rearing. the others, the majority, consist of two cylinders which are of very different diameters, set end to end. the front cylinder, the one which projects a little way outside the hive and forms the entrance-hole, varies in width between 8 and 12 millimetres. (between.312 to .468 inch.--translator's note.) the second, the back one, contained entirely within my packing-case, is closed at its far end and is 5 to 6 millimetres (.195 to.234 inch.--translator's note.) in diameter. each of the two parts of the double-galleried tunnel, one narrow and one wide, measures at most a decimetre (3.9 inches.--translator's note.) in length. i thought it advisable to have these short tubes, as the osmia is thus compelled to select different lodgings, each of them being insufficient in itself to accommodate the total laying. in this way i shall obtain a greater variety in the distribution of the sexes. lastly, at the mouth of each tube, which projects slightly outside the case, there is a little paper tongue, forming a sort of perch on which the osmia alights on her arrival and giving easy access to the house. with these facilities, the swarm colonized fifty-two double-galleried tubes, thirty-seven cylindrical tubes, seventy-eight snail-shells and a few old nests of the mason-bee of the shrubs. from this rich mine of material i will take what i want to prove my case. every series, even when incomplete, begins with females and ends with males. to this rule i have not yet found an exception, at least in galleries of normal diameter. in each new abode, the mother busies herself first of all with the more important sex. bearing this point in mind, would it be possible for me, by manoeuvring, to obtain an inversion of this order and make the laying begin with males? i think so, from the results already ascertained and the irresistible conclusions to be drawn from them. the double-galleried tubes are installed in order to put my conjectures to the proof. the back gallery, 5 or 6 millimetres (.195 to.234 inch.--translator's note.) wide, is too narrow to serve as a lodging for normally developed females. if, therefore, the osmia, who is very economical of her space, wishes to occupy them, she will be obliged to establish males there. and her laying must necessarily begin here, because this corner is the rear-most part of the tube. the foremost gallery is wide, with an entrance-door on the front of the hive. here, finding the conditions to which she is accustomed, the mother will go on with her laying in the order which she prefers. let us now see what has happened. of the fifty-two double galleried tubes, about a third did not have their narrow passage colonized. the osmia closed its aperture communicating with the large passage; and the latter alone received the eggs. this waste of space was inevitable. the female osmiae, though nearly always larger than the males, present marked differences among one another: some are bigger, some are smaller. i had to adjust the width of the narrow galleries to bees of average dimensions. it may happen therefore that a gallery is too small to admit the large-sized mothers to whom chance allots it. when the osmia is unable to enter the tube, obviously she will not colonize it. she then closes the entrance to this space which she cannot use and does her laying beyond it, in the wide tube. had i tried to avoid these useless apparatus by choosing tubes of larger calibre, i should have encountered another drawback: the medium-sized mothers, finding themselves almost comfortable, would have decided to lodge females there. i had to be prepared for it: as each mother selected her house at will and as i was unable to interfere in her choice, a narrow tube would be colonized or not, according as the osmia who owned it was or was not able to make her way inside. there remain some forty pairs of tubes with both galleries colonized. in these there are two things to take into consideration. the narrow rear tubes of 5 or 5 1/2 millimetres (.195 to.214 inch.--translator's note.)--and these are the most numerous--contain males and males only, but in short series, between one and five. the mother is here so much hampered in her work that they are rarely occupied from end to end; the osmia seems in a hurry to leave them and to go and colonize the front tube, whose ample space will leave her the liberty of movement necessary for her operations. the other rear tubes, the minority, whose diameter is about 6 millimetres (.234 inch.--translator's note.), contain sometimes only females and sometimes females at the back and males towards the opening. one can see that a tube a trifle wider and a mother slightly smaller would account for this difference in the results. nevertheless, as the necessary space for a female is barely provided in this case, we see that the mother avoids as far as she can a two-sex arrangement beginning with males and that she adopts it only in the last extremity. finally, whatever the contents of the small tube may be, those of the large one, following upon it, never vary and consist of females at the back and males in front. though incomplete, because of circumstances very difficult to control, the result of the experiment is none the less very striking. twenty-five apparatus contain only males in their narrow gallery, in numbers varying from a minimum of one to a maximum of five. after these comes the colony of the large gallery, beginning with females and ending with males. and the layings in these apparatus do not always belong to late summer or even to the intermediate period: a few small tubes contain the earliest eggs of the osmiae. a couple of osmiae, more forward than the others, set to work on the 23rd of april. both of them started their laying by placing males in the narrow tubes. the meagre supply of provisions was enough in itself to show the sex, which proved later to be in accordance with my anticipations. we see then that, by my artifices, the whole swarm starts with the converse of the normal order. this inversion is continued, at no matter what period, from the beginning to the end of the operations. the series which, according to rule, would begin with females now begins with males. once the larger gallery is reached, the laying is pursued in the usual order. we have advanced one step and that no small one: we have seen that the osmia, when circumstances require it, is capable of reversing the sequence of the sexes. would it be possible, provided that the tube were long enough, to obtain a complete inversion, in which the entire series of the males should occupy the narrow gallery at the back and the entire series of the females the roomy gallery in front? i think not; and i will tell you why. long and narrow cylinders are by no means to the osmia's taste, not because of their narrowness but because of their length. remember that for each load of honey brought the worker is obliged to move backwards twice. she enters, head first, to begin by disgorging the honey-syrup from her crop. unable to turn in a passage which she blocks entirely, she goes out backwards, crawling rather than walking, a laborious performance on the polished surface of the glass and a performance which, with any other surface, would still be very awkward, as the wings are bound to rub against the wall with their free end and are liable to get rumpled or bent. she goes out backwards, reaches the outside, turns round and goes in again, but this time the opposite way, so as to brush off the load of pollen from her abdomen on to the heap. if the gallery is at all long, this crawling backwards becomes troublesome after a time; and the osmia soon abandons a passage that is too small to allow of free movement. i have said that the narrow tubes of my apparatus are, for the most part, only very incompletely colonized. the bee, after lodging a small number of males in them, hastens to leave them. in the wide front gallery, she can stay where she is and still be able to turn round easily for her different manipulations; she will avoid those two long journeys backwards, which are so exhausting and so bad for her wings. another reason no doubt prompts her not to make too great a use of the narrow passage, in which she would establish males, followed by females in the part where the gallery widens. the males have to leave their cells a couple of weeks or more before the females. if they occupy the back of the house, they will die prisoners or else they will overturn everything on their way out. this risk is avoided by the order which the osmia adopts. in my tubes with their unusual arrangement, the mother might well find the dilemma perplexing: there is the narrowness of the space at her disposal and there is the emergence later on. in the narrow tubes, the width is insufficient for the females; on the other hand, if she lodges males there, they are liable to perish, since they will be prevented from issuing at the proper moment. this would perhaps explain the mother's hesitation and her obstinacy in settling females in some of my apparatus which looked as if they could suit none but males. a suspicion occurs to me, a suspicion aroused by my attentive examination of the narrow tubes. all, whatever the number of their inmates, are carefully plugged at the opening, just as separate tubes would be. it might therefore be the case that the narrow gallery at the back was looked upon by the osmia not as the prolongation of the large front gallery, but as an independent tube. the facility with which the worker turns as soon as she reaches the wide tube, her liberty of action, which is now as great as in a doorway communicating with the outer air, might well be misleading and cause the osmia to treat the narrow passage at the back as though the wide passage in front did not exist. this would account for the placing of the female in the large tube above the males in the small tube, an arrangement contrary to her custom. i will not undertake to decide whether the mother really appreciates the danger of my snares, or whether she makes a mistake in considering only the space at her disposal and beginning with males. at any rate, i perceive in her a tendency to deviate as little as possible from the order which safeguards the emergence of the two sexes. this tendency is demonstrated by her repugnance to colonizing my narrow tubes with long series of males. however, so far as we are concerned, it does not matter much what passes at such times in the osmia's little brain. enough for us to know that she dislikes narrow and long tubes, not because they are narrow, but because they are at the same time long. and, in fact, she does very well with a short tube of the same diameter. such are the cells in the old nests of the mason-bee of the shrubs and the empty shells of the garden snail. with the short tube, the two disadvantages of the long tube are avoided. she has very little of that crawling backwards to do when she has a snail-shell for the home of her eggs and scarcely any when the home is the cell of the mason-bee. moreover, as the stack of cocoons numbers two or three at most, the deliverance will be exempt from the difficulties attached to a long series. to persuade the osmia to nidify in a single tube long enough to receive the whole of her laying and at the same time narrow enough to leave her only just the possibility of admittance appears to me a project without the slightest chance of success: the bee would stubbornly refuse such a dwelling or would content herself with entrusting only a very small portion of her eggs to it. on the other hand, with narrow but short cavities, success, without being easy, seems to me at least quite possible. guided by these considerations, i embarked upon the most arduous part of my problem: to obtain the complete or almost complete permutation of one sex with the other; to produce a laying consisting only of males by offering the mother a series of lodgings suited only to males. let us in the first place consult the old nests of the mason-bee of the shrubs. i have said that these mortar spheroids, pierced all over with little cylindrical cavities, are adopted pretty eagerly by the three-horned osmia, who colonizes them before my eyes with females in the deep cells and males in the shallow cells. that is how things go when the old nest remains in its natural state. with a grater, however, i scrape the outside of another nest so as to reduce the depth of the cavities to some ten millimetres. (about two-fifths of an inch.--translator's note.) this leaves in each cell just room for one cocoon, surmounted by the closing stopper. of the fourteen cavities in the nests, i leave two intact, measuring fifteen millimetres in depth. (.585 inch.--translator's note.) nothing could be more striking than the result of this experiment, made in the first year of my home rearing. the twelve cavities whose depth had been reduced all received males; the two cavities left untouched received females. a year passes and i repeat the experiment with a nest of fifteen cells; but this time all the cells are reduced to the minimum depth with the grater. well, the fifteen cells, from first to last, are occupied by males. it must be quite understood that, in each case, all the offspring belonged to one mother, marked with her distinguishing spot and kept in sight as long as her laying lasted. he would indeed be difficult to please who refused to bow before the results of these two experiments. if, however, he is not yet convinced, here is something to remove his last doubts. the three-horned osmia often settles her family in old shells, especially those of the common snail (helix aspersa), who is so common under the stone-heaps and in the crevices of the little unmortared walls that support our terraces. in this species, the spiral is wide open, so that the osmia, penetrating as far down as the helical passage permits, finds, immediately above the point which is too narrow to pass, the space necessary for the cell of a female. this cell is succeeded by others, wider still, always for females, arranged in a line in the same way as in a straight tube. in the last whorl of the spiral, the diameter would be too great for a single row. then longitudinal partitions are added to the transverse partitions, the whole resulting in cells of unequal dimensions in which males predominate, mixed with a few females in the lower storeys. the sequence of the sexes is therefore what it would be in a straight tube and especially in a tube with a wide bore, where the partitioning is complicated by subdivisions on the same level. a single snail-shell contains room for six or eight cells. a large, rough earthen stopper finishes the nest at the entrance to the shell. as a dwelling of this sort could show us nothing new, i chose for my swarm the garden snail (helix caespitum), whose shell, shaped like a small, swollen ammonite, widens by slow degrees, the diameter of the usable portion, right up to the mouth, being hardly greater than that required by a male osmia-cocoon. moreover, the widest part, in which a female might find room, has to receive a thick stopping-plug, below which there will often be a free space. under all these conditions, the house will hardly suit any but males arranged one after the other. the collection of shells placed at the foot of each hive includes specimens of different sizes. the smallest are 18 millimetres (.7 inch.--translator's note.) in diameter and the largest 24 millimetres (.936 inch.--translator's note.) there is room for two cocoons, or three at most, according to their dimensions. now these shells were used by my visitors without any hesitation, perhaps even with more eagerness than the glass tubes, whose slippery sides might easily be a little annoying to the bee. some of them were occupied on the first few days of the laying; and the osmia who had started with a home of this sort would pass next to a second snail-shell, in the immediate neighbourhood of the first, to a third, a fourth and others still, always close to one another, until her ovaries were emptied. the whole family of one mother would thus be lodged in snail-shells which were duly marked with the date of the laying and a description of the worker. the faithful adherents of the snail-shell were in the minority. the greater number left the tubes to come to the shells and then went back from the shells to the tubes. all, after filling the spiral staircase with two or three cells, closed the house with a thick earthen stopper on a level with the opening. it was a long and troublesome task, in which the osmia displayed all her patience as a mother and all her talents as a plasterer. there were even some who, scrupulous to excess, carefully cemented the umbilicus, a hole which seemed to inspire them with distrust as being able to give access to the interior of the dwelling. it was a dangerous-looking cavity, which for the greater safety of the family it was prudent to block up. when the pupae are sufficiently matured, i proceed to examine these elegant abodes. the contents fill me with joy: they fulfil my anticipations to the letter. the great, the very great majority of the cocoons turn out to be males; here and there, in the bigger cells, a few rare females appear. the smallness of the space has almost done away with the sixty-eight snail-shells colonized. but, of this total number, i must use only those series which received an entire laying and were occupied by the same osmia from the beginning to the end of the egg-season. here are a few examples, taken from among the most conclusive. from the 6th of may, when she started operations, to the 25th of may, the date at which her laying ceased, the osmia occupied seven snail-shells in succession. her family consists of fourteen cocoons, a number very near the average; and, of these fourteen cocoons, twelve belong to males and only two to females. these occupy the seventh and thirteenth places in chronological order. another, between the 9th and 27th of may, stocked six snail-shells with a family of thirteen, including ten males and three females. the places occupied by the latter in the series were numbers 3, 4 and 5. a third, between the 2nd and 29th of may, colonized eleven snail-shells, a prodigious task. this industrious one was also exceedingly prolific. she supplied me with a family of twenty-six, the largest which i have ever obtained from one osmia. well, this abnormal progeny consisted of twenty-five males and one female, one alone, occupying place 17. there is no need to go on, after this magnificent example, especially as the other series would all, without exception, give us the same result. two facts are immediately obvious. the osmia is able to reverse the order of her laying and to start with a more or less long series of males before producing any females. in the first case, the first female appears as number 7; in the third, as number 17. there is something better still; and this is the proposition which i was particularly anxious to prove: the female sex can be permuted with the male sex and can be permuted to the point of disappearing altogether. we see this especially in the third case, where the presence of a solitary female in a family of twenty-six is due to the somewhat larger diameter of the corresponding snail-shell and also, no doubt, to some mistake on the mother's part, for the female cocoon, in a series of two, occupies the upper storey, the one next to the orifice, an arrangement which the osmia appears to me to dislike. this result throws so much light on one of the darkest corners of biology that i must attempt to corroborate it by means of even more conclusive experiments. i propose next year to give the osmiae nothing but snail-shells for a lodging, picked out one by one, and rigorously to deprive the swarm of any other retreat in which the laying could be effected. under these conditions, i ought to obtain nothing but males, or nearly, for the whole swarm. there would still remain the inverse permutation: to obtain only females and no males, or very few. the first permutation makes the second seem very probable, although i cannot as yet conceive a means of realizing it. the only condition which i can regulate is the dimensions of the home. when the rooms are small, the males abound and the females tend to disappear. with generous quarters, the converse would not take place. i should obtain females and afterwards an equal number of males, confined in small cells which, in case of need, would be bounded by numerous partitions. the factor of space does not enter into the question here. what artifice can we then employ to provoke this second permutation? so far, i can think of nothing that is worth attempting. it is time to conclude. leading a retired life, in the solitude of a village, having quite enough to do with patiently and obscurely ploughing my humble furrow, i know little about modern scientific views. in my young days i had a passionate longing for books and found it difficult to procure them; to-day, when i could almost have them if i wanted, i am ceasing to wish for them. it is what usually happens as life goes on. i do not therefore know what may have been done in the direction whither this study of the sexes has led us. if i am stating propositions that are really new or at least more comprehensive than the propositions already known, my words will perhaps sound heretical. no matter: as a simple translator of facts, i do not hesitate to make my statement, being fully persuaded that time will turn my heresy into orthodoxy. i will therefore recapitulate my conclusions. bees lay their eggs in series of first females and then males, when the two sexes are of different sizes and demand an unequal quantity of nourishment. when the two sexes are alike in size, the same sequence may occur, but less regularly. this dual arrangement disappears when the place chosen for the nest is not large enough to contain the entire laying. we then see broken layings, beginning with females and ending with males. the egg, as it issues from the ovary, has not yet a fixed sex. the final impress that produces the sex is given at the moment of laying or a little before. so as to be able to give each larva the amount of space and food that suits it according as it is male or female, the mother can choose the sex of the egg which she is about to lay. to meet the conditions of the building, which is often the work of another or else a natural retreat that admits of little or no alteration, she lays either a male egg or a female egg as she pleases. the distribution of the sexes depends upon herself. should circumstances require it, the order of the laying can be reversed and begin with males; lastly, the entire laying can contain only one sex. the same privilege is possessed by the predatory hymenoptera, the wasps, at least by those in whom the two sexes are of a different size and consequently require an amount of nourishment that is larger in the one case than in the other. the mother must know the sex of the egg which she is going to lay; she must be able to choose the sex of that egg so that each larva may obtain its proper portion of food. generally speaking, when the sexes are of different sizes, every insect that collects food and prepares or selects a dwelling for its offspring must be able to choose the sex of the egg in order to satisfy without mistake the conditions imposed upon it. the question remains how this optional assessment of the sexes is effected. i know absolutely nothing about it. if i should ever learn anything about this delicate point, i shall owe it to some happy chance for which i must wait, or rather watch, patiently. towards the end of my investigations, i heard of a german theory which relates to the hive-bee and comes from dzierzon, the apiarist. (johann dzierzon, author of "theorie und praxis des neuen bienenfreundes."--translator's note.) if i understand it aright, according to the very incomplete documents which i have before me, the egg, as it issues from the ovary, is said already to possess a sex, which is always the same; it is originally male; and it becomes female by fertilization. the males are supposed to proceed from non-fertilized eggs, the females from fertilized eggs. the queen-bee would thus lay female eggs or male eggs according as she fertilized them or not while they were passing into her oviduct. coming from germany, this theory cannot but inspire me with profound distrust. as it has been given acceptance, with rash precipitancy, in standard works, i will overcome my reluctance to devoting my attention to teutonic ideas and will submit it not to the test of argument, which can always be met by an opposite argument, but to the unanswerable test of facts. for this optional fertilization, determining the sex, the mother's organism requires a seminal reservoir which distils its drop of sperm upon the egg contained in the oviduct and thus gives it a feminine character, or else leaves it its original character, the male character, by refusing it that baptism. this reservoir exists in the hive-bee. do we find a similar organ in the other hymenoptera, whether honey-gatherers or hunters? the anatomical treatises are either silent on this point or, without further enquiry, apply to the order as a whole the data provided by the hive-bee, however much she differs from the mass of hymenoptera owing to her social habits, her sterile workers and especially her tremendous fertility, extending over so long a period. i at first doubted the universal presence of this spermatic receptacle, having failed to find it under my scalpel in my former investigations into the anatomy of the sphex-wasps and some other game-hunters. but this organ is so delicate and so small that it very easily escapes the eye, especially when our attention is not specially directed in search of it; and, even when we are looking for it and it only, we do not always succeed in discovering it. we have to find a globule attaining in many cases hardly as much as a millimetre (about one-fiftieth of an inch.--translator's note.) in diameter, a globule headed amidst a tangle of air-ducts and fatty patches, of which it shares the colour, a dull white. then again, the merest slip of the forceps is enough to destroy it. my first investigations, therefore, which concerned the reproductive apparatus as a whole, might very well have allowed it to pass unperceived. in order to know the rights of the matter once and for all, as the anatomical treatises taught me nothing, i once more fixed my microscope on its stand and rearranged my old dissecting-tank, an ordinary tumbler with a cork disk covered with black satin. this time, not without a certain strain on my eyes, which are already growing tired, i succeeded in finding the said organ in the bembex-wasps, the halicti (cf. chapters 12 to 14 of the present volume.--translator's note.), the carpenter-bees, the bumble-bees, the andrenae (a species of burrowing bees.--translator's note.) and the megachiles. (or leaf-cutting bees. cf. chapter 8 of the present volume.--translator's note.) i failed in the case of the osmiae, the chalicodomae and the anthophorae. is the organ really absent? or was there want of skill on my part? i lean towards want of skill and admit that all the game-hunting and honey-gathering hymenoptera possess a seminal receptacle, which can be recognized by its contents, a quantity of spiral spermatozoids whirling and twisting on the slide of the microscope. this organ once accepted, the german theory becomes applicable to all the bees and all the wasps. when copulating, the female receives the seminal fluid and holds it stored in her receptacle. from that moment, the two procreating elements are present in the mother at one and the same time: the female element, the ovule; and the male element, the spermatozoid. at the egg-layer's will, the receptacle bestows a tiny drop of its contents upon the matured ovule, when it reaches the oviduct, and you have a female egg; or else it withholds its spermatozoids and you have an egg that remains male, as it was at first. i readily admit it: the theory is very simple, lucid and seductive. but is it correct? that is another question. one might begin by reproaching it with making a singular exception to one of the most general rules. which of us, casting his eyes over the whole zoological progression, would dare to assert that the egg is originally male and that it becomes female by fertilization? do not the two sexes both call for the assistance of the fertilizing element? if there be one undoubted truth, it is certainly that. we are, it is true, told very curious things about the hive-bee. i will not discuss them: this bee stands too far outside the ordinary limits; and then the facts asserted are far from being accepted by everybody. but the non-social bees and the predatory insects have nothing special about their laying. then why should they escape the common rule, which requires that every living creature, male as well as female, should come from a fertilized ovule? in its most solemn act, that of procreation, life is one and uniform; what it does here it does there and there and everywhere. what! the sporule of a scrap of moss requires an antherozoid before it is fit to germinate; and the ovule of a scolia, that proud huntress, can dispense with the equivalent in order to hatch and produce a male? these new-fangled theories seem to me to have very little value. one might also bring forward the case of the three-pronged osmia, who distributes the two sexes without any order in the hollow of her reed. what singular whim is the mother obeying when, without decisive motive, she opens her seminal phial at haphazard to anoint a female egg, or else keeps it closed, also at haphazard, to allow a male egg to pass unfertilized? i could imagine impregnation being given or withheld for periods of some duration; but i cannot understand impregnation and non-impregnation following upon each other anyhow, in any sort of order, or rather with no order it all. the mother has just fertilized an egg. why should she refuse to fertilize the next, when neither the provisions nor the lodgings differ in the smallest respect from the previous provisions and lodgings? these capricious alternations, so unreasonable and so exceedingly erratic, are scarcely appropriate to an act of such importance. but i promised not to argue and i find myself arguing. my reasoning is too fine for dull wits. i will pass on and come to the brutal fact, the real sledge-hammer blow. towards the end of the bee's operations, in the first week of june, the last acts of the three-horned osmia become so exceptionally interesting that i made her the object of redoubled observation. the swarm at this time is greatly reduced in numbers. i have still some thirty laggards, who continue very busy, though their work is in vain. i see some very conscientiously stopping up the entrance to a tube or a snail-shell in which they have laid nothing at all. others are closing the home after only building a few partitions, or even mere attempts at partitions. some are placing at the back of a new gallery a pinch of pollen which will benefit nobody and then shutting up the house with an earthen stopper as thick, as carefully made as though the safety of a family depended on it. born a worker, the osmia must die working. when her ovaries are exhausted, she spends the remainder of her strength on useless works: partitions, plugs, pollen-heaps, all destined to be left unemployed. the little animal machine cannot bring itself to be inactive even when there is nothing more to be done. it goes on working so that its last vibrations of energy may be used up in fruitless labour. i commend these aberrations to the staunch supporters of reasoning-powers in the animal. before coming to these useless tasks, my laggards have laid their last eggs, of which i know the exact cells, the exact dates. these eggs, as far as the microscopes can tell, differ in no respect from the others, the older ones. they have the same dimensions, the same shape, the same glossiness, the same look of freshness. nor are their provisions in any way peculiar, being very well suited to the males, who conclude the laying. and yet these last eggs do not hatch: they wrinkle, fade and wither on the pile of food. in one case, i count three or four sterile eggs among the last lot laid; in another, i find two or only one. elsewhere in the swarm, fertile eggs have been laid right up to the end. those sterile eggs, stricken with death at the moment of their birth, are too numerous to be ignored. why do they not hatch like the other eggs, which outwardly they resemble in every respect? they have received the same attention from the mother and the same portion of food. the searching microscope shows me nothing in them to explain the fatal ending. to the unprejudiced mind, the answer is obvious. those eggs do not hatch because they have not been fertilized. any animal or vegetable egg that had not received the life-giving impregnation would perish in the same way. no other answer is possible. it is no use talking of the distant period of the laying: eggs of the same period laid by other mothers, eggs of the same date and likewise the final ones of a laying, are perfectly fertile. once more, they do not hatch because they were not fertilized. and why were they not fertilized? because the seminal receptacle, so tiny, so difficult to see that it sometimes escaped me despite all my scrutiny, had exhausted its contents. the mothers in whom this receptacle retained a remnant of sperm to the end had their last eggs as fertile as the first; the others, whose seminal reservoir was exhausted too soon, had their last-born stricken with death. all this seems to me as clear as daylight. if the unfertilized eggs perish without hatching, those which hatch and produce males are therefore fertilized; and the german theory falls to the ground. then what explanation shall i give of the wonderful facts which i have set forth? why, none, absolutely none. i do not explain facts, i relate them. growing daily more sceptical of the interpretations suggested to me and more hesitating as to those which i may have to suggest myself, the more i observe and experiment, the more clearly i see rising out of the black mists of possibility an enormous note of interrogation. dear insects, my study of you has sustained me and continues to sustain me in my heaviest trials. i must take leave of you for to-day. the ranks are thinning around me and the long hopes have fled. shall i be able to speak to you again? (this is the closing paragraph of volume 3 of the "souvenirs entomologiques," of which the author has lived to publish seven more volumes, containing over 2,500 pages and nearly 850,000 words.--translator's note.) chapter 6. instinct and discernment. the pelopaeus (a mason-wasp forming the subject of essays which have not yet been published in english.--translator's note.) gives us a very poor idea of her intellect when she plasters up the spot in the wall where the nest which i have removed used to stand, when she persists in cramming her cell with spiders for the benefit of an egg no longer there and when she dutifully closes a cell which my forceps has left empty, extracting alike germ and provisions. the mason-bees (cf. "the mason-bees": chapter 7.--translator's note.), the caterpillar of the great peacock moth (cf. "social life in the insect world" by j.h. fabre, translated by bernard miall: chapter 14.--translator's note.) and many others, when subjected to similar tests, are guilty of the same illogical behaviour: they continue, in the normal order, their series of industrious actions, though an accident has now rendered them all useless. just like millstones unable to cease revolving though there be no corn left to grind, let them once be given the compelling power and they will continue to perform their task despite its futility. are they then machines? far be it from me to think anything so foolish. it is impossible to make definite progress on the shifting sands of contradictory facts: each step in our interpretation may find us embogged. and yet these facts speak so loudly that i do not hesitate to translate their evidence as i understand it. in insect mentality, we have to distinguish two very different domains. one of these is instinct properly so called, the unconscious impulse that presides over the most wonderful part of what the creature achieves. where experience and imitation are of absolutely no avail, instinct lays down its inflexible law. it is instinct and instinct alone that makes the mother build for a family which she will never see; that counsels the storing of provisions for the unknown offspring; that directs the sting towards the nerve-centres of the prey and skilfully paralyses it, so that the game may keep good; that instigates, in fine, a host of actions wherein shrewd reason and consummate science would have their part, were the creature acting through discernment. this faculty is perfect of its kind from the outset, otherwise the insect would have no posterity. time adds nothing to it and takes nothing from it. such as it was for a definite species, such it is to-day and such it will remain, perhaps the most settled zoological characteristic of them all. it is not free nor conscious in its practice, any more than is the faculty of the stomach for digestion or that of the heart for pulsation. the phases of its operations are predetermined, necessarily entailed one by another; they suggest a system of clock-work wherein one wheel set in motion brings about the movement of the next. this is the mechanical side of the insect, the fatum, the only thing which is able to explain the monstrous illogicality of a pelopaeus when misled by my artifices. is the lamb when it first grips the teat a free and conscious agent, capable of improvement in its difficult art of taking nourishment? the insect is no more capable of improvement in its art, more difficult still, of giving nourishment. but, with its hide-bound science ignorant of itself, pure insect, if it stood alone, would leave the insect unarmed in the perpetual conflict of circumstances. no two moments in time are identical; though the background remain the same, the details change; the unexpected rises on every side. in this bewildering confusion, a guide is needed to seek, accept, refuse and select; to show preference for this and indifference to that; to turn to account, in short, anything useful that occasion may offer. this guide the insect undoubtedly possesses, to a very manifest degree. it is the second province of its mentality. here it is conscious and capable of improvement by experience. i dare not speak of this rudimentary faculty as intelligence, which is too exalted a title: i will call it discernment. the insect, in exercising its highest gifts, discerns, differentiates between one thing and another, within the sphere of its business, of course; and that is about all. as long as we confound acts of pure instinct and acts of discernment under the same head, we shall fall back into those endless discussions which embitter controversy without bringing us one step nearer to the solution of the problem. is the insect conscious of what it does? yes and no. no, if its action is in the province of instinct; yes, if the action is in that of discernment. are the habits of an insect capable of modification? no, decidedly not, if the habit in question belongs to the province of instinct; yes, if it belongs to that of discernment. let us state this fundamental distinction more precisely by the aid of a few examples. the pelopaeus builds her cells with earth already softened, with mud. here we have instinct, the unalterable characteristic of the worker. she has always built in this way and always will. the passing ages will never teach her, neither the struggle for life nor the law of selection will ever induce her to imitate the mason-bee and collect dry dust for her mortar. this mud nest needs a shelter against the rain. the hiding-place under a stone suffices at first. but should she find something better, the potter takes possession of that something better and instals herself in the home of man. (the pelopaeus builds in the fire-places of houses.--translator's note.) there we have discernment, the source of some sort of capacity for improvement. the pelopaeus supplies her larvae with provisions in the form of spiders. there you have instinct. the climate, the longitude or latitude, the changing seasons, the abundance or scarcity of game introduce no modification into this diet, though the larva shows itself satisfied with other fare provided by myself. its forebears were brought up on spiders; their descendants consumed similar food; and their posterity again will know no other. not a single circumstance, however favourable, will ever persuade the pelopaeus that young crickets, for instance, are as good as spiders and that her family would accept them gladly. instinct binds her down to the national diet. but, should the epeira (the weaving or garden spider. cf. "the life of the spider" by j. henri fabre translated by alexander teixeira de mattos; chapters 9 to 14 and appendix.--translator's note.), the favourite prey, be lacking, must the pelopaeus therefore give up foraging? she will stock her warehouses all the same, because any spider suits her. there you have discernment, whose elasticity makes up, in certain circumstances, for the too-great rigidity of instinct. amid the innumerable variety of game, the huntress is able to discern between what is spider and what is not; and, in this way, she is always prepared to supply her family, without quitting the domain of her instinct. the hairy ammophila gives her larva a single caterpillar, a large one, paralysed by as many pricks of her sting as it has nervous centres in its thorax and abdomen. her surgical skill in subduing the monster is instinct displayed in a form which makes short work of any inclination to see in it an acquired habit. in an art that can leave no one to practise it in the future unless that one be perfect at the outset, of what avail are happy chances, atavistic tendencies, the mellowing hand of time? but the grey caterpillar, sacrificed one day, may be succeeded on another day by a green, yellow or striped caterpillar. there you have discernment, which is quite capable of recognizing the regulation prey under very diverse garbs. the megachiles build their honey-jars with disks cut out of leaves; certain anthidia make felted cotton wallets; others fashion pots out of resin. there you have instinct. will any rash mind ever conceive the singular idea that the leaf-cutter might very well have started working in cotton, that the cotton-wool-worker once thought or will one day think of cutting disks out of the leaves of the lilacand the rose-tree, that the resin-kneader began with clay? who would dare to indulge in any such theories? each bee has her art, her medium, to which she strictly confines herself. the first has her leaves; the second her wadding; the third her resin. none of these guilds has ever changed trades with another; and none ever will. there you have instinct, keeping the workers to their specialities. there are no innovations in their workshops, no recipes resulting from experiment, no ingenious devices, no progress from indifferent to good, from good to excellent. to-day's method is the facsimile of yesterday's; and to-morrow will know no other. but, though the manufacturing-process is invariable, the raw material is subject to change. the plant that supplies the cotton differs in species according to the locality; the bush out of whose leaves the pieces will be cut is not the same in the various fields of operation; the tree that provides the resinous putty may be a pine, a cypress, a juniper, a cedar or a spruce, all very different in appearance. what will guide the insect in its gleaning? discernment. these, i think, are sufficient details of the fundamental distinction to be drawn in the insect's mentality; the distinction, that is, between instinct and discernment. if people confuse these two provinces, as they nearly always do, any understanding becomes impossible; the last glimmer of light disappears behind the clouds of interminable discussions. from an industrial point of view, let us look upon the insect as a worker thoroughly versed from birth in a craft whose essential principles never vary; let us grant that unconscious worker a gleam of intelligence which will permit it to extricate itself from the inevitable conflict of attendant circumstances; and i think that we shall have come as near to the truth as the state of our knowledge will allow for the moment. having thus assigned a due share both to instinct and the aberrations of instinct when the course of its different phases is disturbed, let us see what discernment is able to do in the selection of a site for the nest and materials for building it; and, leaving the pelopaeus, upon whom it is useless to dwell any longer, let us consider other examples, picked from among those richest in variations. the mason-bee of the sheds (chalicodoma rufitarsis, perez) well deserves the name which i have felt justified in giving her from her habits: she settles in numerous colonies in our sheds, on the lower surface of the tiles, where she builds huge nests which endanger the solidity of the roof. nowhere does the insect display a greater zeal for work than in one of these colossal cities, an estate which is constantly increasing as it passes down from one generation to another; nowhere does it find a better workshop for the exercise of its industry. here it has plenty of room: a quiet resting-place, sheltered from damp and from excess of heat or cold. but the spacious domain under the tiles is not within the reach of all: sheds with free access and the proper sunny aspect are pretty rare. these sites fall only to the favoured of fortune. where will the others take up their quarters? more or less everywhere. without leaving the house in which i live, i can enumerate stone, wood, glass, metal, paint and mortar as forming the foundation of the nests. the green-house with its furnace heat in the summer and its bright light, equalling that outside, is fairly well-frequented. the mason-bee hardly ever fails to build there each year, in squads of a few dozen apiece, now on the glass panes, now on the iron bars of the framework. other little swarms settle in the window embrasures, under the projecting ledge of the front door or in the cranny between the wall and an open shutter. others again, being perhaps of a morose disposition, flee society and prefer to work in solitude, one in the inside of a lock or of a pipe intended to carry the rain-water from the leads; another in the mouldings of the doors and windows or in the crude ornamentation of the stone-work. in short, the house is made use of all round, provided that the shelter be an out-of-door one; for observe that the enterprising invader, unlike the pelopaeus, never penetrates inside our dwellings. the case of the conservatory is an exception more apparent than real: the glass building, standing wide open throughout the summer, is to the mason-bee but a shed a little lighter than the others. there is nothing here to arouse the distrust with which anything indoors or shut up inspires her. to build on the threshold of an outer door, or to usurp its lock, a hiding-place to her fancy, is all that she allows herself; to go any farther is an adventure repugnant to her taste. lastly, in the case of all these dwellings, the mason-bee is man's free tenant; her industry makes use of the products of our own industry. can she have no other establishments? she has, beyond a doubt; she possesses some constructed on the ancient plan. on a stone the size of a man's fist, protected by the shelter of a hedge, sometimes even on a pebble in the open air, i see her building now groups of cells as large as a walnut, now domes emulating in size, shape and solidity those of her rival, the mason-bee of the walls. the stone support is the most frequent, though not the only one. i have found nests, but sparsely inhabited it is true, on the trunks of trees, in the seams of the rough bark of oaks. among those whose support was a living plant, i will mention two that stand out above all the others. the first was built in the lobe of a torch-thistle as thick as my leg; the second rested on a stalk of the opuntia, the indian fig. had the fierce armour of these two stout cactuses attracted the attention of the insect, which looked upon their tufts of spikes as furnishing a system of defence for its nest? perhaps so. in any case, the attempt was not imitated; i never saw another installation of the kind. there is one definite conclusion to be drawn from my two discoveries. despite the oddity of their structure, which is unparalleled among the local flora, the two american importations did not compel the insect to go through an apprenticeship of groping and hesitation. the one which found itself in the presence of those novel growths, and which was perhaps the first of its race to do so, took possession of their lobes and stalks just as it would have done of a familiar site. from the start, the fleshy plants from the new world suited it as well as the trunk of a native tree. the mason-bee of the pebbles (chalicodoma parietina) has none of this elasticity in the choice of a site. in her case, the smooth stone of the parched uplands is the almost invariable foundation of her structures. elsewhere, under a less clement sky, she prefers the support of a wall, which protects the nest against the prolonged snows. lastly, the mason-bee of the shrubs (chalicodoma rufescens, perez) fixes her ball of clay to a twig of any ligneous plant, from the thyme, the rock-rose and the heath to the oak, the elm and the pine. the list of the sites that suit her would almost form a complete catalogue of the ligneous flora. the variety of places wherein the insect instals itself, so eloquent of the part played by discernment in their selection, becomes still more remarkable when it is accompanied by a corresponding variety in the architecture of the cells. this is more particularly the case with the three-horned osmia, who, as she uses clayey materials very easily affected by the rain, requires, like the pelopaeus, a dry shelter for her cells, a shelter which she finds ready-made and uses just as it is, after a few touches by way of sweeping and cleansing. the homes which i see her adopt are especially the shells of snails that have died under the stone-heaps and in the low, unmortared walls which support the cultivated earth of the hills in shelves or terraces. the use of snail-shells is accompanied by the no less active use of the old cells of both the mason-bee of the sheds and of certain anthophorae (a. pilipes, a. parietina and a. personata). we must not forget the reed, which is highly appreciated when--a rare find--it appears under the requisite conditions. in its natural state, the plant with the mighty hollow cylinders is of no possible use to the osmia, who knows nothing of the art of perforating a woody wall. the gallery of an internode has to be wide open before the insect can take possession of it. also, the clean-cut stump must be horizontal, otherwise the rain would soften the fragile edifice of clay and soon lay it low; also, the stump must not be lying on the ground and must be kept at some distance from the dampness of the soil. we see therefore that, without the intervention of man, involuntary in the vast majority of cases and deliberate only on the experimenter's part, the osmia would hardly ever find a reed-stump suited to the installation of her family. it is to her a casual acquisition, a home unknown to her race before men took it into their heads to cut reeds and make them into hurdles for drying figs in the sun. how did the work of man's pruning-knife bring about the abandonment of the natural lodging? how was the spiral staircase of the snail-shell replaced by the cylindrical gallery of the reed? was the change from one kind of house to another effected by gradual transitions, by attempts made, abandoned, resumed, becoming more and more definite in their results as generation succeeded generation? or did the osmia, finding the cut reed that answered her requirements, instal herself there straightway, scorning her ancient dwelling, the snail-shell? these questions called for a reply; and they have received one. let us describe how things happened. near serignan are some great quarries of coarse limestone, characteristic of the miocene formation of the rhone valley. these have been worked for many generations. the ancient public buildings of orange, notably the colossal frontage of the theatre whither all the intellectual world once flocked to hear sophocles' "oedipus tyrannus," derive most of their material from these quarries. other evidence confirms what the similarity of the hewn stone tells us. among the rubbish that fills up the spaces between the tiers of seats, they occasionally discover the marseilles obol, a bit of silver stamped with the four-spoked wheel, or a few bronze coins bearing the effigy of augustus or tiberius. scattered also here and there among the monuments of antiquity are heaps of refuse, accumulations of broken stones in which various hymenoptera, including the three-horned osmia in particular, take possession of the dead snail-shell. the quarries form part of an extensive plateau which is so arid as to be nearly deserted. in these conditions, the osmia, at all times faithful to her birth-place, has little or no need to emigrate from her heap of stones and leave the shell for another dwelling which she would have to go and seek at a distance. since there are heaps of stone there, she probably has no other dwelling than the snail-shell. nothing tells us that the present-day generations are not descended in the direct line from the generations contemporary with the quarryman who lost his as or his obol at this spot. all the circumstances seem to point to it: the osmia of the quarries is an inveterate user of snail-shells; so far as heredity is concerned, she knows nothing whatever of reeds. well, we must place her in the presence of these new lodgings. i collect during the winter about two dozen well-stocked snail-shells and instal them in a quiet corner of my study, as i did at the time of my enquiries into the distribution of the sexes. the little hive with its front pierced with forty holes has bits of reed fitted to it. at the foot of the five rows of cylinders i place the inhabited shells and with these i mix a few small stones, the better to imitate the natural conditions. i add an assortment of empty snail-shells, after carefully cleaning the interior so as to make the osmia's stay more pleasant. when the time comes for nest-building, the stay-at-home insect will have, close beside the house of its birth, a choice of two habitations: the cylinder, a novelty unknown to its race; and the spiral staircase, the ancient ancestral home. the nests were finished at the end of may and the osmiae began to answer my list of questions. some, the great majority, settled exclusively in the reeds; the others remained faithful to the snail-shell or else entrusted their eggs partly to the spirals and partly to the cylinders. with the first, who were the pioneers of cylindrical architecture, there was no hesitation that i could perceive: after exploring the stump of reed for a time and recognizing it as serviceable, the insect instals itself there and, an expert from the first touch, without apprenticeship, without groping, without any tendencies bequeathed by the long practice of its predecessors, builds its straight row of cells on a very different plan from that demanded by the spiral cavity of the shell which increases in size as it goes on. the slow school of the ages, the gradual acquisitions of the past, the legacies of heredity count for nothing therefore in the osmia's education. without any novitiate on its own part or that of its forebears, the insect is versed straight away in the calling which it has to pursue; it possesses, inseparable from its nature, the qualities demanded by its craft: some which are invariable and belong to the domain of instinct; others, flexible, belonging to the province of discernment. to divide a free lodging into chambers by means of mud partitions; to fill those chambers with a heap of pollen-flour, with a few sups of honey in the central part where the egg is to lie; in short, to prepare board and lodging for the unknown, for a family which the mothers have never seen in the past and will never see in the future: this, in its essential features, is the function of the osmia's instinct. here, everything is harmoniously, inflexibly, permanently preordained; the insect has but to follow its blind impulse to attain the goal. but the free lodging offered by chance varies exceedingly in hygienic conditions, in shape and in capacity. instinct, which does not choose, which does not contrive, would, if it were alone, leave the insect's existence in peril. to help her out of her predicament, in these complex circumstances, the osmia possesses her little stock of discernment, which distinguishes between the dry and the wet, the solid and the fragile, the sheltered and the exposed; which recognizes the worth or the worthlessness of a site and knows how to sprinkle it with cells according to the size and shape of the space at disposal. here, slight industrial variations are necessary and inevitable; and the insect excels in them without any apprenticeship, as the experiment with the native osmia of the quarries has just proved. animal resources have a certain elasticity, within narrow limits. what we learn from the animals' industry at a given moment is not always the full measure of their skill. they possess latent powers held in reserve for certain emergencies. long generations can succeed one another without employing them; but, should some circumstance require it, suddenly those powers burst forth, free of any previous attempts, even as the spark potentially contained in the flint flashes forth independently of all preceding gleams. could one who knew nothing of the sparrow but her nest under the eaves suspect the ball-shaped nest at the top of a tree? would one who knew nothing of the osmia save her home in the snail-shell expect to see her accept as her dwelling a stump of reed, a paper funnel, a glass tube? my neighbour the sparrow, impulsively taking it into her head to leave the roof for the plane-tree, the osmia of the quarries, rejecting her natal cabin, the spiral of the shell, for my cylinder, alike show us how sudden and spontaneous are the industrial variations of animals. chapter 7. economy of energy. what stimulus does the insect obey when it employs the reserve powers that slumber in its race? of what use are its industrial variations? the osmia will yield us her secret with no great difficulty. let us examine her work in a cylindrical habitation. i have described in full detail, in the foregoing pages, the structure of her nests when the dwelling adopted is a reed-stump or any other cylinder; and i will content myself here with recapitulating the essential features of that nest-building. we must first distinguish three classes of reeds according to their diameter: the small, the medium-sized and the large. i call small those whose narrow width just allows the osmia to go about her household duties without discomfort. she must be able to turn where she stands in order to brush her abdomen and rub off its load of pollen, after disgorging the honey in the centre of the heap of flour already collected. if the width of the tube does not admit of this operation, if the insect is obliged to go out and then come in again backwards in order to place itself in a favourable posture for the discharge of the pollen, then the reed is too narrow and the osmia is rather reluctant to accept it. the middle-sized reeds and a fortiori the large ones leave the victualler entire liberty of action; but the former do not exceed the width of a cell, a width agreeing with the bulk of the future cocoon, whereas the latter, with their excessive diameter, require more than one chamber on the same floor. when free to choose, the osmia settles by preference in the small reeds. here, the work of building is reduced to its simplest expression and consists in dividing the tube by means of earthen partitions into a straight row of cells. against the partition forming the back wall of the preceding cell the mother places first a heap of honey and pollen; next, when the portion is seen to be enough, she lays an egg in the centre of it. then and then only she resumes her plasterer's work and marks out the length of the new cell with a mud partition. this partition in its turn serves as the rear-wall of another chamber, which is first victualled and then closed; and so on until the cylinder is sufficiently colonized and receives a thick terminal stopper at its orifice. in a word, the chief characteristic of this method of nest-building, the roughest of all, is that the partition in front is not undertaken so long as the victualling is still incomplete, or, in other words, that the provisions and the egg are deposited before the bee sets to work on the partition. at first sight, this latter detail hardly deserves attention: is it not right to fill the pot before we put a lid on? the osmia who owns a medium-sized reed is not at all of this opinion; and other plasterers share her views, as we shall see when we watch the odynerus building her nest. (a genus of mason-wasps, the essays on which have not yet been translated into english.--translator's note.) here we have an excellent illustration of one of those latent powers held in reserve for exceptional occasions and suddenly brought into play, although often very far removed from the insect's regular methods. if the reed, without being of inordinate width from the point of view of the cocoon, is nevertheless too spacious to afford the bee a suitable purchase against the wall at the moment when she is disgorging honey and brushing off her load of pollen; the osmia altogether changes the order of her work; she sets up the partition first and then does the victualling. all round the inside of the tube she places a ring of mud, which, as the result of her constant visits to the mortar, ends by becoming a complete diaphragm minus an orifice at the side, a sort of round dog-hole, just large enough for the insect to pass through. when the cell is thus marked out and almost wholly closed, the osmia attends to the storing of her provisions and the laying of her eggs. steadying herself against the margin of the hole at one time with her fore-legs and at another with her hind-legs, she is able to empty her crop and to brush her abdomen; by pressing against it, she obtains a foothold for her little efforts in these various operations. when the tube was narrow, the outer wall supplied this foothold and the earthen partition was postponed until the heap of provisions was completed and surmounted by the egg; but in the present case the passage is too wide and would leave the insect floundering helplessly in space, so the partition with its serving-hatch takes precedence of the victuals. this method is a little more expensive than the other, first in materials, because of the diameter of the reed, and secondly in time, if only because of the dog-hole, a delicate piece of mortar-work which is too soft at first and cannot be used until it has dried and become harder. therefore the osmia, who is sparing of her time and strength, accepts medium-sized reeds only when there are no small ones available. the large tubes she will use only in grave emergencies and i am unable to state exactly what these exceptional circumstances are. perhaps she decides to make use of those roomy dwellings when the eggs have to be laid at once and there is no other shelter in the neighbourhood. while my cylinder-hives gave me plenty of well-filled reeds of the first and second class, they provided me with but half-a-dozen at most of the third, notwithstanding my precaution to furnish the apparatus with a varied assortment. the osmia's repugnance to big cylinders is quite justified. the work in fact is longer and more costly when the tubes are wide. an inspection of a nest constructed under these conditions is enough to convince us. it now consists not of a string of chambers obtained by simple transverse partitions, but of a confused heap of clumsy, many-sided compartments, standing back to back, with a tendency to group themselves in storeys without succeeding in doing so, because any regular arrangement would mean that the ceilings possessed a span which it is not in the builder's power to achieve. the edifice is not a geometrical masterpiece and it is even less satisfactory from the point of view of economy. in the previous constructions, the sides of the reed supplied the greater part of the walls and the work was limited to one partition for each cell. here, except at the actual periphery, where the tube itself supplies a foundation, everything has to be obtained by sheer building: the floor, the ceiling, the walls of the many-sided compartment are one and all made of mortar. the structure is almost as costly in materials as that of the chalicodoma or the pelopaeus. it must be pretty difficult, too, when one thinks of its irregularity. fitting as best she can the projecting angles of the new cell into the recessed corners of the cell already built, the osmia runs up walls more or less curved, upright or slanting, which intersect one another at various points, so that each compartment requires a new and complicated plan of construction, which is very different from the circular-partition style of architecture, with its row of parallel dividing-disks. moreover, in this composite arrangement, the size of the recesses left available by the earlier work to some extent decides the assessment of the sexes, for, according to the dimensions of those recesses, the walls erected take in now a larger space, the home of a female, and now a smaller space, the home of a male. roomy quarters therefore have a double drawback for the osmia: they greatly increase the outlay in materials; and also they establish in the lower layers, among the females, males who, because of their earlier hatching, would be much better placed near the mouth of the nest. i am convinced of it: if the osmia refuses big reeds and accepts them only in the last resort, when there are no others, it is because she objects to additional labour and to the mixture of the sexes. the snail-shell, then, is but an indifferent home for her, which she is quite ready to abandon should a better offer. its expanding cavity represents an average between the favourite small cylinder and the unpopular large cylinder, which is accepted only when there is no other obtainable. the first whorls of the spiral are too narrow to be of use to the osmia, but the middle ones have the right diameter for cocoons arranged in single file. here things happen as in a first-class reed, for the helical curve in no way affects the method of structure employed for a rectilinear series of cells. circular partitions are erected at the required distances, with or without a serving-hatch, according to the diameter. these mark out the first cells, one after the other, which are reserved solely for the females. then comes the last whorl, which is much too wide for a single row of cells; and here we once more find, exactly as in a wide reed, a costly profusion of masonry, an irregular arrangement of the cells and a mixture of the sexes. having said so much, let us go back to the osmia of the quarries. why, when i offer them simultaneously snail-shells and reeds of a suitable size, do the old frequenters of the shells prefer the reeds, which in all probability have never before been utilized by their race? most of them scorn the ancestral dwelling and enthusiastically accept my reeds. some, it is true, take up their quarters in the snail-shell; but even among these a goodly number refuse my new shells and return to their birth-place, the old snail-shell, in order to utilize the family property, without much labour, at the cost of a few repairs. whence, i ask, comes this general preference for the cylinder, never used hitherto? the answer can be only this: of two lodgings at her disposal the osmia selects the one that provides a comfortable home at a minimum outlay. she economizes her strength when restoring an old nest; she economizes it when replacing the snail-shell by the reed. can animal industry, like our own, obey the law of economy, the sovran law that governs our industrial machine even as it governs, at least to all appearances, the sublime machine of the universe? let us go deeper into the question and bring other workers into evidence, those especially who, better equipped perhaps and at any rate better fitted for hard work, attack the difficulties of their trade boldly and look down upon alien establishments with scorn. of this number are the chalicodomae, the mason-bees proper. the mason-bee of the pebbles does not make up her mind to build a brand-new dome unless there be a dearth of old and not quite dilapidated nests. the mothers, sisters apparently and heirs-at-law to the domain, dispute fiercely for the ancestral abode. the first who, by sheer brute force, takes possession of the dome, perches upon it and, for long hours, watches events while polishing her wings. if some claimant puts in an appearance, forthwith the other turns her out with a volley of blows. in this way the old nests are employed so long as they have not become uninhabitable hovels. without being equally jealous of the maternal inheritance, the mason-bee of the sheds eagerly uses the cells whence her generation issued. the work in the huge city under the eaves begins thus: the old cells, of which, by the way, the good-natured owner yields a portion to latreille's osmia and to the three-horned osmia alike, are first made clean and wholesome and cleared of broken plaster and then provisioned and shut. when all the accessible chambers are occupied, the actual building begins with a new stratum of cells upon the former edifice, which becomes more and more massive from year to year. the mason-bee of the shrubs, with her spherical nests hardly larger than walnuts, puzzled me at first. does she use the old buildings or does she abandon them for good? to-day perplexity makes way for certainty: she uses them very readily. i have several times surprised her lodging her family in the empty rooms of a nest where she was doubtless born herself. like her kinswoman of the pebbles, she returns to the native dwelling and fights for its possession. also, like the dome-builder, she is an anchorite and prefers to cultivate the lean inheritance alone. sometimes, however, the nest is of exceptional size and harbours a crowd of occupants, who live in peace, each attending to her business, as in the colossal hives in the sheds. should the colony be at all numerous and the estate descend to two or three generations in succession, with a fresh layer of masonry each year, the normal walnut-sized nest becomes a ball as large as a man's two fists. i have gathered on a pine-tree a nest of the mason-bee of the shrubs that weighed a kilogram (2.205 pounds avoirdupois.--translator's note.) and was the size of a child's head. a twig hardly thicker than a straw served as its support. the casual sight of that lump swinging over the spot on which i had sat down made me think of the mishap that befell garo. (the hero of la fontaine's fable, "le gland et la citrouille," who wondered why acorns grew on such tall trees and pumpkins on such low vines, until he fell asleep under one of the latter and a pumpkin dropped upon his nose.--translator's note.) if such nests were plentiful in the trees, any one seeking the shade would run a serious risk of having his head smashed. after the masons, the carpenters. among the guild of wood-workers, the most powerful is the carpenter-bee (xylocopa violacea (cf. "the life of the spider": chapter 1.--translator's note.)), a very large bee of formidable appearance, clad in black velvet with violet-coloured wings. the mother gives her larvae as a dwelling a cylindrical gallery which she digs in rotten wood. useless timber lying exposed to the air, vine-poles, large logs of fire-wood seasoning out of doors, heaped up in front of the farmhouse porch, stumps of trees, vine-stocks and big branches of all kinds are her favourite building-yards. a solitary and industrious worker, she bores, bit by bit, circular passages the width of one's thumb, as clear-cut as though they were made with an auger. a heap of saw-dust accumulates on the ground and bears witness to the severity of the task. usually, the same aperture is the entrance to two or three parallel corridors. with several galleries there is accommodation for the entire laying, though each gallery is quite short; and the bee thus avoids those long series which always create difficulties when the moment of hatching arrives. the laggards and the insects eager to emerge are less likely to get in each other's way. after obtaining the dwelling, the carpenter-bee behaves like the osmia who is in possession of a reed. provisions are collected, the egg is laid and the chamber is walled in front with a saw-dust partition. the work is pursued in this way until the two or three passages composing the house are completely stocked. heaping up provisions and erecting partitions are an invariable feature of the xylocopa's programme; no circumstance can release the mother from the duty of providing for the future of her family, in the matter both of ready-prepared food and of separate compartments for the rearing of each larva. it is only in the boring of the galleries, the most laborious part of the work, that economy can occasionally be exercised by a piece of luck. well, is the powerful carpenter, all unheeding of fatigue, able to take advantage of such fortunate occasions? does she know how to make use of houses which she has not tunnelled herself? why, yes: a free lodging suits her just as much as it does the various mason-bees. she knows as well as they the economic advantages of an old nest that is still in good condition: she settles down, as far as possible, in her predecessors' galleries, after freshening up the sides with a superficial scraping. and she does better still. she readily accepts lodgings which have never known a drill, no matter whose. the stout reeds used in the trellis-work that supports the vines are valuable discoveries, providing as they do sumptuous galleries free of cost. no preliminary work or next to none is required with these. indeed, the insect does not even trouble to make a side-opening, which would enable it to occupy the cavity contained within two nodes; it prefers the opening at the end cut by man's pruning-knife. if the next partition be too near to give a chamber of sufficient length, the xylocopa destroys it, which is easy work, not to be compared with the labour of cutting an entrance through the side. in this way, a spacious gallery, following on the short vestibule made by the pruning-knife, is obtained with the least possible expenditure of energy. guided by what was happening on the trellises, i offered the black bee the hospitality of my reed-hives. from the very beginning, the insect gladly welcomed my advances; each spring, i see it inspect my rows of cylinders, pick out the best ones and instal itself there. its work, reduced to a minimum by my intervention, is limited to the partitions, the materials for which are obtained by scraping the inner sides of the reed. as first-rate joiners, next to the carpenter-bees come the lithurgi, of whom my district possesses two species: l. cornutus, fab., and l. chrysurus, boy. by what aberration of nomenclature was the name of lithurgus, a worker in stone, given to insects which work solely in wood? i have caught the first, the stronger of the two, digging galleries in a large block of oak that served as an arch for a stable-door; i have always found the second, who is more widely distributed, settling in dead wood--mulberry, cherry, almond, poplar--that was still standing. her work is exactly the same as the xylocopa's, on a smaller scale. a single entrance-hole gives access to three or four parallel galleries, assembled in a serried group; and these galleries are subdivided into cells by means of saw-dust partitions. following the example of the big carpenter-bee, lithurgus chrysurus knows how to avoid the laborious work of boring, when occasion offers: i find her cocoons lodged almost as often in old dormitories as in new ones. she too has the tendency to economize her strength by turning the work of her predecessors to account. i do not despair of seeing her adopt the reed if, one day, when i possess a large enough colony, i decide to try this experiment on her. i will say nothing about l. cornutus, whom i only once surprised at her carpentering. the anthophorae, those children of the precipitous earthy banks, show the same thrifty spirit as the other members of the mining corporation. three species, a. parietina, a. personata and a. pilipes, dig long corridors leading to the cells, which are scattered here and there and one by one. these passages remain open at all seasons of the year. when spring comes, the new colony uses them just as they are, provided that they are well preserved in the clayey mass baked by the sun; it increases their length if necessary, runs out a few more branches, but does not decide to start boring in new ground until the old city, which, with its many labyrinths, resembles some monstrous sponge, is too much undermined for safety. the oval niches, the cells that open on those corridors, are also profitably employed. the anthophora restores their entrance, which has been destroyed by the insect's recent emergence; she smooths their walls with a fresh coat of whitewash, after which the lodging is fit to receive the heap of honey and the egg. when the old cells, insufficient in number and moreover partly inhabited by diverse intruders, are all occupied, the boring of new cells begins, in the extended sections of the galleries, and the rest of the eggs are housed. in this way, the swarm is settled at a minimum of expense. to conclude this brief account, let us change the zoological setting and, as we have already spoken of the sparrow, see what he can do as a builder. the simplest form of his nest is the great round ball of straw, dead leaves and feathers, in the fork of a few branches. it is costly in material, but can be set up anywhere, when the hole in the wall or the shelter of a tile are lacking. what reasons induced him to give up the spherical edifice? to all seeming, the same reasons that led the osmia to abandon the snail-shell's spiral, which requires a fatiguing expenditure of clay, in favour of the economical cylinder of the reed. by making his home in a hole in the wall, the sparrow escapes the greater part of his work. here, the dome that serves as a protection from the rain and the thick walls that offer resistance to the wind both become superfluous. a mere mattress is sufficient; the cavity in the wall provides the rest. the saving is great; and the sparrow appreciates it quite as much as the osmia. this does not mean that the primitive art has disappeared, lost through neglect; it remains an ineffaceable characteristic of the species, ever ready to declare itself should circumstances demand it. the generations of to-day are as much endowed with it as the generations of yore; without apprenticeship, without the example of others, they have within themselves, in the potential state, the industrial aptitude of their ancestors. if aroused by the stimulus of necessity, this aptitude will pass suddenly from inaction to action. when, therefore, the sparrow still from time to time indulges in spherical building, this is not progress on his part, as is sometimes contended; it is, on the contrary, a retrogression, a return to the ancient customs, so prodigal of labour. he is behaving like the osmia who, in default of a reed, makes shift with a snail-shell, which is more difficult to utilize but easier to find. the cylinder and the hole in the wall stand for progress; the spiral of the snail-shell and the ball-shaped nest represent the starting-point. i have, i think, sufficiently illustrated the inference which is borne out by the whole mass of analogous facts. animal industry manifests a tendency to achieve the essential with a minimum of expenditure; after its own fashion, the insect bears witness to the economy of energy. on the one hand, instinct imposes upon it a craft that is unchangeable in its fundamental features; on the other hand, it is left a certain latitude in the details, so as to take advantage of favourable circumstances and attain the object aimed at with the least possible expenditure of time, materials and work, the three elements of mechanical labour. the problem in higher geometry solved by the hive-bee is only a particular case--true, a magnificent case,--of this general law of economy which seems to govern the whole animal world. the wax cells, with their maximum capacity as against a minimum wall-space, are the equivalent, with the superaddition of a marvellous scientific skill, of the osmia's compartments in which the stonework is reduced to a minimum through the selection of a reed. the artificer in mud and the artificer in wax obey the same tendency: they economize. do they know what they are doing? who would venture to suggest it in the case of the bee grappling with her transcendental problem? the others, pursuing their rustic art, are no wiser. with all of them, there is no calculation, no premeditation, but simply blind obedience to the law of general harmony. chapter 8. the leaf-cutters. it is not enough that animal industry should be able, to a certain extent, to adapt itself to casual exigencies when choosing the site of a nest; if the race is to thrive, something else is required, something which hide-bound instinct is unable to provide. the chaffinch, for instance, introduces a great quantity of lichen into the outer layer of his nest. this is his method of strengthening the edifice and making a stout framework in which to place first the bottom mattress of moss, fine straw and rootlets and then the soft bed of feathers, wool and down. but, should the time-honoured lichen be lacking, will the bird refrain from building its nest? will it forgo the delight of hatching its brood because it has not the wherewithal to settle its family in the orthodox fashion? no, the chaffinch is not perplexed by so small a matter; he is an expert in materials, he understands botanical equivalents. in the absence of the branches of the evernias, he picks the long beards of the usneas, the wartlike rosettes of the parmelias, the membranes of the stictises torn away in shreds; if he can find nothing better, he makes shift with the bushy tufts of the cladonias. as a practical lichenologist, when one species is rare or lacking in the neighbourhood, he is able to fall back on others, varying greatly in shape, colour and texture. and, if the impossible happened and lichen failed entirely, i credit the chaffinch with sufficient talent to be able to dispense with it and to build the foundations of his nest with some coarse moss or other. what the worker in lichens tells us the other weavers of textile materials confirm. each has his favourite flora, which hardly ever varies when the plant is easily accessible and which can be supplemented by plenty of others when it is not. the bird's botany would be worth examining; it would be interesting to draw up the industrial herbal of each species. in this connection, i will quote just one instance, so as not to stray too far from the subject in hand. the red-backed shrike (lanius collurio), the commonest variety in my district, is noteworthy because of his savage mania for forked gibbets, the thorns in the hedgerows whereon he impales the voluminous contents of his game-bag--little half-fledged birds, small lizards, grasshoppers, caterpillars, beetles--and leaves them to get high. to this passion for the gallows, which has passed unnoticed by the country-folk, at least in my part, he adds another, an innocent botanical passion, which is so much in evidence that everybody, down to the youngest bird's-nester, knows all about it. his nest, a massive structure, is made of hardly any other materials than a greyish and very fluffy plant, which is found everywhere among the corn. this is the filago spathulata of the botanists; and the bird also makes use, though less frequently, of the filago germanica, or common cotton-rose. both are known in provencal by the name herbo dou tarnagas, or shrike-herb. this popular designation tells us plainly how faithful the bird is to its plant. to have struck the agricultural labourer, a very indifferent observer, the shrike's choice of materials must be remarkably persistent. have we here a taste that is exclusive? not in the least. though cotton-roses of all species are plentiful on level ground, they become scarce and impossible to find on the parched hills. the bird, on its side, is not given to journeys of exploration and takes what it finds to suit it in the neighbourhood of its tree or hedge. but on arid ground, the micropus erectus, or upright micropus, abounds and is a satisfactory substitute for the filago so far as its tiny, cottony leaves and its little fluffy balls of flowers are concerned. true, it is short and does not lend itself well to weaver's work. a few long sprigs of another cottony plant, the helichrysum staechas, or wild everlasting, inserted here and there, will give body to the structure. thus does the shrike manage when hard up for his favourite materials: keeping to the same botanical family, he is able to find and employ substitutes among the fine cotton-clad stalks. he is even able to leave the family of the compositae and to go gleaning more or less everywhere. here is the result of my botanizings at the expense of his nests. we must distinguish between two genera in the shrike's rough classification: the cottony plants and the smooth plants. among the first, my notes mention the following: convolvulus cantabrica, or flax-leaved bindweed; lotus symmetricus, or bird's-foot trefoil; teucrium polium, or poly; and the flowery heads of the phragmites communis, or common reed. among the second are these: medicago lupulina, or nonesuch; trifolium repens, or white clover; lathyrus pratensis, or meadow lathyrus; capsella bursa pastoris, or shepherd's purse; vicia peregrina, or broad-podded vetch; convolvulus arvensis, or small bindweed; pterotheca nemausensis, a sort of hawkweed; and poa pratensis, or smooth-stalked meadow-grass. when it is downy, the plant forms almost the whole nest, as is the case with the flax-leaved bindweed; when smooth, it forms only the framework, destined to support a crumbling mass of micropus, as is the case with the small bindweed. when making this collection, which i am far from giving as the birds' complete herbarium, i was struck by a wholly unexpected detail: of the various plants, i found only the heads still in bud; moreover, all the sprigs, though dry, possessed the green colouring of the growing plant, a sign of swift desiccation in the sun. save in a few cases, therefore, the shrike does not collect the dead and withered remains: it is from the growing plants that he reaps his harvest, mowing them down with his beak and leaving the sheaves to dry in the sun before using them. i caught him one day hopping about and pecking at the twigs of a biscayan bindweed. he was getting in his hay, strewing the ground with it. the evidence of the shrike, confirmed by that of all the other workers--weavers, basket-makers or woodcutters--whom we may care to call as witnesses, shows us what a large part must be assigned to discernment in the bird's choice of materials for its nest. is the insect as highly gifted? when it works with vegetable matter, is it exclusive in its tastes? does it know only one definite plant, its special province? or has it, for employment in its manufactures, a varied flora, in which its discernment exercises a free choice? for answers to these questions we may look, above all, to the leaf-cutting bees, the megachiles. reaumur has told the story of their industry in detail; and i refer the reader who wishes for further particulars to the master's memoirs. the man who knows how to use his eyes in his garden will observe, some day or other, a number of curious holes in the leaves of his lilacand rose-trees, some of them round, some oval, as if idle but skilful hands had been at work with the pinking-iron. in some places, there is scarcely anything but the veins of the leaves left. the author of the mischief is a grey-clad bee, a megachile. for scissors, she has her mandibles; for compasses, producing now an oval and anon a circle, she has her eye and the pivot of her body. the pieces cut out are made into thimble-shaped wallets, destined to contain the honey and the egg: the larger, oval pieces supply the floor and sides; the smaller, round pieces are reserved for the lid. a row of these thimbles, placed one on top of the other, up to a dozen or more, though often there are less: that is, roughly, the structure of the leaf-cutter's nest. when taken out of the recess in which the mother has manufactured it, the cylinder of cells seems to be an indivisible whole, a sort of tunnel obtained by lining with leaves some gallery dug underground. the real thing does not correspond with its appearance: under the least pressure of the fingers, the cylinder breaks up into equal sections, which are so many compartments independent of their neighbours as regards both floor and lid. this spontaneous break up shows us how the work is done. the method agrees with those adopted by the other bees. instead of a general scabbard of leaves, afterwards subdivided into compartments by transverse partitions, the megachile constructs a string of separate wallets, each of which is finished before the next is begun. a structure of this sort needs a sheath to keep the pieces in place while giving them the proper shape. the bag of leaves, in fact, as turned out by the worker, lacks stability; its numerous pieces, not glued together, but simply placed one after the other, come apart and give way as soon as they lose the support of the tunnel that keeps them united. later, when it spins its cocoon, the larva infuses a little of its fluid silk into the gaps and solders the pieces to one another, especially the inner ones, so much so that the insecure bag in due course becomes a solid casket whose component parts it is no longer possible to separate entirely. the protective sheath, which is also a framework, is not the work of the mother. like the great majority of the osmiae, the megachiles do not understand the art of making themselves a home straight away: they want a borrowed lodging, which may vary considerably in character. the deserted galleries of the anthophorae, the burrows of the fat earth-worms, the tunnels bored in the trunks of trees by the larva of the cerambyx-beetle (the capricorn, the essay on which has not yet been published in english.--translator's note.), the ruined dwellings of the mason-bee of the pebbles, the snail-shell nests of the three-horned osmia, reed-stumps, when these are handy, and crevices in the walls are all so many homes for the leaf-cutters, who choose this or that establishment according to the tastes of their particular genus. for the sake of clearness, let us cease generalizing and direct our attention to a definite species. i first selected the white-girdled leaf-cutter (megachile albocincta, perez), not on account of any exceptional peculiarities, but solely because this is the bee most often mentioned in my notes. her customary dwelling is the tunnel of an earth-worm opening on some clay bank. whether perpendicular or slanting, this tunnel runs down to an indefinite depth, where the climate would be too damp for the bee. besides, when the time comes for the hatching of the adult insect, its emergence would be fraught with peril if it had to climb up from a deep pit through crumbling rubbish. the leaf-cutter, therefore, uses only the front portion of the worm's gallery, two decimetres at most. (7.8 inches.--translator's note.) what is to be done with the rest of the tunnel? it is an ascending shaft, tempting to an enemy; and some underground ravager might come this way and destroy the nest by attacking the row of cells at the back. the danger is foreseen. before fashioning her first honey-bag, the bee blocks the passage with a strong barricade composed of the only materials used in the leaf-cutter's guild. fragments of leaves are piled up in no particular order, but in sufficient quantities to make a serious obstacle. it is not unusual to find in the leafy rampart some dozens of pieces rolled into screws and fitting into one another like a stack of cylindrical wafers. for this work of fortification, artistic refinement seems superfluous; at any rate, the pieces of leaves are for the most part irregular. you can see that the insect has cut them out hurriedly, unmethodically and on a different pattern from that of the pieces intended for the cells. i am struck with another detail in the barricade. its constituents are taken from stout, thick, strong-veined leaves. i recognize young vine-leaves, pale-coloured and velvety; the leaves of the whitish rock-rose (cistus albidus), lined with a hairy felt; those of the holm-oak, selected among the young and bristly ones; those of the hawthorn, smooth but tough; those of the cultivated reed, the only one of the monocotyledones exploited, as far as i know, by the megachiles. in the construction of cells, on the other hand, i see smooth leaves predominating, notably those of the wild briar and of the common acacia, the robinia. it would appear, therefore, that the insect distinguishes between two kinds of materials, without being an absolute purist and sternly excluding any sort of blending. the very much indented leaves, whose projections can be completely removed with a dexterous snip of the scissors, generally furnish the various layers of the barricade; the little robinia-leaves, with their fine texture and their unbroken edges, are better suited to the more delicate work of the cells. a rampart at the back of the earth-worm's shaft is a wise precaution and the leaf-cutter deserves all credit for it; only it is a pity for the megachiles' reputation that this protective barrier often protects nothing at all. here we see, under a new guise, that aberration of instinct of which i gave some examples in an earlier chapter. my notes contain memoranda of various galleries crammed with pieces of leaves right up to the orifice, which is on a level with the ground, and entirely devoid of cells, even of an unfinished one. these were ridiculous fortifications, of no use whatever; and yet the bee treated the matter with the utmost seriousness and took infinite pains over her futile task. one of these uselessly barricaded galleries furnished me with some hundred pieces of leaves arranged like a stack of wafers; another gave me as many as a hundred and fifty. for the defence of a tenanted nest, two dozen and even fewer are ample. then what was the object of the leaf-cutter's ridiculous pile? i wish i could believe that, seeing that the place was dangerous, she made her heap bigger so that the rampart might be in proportion to the danger. then, perhaps, at the moment of starting on the cells, she disappeared, the victim of an accident, blown out of her course by a gust of wind. but this line of defence is not admissible in the megachile's case. the proof is palpable: the galleries aforesaid are barricaded up to the level of the ground; there is no room, absolutely none, to lodge even a single egg. what was her object, i ask again, when she persisted in obstinately piling up her wafers? has she really an object? i do not hesitate to say no. and my answer is based upon what the osmiae taught me. i have described above how the three-horned osmia, towards the end of her life, when her ovaries are depleted, expends on useless operations such energy as remains to her. born a worker, she is bored by the inactivity of retirement; her leisure requires an occupation. having nothing better to do, she sets up partitions; she divides a tunnel into cells that will remain empty; she closes with a thick plug reeds containing nothing. thus is the modicum of strength of her decline exhausted in vain labours. the other builder-bees behave likewise. i see anthidia laboriously provide numerous bales of cotton to stop galleries wherein never an egg was laid; i see mason-bees build and then religiously close cells that will remain unvictualled and uncolonized. the long and useless barricades then belong to the last hours of the megachile's life, when the eggs are all laid; the mother, whose ovaries are exhausted, persists in building. her instinct is to cut out and heap up pieces of leaves; obeying this impulse, she cuts out and heaps up even when the supreme reason for this labour ceases. the eggs are no longer there, but some strength remains; and that strength is expended as the safety of the species demanded in the beginning. the wheels of action go on turning in the absence of the motives for action; they continue their movement as though by a sort of acquired velocity. what clearer proof can we hope to find of the unconsciousness of the animal stimulated by instinct? let us return to the leaf-cutter's work under normal conditions. immediately after a protective barrier comes the row of cells, which vary considerably in number, like those of the osmia in her reed. strings of about a dozen are rare; the most frequent consist of five or six. no less subject to variation is the number of pieces joined to make a cell: pieces of two kinds, some, the oval ones, forming the honey-pot; others, the round ones, serving as a lid. i count, on an average, eight to ten pieces of the first kind. though all cut on the pattern of an ellipse, they are not equal in dimensions and come under two categories. the larger, outside ones are each of them almost a third of the circumference and overlap one another slightly. their lower end bends into a concave curve to form the bottom of the bag. those inside, which are considerably smaller, increase the thickness of the sides and fill up the gaps left by the first. the leaf-cutter therefore is able to use her scissors according to the task before her: first, the large pieces, which help the work forward, but leave empty spaces; next, the small pieces, which fit into the defective portions. the bottom of the cell particularly comes in for after-touches. as the natural curve of the larger pieces is not enough to provide a cup without cracks in it, the bee does not fail to improve the work with two or three small oval pieces applied to the imperfect joins. another advantage results from the snippets of unequal size. the three or four outer pieces, which are the first placed in position, being the longest of all, project beyond the mouth, whereas the next, being shorter, do not come quite up to it. a brim is thus obtained, a ledge on which the round disks of the lid rest and are prevented from touching the honey when the bee presses them into a concave cover. in other words, at the mouth the circumference comprises only one row of leaves; lower down it takes two or three, thus restricting the diameter and securing an hermetic closing. the cover of the pot consists solely of round pieces, very nearly alike and more or less numerous. sometimes i find only two, sometimes i count as many as ten, closely stacked. at times, the diameter of these pieces is of an almost mathematical precision, so much so that the edges of the disk rest upon the ledge. no better result would be obtained had they been cut out with the aid of compasses. at times, again, the piece projects slightly beyond the mouth, so that, to enter, it has to be pressed down and curved cupwise. there is no variation in the diameter of the first pieces placed in position, those nearest to the honey. they are all of the same size and thus form a flat cover which does not encroach on the cell and will not afterwards interfere with the larva, as a convex ceiling would. the subsequent disks, when the pile is numerous, are a little larger; they only fit the mouth by yielding to pressure and becoming concave. the bee seems to make a point of this concavity, for it serves as a mould to receive the curved bottom of the next cell. when the row of cells is finished, the task still remains of blocking up the entrance to the gallery with a safety-stopper similar to the earthen plug with which the osmia closes her reeds. the bee then returns to the free and easy use of the scissors which we noticed at the beginning when she was fencing off the back part of the earth-worm's too deep burrow; she cuts out of the foliage irregular pieces of different shapes and sizes and often retaining their original deeply-indented margins; and with all these pieces, very few of which fit at all closely the orifice to be blocked, she succeeds in making an inviolable door, thanks to the huge number of layers. let us leave the leaf-cutter to finish depositing her eggs in other galleries, which will be colonized in the same manner, and consider for a moment her skill as a cutter. her edifices consist of a multitude of fragments belonging to three categories: oval pieces for the sides of the cells; round pieces for the lids; and irregular pieces for the barricades at the front and back. the last present no difficulty: the bee obtains them by removing from the leaf some projecting portion, as it stands, a serrate lobe which, owing to its notches, shortens the insect's task and lends itself better to scissor-work. so far, there is nothing to deserve attention: it is unskilled labour, in which an inexperienced apprentice might excel. with the oval pieces, it becomes another matter. what model has the megachile when cutting her neat ellipses out of the delicate material for her wallets, the robinia-leaves? what mental pattern guides her scissors? what system of measurement tells her the dimensions? one would like to picture the insect as a living pair of compasses, capable of tracing an elliptic curve by a certain natural inflexion of its body, even as our arm traces a circle by swinging from the shoulder. a blind mechanism, the mere outcome of its organization, would alone be responsible for its geometry. this explanation would tempt me if the large oval pieces were not accompanied by much smaller ones, also oval, which are used to fill the empty spaces. a pair of compasses which changes its radius of its own accord and alters the curve according to the plan before it appears to me an instrument somewhat difficult to believe in. there must be something better than that. the circular pieces of the lid suggest it to us. if, by the mere flexion inherent in her structure, the leaf-cutter succeeds in cutting out ovals, how does she succeed in cutting out rounds? can we admit the presence of other wheels in the machinery for the new pattern, so different in shape and size? besides, the real point of the difficulty does not lie there. these rounds, for the most part, fit the mouth of the jar with almost exact precision. when the cell is finished, the bee flies hundreds of yards away to make the lid. she arrives at the leaf from which the disk is to be cut. what picture, what recollection has she of the pot to be covered? why, none at all: she has never seen it; she does her work underground, in utter darkness! at the utmost, she can have the indications of touch: not actual indications, of course, for the pot is not there, but past indications, useless in a work of precision. and yet the disk to be cut out must have a fixed diameter: if it were too large, it would not go in; if too small, it would close badly, it would slip down on the honey and suffocate the egg. how shall it be given its correct dimensions without a pattern? the bee does not hesitate for a moment. she cuts out her disk with the same celerity which she would display in detaching any shapeless lobe that might do for a stopper; and that disk, without further measurement, is of the right size to fit the pot. let whoso will explain this geometry, which in my opinion is inexplicable, even when we allow for memory begotten of touch and sight. one winter evening, as we were sitting round the fire, whose cheerful blaze unloosed our tongues, i put the problem of the leaf-cutter to my family: 'among your kitchen-utensils,' i said, 'you have a pot in daily use; but it has lost its lid, which was knocked over and broken by the tomcat playing among the shelves. to-morrow is market-day and one of you will be going to orange to buy the week's provisions. would she undertake, without a measure of any kind, with the sole aid of memory, which we would allow her to refresh before starting by a careful examination of the object, to bring back exactly what the pot wants, a lid neither too large nor too small, in short the same size as the top?' it was admitted with one accord that nobody would accept such a commission without taking a measure with her, or at least a bit of string giving the width. our memory for sizes is not accurate enough. she would come back from the town with something that 'might do'; and it would be the merest chance if this turned out to be the right size. well, the leaf-cutter is even less well-off than ourselves. she has no mental picture of her pot, because she has never seen it; she is not able to pick and choose in the crockery-dealer's heap, which acts as something of a guide to our memory by comparison; she must, without hesitation, far away from her home, cut out a disk that fits the top of her jar. what is impossible to us is child's-play to her. where we could not do without a measure of some kind, a bit of string, a pattern or a scrap of paper with figures upon it, the little bee needs nothing at all. in housekeeping matters she is cleverer than we are. one objection was raised. was it not possible that the bee, when at work on the shrub, should first cut a round piece of an approximate diameter, larger than that of the neck of the jar, and that afterwards, on returning home, she should gnaw away the superfluous part until the lid exactly fitted the pot? these alterations made with the model in front of her would explain everything. that is perfectly true; but are there any alterations? to begin with, it seems to me hardly possible that the insect can go back to the cutting once the piece is detached from the leaf: it lacks the necessary support to gnaw the flimsy disk with any precision. a tailor would spoil his cloth if he had not the support of a table when cutting out the pieces for a coat. the megachile's scissors, so difficult to wield on anything not firmly held, would do equally bad work. besides, i have better evidence than this for my refusal to believe in the existence of alterations when the bee has the cell in front of her. the lid is composed of a pile of disks whose number sometimes reaches half a score. now the bottom part of all these disks is the under surface of the leaf, which is paler and more strongly veined; the top part is the upper surface, which is smooth and greener. in other words, the insect places them in the position which they occupy when gathered. let me explain. in order to cut out a piece, the bee stands on the upper surface of the leaf. the piece detached is held in the feet and is therefore laid with its top surface against the insect's chest at the moment of departure. there is no possibility of its being turned over on the journey. consequently, the piece is laid as the bee has just picked it, with the lower surface towards the inside of the cell and the upper surface towards the outside. if alterations were necessary to reduce the lid to the diameter of the pot, the disk would be bound to get turned over: the piece, manipulated, set upright, turned round, tried this way and that, would, when finally laid in position, have its top or bottom surface inside just as it happened to come. but this is exactly what does not take place. therefore, as the order of stacking never changes, the disks are cut, from the first clip of the scissors, with their proper dimensions. the insect excels us in practical geometry. i look upon the leaf-cutter's pot and lid as an addition to the many other marvels of instinct that cannot be explained by mechanics; i submit it to the consideration of science; and i pass on. the silky leaf-cutter (megachile sericans, fonscol.; m. dufourii, lep.) makes her nests in the disused galleries of the anthophorae. i know her to occupy another dwelling which is more elegant and affords a more roomy installation: i mean the old dwelling of the fat capricorn, the denizen of the oaks. the metamorphosis is effected in a spacious chamber lined with soft felt. when the long-horned beetle reaches the adult stage, he releases himself and emerges from the tree by following a vestibule which the larva's powerful tools have prepared beforehand. when the deserted cabin, owing to its position, remains wholesome and there is no sign of any running from its walls, no brown stuff smelling of the tan-yard, it is soon visited by the silky megachile, who finds in it the most sumptuous of the apartments inhabited by the leaf-cutters. it combines every condition of comfort: perfect safety, an even temperature, freedom from damp, ample room; and so the mother who is fortunate enough to become the possessor of such a lodging uses it entirely, vestibule and drawing-room alike. accommodation is found for all her family of eggs; at least, i have nowhere seen nests as populous as here. one of them provides me with seventeen cells, the highest number appearing in my census of the megachile clan. most of them are lodged in the nymphal chamber of the capricorn; and, as the spacious recess is too wide for a single row, the cells are arranged in three parallel series. the remainder, in a single string, occupy the vestibule, which is completed and filled up by the terminal barricade. in the materials employed, hawthorn-and paliurus-leaves predominate. the pieces, both in the cells and in the barrier, vary in size. it is true that the hawthorn-leaves, with their deep indentations, do not lend themselves to the cutting of neat oval pieces. the insect seems to have detached each morsel without troubling overmuch about the shape of the piece, so long as it was big enough. nor has it been very particular about arranging the pieces according to the nature of the leaf: after a few bits of paliurus come bits of vine and hawthorn; and these again are followed by bits of bramble and paliurus. the bee has collected her pieces anyhow, taking a bit here and there, just as her fancy dictated. nevertheless, paliurus is the commonest, perhaps for economical reasons. i notice, in fact, that the leaves of this shrub, instead of being used piecemeal, are employed whole, when they do not exceed the proper dimensions. their oval form and their moderate size suit the insect's requirements; and there is therefore no necessity to cut them into pieces. the leaf-stalk is clipped with the scissors and, without more ado, the megachile retires the richer by a first-rate bit of material. split up into their component parts, two cells give me altogether eighty-three pieces of leaves, whereof eighteen are smaller than the others and of a round shape. the last-named come from the lids. if they average forty-two each, the seventeen cells of the nest represent seven hundred and fourteen pieces. these are not all: the nest ends, in the capricorn's vestibule, with a stout barricade in which i count three hundred and fifty pieces. the total therefore amounts to one thousand and sixty-four. all those journeys and all that work with the scissors to furnish the deserted chamber of the cerambyx! if i did not know the leaf-cutter's solitary and jealous disposition, i should attribute the huge structure to the collaboration of several mothers; but there is no question of communism in this case. one dauntless creature and one alone, one solitary, inveterate worker, has produced the whole of the prodigious mass. if work is the best way to enjoy life, this one certainly has not been bored during the few weeks of her existence. i gladly award her the most honourable of eulogies, that due to the industrious; and i also compliment her on her talent for closing the honey-pots. the pieces stacked into lids are round and have nothing to suggest those of which the cells and the final barricade are made. excepting the first, those nearest the honey, they are perhaps cut a little less neatly than the disks of the white-girdled leaf-cutter; no matter: they stop the jar perfectly, especially when there are some ten of them one above the other. when cutting them, the bee was as sure of her scissors as a dressmaker guided by a pattern laid on the stuff; and yet she was cutting without a model, without having in front of her the mouth to be closed. to enlarge on this interesting subject would mean to repeat oneself. all the leaf-cutters have the same talent for making the lids of their pots. a less mysterious question than this geometrical problem is that of the materials. does each species of megachile keep to a single plant, or has it a definite botanical domain wherein to exercise its liberty of choice? the little that i have already said is enough to make us suspect that the insect is not restricted to one plant; and this is confirmed by an examination of the separate cells, piece by piece, when we find a variety which we were far from imagining at first. here is the flora of the megachiles in my neighbourhood, a very incomplete flora and doubtless capable of considerable amplification by future researches. the silky leaf-cutter gathers the materials for her pots, her lids and her barricades from the following plants: paliurus, hawthorn, vine, wild briar, bramble, holm-oak, amelanchier, terebinthus, sage-leaved rock-rose. the first three supply the greater part of the leaf-work; the last three are represented only by rare fragments. the hare-footed leaf-cutter (megachile lagopoda, lin.) which i see very busy in my enclosure, though she only collects her materials there, exploits the lilac and the rose-tree by preference. from time to time, i see her also cutting bits out of the robinia, the quince-tree and the cherry-tree. in the open country, i have found her building with the leaves of the vine alone. the silvery leaf-cutter (megachile argentata, fab.), another of my guests, shares the taste of the aforesaid for the lilac and the rose, but her domain includes in addition the pomegranate-tree, the bramble, the vine, the common dogwood and the cornelian cherry. the white-girdled leaf-cutter likes the robinia, to which she adds, in lavish proportions, the vine, the rose and the hawthorn and sometimes, in moderation, the reed and the whitish-leaved rock-rose. the black-tipped leaf-cutter (megachile apicalis, spin.) has for her abode the cells of the mason-bee of the pebbles and the ruined nests of the osmiae and anthidia in the snail-shells. i have not known her to use any other materials than the wild briar and the hawthorn. incomplete though it be, this list tells us that the megachiles do not have exclusive botanical tastes. each species manages extremely well with several plants differing greatly in appearance. the first condition to be fulfilled by the shrub exploited is that it be near the nest. frugal of her time, the leaf-cutter declines to go on distant expeditions. whenever i come upon a recent megachile-nest, i am not long in finding in the neighbourhood, without much searching, the tree or shrub from which the bee has cut her pieces. another main condition is a fine and supple texture, especially for the first disks used in the lid and for the pieces which form the lining of the wallet. the rest, less carefully executed, allows of coarser stuff; but even then the piece must be flexible and lend itself to the cylindrical configuration of the tunnel. the leaves of the rock-roses, thick and roughly fluted, fulfil this condition unsatisfactorily, for which reason i see them occurring only at very rare intervals. the insect has gathered pieces of them by mistake and, not finding them good to use, has ceased to visit the unprofitable shrub. stiffer still, the leaf of the holm-oak in its full maturity is never employed: the silky leaf-cutter uses it only in the young state and then in moderation; she can get her velvety pieces better from the vine. in the lilac-bushes so zealously exploited before my eyes by the hare-footed leaf-cutter occur a medley of different shrubs which, from their size and the lustre of their leaves, should apparently suit that sturdy pinker. they are the shrubby hare's-ear, the honeysuckle, the prickly butcher's-broom, the box. what magnificent disks ought to come from the hare's-ear and the honeysuckle! one could get an excellent piece, without further labour, by merely cutting the leaf-stalk of the box, as megachile sericans does with her paliurus. the lilac-lover disdains them absolutely. for what reason? i fancy that she finds them too stiff. would she think differently if the lilac-bush were not there? perhaps so. in short, apart from the questions of texture and proximity to the nest, the megachile's choice, it seems to me, must depend upon whether a particular shrub is plentiful or not. this would explain the lavish use of the vine, an object of widespread cultivation, and of the hawthorn and the wild briar, which form part of all our hedges. as these are to be found everywhere, the fact that the different leaf-cutters make use of them is no reflection upon a host of equivalents varying according to the locality. if we had to believe what people tell us about the effects of heredity, which is said to hand down from generation to generation, ever more firmly established, the individual habits of those who come before, the megachiles of these parts, experienced in the local flora by the long training of the centuries, but complete novices in the presence of plants which their race encounters for the first time, ought to refuse as unusual and suspicious any exotic leaves, especially when they have at hand plenty of the leaves made familiar by hereditary custom. the question was deserving of separate study. two subjects of my observations, the hare-footed and the silvery leaf-cutter, both of them inmates of my open-air laboratory, gave me a definite answer. knowing the points frequented by the two megachiles, i planted in their work-yard, overgrown with briar and lilac, two outlandish plants which seemed to me to fulfil the required conditions of suppleness of texture, namely, the ailantus, a native of japan, and the virginian physostegia. events justified the selection: both bees exploited the foreign flora with the same assiduity as the local flora, passing from the lilac to the ailantus, from the briar to the physostegia, leaving the one, going back to the other, without drawing distinctions between the known and the unknown. inveterate habit could not have given greater certainty, greater ease to their scissors, though this was their first experience of such a material. the silvery leaf-cutter lent herself to an even more conclusive test. as she readily makes her nest in the reeds of my apparatus, i was able, up to a certain point, to create a landscape for her and select its vegetation myself. i therefore moved the reed-hive to a part of the enclosure stocked chiefly with rosemary, whose scanty foliage is not adapted for the bee's work, and near the apparatus i arranged an exotic shrubbery in pots, including notably the smooth lopezia, from mexico, and the long-fruited capsicum, an indian annual. finding close at hand the wherewithal to build her nest, the leaf-cutter went no further afield. the lopezia suited her especially, so much so that almost the whole nest was composed of it. the rest had been gathered from the capsicum. another recruit, whose co-operation i had in no way engineered, came spontaneously to offer me her evidence. this was the feeble leaf-cutter (megachile imbecilla, gerst.). nearly a quarter of a century ago, i saw her, all through the month of july, cutting out her rounds and ellipses at the expense of the petals of the pelargonium zonale, the common geranium. her perseverance devastated--there is no other word for it--my modest array of pots. hardly was a blossom out, when the ardent megachiles came and scalloped it into crescents. the colour was indifferent to her: red, white or pink, all the petals underwent the disastrous operation. a few captures, ancient relics of my collecting-boxes by this time, indemnified me for the pillage. i have not seen this unpleasant bee since. with what does she build when there are no geranium-flowers handy? i do not know; but the fact remains that the fragile tailoress used to attack the foreign flower, a fairly recent acquisition from the cape, as though all her race had never done anything else. these details leave us with one obvious conclusion, which is contrary to our original ideas, based on the unvarying character of insect industry. in constructing their jars, the leaf-cutters, each following the taste peculiar to her species, do not make use of this or that plant to the exclusion of the others; they have no definite flora, no domain faithfully transmitted by heredity. their pieces of leaves vary according to the surrounding vegetation; they vary in different layers of the same cell. everything suits them, exotic or native, rare or common, provided that the bit cut out be easy to employ. it is not the general aspect of the shrub, with its fragile or bushy branches, its large or small, green or grey, dull or glossy leaves, that guides the insect: such advanced botanical knowledge does not enter into the question at all. in the thicket chosen as a pinking-establishment, the megachile sees but one thing: leaves useful for her work. the shrike, with his passion for plants with long, woolly sprigs, knows where to find nicely-wadded substitutes when his favourite growth, the cotton-rose, is lacking; the megachile has much wider resources: indifferent to the plant itself, she looks only into the foliage. if she finds leaves of the proper size, of a dry texture capable of defying the damp and of a suppleness favourable to cylindrical curving, that is all she asks; and the rest does not matter. she has therefore an almost unlimited field for her labour. these sudden and wholly unprovoked changes give cause for reflection. when my geranium-flowers were devastated, how had the obtrusive bee, untroubled by the profound dissimilarity between the petals, snow-white here, bright scarlet there, how had she learnt her trade? nothing tells us that she herself was not for the first time exploiting the plant from the cape; and, if she really did have predecessors, the habit had not had time to become inveterate, considering the modern importation of the geranium. where again did the silvery megachile, for whom i created an exotic shrubbery, make the acquaintance of the lopezia, which comes from mexico? she certainly is making a first start. never did her village or mine possess a stalk of that chilly denizen of our hot-houses. she is making a first start; and behold her straightway a graduate, versed in the art of carving unfamiliar foliage. people often talk of the long apprenticeships served by instinct, of its gradual acquirements, of its talents, the laborious work of the ages. the megachiles affirm the exact opposite. they tell me that the animal, though invariable in the essence of its art, is capable of innovation in the details; but at the same time they assure me that any such innovation is sudden and not gradual. nothing prepares the innovations, nothing improves them or hands them down; otherwise a selection would long ago have been made amid the diversity of foliage; and the shrub recognized as the most serviceable, especially when it is also plentiful, would alone supply all the building-materials needed. if heredity transmitted industrial discoveries, a megachile who thought of cutting her disks out of pomegranate-leaves and found them satisfactory ought to have instilled a liking for similar materials into her descendants; and we should this day find leaf-cutters faithful to the pomegranate-leaves, workers who remained exclusive in their choice of the raw material. the facts refute these theories. people also say: 'grant us a variation, however small, in the insect's industry; and that variation, accentuated more and more, will produce a new race and finally a fixed species.' this trifling variation is the fulcrum for which archimedes clamoured in order to lift the world with his system of levers. the megachiles offer us one and a very great one: the indefinite variation of their materials. what will the theorists' levers lift with this fulcrum? why, nothing at all! whether they cut the delicate petals of the geranium or the tough leaves of the lilac-bushes, the leaf-cutters are and will be what they were. this is what we learn from the persistence of each species in its structural details, despite the great variety of the foliage employed. chapter 9. the cotton-bees. the evidence of the leaf-cutters proves that a certain latitude is left to the insect in its choice of materials for the nest; and this is confirmed by the testimony of the anthidia, the cotton-manufacturers. my district possesses five: a. florentinum, latr., a. diadema, latr., a. manicatum, latr., a. cingulatum, latr., a. scapulare, latr. none of them creates the refuge in which the cotton goods are manufactured. like the osmiae and the leaf-cutters, they are homeless vagrants, adopting, each to her own taste, such shelter as the work of others affords. the scapular anthidium is loyal to the dry bramble, deprived of its pith and turned into a hollow tube by the industry of various mining bees, among which figure, in the front rank, the ceratinae, dwarf rivals of the xylocopa, or carpenter-bee, that mighty driller of rotten wood. the spacious galleries of the masked anthophora suit the florentine anthidium, the foremost member of the genus so far as size is concerned. the diadem anthidium considers that she has done very well if she inherits the vestibule of the hairy-footed anthophora, or even the ordinary burrow of the earth-worm. failing anything better, she may establish herself in the dilapidated dome of the mason-bee of the pebbles. the manicate anthidium shares her tastes. i have surprised the girdled anthidium cohabiting with a bembex-wasp. the two occupants of the cave dug in the sand, the owner and the stranger, were living in peace, both intent upon their business. her usual habitation is some hole or other in the crevices of a ruined wall. to these refuges, the work of others, we can add the stumps of reeds, which are as popular with the various cotton-gatherers as with the osmiae; and, after we have mentioned a few most unexpected retreats, such as the sheath provided by a hollow brick or the labyrinth furnished by the lock of a gate, we shall have almost exhausted the list of domiciles. like the osmiae and the leaf-cutters, the anthidium shows an urgent need of a ready-made home. she never houses herself at her own expense. can we discover the reason? let us first consult a few hard workers who are artificers of their own dwellings. the anthophora digs corridors and cells in the road-side banks hardened by the sun; she does not erect, she excavates; she does not build, she clears. toiling away with her mandibles, atom by atom, she manages to contrive the passages and chambers necessary for her eggs; and a huge business it is. she has, in addition, to polish and glaze the rough sides of her tunnels. what would happen if, after obtaining a home by dint of long-continued toil, she had next to line it with wadding, to gather the fibrous down from cottony plants and to felt it into bags suitable for the honey-paste? the hard-working bee would not be equal to producing all these refinements. her mining calls for too great an expenditure of time and strength to leave her the leisure for luxurious furnishing. chambers and corridors, therefore, will remain bare. the carpenter-bee gives us the same answer. when with her joiner's wimble she has patiently bored the beam to a depth of nine inches, would she be able to cut out and place in position the thousand and one pieces which the silky leaf-cutter employs for her nest? time would fail her, even as it would fail a megachile who, lacking the capricorn's chamber, had herself to dig a home in the trunk of the oak. therefore the carpenter-bee, after the tedious work of boring, gets the installation done in the most summary fashion, simply running up a sawdust partition. the two things, the laborious business of obtaining a lodging and the artistic work of furnishing, seem unable to go together. with the insect as with man, he who builds the house does not furnish it, he who furnishes it does not build it. to each his share, because of lack of time. division of labour, the mother of the arts, makes the workman excel in his department; one man for the whole work would mean stagnation, the worker never getting beyond his first crude attempts. animal industry is a little like our own: it does not attain its perfection save with the aid of obscure toilers, who, without knowing it, prepare the final masterpiece. i see no other reason for this need of a gratuitous lodging for the megachile's leafy basket or the anthidia's cotton purses. in the case of other artists who handle delicate things that require protection, i do not hesitate to assume the existence of a ready-made home. thus reaumur tells us of the upholsterer-bee, anthocopa papaveris, who fashions her cells with poppy-petals. i do not know the flower-cutter, i have never seen her; but her art tells me plainly enough that she must establish herself in some gallery wrought by others, as, for instance, in an earth-worm's burrow. we have but to see the nest of a cotton-bee to convince ourselves that its builder cannot at the same time be an indefatigable navvy. when and newly-felted and not yet made sticky with honey, the wadded purse is by far the most elegant known specimen of entomological nest-building, especially where the cotton is of a brilliant white, as is frequently the case in the manufacturers of the girdled anthidium. no bird's-nest, however deserving of our admiration, can vie in fineness of flock, in gracefulness of form, in delicacy of felting with this wonderful bag, which our fingers, even with the aid of tools, could hardly imitate, for all their dexterity. i abandon the attempt to understand how, with its little bales of cotton brought up one by one, the insect, no otherwise gifted than the kneaders of mud and the makers of leafy baskets, manages to felt what it has collected into a homogeneous whole and then to work the product into a thimble-shaped wallet. its tools as a master-fuller are its legs and its mandibles, which are just like those possessed by the mortar-kneaders and leaf-cutters; and yet, despite this similarity of outfit, what a vast difference in the results obtained! to see the cotton-bees' talents in action seems an undertaking fraught with innumerable difficulties: things happen at a depth inaccessible to the eye; and to persuade the insect to work in the open does not lie in our power. one resource remained and i did not fail to turn to it, though hitherto i have been wholly unsuccessful. three species, anthidium diadema, a. manicatum and a. florentinum--the first-named in particular--show themselves quite ready to take up their abode in my reed-apparatus. all that i had to do was to replace the reeds by glass tubes, which would allow me to watch the work without disturbing the insect. this stratagem had answered perfectly with the three-horned osmia and latreille's osmia, whose little housekeeping-secrets i had learnt thanks to the transparent dwelling-house. why should it not answer for its cotton-bees and, in the same way, with the leaf-cutters? i almost counted on success. events betrayed my confidence. for four years i supplied my hives with glass tubes and not once did the cotton-weavers or the leaf-cutters condescend to take up their quarters in the crystal palaces. they always preferred the hovel provided by the reed. shall i persuade them one day? i do not abandon all hope. meanwhile, let me describe the little that i saw. more or less stocked with cells, the reed is at last closed, right at the orifice, with a thick plug of cotton, usually coarser than the wadding of the honey-satchels. it is the equivalent of the three-horned osmia's barricade of mud, of the leaf-putty of latreille's osmia, of the megachiles' barrier of leaves cut into disks. all these free tenants are careful to shut tight the door of the dwelling, of which they have often utilized only a portion. to watch the building of this barricade, which is almost external work, demands but a little patience in waiting for the favourable moment. the anthidium arrives at last, carrying the bale of cotton for the plugging. with her fore-legs she tears it apart and spreads it out; with her mandibles, which go in closed and come out open, she loosens the hard lumps of flock; with her forehead she presses each new layer upon the one below. and that is all. the insect flies off, returns the richer by another bale and repeats the performance until the cotton barrier reaches the level of the opening. we have here, remember, a rough task, in no way to be compared with the delicate manufacturer of the bags; nevertheless, it may perhaps tell us something of the general procedure of the finer work. the legs do the carding, the mandibles the dividing, the forehead the pressing; and the play of these implements produces the wonderful cushioned wallet. that is the mechanism in the lump; but what of the artistry? let us leave the unknown for facts within the scope of observation. i will question the diadem anthidium in particular, a frequent inmate of my reeds. i open a reed-stump about two decimetres long by twelve millimetres in diameter. (about seven and three-quarter inches by half an inch.--translator's note.) the end is occupied by a column of cotton-wool comprising ten cells, without any demarcation between them on the outside, so that their whole forms a continuous cylinder. moreover, thanks to a close felting, the different compartments are soldered together, so much so that, when pulled by the end, the cotton edifice does not break into sections, but comes out all in one piece. one would take it for a single cylinder, whereas in reality the work is composed of a series of chambers, each of which has been constructed separately, independently of the one before, except perhaps at the base. for this reason, short of ripping up the soft dwelling, still full of honey, it is impossible to ascertain the number of storeys; we must wait until the cocoons are woven. then our fingers can tell the cells by counting the knots that resist pressure under the cover of wadding. this general structure is easily explained. a cotton bag is made, with the sheath of the reed as a mould. if this guiding sheath were lacking, the thimble shape would be obtained all the same, with no less elegance, as is proved by the girdled anthidium, who makes her nest in some hiding-place or other in the walls or the ground. when the purse is finished, the provisions come and the egg, followed by the closing of the cell. we do not here find the geometrical lid of the leaf-cutters, the pile of disks tight-set in the mouth of the jar. the bag is closed with a cotton sheet whose edges are soldered by a felting-process to the edges of the opening. the soldering is so well done that the honey-pouch and its cover form an indivisible whole. immediately above it, the second cell is constructed, having its own base. at the beginning of this work, the insect takes care to join the two storeys by felting the ceiling of the first to the floor of the second. thus continued to the end, the work, with its inner solderings, becomes an unbroken cylinder, in which the beauties of the separate wallets disappear from view. in very much the same fashion, but with less adhesion among the different cells, do the leaf-cutters act when stacking their jars in a column without any external division into storeys. let us return to the reed-stump which gives us these details. beyond the cotton-wool cylinder wherein ten cocoons are lodged in a row comes an empty space of half a decimetre or more. (about two inches.--translator's note.) the osmiae and the leaf-cutters are also accustomed to leave these long, deserted vestibules. the nest ends, at the orifice of the reed, with a strong plug of flock coarser and less white than that of the cells. this use of closing-materials which are less delicate in texture but of greater resisting-power, while not an invariable characteristic, occurs frequently enough to make us suspect that the insect knows how to distinguish what is best suited now to the snug sleeping-berth of the larvae, anon to the defensive barricade of the home. sometimes the choice is an exceedingly judicious one, as is shown by the nest of the diadem anthidium. time after time, whereas the cells were composed of the finest grade of white cotton, gathered from centaurea solsticialis, or st. barnaby's thistle, the barrier at the entrance, differing from the rest of the work in its yellow colouring, was a heap of close-set bristles supplied by the scallop-leaved mullein. the two functions of the wadding are here plainly marked. the delicate skin of the larvae needs a well-padded cradle; and the mother collects the softest materials that the cottony plants provide. rivalling the bird, which furnishes the inside of the nest with wool and strengthens the outside with sticks, she reserves for the grubs' mattress the finest down, so hard to find and collected with such patience. but, when it becomes a matter of shutting the door against the foe, then the entrance bristles with forbidding caltrops, with stiff, prickly hairs. this ingenious system of defence is not the only one known to the anthidia. more distrustful still, the manicate anthidium leaves no space in the front part of the reed. immediately after the column of cells, she heaps up, in the uninhabited vestibule, a conglomeration of rubbish, whatever chance may offer in the neighbourhood of the nest: little pieces of gravel, bits of earth, grains of sawdust, particles of mortar, cypress-catkins, broken leaves, dry snail-droppings and any other material that comes her way. the pile, a real barricade this time, blocks the reed completely to the end, except about two centimetres (about three-quarters of an inch.--translator's note.) left for the final cotton plug. certainly no foe will break in through the double rampart; but he will make an insidious attack from the rear. the leucopsis will come and, with her long probe, thanks to some imperceptible fissure in the tube, will insert her dread eggs and destroy every single inhabitant of the fortress. thus are the manicate anthidium's anxious precautions outwitted. if we had not already seen the same thing with the leaf-cutters, this would be the place to enlarge upon the useless tasks undertaken by the insect when, with its ovaries apparently depleted, it goes on spending its strength with no maternal object in view and for the sole pleasure of work. i have come across several reeds stopped up with flock though containing nothing at all, or else furnished with one, two or three cells devoid of provisions or eggs. the ever-imperious instinct for gathering cotton and felting it into purses and heaping it into barricades persists, fruitlessly, until life fails. the lizard's tail wriggles, curls and uncurls after it is detached from the animal's body. in these reflex movements, i seem to see not an explanation, certainly, but a rough image of the industrious persistency of the insect, still toiling away at its business, even when there is nothing useful left to do. this worker knows no rest but death. i have said enough about the dwelling of the diadem anthidium; let us look at the inhabitant and her provisions. the honey is pale-yellow, homogeneous and of a semifluid consistency, which prevents it from trickling through the porous cotton bag. the egg floats on the surface of the heap, with the end containing the head dipped into the paste. to follow the larva through its progressive stages is not without interest, especially on account of the cocoon, which is one of the most singular that i know. with this object in view, i prepare a few cells that lend themselves to observation. i take a pair of scissors, slice a piece off the side of the cotton-wool purse, so as to lay bare both the victuals and the consumer, and place the ripped cell in a short glass tube. during the first few days, nothing striking happens. the little grub, with its head still plunged in the honey, slakes its thirst with long draughts and waxes fat. a moment comes...but let us go back a little farther, before broaching this question of sanitation. every grub, of whatever kind, fed on provisions collected by the mother and placed in a narrow cell is subject to conditions of health unknown to the roving grub that goes where it likes and feeds itself on what it can pick up. the first, the recluse, is no more able than the second, the gadabout, to solve the problem of a food which can be entirely assimilated, without leaving an unclean residue. the second gives no thought to these sordid matters: any place suits it for getting rid of that difficulty. but what will the other do with its waste matter, cooped up as it is in a tiny cell stuffed full of provisions? a most unpleasant mixture seems inevitable. picture the honey-eating grub floating on liquid provisions and fouling them at intervals with its excretions! the least movement of the hinder-part would cause the whole to amalgamate; and what a broth that would make for the delicate nursling! no, it cannot be; those dainty epicures must have some method of escaping these horrors. they all have, in fact, and most original methods at that. some take the bull by the horns, so to speak, and, in order not to soil things, refrain from uncleanliness until the end of the meal: they keep the dropping-trap closed as long as the victuals are unfinished. this is a radical scheme, but not in every one's power, it appears. it is the course adopted, for instance, by the sphex-wasps and the anthophora-bees, who, when the whole of the food is consumed, expel at one shot the residues amassed in the intestines since the commencement of the repast. others, the osmiae in particular, accept a compromise and begin to relieve the digestive tract when a suitable space has been made in the cell through the gradual disappearance of the victuals. others again--more hurried these--find means of obeying the common law pretty early by engaging in stercoral manufactures. by a stroke of genius, they make the unpleasant obstruction into building-bricks. we already know the art of the lily-beetle (crioceris merdigera. fabre's essay on this insect has not yet been translated into english; but readers interested in the matter will find a full description in "an introduction to entomology," by william kirby, rector of barham, and william spence: letter 21.--translator's note.), who, with her soft excrement, makes herself a coat wherein to keep cool in spite of the sun. it is a very crude and revolting art, disgusting to the eye. the diadem anthidium belongs to another school. with her droppings she fashions masterpieces of marquetry and mosaic, which wholly conceal their base origin from the onlooker. let us watch her labours through the windows of my tubes. when the portion of food is nearly half consumed, there begins and goes on to the end a frequent defecation of yellowish droppings, each hardly the size of a pin's head. as these are ejected, the grub pushes them back to the circumference of the cell with a movement of its hinder-part and keeps them there by means of a few threads of silk. the work of the spinnerets, therefore, which is deferred in the others until the provisions are finished, starts earlier here and alternates with the feeding. in this way, the excretions are kept at a distance, away from the honey and without any danger of getting mixed with it. they end by becoming so numerous as to form an almost continuous screen around the larva. this excremental awning, made half of silk and half of droppings, is the rough draft of the cocoon, or rather a sort of scaffolding on which the stones are deposited until they are definitely placed in position. pending the piecing together of the mosaic, the scaffolding keeps the victuals free from all contamination. to get rid of what cannot be flung outside, by hanging it on the ceiling, is not bad to begin with; but to use it for making a work of art is better still. the honey has disappeared. now commences the final weaving of the cocoon. the grub surrounds itself with a wall of silk, first pure white, then tinted reddish-brown by means of an adhesive varnish. through its loose-meshed stuff, it seizes one by one the droppings hanging from the scaffold and inlays them firmly in the tissue. the same mode of work is employed by the bembex-, stizus-and tachytes-wasps and other inlayers, who strengthen the inadequate woof of their cocoons with grains of sand; only, in their cotton-wool purses, the anthidium's grubs substitute for the mineral particles the only solid materials at their disposal. for them, excrement takes the place of pebbles. and the work goes none the worse for it. on the contrary: when the cocoon is finished, any one who had not witnessed the process of manufacture would be greatly puzzled to state the nature of the workmanship. the colouring and the elegant regularity of the outer wrapper of the cocoon suggest some kind of basket-work made with tiny bits of bamboo, or a marquetry of exotic granules. i too let myself be caught by it in my early days and wondered in vain what the hermit of the cotton wallet had used to inlay her nymphal dwelling so prettily withal. to-day, when the secret is known to me, i admire the ingenuity of the insect capable of obtaining the useful and the beautiful out of the basest materials. the cocoon has another surprise in store for us. the end containing the head finishes with a short conical nipple, an apex, pierced by a narrow shaft that establishes a communication between the inside and the out. this architectural feature is common to all the anthidia, to the resin-workers who will occupy our attention presently, as well as to the cotton-workers. it is found nowhere outside the anthidium group. what is the use of this point which the larva leaves bare instead of inlaying it like the rest of the shell? what is the use of that hole, left quite open or, at most, closed at the bottom with a feeble grating of silk? the insect appears to attach great importance to it, from what i see. in point of fact, i watch the careful work of the apex. the grub, whose movements the hole enables me to follow, patiently perfects the lower end of the conical channel, polishes it and gives it an exactly circular shape; from time to time, it inserts into the passage its two closed mandibles, whose points project a little way outside; then, opening them to a definite radius, like a pair of compasses, it widens the aperture and makes it regular. i imagine, without venturing, however, to make a categorical statement, that the perforated apex is a chimney to admit the air required for breathing. every pupa breathes in its shell, however compact this may be, even as the unhatched bird breathes inside the egg. the thousands of pores with which the shell is pierced allow the inside moisture to evaporate and the outer air to penetrate as and when needed. the stony caskets of the bembexand stizus-wasps are endowed, notwithstanding their hardness, with similar means of exchange between the vitiated and the pure atmosphere. can the shells of the anthidia be air-proof, owing to some modification that escapes me? in any case, this impermeability cannot be attributed to the excremental mosaic, which the cocoons of the resin-working anthidia do not possess, though endowed with an apex of the very best. shall we find an answer to the question in the varnish with which the silken fabric is impregnated? i hesitate to say yes and i hesitate to say no, for a host of cocoons are coated with a similar lacquer though deprived of communication with the outside air. all said, without being able at present to account for its necessity, i admit that the apex of the anthidia is a breathing-aperture. i bequeath to the future the task of telling us for what reasons the collectors of both cotton and resin leave a large pore in their shells, whereas all the other weavers close theirs completely. after these biological curiosities, it remains for me to discuss the principal subject of this chapter: the botanical origin of the materials of the nest. by watching the insect when busy at its harvesting, or else by examining its manufactured flock under the microscope, i was able to learn, not without a great expenditure of time and patience, that the different anthidia of my neighbourhood have recourse without distinction to any cottony plant. most of the wadding is supplied by the compositae, particularly the following: centaurea solsticialis, or st. barnaby's thistle; c. paniculata, or panicled centaury; echinops ritro, or small globe-thistle; onopordon illyricum, or illyrian cotton-thistle; helichrysum staechas, or wild everlasting; filago germanica, or common cotton-rose. next come the labiatae: marrubium vulgare, or common white horehound; ballota fetida, or stinking horehound; calamintha nepeta, or lesser calamint; salvia aethiopis, or woolly sage. lastly, the solanaceae: verbascum thapsus, or shepherd's club; v. sinuatum, or scollop-leaved mullein. the cotton-bees' flora, we see, incomplete as it is in my notes, embraces plants of very different aspect. there is no resemblance in appearance between the proud candelabrum of the cotton-thistle, with its red tufts, and the humble stalk of the globe-thistle, with its sky-blue capitula; between the plentiful leaves of the mullein and the scanty foliage of the st. barnaby's thistle; between the rich silvery fleece of the woolly sage and the short hairs of the everlasting. with the anthidium, these clumsy botanical characteristics do not count; one thing alone guides her: the presence of cotton. provided that the plant be more or less well-covered with soft wadding, the rest is immaterial to her. another condition, however, has to be fulfilled, apart from the fineness of the cotton-wool. the plant, to be worth shearing, must be dead and dry. i have never seen the harvesting done on fresh plants. in this way, the bee avoids mildew, which would make its appearance in a mass of hairs still filled with sap. faithful to the plant recognized as yielding good results, the anthidium arrives and resumes her gleaning on the edges of the parts denuded by earlier harvests. her mandibles scrape away and pass the tiny fluffs, one by one, to the hind-legs, which hold the pellet pressed against the chest, mix with it the rapidly-increasing store of down and make the whole into a little ball. when this is the size of a pea, it goes back into the mandibles; and the insect flies off, with its bale of cotton in its mouth. if we have the patience to wait, we shall see it return to the same point, at intervals of a few minutes, so long as the bag is not made. the foraging for provisions will suspend the collecting of cotton; then, next day or the day after, the scraping will be resumed on the same stalk, on the same leaf, if the fleece be not exhausted. the owner of a rich crop appears to keep to it until the closing-plug calls for coarser materials; and even then this plug is often manufactured with the same fine flock as the cells. after ascertaining the diversity of cotton-fields among our native plants, i naturally had to enquire whether the cotton-bee would also put up with exotic plants, unknown to her race; whether the insect would show any hesitation in the presence of woolly plants offered for the first time to the rakes of her mandibles. the common clary and the babylonian centaury, with which i have stocked the harmas, shall be the harvest-fields; the reaper shall be the diadem anthidium, the inmate of my reeds. the common clary, or toute-bonne, forms part, i know, of our french flora to-day; but it is an acclimatized foreigner. they say that a gallant crusader, returning from palestine with his share of glory and bruises, brought back the toute-bonne from the levant to help him cure his rheumatism and dress his wounds. from the lordly manor, the plant propagated itself in all directions, while remaining faithful to the walls under whose shelter the noble dames of yore used to grow it for their unguents. to this day, feudal ruins are its favourite resorts. crusaders and manors disappeared; the plant remained. in this case, the origin of the clary, whether historical or legendary, is of secondary importance. even if it were of spontaneous growth in certain parts of france, the toute-bonne is undoubtedly a stranger in the vaucluse district. only once in the course of my long botanizing-expeditions across the department have i come upon this plant. it was at caromb, in some ruins, nearly thirty years ago. i took a cutting of it; and since then the crusaders' sage has accompanied me on all my peregrinations. my present hermitage possesses several tufts of it: but, outside the enclosure, except at the foot of the walls, it would be impossible to find one. we have, therefore, a plant that is new to the country for many miles around, a cotton-field which the serignan cotton-bees had never utilized before i came and sowed it. nor had they ever made use of the babylonian centaury, which i was the first to introduce in order to cover my ungrateful stony soil with some little vegetation. they had never seen anything like the colossal centaury imported from the region of the euphrates. nothing in the local flora, not even the cotton-thistle, had prepared them for this stalk as thick as a child's wrist, crowned at a height of nine feet with a multitude of yellow balls, nor for those great leaves spreading over the ground in an enormous rosette. what will they do in the presence of such a find? they will take possession of it with no more hesitation than if it were the humble st. barnaby's thistle, the usual purveyor. in fact, i place a few stalks of clary and babylonian centaury, duly dried, near the reed-hives. the diadem anthidium is not long in discovering the rich harvest. straight away the wool is recognized as being of excellent quality, so much so that, during the three or four weeks of nest-building, i can daily witness the gleaning, now on the clary, now on the centaury. nevertheless the babylonian plant appears to be preferred, no doubt because of its whiter, finer and more plentiful down. i keep a watchful eye on the scraping of the mandibles and the work of the legs as they prepare the pellet; and i see nothing that differs from the operations of the insect when gleaning on the globe-thistle and the st. barnaby's thistle. the plant from the euphrates and the plant from palestine are treated like those of the district. thus we find what the leaf-cutters taught us proved, in another way, by the cotton-gatherers. in the local flora, the insect has no precise domain; it reaps its harvest readily now from one species, now from another, provided that it find the materials for its manufactures. the exotic plant is accepted quite as easily as that of indigenous growth. lastly, the change from one plant to another, from the common to the rare, from the habitual to the exceptional, from the known to the unknown, is made suddenly, without gradual initiations. there is no novitiate, no training by habit in the choice of the materials for the nest. the insect's industry, variable in its details by sudden, individual and non-transmissible innovations, gives the lie to the two great factors of evolution: time and heredity. chapter 10. the resin-bees. at the time when fabricius (johann christian fabricius (1745-1808), a noted danish entomologist, author of "systema entomologiae" (1775).--translator's note.) gave the genus anthidium its name, a name still used in our classifications, entomologists troubled very little about the live animal; they worked on corpses, a dissecting-room method which does not yet seem to be drawing to an end. they would examine with a conscientious eye the antenna, the mandible, the wing, the leg, without asking themselves what use the insect had made of those organs in the exercise of its calling. the animal was classified very nearly after the manner adopted in crystallography. structure was everything; life, with its highest prerogatives, intellect, instinct, did not count, was not worthy of admission into the zoological scheme. it is true that an almost exclusively necrological study is obligatory at first. to fill one's boxes with insects stuck on pins is an operation within the reach of all; to watch those same insects in their mode of life, their work, their habits and customs is quite a different thing. the nomenclator who lacks the time--and sometimes also the inclination--takes his magnifying-glass, analyzes the dead body and names the worker without knowing its work. hence the number of appellations the least of whose faults is that they are unpleasant to the ear, certain of them, indeed, being gross misnomers. have we not, for instance, seen the name of lithurgus, or stone-worker, given to a bee who works in wood and nothing but wood? such absurdities will be inevitable until the animal's profession is sufficiently familiar to lend its aid in the compiling of diagnoses. i trust that the future will see this magnificent advance in entomological science: men will reflect that the impaled specimens in our collections once lived and followed a trade; and anatomy will be kept in its proper place and made to leave due room for biology. fabricius did not commit himself with his expression anthidium, which alludes to the love of flowers, but neither did he mention anything characteristic: as all bees have the same passion in a very high degree, i see no reason to treat the anthidia as more zealous looters than the others. if he had known their cotton nests, perhaps the scandinavian naturalist would have given them a more logical denomination. as for me, in a language wherein technical parade is out of place, i will call them the cotton-bees. the term requires some limiting. to judge by my finds, in fact, the old genus anthidium, that of the classifying entomologists, comprises in my district two very different corporations. one is known to us and works exclusively in wadding; the other, which we are about to study, works in resin, without ever having recourse to cotton. faithful to my extremely simple principle of defining the worker, as far as possible, by his work, i will call the members of this guild the resin-bees. thus confining myself to the data supplied by my observations, i divide the anthidium group into equal sections, of equal importance, for which i demand special generic titles; for it is highly illogical to call the carders of wool and the kneaders of resin by the same name. i surrender to those whom it concerns the honour of effecting this reform in the orthodox fashion. good luck, the friend of the persevering, made me acquainted in different parts of vaucluse with four resin-bees whose singular trade no one had yet suspected. to-day, i find them all four again in my own neighbourhood. they are the following: anthidium septemdentatum, latr., a. bellicosum, lep., a. quadrilobum, lep., and a. latreillii, lep. the first two make their nests in deserted snail-shells; the other two shelter their groups of cells sometimes in the ground, sometimes under a large stone. we will first discuss the inhabitants of the snail-shell. i made a brief reference to them in an earlier chapter, when speaking of the distribution of the sexes. this mere allusion, suggested by a study of a different kind, must now be amplified. i return to it with fuller particulars. the stone-heaps in the roman quarries near serignan, which i have so often visited in search of the nests of the osmia who takes up her abode in snail-shells, supply me also with the two resin-bees installed in similar quarters. when the field-mouse has left behind him a rich collection of empty shells scattered all round his hay mattress under the slab, there is always a hope of finding some snail-shells plugged with mud and, here and there, mixed with them, a few snail-shells closed with resin. the two bees work next door to each other, one using clay, the other gum. the excellence of the locality is responsible for this frequent cohabitation, shelter being provided by the broken stone from the quarry and lodgings by the shells which the mouse has left behind. at places where dead snail-shells are few and far between, as in the crevices of rustic walls, each bee occupies by herself the shells which she has found. but here, in the quarries, our crop will certainly be a double or even a treble one, for both resin-bees frequent the same heaps. let us, therefore, lift the stones and dig into the mound until the excessive dampness of the subsoil tells us that it is useless to look lower down. sometimes at the moment of removing the first layer, sometimes at a depth of eighteen inches, we shall find the osmia's snail-shell and, much more rarely, the resin-bee's. above all, patience! the job is none of the most fruitful; nor is it exactly an agreeable one. by dint of turning over uncommonly jagged stones, our fingertips get hurt, lose their skin and become as smooth as though we had held them on a grindstone. after a whole afternoon of this work, our back will be aching, our fingers will be itching and smarting and we shall possess a dozen osmia-nests and perhaps two or three resin-bees' nests. let us be content with that. the osmia's shells can be recognized at once, as being closed at the orifice with a clay cover. the anthidium's call for a special examination, without which we should run a great risk of filling our pockets with cumbersome rubbish. we find a dead snail-shell among the stones. is it inhabited by the resin-bee or not? the outside tells us nothing. the anthidium's work comes at the bottom of the spiral, a long way from the mouth; and, though this is wide open, the eye cannot travel far enough along the winding stair. i hold up the doubtful shell to the light. if it is completely transparent, i know that it is empty and i put it back to serve for future nests. if the second whorl is opaque, the spiral contains something. what does it contain? earth washed in by the rain? remnants of the putrefied snail? that remains to be seen. with a little pocket-trowel, the inquisitorial implement which always accompanies me, i make a wide window in the middle of the final whorl. if i see a gleaming resin floor, with incrustations of gravel, the thing is settled: i possess an anthidium's nest. but, oh the number of failures that go to one success! the number of windows vainly opened in shells whose bottom is stuffed with clay or with noisome corpses! thus picking shells among the overturned stone-heaps, inspecting them in the sun, breaking into them with the trowel and nearly always rejecting them, i manage, after repeated attempts, to obtain my materials for this chapter. the first to hatch is the seven-pronged resin-bee (anthidium septemdentatum). we see her, in the month of april, lumbering along to the rubbish-heaps in the quarries and the low boundary-walls, in search of her snail-shell. she is a contemporary of the three-horned osmia, who begins operations in the last week of april, and often occupies the same stone-heap, settling in the next shell. she is well-advised to start work early and to be on neighbourly terms with the osmia when the latter is building; in fact, we shall soon see the terrible dangers to which that same proximity exposes her dilatory rival in resin-work, anthidium bellicosum. the shell adopted in the great majority of cases is that of the common snail, helix aspersa. it is sometimes of full size, sometimes half-developed. helix nemoralis and h. caespitum, which are much smaller, also supply suitable lodgings; and this would as surely apply to any shell of sufficient capacity, if the places which i explore possessed others, as witness a nest which my son emile has sent me from somewhere near marseilles. this time, the resin-bee is settled in helix algira, the most remarkable of our land-shells because of the width and regularity of its spiral, which is copied from that of the ammonites. this magnificent nest, a perfect specimen of both the snail's work and the bee's, deserves description before any other. for a distance of three centimetres (1.17 inches.--translator's note.) from the mouth, the last spiral whorl contains nothing. at this inconsiderable depth, a partition is clearly seen. the moderate diameter of the passage accounts for the anthidium's choice of this site to which our eye can penetrate. in the common snail-shell, whose cavity widens rapidly, the insect establishes itself much farther back, so that, in order to see the terminal partition, we must, as i have said, make a lateral inlet. the position of this boundary-ceiling, which may come farther forward or farther back, depends on the variable diameter of the passage. the cells of the cocoons require a certain length and a certain breadth, which the mother finds by going higher up or lower down in the spiral, according to the shape of the shell. when the diameter is suitable, the last whorl is occupied up to the orifice, where the final lid appears, absolutely exposed to view. this is the case with the adult helix nemoralis and h. caespitum, and also with the young common snail. we will not linger at present over this peculiarity, the importance of which will become manifest shortly. whether in the front or at the back of the spiral slope, the insect's work ends in a facade of coarse mosaic, formed of small, angular bits of gravel, firmly cemented with a gum the nature of which has to be ascertained. it is an amber-coloured material, semi-transparent, brittle, soluble in spirits of wine and burning with a sooty flame and a strong smell of resin. from these characteristics it is evident that the bee prepares her gum with the resinous drops exuded by the coniferae. i think that i am even able to name the particular plant, though i have never caught the insect in the act of gathering its materials. hard by the stone-heaps which i turn over for my collections there is a plentiful supply of brown-berried junipers. pines are totally absent; and the cypress only appears occasionally near the houses. moreover, among the vegetable remains which we shall see assisting in the protection of the nest, we often find the juniper's catkins and needles. as the resin-insect is economical of its time and does not fly far from the quarters familiar to it, the gum must have been collected on the shrub at whose foot the materials for the barricade have been gathered. nor is this merely a local circumstance, for the marseilles nest abounds in similar remnants. i therefore regard the juniper as the regular resin-purveyor, without, however, excluding the pine, the cypress and other coniferae when the favourite shrub is absent. the bits of gravel in the lid are angular and chalky in the marseilles nest; they are round and flinty in most of the serignan nests. in making her mosaic, the worker pays no heed to the form or colour of its component parts; she collects indiscriminately anything that is hard enough and not too large. sometimes she lights upon treasures that give her work a more original character. the marseilles nest shows me, neatly encrusted amid the bits of gravel, a tiny whole landshell, pupa cineres. a nest in my own neighbourhood provides me with a pretty snail-shell, helix striata, forming a rose-pattern in the middle of the mosaic. these little artistic details remind me of a certain nest of eumenes amadei (a mason-wasp, forming the subject of an essay which has not yet been published in english.--translator's note.) which abounds in small shells. ornamental shell-work appears to number its lovers among the insects. after the lid of resin and gravel, an entire whorl of the spiral is occupied by a barricade of incongruous remnants, similar to that which, in the reeds, protects the row of cocoons of the manicate cotton-bee. it is curious to see exactly the same defensive methods employed by two builders of such different talents, one of whom handles flock, the other gum. the nest from marseilles has for its barricade bits of chalky gravel, particles of earth, fragments of sticks, a few scraps of moss and especially juniper-catkins and needles. the serignan nests, installed in helix aspersa, have almost the same protective materials. i see bits of gravel, the size of a lentil, and the catkins and needles of the brown-berried juniper predominating. next come the dry excretions of the snail and a few rare little land-shells. a similar jumble of more or less everything found near the nest forms, as we know, the barricade of the manicate cotton-bee, who is also an adept at using the snail's stercoral droppings after these have been dried in the sun. let us observe finally that these dissimilar materials are heaped together without any cementing, just as the insect has picked them up. resin plays no part in the mass; and we have only to pierce the lid and turn the shell upside down for the barricade to come dribbling to the ground. to glue the whole thing together does not enter into the resin-bee's scheme. perhaps such an expenditure of gum is beyond her means; perhaps the barricade, if hardened into a solid block, would afterwards form an invincible obstacle to the escape of the youngsters; perhaps again the mass of gravel is an accessory rampart, run up roughly as a work of secondary importance. amid these doubtful matters, i see at least that the insect does not look upon its barricade as indispensable. it employs it regularly in the large shells, whose last whorl, too spacious to be used, forms an unoccupied vestibule; it neglects it in the moderate shells, such as helix nemoralis, in which the resin lid is level with the orifice. my excavations in the stone-heaps supply me with an almost equal number of nests with and without defensive embankments. among the cotton-bees, the manicate anthidium is not faithful either to her fort of little sticks and stones; i know some of her nests in which cotton serves every purpose. with both of them, the gravel rampart seems useful only in certain circumstances, which i am unable to specify. on the other side of the outworks of the fortification, the lid and barricade, are the cells set more or less far down in the spiral, according to the diameter of the shell. they are bounded back and front by partitions of pure resin, without any encrustations of mineral particles. their number is exceedingly restricted and is usually limited to two. the front room, which is larger because the width of the passage goes on increasing, is the abode of a male, superior in size to the other sex; the less spacious back room contains a female. i have already drawn attention in an earlier chapter to the wonderful problem submitted for our consideration by this breaking up of the laying into couples and this alternation of the males and females. without calling for other work than the transverse partitions, the broadening stairway of the snail-shell thus furnishes both sexes with house-room suited to their size. the second resin-bee that inhabits shells, anthidium bellicosum, hatches in july and works during the fierce heat of august. her architecture differs in no wise from that of her kinswoman of the springtime, so much so that, when we find a tenanted snail-shell in a hole in the wall or under the stones, it is impossible to decide to which of the two species the nest belongs. the only way to obtain exact information is to break the shell and split the cocoons in february, at which time the nests of the summer resin-bee are occupied by larvae and those of the spring resin-bee by the perfect insect. if we shrink from this brutal method, we are still in doubt until the cocoons open, so great is the resemblance between the two pieces of work. in both cases, we find the same lodging, snail-shells of every size and every kind, just as they happen to come; the same resin lid, the inside gritty with tiny bits of stone, the outside almost smooth and sometimes ornamented with little shells; the same barricade--not always present--of various kinds of rubbish; the same division into two rooms of unequal size occupied by the two sexes. everything is identical, down to the purveyor of the gum, the brown-berried juniper. to say more about the nest of the summer resin-bee would be to repeat oneself. there is only one thing that requires further investigation. i do not see the reason that prompts the two insects to leave the greater part of their shell empty in front, instead of occupying it entirely up to the orifice as the osmia habitually does. as the mother's laying is broken up into intermittent shifts of a couple of eggs apiece, is it necessary that there should be a new home for each shift? is the half-fluid resin unsuitable for the wide-spanned roofs which would have to be constructed when the diameter of the helical passage exceeded certain limits? is the gathering of the cement too wearisome a task to leave the bee any strength for making the numerous partitions which she would need if she utilized the spacious final whorl? i find no answer to these questions. i note the fact without interpreting it: when the shell is a large one, the front part, almost the whole of the last whorl, remains an empty vestibule. to the spring resin-bee, anthidium septemdentatum, this less than half occupied lodging presents no drawbacks. a contemporary of the osmia, often her neighbour under the same stone, the gum-worker builds her nest at the same period as the mud-worker; but there is no fear of mutual encroachments, for the two bees, working next door to each other, watch their respective properties with a jealous eye. if attempts at usurpation were to be made, the owner of the snail-shell would know how to enforce her rights as the first occupant. for the summer resin-bee, a. bellicosum, the conditions are very different. at the moment when the osmia is building, she is still in the larval, or at most in the nymphal stage. her abode, which would not be more absolutely silent if deserted, her shell, with its vast untenanted porch, will not tempt the earlier resin-bee, who herself wants apartments right at the far end of the spiral, but it might suit the osmia, who knows how to fill the shell with cells up to the mouth. the last whorl left vacant by the anthidium is a magnificent lodging which nothing prevents the mason from occupying. the osmia does seize upon it, in fact, and does so too often for the welfare of the unfortunate late-comer. the final resin lid takes the place, for the osmia, of the mud stopper with which she cuts off at the back the portion of the spiral too narrow for her labours. upon this lid she builds her mass of cells in so many storeys, after which she covers the whole with a thick defensive plug. in short, the work is conducted as though the snail-shell contained nothing. when july arrives, this doubly-tenanted house becomes the scene of a tragic conflict. those below, on attaining the adult state, burst their swaddling-bands, demolish their resin partitions, pass through the gravel barricade and try to release themselves; those above, larvae still or budding pupae, prisoners in their shells until the following spring, completely block the way. to force a passage from the far-end of those catacombs is beyond the strength of the resin-bee, already weakened by the effort of breaking out of her own nest. a few of the osmia's partitions are damaged, a few cocoons receive slight injuries; and then, worn out with vain struggles, the captives abandon hope and perish behind the impregnable wall of earth. and with them perish also certain parasites, even less fit for the prodigious work of clearance: zonites and chryses (chrysis flammea), of whom the first are consumers of provisions and the second of grubs. this lamentable ending of the resin-bee, buried alive under the osmia's walls, is not a rare accident to be passed over in silence or mentioned in a few words; on the contrary, it happens very often; and its frequency suggests this thought: the school which sees in instinct an acquired habit treats the slightest favourable occurrence in the course of animal industry as the starting-point of an improvement which, transmitted by heredity and becoming in time more and more accentuated, at last grows into a settled characteristic common to the whole race. there is, it is true, a total absence of positive proofs in support of this theory; but it is stated with a wealth of hypothesis that leaves a thousand loopholes: 'granting that...supposing that...it may be...nothing need prevent us from believing... it is quite possible...' thus argued the master; and the disciples have not yet hit upon anything better. 'if the sky were to fall,' said rabelais, 'the larks would all be caught.' yes, but the sky stays up; and the larks go on flying. 'if things happened in such and such a way,' says our friend, 'instinct may have undergone variations and modifications.' yes, but are you quite sure that things happened as you say? i banish the word 'if' from my vocabulary. i suppose nothing, i take nothing for granted; i pluck the brutal fact, the only thing that can be trusted; i record it and then ask myself what conclusion rests upon its solid framework. from the fact which i have related we may draw the following inference: 'you say that any modification profitable to the animal is transmitted throughout a series of favoured ones who, better equipped with tools, better endowed with aptitudes, abandon the ancient usages and replace the primitive species, the victim of the struggle for life. you declare that once, in the dim distance of the ages, a bee found herself by accident in possession of a dead snail-shell. the safe and peaceful lodging pleased her fancy. on and on went the hereditary liking; and the snail-shell proved more and more agreeable to the insect's descendants, who began to look for it under the stones, so that later generations, with the aid of habit, ended by adopting it as the ancestral dwelling. again by accident, the bee happened upon a drop of resin. it was soft, plastic, well-suited for the partitioning of the snail-shell; it soon hardened into a solid ceiling. the bee tried the resinous gum and benefited by it. her successors also benefited by it, especially after improving it. little by little, the rubble-work of the lid and of the gravel barricade was invented: an enormous improvement, of which the race did not fail to take advantage. the defensive fortification was the finishing-touch to the original structure. here we have the origin and development of the instinct of the resin-bees who make their home in snail-shells.' this glorious genesis of insect ways and means lacks just one little thing: probability. life everywhere, even among the humble, has two phases: its share of good and its share of evil. avoiding the latter and seeking the former is the rough balance-sheet of life's actions. animals, like ourselves, have their portion of the sweet and the bitter: they are just as anxious to reduce the second as to increase the first; for, with them as with us, de malheurs evites le bonheur se compose. (bad luck missed is good luck gained.) if the bee has so faithfully handed down her casual invention of a resin nest built inside a snail-shell, then there is no denying that she must have just as faithfully handed down the means of averting the terrible danger of belated hatchings. a few mothers, escaping at rare intervals from the catacombs blocked by the osmiae, must have retained a lively memory, a powerful impression of their desperate struggle through the mass of earth; they must have inspired their descendants with a dread of those vast dwellings where the stranger comes afterwards and builds; they must have taught them by habit the means of safety, the use of the medium-sized shell, which the nest fills to the mouth. so far as the prosperity of the race was concerned, the discontinuance of the system of empty vestibules was far more important than the invention of the barricade, which is not altogether indispensable: it would have saved them from perishing miserably, behind impenetrable walls, and would have considerably increased the numbers of their posterity. thousands and thousands of experiments have been made throughout the ages with snail-shells of average dimensions: the thing is certain, because i find many of them to-day. well, have these life-saving experiments, with their immense importance to the race, become general by hereditary bequest? not at all: the resin-bee persists in using big snail-shells just as though her ancestors had never known the danger of the osmia-blocked vestibule. once these facts are duly recognized, the conclusion is irresistible: it is obvious that, as the insect does not hand down the casual modification tending towards the avoidance of what is to its disadvantage, neither does it hand down the modification leading to the adoption of what is to its advantage. however lively the impression made upon the mother, the accidental leaves no trace in the offspring. chance plays no part in the genesis of the instincts. next to these tenants of the snail-shells we have two other resin-bees who never come to the shells for a cabin for their nests. they are anthidium quadrilobum, lep., and a. latreillii, lep., both exceedingly uncommon in my district. if we meet them very rarely, however, this may well be due to the difficulty of seeing them; for they lead extremely solitary and wary lives. a warm nook under some stone or other; the deserted streets of an ant-hill in a sun-baked bank; a beetle's vacant burrow a few inches below the ground; in short, a cavity of some sort, perhaps arranged by the bee's own care: these are the only establishments which i know them to occupy. and here, with no other shelter than the cover of the refuge, they build a mass of cells joined together and grouped into a sphere, which, in the case of the four-lobed resin-bee, attains the size of a man's fist and, in that of latreille's resin-bee, the size of a small apple. at first sight, we remain very uncertain as to the nature of the strange ball. it is brown, rather hard, slightly sticky, with a bituminous smell. outside are encrusted a few bits of gravel, particles of earth, heads of large-sized ants. this cannibal trophy is not a sign of barbarous customs: the bee does not decapitate ants to adorn her hut. an inlayer, like her colleagues of the snail-shell, she gathers any hard granule near at hand capable of strengthening her work; and the dried skulls of ants, which are frequent around about her abode, are in her eyes building-stones of equal value to the pebbles. one and all employ whatever they can find without much seeking. the inhabitant of the shell, in order to construct her barricade, makes shift with the dry excrement of the nearest snail; the denizen of the flat stones and of the roadside banks frequented by the ants does what she can with the heads of the defunct and, should these be lacking, is ready to replace them with something else. moreover, the defensive inlaying is slight; we see that the insect attaches no great importance to it and has every confidence in the stout wall of the home. the material of which the work is made at first suggests some rustic wax, much coarser than that of the bumble-bees, or rather some tar of unknown origin. we think again and then recognize in the puzzling substance the semitransparent fracture, the quality of becoming soft when exposed to heat and of burning with a smoky flame, the solubility in spirits of wine--in short, all the distinguishing characteristics of resin. here then are two more collectors of the exudations of the coniferae. at the points where i find their nests are aleppo pines, cypresses, brown-berried junipers and common junipers. which of the four supplies the mastic? there is nothing to tell us. nor is there anything to explain how the native amber-colour of the resin is replaced in the work of both bees by a dark-brown hue resembling that of pitch. does the insect collect resin impaired by the weather, soiled by the sanies of rotten wood? when kneading it, does it mix some dark ingredient with it? i look upon this as possible, but not as proved, since i have never seen the bee collecting her resin. while this point escapes me, another of higher interest appears most plainly; and that is the large amount of resinous material used in a single nest, especially in that of anthidium quadrilobum, in which i have counted as many as twelve cells. the nest of the mason-bee of the pebbles is hardly more massive. for so costly an establishment, therefore, the resin-bee collects her pitch on the dead pine as copiously as the mason-bee collects her mortar on the macadamized road. her workshop no longer shows us the niggardly partitioning of a snail-shell with two or three drops of resin; what we see is the whole building of the house, from the basement to the roof, from the thick outer walls to the partitions of the rooms. the cement expended would be enough to divide hundreds of snail-shells, wherefore the title of resin-bee is due first and foremost to this master-builder in pitch. honourable mention should be awarded to a. latreillii, who rivals her fellow-worker as far as her smaller stature permits. the other manipulators of resin, those who build partitions in snail-shells, come third, a very long way behind. and now, with the facts to support us, let us philosophize a little. we have here, recognized as of excellent standard by all the expert classifiers, so fastidious in the arrangement of their lists, a generic group, called anthidium, containing two guilds of workers entirely dissimilar in character: the cotton-fullers and the resin-kneaders. it is even possible that other species, when their habits are better known, will come and increase this variety of manufactures. i confine myself to the little that i know and ask myself in what the manipulator of cotton differs from the manipulator of resin as regards tools, that is to say, organs. certainly, when the genus anthidium was set down by the classifiers, they were not wanting in scientific precision: they consulted, under the lens of the microscope, the wings, the mandibles, the legs, the harvesting-brush, in short, all the details calculated to assist the proper delimitation of the group. after this minute examination by the experts, if no organic differences stand revealed, the reason is that they do not exist. any dissimilarity of structure could not escape the accurate eyes of our learned taxonomists. the genus, therefore, is indeed organically homogeneous; but industrially it is thoroughly heterogeneous. the implements are the same and the work is different. that eminent bordeaux entomologist, professor jean perez, to whom i communicated the misgivings aroused in my mind by the contradictory nature of my discoveries, thinks that he has found the solution of the difficulty in the conformation of the mandibles. i extract the following passage from his volume, "les abeilles": 'the cotton-pressing females have the edge of their mandibles cut out into five or six little teeth, which make an instrument admirably suited for scraping and removing the hairs from the epidermis of the plants. it is a sort of comb or teasel. the resin-kneading females have the edge of the mandible not toothed, but simply curved; the tip alone, preceded by a notch which is pretty clearly marked in some species, forms a real tooth; but this tooth is blunt and does not project. the mandible, in short, is a kind of spoon perfectly fitted to remove the sticky matter and to shape it into a ball.' nothing better could be said to explain the two sorts of industry: in the one case, a rake which gathers the wool; in the other, a spoon which scoops up the resin. i should have left it at that and felt quite content without further investigation, if i had not had the curiosity to open my boxes and, in my turn, to take a good look, side by side, at the workers in cement and the workers in cotton. allow me, my learned master, to whisper in your ear what i saw. the first that i examine is anthidium septemdentatum. a spoon: yes, it is just that. powerful mandibles, shaped like an isosceles triangle, flat above, hollowed out below; and no indentations, none whatsoever. a splendid tool, as you say, for gathering the viscous pellet; quite as efficacious in its kind of work as is the rake of the toothed mandibles for gathering cotton. here certainly is a creature potently-gifted, even though it be for a poor little task, the scooping up of two or three drops of glue. things are not quite so satisfactory with the second resin-bee of the snail-shells, a. bellicosum. i find that she has three teeth to her mandibles. still, they are slight and project very little. let us say that this does not count, even though the work is exactly the same. with a. quadrilobum the whole thing breaks down. she, the queen of resin-bees; she, who collects a lump of mastic the size of one's fist, enough to subdivide hundreds of her kinswomen's snail-shells: well, she, by way of a spoon, carries a rake! on the wide edges of her mandibles stand four teeth, as long and pointed as those of the most zealous cotton-gleaner. a. florentinum, that mighty manufacturer of cotton-goods, can hardly rival her in respect of combing-tools. and nevertheless, with her toothed implement, a sort of saw, the resin-bee collects her great heap of pitch, load by load; and the material is carried not rigid, but sticky, half-fluid, so that it may amalgamate with the previous lots and be fashioned into cells. a. latreillii, without having a very large implement, also bears witness to the possibility of heaping up soft resin with a rake; she arms her mandibles with three or four sharply-cut teeth. in short, out of four resin-bees, the only four that i know, one is armed with a spoon, if this expression be really suited to the tool's function; the three others are armed with a rake; and it so happens that the most copious heap of resin is just the work of the rake with the most teeth to it, a tool suited to the cotton-reapers, according to the views of the bordeaux entomological expert. no, the explanation that appealed to me so much at first is not admissible. the mandible, whether supplied with teeth or not, does not account at all for the two manufactures. may we, in this predicament, have recourse to the general structure of the insect, although this is not distinctive enough to be of much use to us? not so either; for, in the same stone-heaps where the osmia and the two resin-bees of the snail-shells work, i find from time to time another manipulator of mastic who bears no structural relationship whatever to the genus anthidium. it is a small-sized mason-wasp, odynerus alpestris, sauss. she builds a very pretty nest with resin and gravel in the shells of the young common snail, of helix nemoralis and sometimes of bulimulus radiatus. i will describe her masterpiece on some other occasion. to one acquainted with the genus odynerus, any comparison with the anthidia would be an inexcusable error. in larval diet, in shape, in habits, they form two dissimilar groups, very far removed one from the other. the anthidia feed their offspring on honey-bread; the odyneri feed it on live prey. well, with her slender form, her weakly frame, in which the most clear-seeing eye would seek in vain for a clue to the trade practised, the alpine odynerus, the game-lover, uses pitch in the same way as the stout and massive resin-bee, the honey-lover. she even uses it better, for her mosaic of tiny pebbles is much prettier than the bee's and no less solid. with her mandibles, this time neither spoon nor rake, but rather a long forceps slightly notched at the tip, she gathers her drop of sticky matter as dexterously as do her rivals with their very different outfit. her case will, i think, persuade us that neither the shape of the tool nor the shape of the worker can explain the work done. i will go further: i ask myself in vain the reason of this or that trade in the case of a fixed species. the osmiae make their partitions with mud or with a paste of chewed leaves; the mason-bees build with cement; the pelopaeus-wasps fashion clay pots; the megachiles made disks cut from leaves into urns; the anthidia felt cotton into purses; the resin-bees cement together little bits of gravel with gum; the carpenter-bees and the lithurgi bore holes in timber; the anthophorae tunnel the roadside slopes. why all these different trades, to say nothing of the others? how are they prescribed for the insect, this one rather than that? i foresee the answer: they are prescribed by the organization. an insect excellently equipped for gathering and felting cotton is ill-equipped for cutting leaves, kneading mud or mixing resin. the tool in its possession decides its trade. this is a very simple explanation, i admit, and one within the scope of everybody: in itself a sufficient recommendation for any one who has neither the inclination nor the time to undertake a more thorough investigation. the popularity of certain speculative views is due entirely to the easy food which they provide for our curiosity. they save us much long and often irksome study; they impart a veneer of general knowledge. there is nothing that achieves such immediate success as an explanation of the riddle of the universe in a word or two. the thinker does not travel so fast: content to know little so that he may know something, he limits his field of search and is satisfied with a scanty harvest, provided that the grain be of good quality. before agreeing that the tool determines the trade, he wants to see things with his own eyes; and what he observes is far from confirming the sweeping statement. let us share his doubts for a moment and look into matters more closely. franklin left us a maxim which is much to the point here. he said that a good workman should be able to plane with a saw and to saw with a plane. the insect is too good a workman not to follow the advice of the sage of boston. its industry abounds in instances where the plane takes the place of the saw, or the saw of the plane; its dexterity makes good the inadequacy of the implement. to go no further, have we not just seen different artisans collecting and using pitch, some with spoons, others with rakes, others again with pincers? therefore, with such equipment as it possesses, the insect would be capable of abandoning cotton for leaves, leaves for resin, resin for mortar, if some predisposition of talent did not make it keep to its speciality. these few lines, which are the outcome not of a heedless pen but of mature reflection, will set people talking of hateful paradoxes. we will let them talk and we will submit the following proposition to our adversaries: take an entomologist of the highest merit, a latreille (pierre andre latreille (1762-1833), one of the founders of modern entomological science.--translator's note.), for instance, versed in all the details of the structure of insects but utterly unacquainted with their habits. he knows the dead insect better than anybody, but he has never occupied himself with the living insect. as a classifier, he is beyond compare; and that is all. we ask him to examine a bee, the first that comes to hand, and to name her trade from her tools. come, be honest: could he? who would dare put him to such a test? has personal experience not fully convinced us that the mere examination of the insect can tell us nothing about its particular industry? the baskets on its legs and the brush on its abdomen will certainly inform us that it collects honey and pollen; but its special art will remain an utter secret, notwithstanding all the scrutiny of the microscope. in our own industries, the plane denotes the joiner, the trowel the mason, the scissors the tailor, the needle the seamstress. are things the same in animal industry? just show us, if you please, the trowel that is a certain sign of the mason-insect, the chisel that is a positive characteristic of the carpenter-insect, the iron that is an authentic mark of the pinking-insect; and as you show them, say: 'this one cuts leaves; that one bores wood; that other mixes cement.' and so on, specifying the trade from the tool. you cannot do it, no one can; the worker's speciality remains an impenetrable secret until direct observation intervenes. does not this incapacity, even of the most expert, proclaim loudly that animal industry, in its infinite variety, is due to other causes besides the possession of tools? certainly, each of those specialists requires implements; but they are rough and ready implements, good for all sorts of purposes, like the tool of franklin's workman. the same notched mandible that reaps cotton, cuts leaves and moulds pitch also kneads mud, scrapes decayed wood and mixes mortar; the same tarsus that manufactures cotton and disks cut out of leaves is no less clever at the art of making earthen partitions, clay turrets and gravel mosaics. what then is the reason of these thousand industries? in the light of facts, i can see but one: imagination governing matter. a primordial inspiration, a talent antecedent to the actual form, directs the tool instead of being subordinate to it. the instrument does not determine the manner of industry; the tool does not make the workman. at the beginning there is an object, a plan, in view of which the animal acts, unconsciously. have we eyes to see with, or do we see because we have eyes? does the function create the organ, or the organ the function? of the two alternatives, the insect proclaims the first. it says: 'my industry is not imposed upon me by the implement which i possess; what i do is to use the implement, such as it is, for the talent with which i am gifted.' it says to us, in its own way: 'the function has determined the organ; vision is the reason of the eye.' in short, it repeats to us virgil's profound reflection: 'mens agitat molem'; 'mind moves matter.' chapter 11. the poison of the bee. i have discussed elsewhere the stings administered by the wasps to their prey. now chemistry comes and puts a spoke in the wheel of our arguments, telling us that the poison of the bees is not the same as that of the wasps. the bees' is complex and formed of two elements, acid and alkaline. the wasps' possess only the acid element; and it is to this very acidity and not to the 'so-called' skill of the operators that the preservation of the provisions is due. (the author's numerous essays on the wasps will form the contents of later works. in the meantime, cf. "insect life," by j.h. fabre, translated by the author of "mademoiselle mori": chapters 4 to 12, and 14 to 18; and "the life and love of the insect," by j. henri fabre, translated by alexander teixeira de mattos: chapters 11, 12 and 17.--translator's note.) admitting that there is a difference in the nature of the venom, i fail to see that this has any bearing on the problem in hand. i can inoculate with various liquids--acids, weak nitric acid, alkalis, ammonia, neutral bodies, spirits of wine, essence of turpentine--and obtain conditions similar to those of the victims of the predatory insects, that is to say, inertia with the persistence of a dull vitality betrayed by the movements of the mouth-parts and antennae. i am not, of course, invariably successful, for there is neither delicacy nor precision in my poisoned needle and the wound which it makes does not bear comparison with the tiny puncture of the unerring natural sting; but, after all, it is repeated often enough to put the object of my experiment beyond doubt. i should add that, to achieve success, we must have a subject with a concentrated ganglionic column, such as the weevil, the buprestis, the dung-beetle and others. paralysis is then obtained with but a single prick, made at the point which the cerceris has revealed to us, the point at which the corselet joins the rest of the thorax. in that case, the least possible quantity of the acrid liquid is instilled, a quantity too small to endanger the patient's life. with scattered nervous centres, each requiring a separate operation, this method is impracticable: the victim would die of the excess of corrosive fluid. i am quite ashamed to have to recall these old experiments. had they been resumed and carried on by others of greater authority than i, we should have escaped the objections of chemistry. when light is so easy to obtain, why go in search of scientific obscurity? why talk of acid or alkaline reactions, which prove nothing, when it is so simple to have recourse to facts, which prove everything? before declaring that the hunting insects' poison has preservative properties merely because of its acid qualities, it would have been well to enquire if the sting of a bee, with its acid and its alkali, could not perchance produce the same effects as that of the paralyser, whose skill is categorically denied. the chemists never gave this a thought. simplicity is not always welcome in our laboratories. it is my duty to repair that little omission. i propose to enquire if the poison of the bee, the chief of the apidae, is suitable for a surgery that paralyses without killing. the enquiry bristles with difficulties, though this is no reason for abandoning it. first and foremost, i cannot possibly operate with the bee just as i catch her. time after time i make the attempt, without once succeeding; and patience becomes exhausted. the sting has to penetrate at a definite point, exactly where the wasp's sting would have entered. my intractable captive tosses about angrily and stings at random, never where i wish. my fingers get hurt even oftener than the patient. i have only one means of gaining a little control over the indomitable dart; and that is to cut off the bee's abdomen with my scissors, to seize the stump instantly with a fine forceps and to apply the tip at the spot where the sting is to enter. everybody knows that the bee's abdomen needs no orders from the head to go on drawing its weapon for a few instants longer and to avenge the deceased before being itself overcome with death's inertia. this vindictive persistency serves me to perfection. there is another circumstance in my favour: the barbed sting remains where it is, which enables me to ascertain the exact spot pierced. a needle withdrawn as soon as inserted would leave me doubtful. i can also, when the transparency of the tissues permits, perceive the direction of the weapon, whether perpendicular and favourable to my plans, or slanting and therefore valueless. those are the advantages. the disadvantages are these: the amputated abdomen, though more tractable than the entire bee, is still far from satisfying my wishes. it gives capricious starts and unexpected pricks. i want it to sting here. no, it balks my forceps and goes and stings elsewhere: not very far away, i admit; but it takes so little to miss the nerve-centre which we wish to get at. i want it to go in perpendicularly. no, in the great majority of cases it enters obliquely and passes only through the epidermis. this is enough to show how many failures are needed to make one success. nor is this all. i shall be telling nobody anything new when i recall the fact that the bee's sting is very painful. that of the hunting insects, on the contrary, is in most cases insignificant. my skin, which is no less sensitive than another's, pays no attention to it: i handle sphex, ammophilae and scoliae without heeding their lancet-pricks. i have said this before; i remind the reader of it because of the matter in hand. in the absence of well-known chemical or other properties, we have really but one means of comparing the two respective poisons; and that is the amount of pain produced. all the rest is mystery. besides, no poison, not even that of the rattlesnake, has hitherto revealed the cause of its dread effects. acting, therefore, under the instruction of that one guide, pain, i place the bee's sting far above that of the predatory insects as an offensive weapon. a single one of its thrusts must equal and often surpass in efficaciousness the repeated wounds of the other. for all these reasons--an excessive display of energy; the variable quantity of the virus inoculated by a wriggling abdomen which no longer measures the emission by doses; a sting which i cannot direct as i please; a wound which may be deep or superficial, the weapon entering perpendicularly or obliquely, touching the nerve-centres or affecting only the surrounding tissues--my experiments ought to produce the most varied results. i obtain, in fact, every possible kind of disorder: ataxy, temporary disablement, permanent disablement, complete paralysis, partial paralysis. some of my stricken victims recover; others die after a brief interval. it would be an unnecessary waste of space to record in this volume my hundred and one attempts. the details would form tedious reading and be of very little advantage, as in this sort of study it is impossible to marshal one's facts with any regularity. i will, therefore, sum them up in a few examples. a colossal member of the grasshopper tribe, the most powerful in my district, decticus verrucivorus (this decticus has received its specific name of verrucivorus, or wart-eating, because it is employed by the peasants in sweden and elsewhere to bite off the warts on their fingers.--translator's note.), is pricked at the base of the neck, on the line of the fore-legs, at the median point. the prick goes straight down. the spot is the same as that pierced by the sting of the slayer of crickets and ephippigers. (a species of green grasshopper. the sphex paralyses crickets and grasshoppers to provide food for her grubs. cf. "insect life": chapters 6 to 12.--translator's note.) the giantess, as soon as stung, kicks furiously, flounders about, falls on her side and is unable to get up again. the fore-legs are paralysed; the others are capable of moving. lying sideways, if not interfered with, the insect in a few moments gives no signs of life beyond a fluttering of the antennae and palpi, a pulsation of the abdomen and a convulsive uplifting of the ovipositor; but, if irritated with a slight touch, it stirs its four hind-legs, especially the third pair, those with the big thighs, which kick vigorously. next day, the condition is much the same, with an aggravation of the paralysis, which has now attacked the middle-legs. on the day after that, the legs do not move, but the antennae, the palpi and the ovipositor continue to flutter actively. this is the condition of the ephippiger stabbed three times in the thorax by the languedocian sphex. one point alone is missing, a most important point: the long persistence of a remnant of life. in fact, on the fourth day, the decticus is dead; her dark colour tells me so. there are two conclusions to be drawn from this experiment and it is well to emphasise them. first, the bee's poison is so active that a single dagger-thrust aimed at a nervous centre kills in four days one of the largest of the orthoptera (an order of insects including the grasshoppers, locusts, cockroaches, mantes and earwigs, in addition to the stickand leaf-insects, termites, dragon-flies, may-flies, book-lice and others.--translator's note.), though an insect of powerful constitution. secondly, the paralysis at first affects only the legs whose ganglion is attacked; next, it spreads slowly to the second pair; lastly, it reaches the third. the local effect is diffused. this diffusion, which might well take place in the victims of the predatory insects, plays no part in the latters' method of operation. the egg, which will be laid immediately afterwards, demands the complete inertia of the prey from the outset. hence all the nerve-centres that govern locomotion must be numbed instantaneously by the virus. i can now understand why the poison of the predatory wasps is comparatively painless in its effects. if it possessed the strength of that of the bee, a single stab would impair the vitality of the prey, while leaving it for some days capable of violent movements that would be very dangerous to the huntress and especially to the egg. more moderate in its action, it is instilled at the different nervous centres, as is the case more particularly with the caterpillars. (caterpillars are the prey of the ammophila, which administers a separate stab to each of the several ganglia.--translator's note.) in this way, the requisite immobility is obtained at once; and, notwithstanding the number of wounds, the victim is not a speedy corpse. to the marvels of the paralysers' talent we must add one more: their wonderful poison, the strength of which is regulated by delicate doses. the bee revenging herself intensifies the virulence of her poison; the sphex putting her grubs' provender to sleep weakens it, reduces it to what is strictly necessary. one more instance of nearly the same kind. i prefer to take my subjects from among the orthoptera, which, owing to their imposing size and the thinness of their skin at the points to be attacked, lend themselves better than other insects to my delicate manipulations. the armour of a buprestis, the fat blubber of a rosechafer-grub, the contortions of a caterpillar present almost insuperable obstacles to the success of a sting which it is not in my power to direct. the insect which i now offer to the bee's lancet is the great green grasshopper (locusta viridissima), the adult female. the prick is given in the median line of the fore-legs. the effect is overwhelming. for two or three seconds the insect writhes in convulsions and then falls on its side, motionless throughout, save in the ovipositor and the antennae. nothing stirs so long as the creature is left alone; but, if i tickle it with a hair-pencil, the four hind-legs move sharply and grip the point. as for the fore-legs, smitten in their nerve-centre, they are quite lifeless. the same condition is maintained for three days longer. on the fifth day, the creeping paralysis leaves nothing free but the antennae waving to and fro and the abdomen throbbing and lifting up the ovipositor. on the sixth, the grasshopper begins to turn brown; she is dead. except that the vestige of life is more persistent, the case is the same as that of the decticus. if we can prolong the duration, we shall have the victim of the sphex. but first let us look into the effect of a prick administered elsewhere than opposite the thoracic ganglia. i cause a female ephippiger to be stung in the abdomen, about the middle of the lower surface. the patient does not seem to trouble greatly about her wound: she clambers gallantly up the sides of the bell-jar under which i have placed her; she goes on hopping as before. better still, she sets about browsing the vine-leaf which i have given her for her consolation. a few hours pass and the whole thing is forgotten. she has made a rapid and complete recovery. a second is wounded in three places on the abdomen: in the middle and on either side. on the first day, the insect seems to have felt nothing; i see no sign of stiffness in its movements. no doubt it is suffering acutely; but these stoics keep their troubles to themselves. next day, the ephippiger drags her legs a little and walks somewhat slowly. two days more; and, when laid on her back, she is unable to turn over. on the fifth day, she succumbs. this time, i have exceeded the dose; the shock of receiving three stabs was too much for her. and so with the others, down to the sensitive cricket, who, pricked once in the abdomen, recovers in one day from the painful experience and goes back to her lettuce-leaf. but, if the wound is repeated a few times, death ensues within a more or less short period. i make an exception, among those who pay tribute to my cruel curiosity, of the rosechafer-grubs, who defy three and four needle-thrusts. they will collapse suddenly and lie outstretched, flabby and lifeless; and, just when i am thinking them dead or paralysed, the hardy creatures will recover consciousness, move along on their backs (this is the usual mode of progression of the cetoniaor rosechafer-grub. cf. "the life and love of the insect": chapter 11.--translator's note.), bury themselves in the mould. i can obtain no precise information from them. true, their thinly scattered cilia and their breastplate of fat form a palisade and a rampart against the sting, which nearly always enters only a little way and that obliquely. let us leave these unmanageable ones and keep to the orthoperon, which is more amenable to experiment. a dagger-thrust, we were saying, kills it if directed upon the ganglia of the thorax; it throws it into a transient state of discomfort if directed upon another point. it is, therefore, by its direct action upon the nervous centres that the poison reveals its formidable properties. to generalize and say that death is always near at hand when the sting is administered in the thoracic ganglia would be going too far: it occurs frequently, but there are a good many exceptions, resulting from circumstances impossible to define. i cannot control the direction of the sting, the depth attained, the quantity of poison shed; and the stump of the bee is very far from making up for my shortcomings. we have here not the cunning sword-play of the predatory insect, but a casual blow, ill-placed and ill-regulated. any accident is possible, therefore, from the gravest to the mildest. let us mention some of the more interesting. an adult praying mantis (mantis religiosa, so-called because the toothed fore-legs, in which it catches and kills its prey, adopt, when folded, an attitude resembling that of prayer.--translator's note.) is pricked level with the attachment of the predatory legs. had the wound been in the centre, i should have witnessed an occurrence which, although i have seen it many times, still arouses my liveliest emotion and surprise. this is the sudden paralysis of the warrior's savage harpoons. no machinery stops more abruptly when the mainspring breaks. as a rule, the inertia of the predatory legs attacks the others in the course of a day or two; and the palsied one dies in less than a week. but the present sting is not in the exact centre. the dart has entered near the base of the right leg, at less than a millimetre (.039 inch.--translator's note.) from the median point. that leg is paralysed at once; the other is not; and the insect employs it to the detriment of my unsuspecting fingers, which are pricked to bleeding-point by the spike at the tip. not until to-morrow is the leg which wounded me to-day rendered motionless. this time, the paralysis goes no farther. the mantis moves along quite well, with her corselet proudly raised, in her usual attitude; but the predatory fore-arms, instead of being folded against the chest, ready for attack, hang lifeless and open. i keep the cripple for twelve days longer, during which she refuses all nourishment, being incapable of using her tongs to seize the prey and lift it to her mouth. the prolonged abstinence kills her. some suffer from locomotor ataxy. my notes recall an ephippiger who, pricked in the prothorax away from the median line, retained the use of her six limbs without being able to walk or climb for lack of co-ordination in her movements. a singular awkwardness left her wavering between going back and going forward, between turning to the right and turning to the left. some are smitten with semiparalysis. a cetonia-grub, pricked away from the centre on a level with the fore-legs, has her right side flaccid, spread out, incapable of contracting, while the left side swells, wrinkles and contracts. since the left half no longer receives the symmetrical cooperation of the right half, the grub, instead of curling into the normal volute, closes its spiral on one side and leaves it wide open on the other. the concentration of the nervous apparatus, poisoned by the venom down one side of the body only, a longitudinal half, explains this condition, which is the most remarkable of all. there is nothing to be gained by multiplying these examples. we have seen pretty clearly the great variety of results produced by the haphazard sting of a bee's abdomen; let us now come to the crux of the matter. can the bee's poison reduce the prey to the condition required by the predatory wasp? yes, i have proved it by experiment; but the proof calls for so much patience that it seemed to me to suffice when obtained once for each species. in such difficult conditions, with a poison of excessive strength, a single success is conclusive proof; the thing is possible so long as it occurs once. a female ephippiger is stung at the median point, just a little in front of the fore-legs. convulsive movements lasting for a few seconds are followed by a fall to one side, with pulsations of the abdomen, flutterings of the antennae and a few feeble movements of the legs. the tarsi cling firmly to the hair-pencil which i hold out to them. i place the insect on its back. it lies motionless. its state is absolutely the same as that to which the languedocian sphex (cf. "insect life": chapter 10.--translator's note.) reduces her ephippigers. for three weeks on end, i see repeated in all its details the spectacle to which i have been accustomed in the victims extracted from the burrows or taken from the huntress: the wide-open mandibles, the quivering palpi and tarsi, the ovipositor shuddering convulsively, the abdomen throbbing at long intervals, the spark of life rekindled at the touch of a pencil. in the fourth week, these signs of life, which have gradually weakened, disappear, but the insect still remains irreproachably fresh. at last a month passes; and the paralysed creature begins to turn brown. it is over; death has come. i have the same success with a cricket and also with a praying mantis. in all three cases, from the point of view of long-maintained freshness and of the signs of life proved by slight movements, the resemblance between my victim and those of the predatory insects is so great that no sphex and no tachytes would have disowned the product of my devices. my cricket, my ephippiger, my mantis had the same freshness as theirs; they preserved it as theirs did for a period amply sufficient to allow of the grubs' complete evolution. they proved to me, in the most conclusive manner, they prove to all whom it may interest, that the poison of the bees, leaving its hideous violence on one side, does not differ in its effects from the poison of the predatory wasps. are they alkaline or acid? the question is an idle one in this connection. both of them intoxicate, derange, torpify the nervous centres and thus produce either death or paralysis, according to the method of inoculation. for the moment, that is all. no one is yet able to say the last word on the actions of those poisons, so terrible in infinitesimal doses. but on the point under discussion we need no longer be ignorant: the wasp owes the preservation of her grub's provisions not to any special qualities of her poison but to the extreme precision of her surgery. a last and more plausible objection is that raised by darwin when he said that there were no fossil remains of instincts. and, if there were, o master, what would they teach us? not very much more than what we learn from the instincts of to-day. does not the geologist make the erstwhile carcases live anew in our minds in the light of the world as we see it? with nothing but analogy to guide them, he describes how some saurian lived in the jurassic age; there are no fossil remains of habits, but nevertheless he can tell us plenty about them, things worthy of credence, because the present teaches him the past. let us do a little as he does. i will suppose a precursor of the calicurgi (the calicurgus, or pompilus, is a hunting wasp, feeding her larvae on spiders. cf. "the life and love of the insect": chapter 12.--translator's note.) dwelling in the prehistoric coal-forests. her prey was some hideous scorpion, that first-born of the arachnida. how did the hymenopteron master the terrible prey? analogy tells us, by the methods of the present slayer of tarantulae. it disarmed the adversary; it paralysed the venomous sting by a stroke administered at a point which we could determine for certain by the animal's anatomy. unless this was the way it happened, the assailant must have perished, first stabbed and then devoured by the prey. there is no getting away from it: either the precursor of the calicurgi, that slaughterer of scorpions, knew her trade thoroughly, or else the continuation of her race became impossible, even as it would be impossible to keep up the race of the tarantula-killer without the dagger-thrust that paralyses the spider's poison-fangs. the first who, greatly daring, pinked the scorpion of the coal-seams was already an expert fencer; the first to come to grips with the tarantula had an unerring knowledge of her dangerous surgery. the least hesitation, the slightest speculation; and they were lost. the first teacher would also have been the last, with no disciples to take up her work and perfect it. but fossil instincts, they insist, would show us intermediary stages, first, second and third rungs; they would show us the gradual passing from the casual and very incorrect attempt to the perfect practice, the fruit of the ages; with their accidental differences, they would give us terms of comparison wherewith to trace matters from the simple to the complex. never mind about that, my masters: if you want varied instincts in which to seek the source of the complex by means of the simple, it is not necessary to search the foliations of the coal-seams and the successive layers of the rocks, those archives of the prehistoric world; the present day affords to contemplation an inexhaustible treasury realizing perhaps everything that can emerge from the limbo of possibility. in what will soon be half a century of study, i have caught but a tiny glimpse of a very tiny corner of the realm of instinct; and the harvest gathered overwhelms me with its variety: i do not yet know two species of predatory wasps whose methods are exactly the same. one gives a single stroke of the dagger, a second two, a third three, a fourth nine or ten. one stabs here and the other there; and neither is imitated by the next, who attacks elsewhere. this one injures the cephalic centres and produces death; that one respects them and produces paralysis. some squeeze the cervical ganglia to obtain a temporary torpor; others know nothing of the effects of compressing the brain. a few make the prey disgorge, lest its honey should poison the offspring; the majority do not resort to preventive manipulations. here are some that first disarm the foe, who carries poisoned daggers; yonder are others and more numerous, who have no precautions to take before murdering the unarmed prey. in the preliminary struggle, i know some who grab their victims by the neck, by the rostrum, by the antennae, by the caudal threads; i know some who throw them on their backs, some who lift them breast to breast, some who operate on them in the vertical position, some who attack them lengthwise and crosswise, some who climb on their backs or on their abdomens, some who press on their backs to force out a pectoral fissure, some who open their desperately contracted coil, using the tip of the abdomen as a wedge. and so i could go on indefinitely: every method of fencing is employed. what could i not also say about the egg, slung pendulum-fashion by a thread from the ceiling, when the live provisions are wriggling underneath; laid on a scanty mouthful, a solitary opening dish, when the dead prey requires renewing from day to-day; entrusted to the last joint stored away, when the victuals are paralysed; fixed at a precise spot, entailing the least danger to the consumer and the game, when the corpulent prey has to be devoured with a special art that warrants its freshness! well, how can this multitude of varied instincts teach us anything about gradual transformation? will the one and only dagger-thrust of the cerceris and the scolia take us to the two thrusts of the calicurgus, to the three thrusts of the sphex, to the manifold thrust of the ammophila? yes, if we consider only numerical progression. one and one are two; two and one are three: so run the figures. but is this what we want to know? what has arithmetic to do with the case? is not the whole problem subordinate to a condition that cannot be translated into cyphers? as the prey changes, the anatomy changes; and the surgeon always operates with a complete understanding of his subject. the single dagger-thrust is administered to ganglia collected into a common cluster; the manifold thrusts are distributed over the scattered ganglia; of the two thrusts of the tarantula-huntress, one disarms and the other paralyses. and so with the others: that is to say, the instinct is directed each time by the secrets of the nervous organism. there is a perfect harmony between the operation and the patient's anatomy. the single stroke of the scolia is no less wonderful than the repeated strokes of the ammophila. each has her appointed game and each slays it by a method as rational as any that our own science could invent. in the presence of this consummate knowledge, which leaves us utterly confounded, what a poor argument is that of 1 + 1 = 2! and what is that progress by units to us? the universe is mirrored in a drop of water; universal logic flashes into sight in a single sting. besides, push on the pitiful argument. one leads to two, two lead to three. granted without dispute. and then? we will accept the scolia as the pioneer, the foundress of the first principles of the art. the simplicity of her method justifies our supposition. she learns her trade in some way or other, by accident; she knows supremely well how to paralyse her cetonia-grub with a single dagger-thrust driven into the thorax. one day, through some fortuitous circumstance, or rather by mistake, she takes it into her head to strike two blows. as one is enough for the cetonia, the repetition was of no value unless there was a change of prey. what was the new victim submitted to the butcher's knife? apparently, a large spider, since the tarantula and the garden spider call for two thrusts. and the prentice scolia, who used at first to sting under the throat, had the skill, at her first attempt, to begin by disarming her adversary and then to go quite low down, almost to the end of the thorax, to strike the vital point. i am utterly incredulous as to her success. i see her eaten up if her lancet swerves and hits the wrong spot. let us look impossibility boldly in the face and admit that she succeeds. i then see the offspring, which have no recollection of the fortunate event save through the belly--and then we are postulating that the digestion of the carnivorous larva leaves a trace in the memory of the honey-sipping insect--i see the offspring, i say, obliged to wait at long intervals for that inspired double thrust and obliged to succeed each time under pain of death for them and their descendants. to accept this host of impossibilities exceeds all my faculties of belief. one leads to two, no doubt; the ssingle blow of the predatory wasp will never lead to the blow twice delivered. in order to live, we all require the conditions that enable us to live: this is a truth worthy of the famous axioms of la palice. (jacques de chabannes, seigneur de la palice [circa 1470-1525]), was a french captain killed at the battle of pavia. his soldiers made up in his honour a ballad, two lines of which, translated, run: fifteen minutes before he died, he was still alive. (hence the french expression, une verite de la palice, meaning an obvious truth.--translator's note.) the predatory insects live by their talent. if they do not possess it to perfection, their race is lost. hidden in the murk of the past ages, the argument based upon the non-existence of fossil instinct is no better able than the others to withstand the light of living realities; it crumbles under the stroke of fate; it vanishes before a la palice platitude. chapter 12. the halicti: a parasite. do you know the halicti? perhaps not. there is no great harm done: it is quite possible to enjoy the few sweets of existence without knowing the halicti. nevertheless, when questioned persistently, these humble creatures with no history can tell us some very singular things; and their acquaintance is not to be disdained if we would enlarge our ideas upon the bewildering swarm of this world. since we have nothing better to do, let us look into the halicti. they are worth the trouble. how shall we recognize them? they are manufacturers of honey, generally longer and slighter than the bee of our hives. they constitute a numerous group that varies greatly in size and colouring. some there are that exceed the dimensions of the common wasp; others might be compared with the house-fly, or are even smaller. in the midst of this variety, which is the despair of the novice, one characteristic remains invariable. every halictus carries the clearly-written certificate of her guild. examine the last ring, at the tip of the abdomen, on the dorsal surface. if your capture be an halictus, there will be here a smooth and shiny line, a narrow groove along which the sting slides up and down when the insect is on the defensive. this slide for the unsheathed weapon denotes some member of the halictus tribe, without distinction of size or colour. no elsewhere, in the sting-bearing order, is this original sort of groove in use. it is the distinctive mark, the emblem of the family. three halicti will appear before you in this biographical fragment. two of them are my neighbours, my familiars, who rarely fail to settle each year in the best parts of the enclosure. they occupied the ground before i did; and i should not dream of evicting them, persuaded as i am that they will well repay my indulgence. their proximity, which allows me to visit them daily at my leisure, is a piece of good luck. let us profit by it. at the head of my three subjects is the zebra halictus (h. zebrus, walck.), which is beautifully belted around her long abdomen with alternate black and pale-russet scarves. her slender shape, her size, which equals that of the common wasp, her simple and pretty dress, combine to make her the chief representative of the genus here. she establishes her galleries in firm soil, where there is no danger of landslips which would interfere with the work at nesting-time. in my garden, the well-levelled paths, made of a mixture of tiny pebbles and red clayey earth, suits her to perfection. every spring she takes possession of it, never alone, but in gangs whose number varies greatly, amounting sometimes to as many as a hundred. in this way she founds what may be described as small townships, each clearly marked out and distant from the other, in which the joint possession of the site in no way entails joint work. each has her home, an inviolable manor which none but the owner has the right to enter. a sound buffeting would soon call to order any adventuress who dared to make her way into another's dwelling. no such indiscretion is suffered among the halicti. let each keep to her own place and to herself and perfect peace will reign in this new-formed society, made up of neighbours and not of fellow-workers. operations begin in april, most unobtrusively, the only sign of the underground works being the little mounds of fresh earth. there is no animation in the building-yards. the labourers show themselves very seldom, so busy are they at the bottom of their pits. at moments, here and there, the summit of a tiny mole-hill begins to totter and tumbles down the slopes of the cone: it is a worker coming up with her armful of rubbish and shooting it outside, without showing herself in the open. nothing more for the moment. there is one precaution to be taken: the villages must be protected against the passers-by, who might inadvertently trample them under foot. i surround each of them with a palisade of reed-stumps. in the centre i plant a danger-signal, a post with a paper flag. the sections of the paths thus marked are forbidden ground; none of the household will walk upon them. may arrives, gay with flowers and sunshine. the navvies of april have turned themselves into harvesters. at every moment i see them settling, all befloured with yellow, atop of the mole-hills now turned into craters. let us first look into the question of the house. the arrangement of the home will give us some useful information. a spade and a three-pronged fork place the insect's crypts before our eyes. a shaft as nearly vertical as possible, straight or winding according to the exigencies of a soil rich in flinty remains, descends to a depth of between eight and twelve inches. as it is merely a passage in which the only thing necessary is that the halictus should find an easy support in coming and going, this long entrance-hall is rough and uneven. a regular shape and a polished surface would be out of place here. these artistic refinements are reserved for the apartments of her young. all that the halictus mother asks is that the passage should be easy to go up and down, to ascend or descend in a hurry. and so she leaves it rugged. its width is about that of a thick lead-pencil. arranged one by one, horizontally and at different heights, the cells occupy the basement of the house. they are oval cavities, three-quarters of an inch long, dug out of the clay mass. they end in a short bottle-neck that widens into a graceful mouth. they look like tiny vaccine-phials laid on their sides. all of them open into the passage. the inside of these little cells has the gloss and polish of a stucco which our most experienced plasterers might envy. it is diapered with faint longitudinal, diamond-shaped marks. these are the traces of the polishing-tool that has given the last finish to the work. what can this polisher be? none other than the tongue, that is obvious. the halictus has made a trowel of her tongue and licked the wall daintily and methodically in order to polish it. this final glazing, so exquisite in its perfection, is preceded by a trimming-process. in the cells that are not yet stocked with provisions, the walls are dotted with tiny dents like those in a thimble. here we recognize the work of the mandibles, which squeeze the clay with their tips, compress it and purge it of any grains of sand. the result is a milled surface whereon the polished layer will find a solid adhesive base. this layer is obtained with a fine clay, very carefully selected by the insect, purified, softened and then applied atom by atom, after which the trowel of the tongue steps in, diapering and polishing, while saliva, disgorged as needed, gives pliancy to the paste and finally dries into a waterproof varnish. the humidity of the subsoil, at the time of the spring showers, would reduce the little earthen alcove to a sort of pap. the coating of saliva is an excellent preservative against this danger. it is so delicate that we suspect rather than see it; but its efficacy is none the less evident. i fill a cell with water. the liquid remains in it quite well, without any trace of infiltration. the tiny pitcher looks as if it were varnished with galenite. the impermeability which the potter obtains by the brutal infusion of his mineral ingredients the halictus achieves with the soft polisher of her tongue moistened with saliva. thus protected, the larva will enjoy all the advantages of a dry berth, even in rain-soaked ground. should the wish seize us, it is easy to detach the waterproof film, at least in shreds. take the little shapeless lump in which a cell has been excavated and put it in sufficient water to cover the bottom of it. the whole earthy mass will soon be soaked and reduced to a mud which we are able to sweep with the point of a hair-pencil. let us have patience and do our sweeping gently; and we shall be able to separate from the main body the fragments of a sort of extremely fine satin. this transparent, colourless material is the upholstery that keeps out the wet. the spider's web, if it formed a stuff and not a net, is the only thing that could be compared with it. the halictus' nurseries are, as we see, structures that take much time in the making. the insect first digs in the clayey earth a recess with an oval curve to it. it has its mandibles for a pick-axe and its tarsi, armed with tiny claws, for rakes. rough though it be, this early work presents difficulties, for the bee has to do her excavating in a narrow gully, where there is only just room for her to pass. the rubbish soon becomes cumbersome. the insect collects it and then, moving backwards, with its fore-legs closed over the load, it hoists it up through the shaft and flings it outside, upon the mole-hill, which rises by so much above the threshold of the burrow. next come the dainty finishing-touches: the milling of the wall, the application of a glaze of better-quality clay, the assiduous polishing with the long-suffering tongue, the waterproof coating and the jarlike mouth, a masterpiece of pottery in which the stopping-plug will be fixed when the time comes for locking the door of the room. and all this has to be done with mathematical precision. no, because of this perfection, the grubs' chambers could never be work done casually from day to day, as the ripe eggs descend from the ovaries. they are prepared long beforehand, during the bad weather, at the end of march and in april, when flowers are scarce and the temperature subject to sudden changes. this thankless period, often cold, liable to hail-storms, is spent in making ready the home. alone at the bottom of her shaft, which she rarely leaves, the mother works at her children's apartments, lavishing upon them those finishing-touches which leisure allows. they are completed, or very nearly, when may comes with the radiant sunshine and wealth of flowers. we see the evidence of these long preparations in the burrows themselves, if we inspect them before the provisions are brought. all of them show us cells, about a dozen in number, quite finished, but still empty. to begin by getting all the huts built is a sensible precaution: the mother will not have to turn aside from the delicate task of harvesting and egg-laying in order to perform rough navvy's work. everything is ready by may. the air is balmy; the smiling lawns are gay with a thousand little flowers, dandelions, rock-roses, tansies and daisies, among which the harvesting bee rolls gleefully, covering herself with pollen. with her crop full of honey and the brushes of her legs befloured, the halictus returns to her village. flying very low, almost level with the ground, she hesitates, with sudden turns and bewildered movements. it seems that the weak-sighted insect finds its way with difficulty among the cottages of its little township. which is its mole-hill among the many others near, all similar in appearance? it cannot tell exactly save by the sign-board of certain details known to itself alone. therefore, still on the wing, tacking from side to side, it examines the locality. the home is found at last: the halictus alights on the threshold of her abode and dives into it quickly. what happens at the bottom of the pit must be the same thing that happens in the case of the other wild bees. the harvester enters a cell backwards; she first brushes herself and drops her load of pollen; then, turning round, she disgorges the honey in her crop upon the floury mass. this done, the unwearied one leaves the burrow and flies away, back to the flowers. after many journeys, the stack of provisions in the cell is sufficient. this is the moment to bake the cake. the mother kneads her flour, mingles it sparingly with honey. the mixture is made into a round loaf, the size of a pea. unlike our own loaves, this one has the crust inside and the crumb outside. the middle part of the roll, the ration which will be consumed last, when the grub has acquired some strength, consists of almost nothing but dry pollen. the bee keeps the dainties in her crop for the outside of the loaf, whence the feeble grub-worm is to take its first mouthfuls. here it is all soft crumb, a delicious sandwich with plenty of honey. the little breakfast-roll is arranged in rings regulated according to the age of the nurseling: first the syrupy outside and at the very end the dry inside. thus it is ordained by the economics of the halictus. an egg bent like a bow is laid upon the sphere. according to the generally-accepted rule, it now only remains to close the cabin. honey-gatherers--anthophorae, osmiae, mason-bees and many others--usually first collect a sufficient stock of food and then, having laid the egg, shut up the cell, to which they need pay no more attention. the halicti employ a different method. the compartments, each with its round loaf and its egg--the tenant and his provisions--are not closed up. as they all open into the common passage of the burrow, the mother is able, without leaving her other occupations, to inspect them daily and enquire tenderly into the progress of her family. i imagine, without possessing any certain proof, that from time to time she distributes additional provisions to the grubs, for the original loaf appears to me a very frugal ration compared with that served by the other bees. certain hunting hymenoptera, the bembex-wasps, for instance, are accustomed to furnish the provisions in instalments: so that the grub may have fresh though dead game, they fill the platter each day. the halictus mother has not these domestic necessities, as her provisions keep more easily; but still she might well distribute a second portion of flour to the larvae, when their appetite attains its height. i can see nothing else to explain the open doors of the cells during the feeding-period. at last the grubs, close-watched and fed to repletion, have achieved the requisite degree of fatness; they are on the eve of being transformed into pupae. then and not till then the cells are closed: a big clay stopper is built by the mother into the spreading mouth of the jug. henceforth the maternal cares are over. the rest will come of itself. hitherto we have witnessed only the peaceful details of the housekeeping. let us go back a little and we shall be witnesses of rampant brigandage. in may, i visit my most populous village daily, at about ten o'clock in the morning, when the victualling-operations are in full swing. seated on a low chair in the sun, with my back bent and my arms upon my knees, i watch, without moving, until dinner-time. what attracts me is a parasite, a trumpery gnat, the bold despoiler of the halictus. has the jade a name? i trust so, without, however, caring to waste my time in enquiries that can have no interest for the reader. facts clearly stated are preferable to the dry minutiae of nomenclature. let me content myself with giving a brief description of the culprit. she is a dipteron, or fly, five millimetres long. (.195 inch.--translator's note.) eyes, dark-red; face, white. corselet, pearl-grey, with five rows of fine black dots, which are the roots of stiff bristles pointing backwards. greyish belly, pale below. black legs. she abounds in the colony under observation. crouching in the sun, near a burrow, she waits. as soon as the halictus arrives from her harvesting, her legs yellow with pollen, the gnat darts forth and pursues her, keeping behind her in all the turns of her oscillating flight. at last, the bee suddenly dives indoors. no less suddenly the other settles on the mole-hill, quite close to the entrance. motionless, with her head turned towards the door of the house, she waits for the bee to finish her business. the latter reappears at last and, for a few seconds, stands on the threshold, with her head and thorax outside the hole. the gnat, on her side, does not stir. often, they are face to face, separated by a space no wider than a finger's breadth. neither of them shows the least excitement. the halictus--judging, at least, by her tranquillity--takes no notice of the parasite lying in wait for her; the parasite, on the other hand, displays no fear of being punished for her audacity. she remains imperturbable, she, the dwarf, in the presence of the colossus who could crush her with one blow. in vain i watch anxiously for some sign of apprehension on either side: nothing in the halictus points to a knowledge of the danger run by her family; nor does the gnat betray any dread of swift retribution. plunderer and plundered stare at each other for a moment; and that is all. if she liked, the amiable giantess could rip up with her claw the tiny bandit who ruins her home; she could crunch her with her mandibles, run her through with her stiletto. she does nothing of the sort, but leaves the robber in peace, to sit quite close, motionless, with her red eyes fixed on the threshold of the house. why this fatuous clemency? the bee flies off. forthwith, the gnat walks in, with no more ceremony than if she were entering her own place. she now chooses among the victualled cells at her ease, for they are all open, as i have said; she leisurely deposits her eggs. no one will disturb her until the bee's return. to flour one's legs with pollen, to distend one's crop with syrup is a task that takes long a-doing; and the intruder, therefore, has time and to spare wherein to commit her felony. moreover, her chronometer is well-regulated and gives the exact measure of the bee's length of absence. when the halictus comes back from the fields, the gnat has decamped. in some favourable spot, not far from the burrow, she awaits the opportunity for a fresh misdeed. what would happen if a parasite were surprised at her work by the bee? nothing serious. i see them, greatly daring, follow the halictus right into the cave and remain there for some time while the mixture of pollen and honey is being prepared. unable to make use of the paste so long as the harvester is kneading it, they go back to the open air and wait on the threshold for the bee to come out. they return to the sunlight, calmly, with unhurried steps: a clear proof that nothing untoward has occurred in the depths where the halictus works. a tap on the gnat's neck, if she become too enterprising in the neighbourhood of the cake: that is all that the lady of the house seems to allow herself, to drive away the intruder. there is no serious affray between the robber and the robbed. this is apparent from the self-possessed manner and undamaged condition of the dwarf who returns from visiting the giantess engaged down in the burrow. the bee, when she comes home, whether laden with provisions or not, hesitates, as i have said, for a while; in a series of rapid zigzags, she moves backwards, forwards and from side to side, at a short distance from the ground. this intricate flight at first suggests the idea that she is trying to lead her persecutress astray by means of an inextricable tangle of marches and countermarches. that would certainly be a prudent move on the bee's part; but so much wisdom appears to be denied her. it is not the enemy that is disturbing her, but rather the difficulty of finding her own house amid the confusion of the mole-hills, encroaching one upon the other, and all the alleys of the little township, which, owing to landslips of fresh rubbish, alter in appearance from one day to the next. her hesitation is manifest, for she often blunders and alights at the entrance to a burrow that is not hers. the mistake is at once perceived from the slight indications of the doorway. the search is resumed with the same see-sawing flights, mingled with sudden excursions to a distance. at last, the burrow is recognized. the halictus dives into it with a rush; but, however prompt her disappearance underground, the gnat is there, perched on the threshold with her eyes turned to the entrance, waiting for the bee to come out, so that she may visit the honey-jars in her turn. when the owner of the house ascends, the other draws back a little, just enough to leave a free passage and no more. why should she put herself out? the meeting is so peaceful that, short of further information, one would not suspect that a destroyer and destroyed were face to face. far from being intimidated by the sudden arrival of the halictus, the gnat pays hardly any attention; and, in the same way, the halictus takes no notice of her persecutress, unless the bandit pursue her and worry her on the wing. then, with a sudden bend, the bee makes off. even so do philanthus apivorus (the bee-hunting wasp. cf. "social life in the insect world": chapter 13.--translator's note.) and the other game-hunters behave when the tachina is at their heels seeking the chance to lay her egg on the morsel about to be stored away. without jostling the parasite which they find hanging around the burrow, they go indoors quite peaceably; but, on the wing, perceiving her after them, they dart off wildly. the tachina, however, dares not go down to the cells where the huntress stacks her provisions; she prudently waits at the door for the philanthus to arrive. the crime, the laying of the egg, is committed at the very moment when the victim is about to vanish underground. the troubles of the parasite of the halictus are of quite another kind. the homing bee has her honey in her crop and her pollen on her leg-brushes: the first is inaccessible to the thief; the second is powdery and would give no resting-place to the egg. besides, there is not enough of it yet: to collect the wherewithal for that round loaf of hers, the bee will have to make repeated journeys. when the necessary amount is obtained, she will knead it with the tip of her mandibles and shape it with her feet into a little ball. the gnat's egg, were it present among the materials, would certainly be in danger during this manipulation. the alien egg, therefore, must be laid on the finished bread; and, as the preparation takes place underground, the parasite is needs obliged to go down to the halictus. with inconceivable daring, she does go down, even when the bee is there. whether through cowardice or silly indulgence, the dispossessed insect lets the other have its way. the object of the gnat, with her tenacious lying-in-wait and her reckless burglaries, is not to feed herself at the harvester's expense: she could get her living out of the flowers with much less trouble than her thieving trade involves. the most, i think, that she can allow herself to do in the halictus' cellars is to take one morsel just to ascertain the quality of the victuals. her great, her sole business is to settle her family. the stolen goods are not for herself, but for her offspring. let us dig up the pollen-loaves. we shall find them most often crumbled with no regard to economy, simply frittered away. we shall see two or three maggots, with pointed mouths, moving in the yellow flour scattered over the floor of the cell. these are the gnat's progeny. with them we sometimes find the lawful owner, the grub-worm of the halictus, but stunted and emaciated with fasting. his gluttonous companions, without otherwise molesting him, deprive him of the best of everything. the wretched starveling dwindles, shrivels up and soon disappears from view. his corpse, a mere atom, blended with the remaining provisions, supplies the maggots with one mouthful the more. and what does the halictus mother do in this disaster? she is free to visit her grubs at any moment; she has but to put her head into the passage of the house: she cannot fail to be apprised of their distress. the squandered loaf, the swarming mass of vermin tell their own tale. why does she not take the intruders by the skin of the abdomen? to grind them to powder with her mandibles, to fling them out of doors were the business of a second. and the foolish creature never thinks of it, leaves the ravagers in peace! she does worse. when the time of the nymphosis comes, the halictus mother goes to the cells rifled by the parasite and closes them with an earthen plug as carefully as she does the rest. this final barricade, an excellent precaution when the cot is occupied by an halictus in course of metamorphosis, becomes the height of absurdity when the gnat has passed that way. instinct does not hesitate in the face of this ineptitude: it seals up emptiness. i say, emptiness, because the crafty maggot hastens to decamp the instant that the victuals are consumed, as though it foresaw an insuperable obstacle for the coming fly: it quits the cell before the bee closes it. to rascally guile the parasite adds prudence. all, until there is none of them left, abandon the clay homes which would be their undoing once the entrance was plugged up. the earthen niche, so grateful to the tender skin, thanks to its polished coating, so free from humidity, thanks to its waterproof glaze, ought, one would think, to make an excellent waiting-place. the maggots will have none of it. lest they should find themselves walled in when they become frail gnats, they go away and disperse in the neighbourhood of the ascending shaft. my digging operations, in fact, always reveal the pupae outside the cells, never inside. i find them enshrined, one by one, in the body of the clayey earth, in a narrow recess which the emigrant worm has contrived to make for itself. next spring, when the hour comes for leaving, the adult insect has but to creep through the rubbish, which is easy work. another and no less imperative reason compels this change of abode on the parasite's part. in july, a second generation of the halictus is procreated. the gnat, reduced on her side to a single brood, remains in the pupa state and awaits the spring of the following year before effecting her transformation. the honey-gather resumes her work in her native village; she avails herself of the pits and cells constructed in the spring, saving no little time thereby. the whole elaborate structure has remained in good condition. it needs but a few repairs to make the old house habitable. now what would happen if the bee, so scrupulous in matters of cleanliness, were to find a pupa in the cell which she is sweeping? she would treat the cumbersome object as she would a piece of old plaster. it would be no more to her than any other refuse, a bit of gravel, which, seized with the mandibles, crushed perhaps, would be sent to join the rubbish-heap outside. once removed from the soil and exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, the pupa would inevitably perish. i admire this intelligent foresight of the maggot, which forgoes the comfort of the moment for the security of the future. two dangers threaten it: to be immured in a casket whence the fly can never issue; or else to die out of doors, in the unkindly air, when the bee sweeps out the restored cells. to avoid this twofold peril, it decamps before the door is closed, before the july halictus sets her house in order. let us now see what comes of the parasite's intrusion. in the course of june, when peace is established in the halictus' home, i dig up my largest village, comprising some fifty burrows in all. none of the sorrows of this underworld shall escape me. there are four of us engaged in sifting the excavated earth through our fingers. what one has examined another takes up and examines; and then another and another yet. the returns are heartrending. we do not succeed in finding one single nymph of the halictus. the whole of the populous city has perished; and its place has been taken by the gnat. there is a glut of that individual's pupae. i collect them in order to trace their evolution. the year runs its course; and the little russet kegs, into which the original maggots have hardened and contracted, remain stationary. they are seeds endowed with latent life. the heats of july do not rouse them from their torpor. in that month, the period of the second generation of the halictus, there is a sort of truce of god: the parasite rests and the bee works in peace. if hostilities were to be resumed straight away, as murderous in summer as they were in spring, the progeny of the halictus, too cruelly smitten, might possibly disappear altogether. this lull readjusts the balance. in april, when the zebra halictus, in search of a good place for her burrows, roams up and down the garden paths with her oscillating flight, the parasite, on its side, hastens to hatch. oh, the precise and terrible agreement between those two calendars, the calendar of the persecutor and the persecuted! at the very moment when the bee comes out, here is the gnat: she is ready to begin her deadly starving-process all over again. were this an isolated case, one's mind would not dwell upon it: an halictus more or less in the world makes little difference in the general balance. but, alas, brigandage in all its forms is the rule in the eternal conflict of living things! from the lowest to the highest, every producer is exploited by the unproductive. man himself, whose exceptional rank ought to raise him above such baseness, excels in this ravening lust. he says to himself that business means getting hold of other people's cash, even as the gnat says to herself that business means getting hold of the halictus' honey. and, to play the brigand to better purpose, he invents war, the art of killing wholesale and of doing with glory that which, when done on a smaller scale, leads to the gallows. shall we never behold the realization of that sublime vision which is sung on sundays in the smallest village-church: gloria in excelsis deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis! if war affected humanity alone, perhaps the future would have peace in store for us, seeing that generous minds are working for it with might and main; but the scourge also rages among the lower animals, which in their obstinate way, will never listen to reason. once the evil is laid down as a general condition, it perhaps becomes incurable. life in the future, it is to be feared, will be what it is to-day, a perpetual massacre. whereupon, by a desperate effort of the imagination, one pictures to oneself a giant capable of juggling with the planets. he is irresistible strength; he is also law and justice. he knows of our battles, our butcheries, our farm-burnings, our town-burnings, our brutal triumphs; he knows our explosives, our shells, our torpedo-boats, our ironclads and all our cunning engines of destruction; he knows as well the appalling extent of the appetites among all creatures, down to the very lowest. well, if that just and mighty one held the earth under his thumb, would he hesitate whether he ought to crush it? he would not hesitate...he would let things take their course. he would say to himself: 'the old belief is right; the earth is a rotten apple, gnawed by the vermin of evil. it is a first crude attempt, a step towards a kindlier destiny. let it be: order and justice are waiting at the end.' chapter 13. the halicti: the portress. leaving our village is no very serious matter when we are children. we even look on it as a sort of holiday. we are going to see something new, those magic pictures of our dreams. with age come regrets; and the close of life is spent in stirring up old memories. then the beloved village reappears, in the biograph of the mind, embellished, transfigured by the glow of those first impressions; and the mental image, superior to the reality, stands out in amazingly clear relief. the past, the far-off past, was only yesterday; we see it, we touch it. for my part, after three-quarters of a century, i could walk with my eyes closed straight to the flat stone where i first heard the soft chiming note of the midwife toad; yes, i should find it to a certainty, if time, which devastates all things, even the homes of toads, has not moved it or perhaps left it in ruins. i see, on the margin of the brook, the exact position of the alder-trees whose tangled roots, deep under the water, were a refuge for the crayfish. i should say: 'it is just at the foot of that tree that i had the unutterable bliss of catching a beauty. she had horns so long...and enormous claws, full of meat, for i got her just at the right time.' i should go without faltering to the ash under whose shade my heart beat so loudly one sunny spring morning. i had caught sight of a sort of white, cottony ball among the branches. peeping from the depths of the wadding was an anxious little head with a red hood to it. o what unparalleled luck! it was a goldfinch, sitting on her eggs. compared with a find like this, lesser events do not count. let us leave them. in any case, they pale before the memory of the paternal garden, a tiny hanging garden of some thirty paces by ten, situated right at the top of the village. the only spot that overlooks it is a little esplanade on which stands the old castle (the chateau de saint-leons standing just outside and above the village of saint-leons, where the author was born in 1823. cf. "the life of the fly": chapters 6 and 7.--translator's note.) with the four turrets that have now become dovecotes. a steep path takes you up to this open space. from my house on, it is more like a precipice than a slope. gardens buttressed by walls are staged in terraces on the sides of the funnel-shaped valley. ours is the highest; it is also the smallest. there are no trees. even a solitary apple-tree would crowd it. there is a patch of cabbages, with a border of sorrel, a patch of turnips and another of lettuces. that is all we have in the way of garden-stuff; there is no room for more. against the upper supporting-wall, facing due south, is a vine-arbour which, at intervals, when the sun is generous, provides half a basketful of white muscatel grapes. these are a luxury of our own, greatly envied by the neighbours, for the vine is unknown outside this corner, the warmest in the village. a hedge of currant-bushes, the only safeguard against a terrible fall, forms a parapet above the next terrace. when our parents' watchful eyes are off us, we lie flat on our stomachs, my brother and i, and look into the abyss at the foot of the wall bulging under the thrust of the land. it is the garden of monsieur le notaire. there are beds with box-borders in that garden; there are pear-trees reputed to give pears, real pears, more or less good to eat when they have ripened on the straw all through the late autumn. in our imagination, it is a spot of perpetual delight, a paradise, but a paradise seen the wrong way up: instead of contemplating it from below, we gaze at it from above. how happy they must be with so much space and all those pears! we look at the hives, around which the hovering bees make a sort of russet smoke. they stand under the shelter of a great hazel. the tree has sprung up all of itself in a fissure of the wall, almost on the level of our currant-bushes. while it spreads its mighty branches over the notary's hives, its roots, at least, are on our land. it belongs to us. the trouble is to gather the nuts. i creep along astride the strong branches projecting horizontally into space. if i slip or if the support breaks, i shall come to grief in the midst of the angry bees. i do not slip and the support does not break. with the bent switch which my brother hands me, i bring the finest clusters within my reach. i soon fill my pockets. moving backwards, still straddling my branch, i recover terra firma. o wondrous days of litheness and assurance, when, for a few filberts, on a perilous perch we braved the abyss! enough. these reminiscences, so dear to my dreams, do not interest the reader. why stir up more of them? i am content to have brought this fact into prominence: the first glimmers of light penetrating into the dark chambers of the mind leave an indelible impression, which the years make fresher instead of dimmer. obscured by everyday worries, the present is much less familiar to us, in its petty details, than the past, with childhood's glow upon it. i see plainly in my memory what my prentice eyes saw; and i should never succeed in reproducing with the same accuracy what i saw last week. i know my village thoroughly, though i quitted it so long ago; and i know hardly anything of the towns to which the vicissitudes of life have brought me. an exquisitely sweet link binds us to our native soil; we are like the plant that has to be torn away from the spot where it put out its first roots. poor though it be, i should love to see my own village again; i should like to leave my bones there. does the insect in its turn receive a lasting impression of its earliest visions? has it pleasant memories of its first surroundings? we will not speak of the majority, a world of wandering gipsies who establish themselves anywhere provided that certain conditions be fulfilled; but the others, the settlers, living in groups: do they recall their native village? have they, like ourselves, a special affection for the place which saw their birth? yes, indeed they have: they remember, they recognize the maternal abode, they come back to it, they restore it, they colonize it anew. among many other instances, let us quote that of the zebra halictus. she will show us a splendid example of love for one's birthplace translating itself into deeds. the halictus' spring family acquire the adult form in a couple of months or so; they leave the cells about the end of june. what goes on inside these neophytes as they cross the threshold of the burrow for the first time? something, apparently, that may be compared with our own impressions of childhood. an exact and indelible image is stamped on their virgin memories. despite the years, i still see the stone whence came the resonant notes of the little toads, the parapet of currant-bushes, the notary's garden of eden. these trifles make the best part of my life. the halictus sees in the same way the blade of grass whereon she rested in her first flight, the bit of gravel which her claw touched in her first climb to the top of the shaft. she knows her native abode by heart just as i know my village. the locality has become familiar to her in one glad, sunny morning. she flies off, seeks refreshment on the flowers near at hand and visits the fields where the coming harvests will be gathered. the distance does not lead her astray, so faithful are her impressions of her first trip; she finds the encampment of her tribe; among the burrows of the village, so numerous and so closely resembling one another, she knows her own. it is the house where she was born, the beloved house with its unforgettable memories. but, on returning home, the halictus is not the only mistress of the house. the dwelling dug by the solitary bee in early spring remains, when summer comes, the joint inheritance of the members of the family. there are ten cells, or thereabouts, underground. now from these cells there have issued none but females. this is the rule among the three species of halicti that concern us now and probably also among many others, if not all. they have two generations in each year. the spring one consists of females only; the summer one comprises both males and females, in almost equal numbers. we shall return to this curious subject in our next chapter. the household, therefore, if not reduced by accidents, above all if not starved by the usurping gnat, would consist of half-a-score of sisters, none but sisters, all equally industrious and all capable of procreating without a nuptial partner. on the other hand, the maternal dwelling is no hovel; far from it: the entrance-gallery, the principal room of the house, will serve quite well, after a few odds and ends of refuse have been swept away. this will be so much gained in time, ever precious to the bee. the cells at the bottom, the clay cabins, are also nearly intact. to make use of them, it will be enough for the halictus to polish up the stucco with her tongue. well, which of the survivors, all equally entitled to the succession, will inherit the house? there are six of them, seven, or more, according to the chances of mortality. to whose share will the maternal dwelling fall? there is no quarrel between the interested parties. the mansion is recognized as common property without dispute. the sisters come and go peacefully through the same door, attend to their business, pass and let the others pass. down at the bottom of the pit, each has her little demesne, her group of cells dug at the cost of fresh toil, when the old ones, now insufficient in number, are occupied. in these recesses, which are private estates, each mother works by herself, jealous of her property and of her privacy. every elsewhere, traffic is free to all. the exits and entrances in the working fortress provide a spectacle of the highest interest. a harvester arrives from the fields, the feather-brushes of her legs powdered with pollen. if the door be open, the bee at once dives underground. to tarry on the threshold would mean waste of time; and the business is urgent. sometimes, several appear upon the scene at almost the same moment. the passage is too narrow for two, especially when they have to avoid any untimely contact that would make the floury burden fall to the floor. the nearest to the opening enters quickly. the others, drawn up on the threshold in order of their arrival, respectful of one another's rights, await their turn. as soon as the first disappears, the second follows after her and is herself swiftly followed by the third and then the others, one by one. sometimes, again, there is a meeting between a bee about to come out and a bee about to go in. then the latter draws back a little and makes way for the former. the politeness is reciprocal. i see some who, when on the point of emerging from the pit, go down again and leave the passage free for the one who has just arrived. thanks to this mutual spirit of accommodation, the business of the house proceeds without impediment. let us keep our eyes open. there is something better than the well-preserved order of the entrances. when an halictus appears, returning from her round of the flowers, we see a sort of trap-door, which closed the house, suddenly fall and give a free passage. as soon as the new arrival has entered, the trap rises back into its place, almost level with the ground, and closes the entrance anew. the same thing happens when the insects go out. at a request from within, the trap descends, the door opens and the bee flies away. the outlet is closed forthwith. what can this valve be which, descending or ascending in the cylinder of the pit, after the fashion of a piston, opens and closes the house at each departure and at each arrival? it is an halictus, who has become the portress of the establishment. with her large head, she makes an impassable barrier at the top of the entrance-hall. if any one belonging to the house wants to go in or out, she 'pulls the cord,' that is to say, she withdraws to a spot where the gallery becomes wider and leaves room for two. the other passes. she then at once returns to the orifice and blocks it with the top of her head. motionless, ever on the look-out, she does not leave her post save to drive away importunate visitors. let us profit by her brief appearances outside to take a look at her. we recognize in her an halictus similar to the others, which are now busy harvesting; but the top of her head is bald and her dress is dingy and thread-bare. all the nap is gone; and one can hardly make out the handsome stripes of red and brown which she used to have. these tattered, work-worn garments make things clear to us. this bee who mounts guard and performs the office of a portress at the entrance to the burrow is older than the others. she is the foundress of the establishment, the mother of the actual workers, the grandmother of the present grubs. in the springtime of her life, three months ago, she wore herself out in solitary labours. now that her ovaries are dried up, she takes a well-earned rest. no, rest is hardly the word. she still works, she assists the household to the best of her power. incapable of being a mother for a second time, she becomes a portress, opens the door to the members of her family and makes strangers keep their distance. the suspicious kid (in la fontaine's fable, "le loup, la chevre et le chevreau."--translator's note.), looking through the chink, said to the wolf: 'show me a white foot, or i shan't open the door.' no less suspicious, the grandmother says to each comer: 'show me the yellow foot of an halictus, or you won't be let in.' none is admitted to the dwelling unless she be recognized as a member of the family. see for yourselves. near the burrow passes an ant, an unscrupulous adventuress, who would not be sorry to know the meaning of the honeyed fragrance that rises from the bottom of the cellar. "be off, or you'll catch it!' says the portress, wagging her neck. as a rule the threat suffices. the ant decamps. should she insist, the watcher leaves her sentry-box, flings herself upon the saucy jade, buffets her and drives her away. the moment the punishment has been administered, she returns to her post. next comes the turn of a leaf-cutter (megachile albocincta, perez), which, unskilled in the art of burrowing, utilizes, after the manner of her kin, the old galleries dug by others. those of the zebra halictus suit her very well, when the terrible gnat has left them vacant for lack of heirs. seeking for a home wherein to stack her robinia-leaf honey-pots, she often makes a flying inspection of my colonies of halicti. a burrow seems to take her fancy; but, before she sets foot on earth, her buzzing is noticed by the sentry, who suddenly darts out and makes a few gestures on the threshold of her door. that is all. the leaf-cutter has understood. she moves on. sometimes, the megachile has time to alight and insert her head into the mouth of the pit. in a moment, the portress is there, comes a little higher and bars the way. follows a not very serious contest. the stranger quickly recognizes the rights of the first occupant and, without insisting, goes to seek an abode elsewhere. an accomplished marauder (caelioxys caudata, spin.), a parasite of the megachile, receives a sound drubbing under my eyes. she thought, the feather-brain, that she was entering the leaf-cutter's establishment! she soon finds out her mistake; she meets the door-keeping halictus, who administers a sharp correction. she makes off at full speed. and so with the others which, through inadvertence or ambition, seek to enter the burrow. the same intolerance exists among the different grandmothers. about the middle of july, when the animation of the colony is at its height, two sets of halicti are easily distinguishable: the young mothers and the old. the former, much more numerous, brisk of movement and smartly arrayed, come and go unceasingly from the burrows to the fields and from the fields to the burrows. the latter, faded and dispirited, wander idly from hole to hole. they look as though they had lost their way and were incapable of finding their homes. who are these vagabonds? i see in them afflicted ones bereft of a family through the act of the odious gnat. many burrows have been altogether exterminated. at the awakening of summer, the mother found herself alone. she left her empty house and went off in search of a dwelling where there were cradles to defend, a guard to mount. but those fortunate nests already have their overseer, the foundress, who, jealous of her rights, gives her unemployed neighbour a cold reception. one sentry is enough; two would merely block the narrow guard-room. i am privileged at times to witness a fight between two grandmothers. when the tramp in quest of employment appears outside the door, the lawful occupant does not move from her post, does not withdraw into the passage, as she would before an halictus returning from the fields. far from making way, she threatens the intruder with her feet and mandibles. the other retaliates and tries to force her way in notwithstanding. blows are exchanged. the fray ends by the defeat of the stranger, who goes off to pick a quarrel elsewhere. these little scenes afford us a glimpse of certain details of the highest interest in the habits of the zebra halictus. the mother who builds her nest in the spring no longer leaves her home, once her works are finished. shut up at the bottom of the burrow, busied with the thousand cares of housekeeping, or else drowsing, she waits for her daughters to come out. when, in the summer heats, the life of the village recommences, having nought to do outside as a harvester, she stands sentry at the entrance to the hall, so as to let none in save the workers of the home, her own daughters. she wards off evilly-disposed visitors. none can enter without the door-keeper's consent. there is nothing to tell us that the watcher ever deserts her post. not once do i see her leave her house to go and seek some refreshment from the flowers. her age and her sedentary occupation, which involves no great fatigue, perhaps relieve her of the need of nourishment. perhaps, also, the young ones returning from their plundering may from time to time disgorge a drop of the contents of their crops for her benefit. fed or unfed, the old one no longer goes out. but what she does need is the joys of an active family. many are deprived of these. the gnat's burglary has destroyed the busy household. the sorely-tried bees abandon the deserted burrow. it is they who, ragged and careworn, wander through the village. when they move, their flight is only a short one; more often they remain motionless. it is they who, soured in their tempers, attack their fellows and seek to dislodge them. they grow rarer and more languid from day to day; then they disappear for good. what has become of them? the little grey lizard had his eye on them: they are easily snapped up. those settled in their own demesne, those who guard the honey-factory wherein their daughters, the heiresses of the maternal establishment, are at work, display wonderful vigilance. the more i see of them, the more i admire them. in the cool hours of the early morning, when the pollen-flour is not sufficiently ripened by the sun and while the harvesters are still indoors, i see them at their posts, at the top of the gallery. here, motionless, their heads flush with the earth, they bar the door to all invaders. if i look at them closely, they retreat a little and, in the shadow, await the indiscreet observer's departure. i return when the harvesting is in full swing, between eight o'clock and twelve. there is now, as the halicti go in or out, a succession of prompt withdrawals to open the door and of ascents to close it. the portress is in the full exercise of her functions. in the afternoon, the heat is too great and the workers do not go to the fields. retiring to the bottom of the house, they varnish the new cells, they make the round loaf that is to receive the egg. the grandmother is still upstairs, stopping the door with her bald head. for her, there is no siesta during the stifling hours: the safety of the household requires her to forgo it. i come back again at nightfall, or even later. by the light of a lantern, i again behold the overseer, as zealous and assiduous as in the day-time. the others are resting, but not she, for fear, apparently, of nocturnal dangers known to herself alone. does she nevertheless end by descending to the quiet of the floor below? it seems probable, so essential must rest be, after the fatigue of such a vigil! it is evident that, guarded in this manner, the burrow is exempt from calamities similar to those which, too often, depopulate it in may. let the gnat come now, if she dare, to steal the halictus' loaves! let her lie in wait as long as she will! neither her audacity nor her slyness will make her escape the lynx eyes of the sentinel, who will put her to flight with a threatening gesture or, if she persist, crush her with her nippers. she will not come; and we know the reason: until spring returns, she is underground in the pupa state. but, in her absence, there is no lack, among the fly rabble, of other batteners on the toil of their fellow insects. whatever the job, whatever the plunder, you will find parasites there. and yet, for all my daily visits, i never catch one of these in the neighbourhood of the summer burrows. how cleverly the rascals ply their trade! how well aware are they of the guard who keeps watch at the halictus' door! there is no foul deed possible nowadays; and the result is that no fly puts in an appearance and the tribulations of last spring are not repeated. the grandmother who, dispensed by age from maternal bothers, mounts guard at the entrance of the home and watches over the safety of the family, tells us that in the genesis of the instincts sudden births occur; she shows us the existence of a spontaneous aptitude which nothing, either in her own past conduct or in the actions of her daughters, could have led us to suspect. timorous in her prime, in the month of may, when she lived alone in the burrow of her making, she has become gifted, in her decline, with a superb contempt of danger and dares in her impotence what she never dared do in her strength. formerly, when her tyrant, the gnat, entered the house in her presence, or, more often, stood face to face with her at the entrance, the silly bee did not stir, did not even threaten the red-eyed bandit, the dwarf whose doom she could so easily have sealed. was it terror on her part? no, for she attended to her duties with her usual punctiliousness; no, for the strong do not allow themselves to be thus paralysed by the weak. it was ignorance of the danger, it was sheer fecklessness. and behold, to-day, the ignoramus of three months ago knows the peril, knows it well, without serving any apprenticeship. every stranger who appears is kept at a distance, without distinction of size or race. if the threatening gesture be not enough, the keeper sallies forth and flings herself upon the persistent one. cowardice has developed into courage. how has this change been brought about? i should like to picture the halictus gaining wisdom from the misfortunes of the spring and capable thenceforth of looking out for danger; i would gladly credit her with having learnt in the stern school of experience the advantages of a patrol. i must give up the idea. if, by dint of gradual little acts of progress, the bee has achieved the glorious invention of a janitress, how comes it that the fear of thieves is intermittent? it is true that, being by herself in may, she cannot stand permanently at her door: the business of the house takes precedence of everything else. but she ought, at any rate as soon as her offspring are victimized, to know the parasite and give chase when, at every moment, she finds her almost under her feet and even in her house. yet she pays no attention to her. the bitter experience of her ancestors, therefore, has bequeathed nothing to her of a nature to alter her placid character; nor have her own tribulations aught to do with the sudden awakening of her vigilance in july. like ourselves, animals have their joys and their sorrows. they eagerly make the most of the former; they fret but little about the latter, which, when all is said, is the best way of achieving a purely animal enjoyment of life. to mitigate these troubles and protect the progeny there is the inspiration of instinct, which is able without the counsels of experience to give the halicti a portress. when the victualling is finished, when the halicti no longer sally forth on harvesting intent nor return all befloured with their spoils, the old bee is still at her post, vigilant as ever. the final preparations for the brood are made below; the cells are closed. the door will be kept until everything is finished. then grandmother and mothers leave the house. exhausted by the performance of their duty, they go, somewhere or other, to die. in september appears the second generation, comprising both males and females. i find both sexes wassailing on the flowers, especially the compositae, the centauries and thistles. they are not harvesting now: they are refreshing themselves, holding high holiday, teasing one another. it is the wedding-time. yet another fortnight and the males will disappear, henceforth useless. the part of the idlers is played. only the industrious ones remain, the impregnated females, who go through the winter and set to work in april. i do not know their exact haunt during the inclement season. i expected them to return to their native burrow, an excellent dwelling for the winter, one would think. excavations made in january showed me my mistake. the old homes are empty, are falling to pieces owing to the prolonged effect of the rains. the zebra halictus has something better than these muddy hovels: she has snug corners in the stone-heaps, hiding-places in the sunny walls and many other convenient habitations. and so the natives of a village become scattered far and wide. in april, the scattered ones reassemble from all directions. on the well-flattened garden-paths a choice is made of the site for their common labours. operations soon begin. close to the first who bores her shaft there is soon a second one busy with hers; a third arrives, followed by another and others yet, until the little mounds often touch one another, while at times they number as many as fifty on a surface of less than a square yard. one would be inclined, at first sight, to say that these groups are accounted for by the insect's recollection of its birthplace, by the fact that the villagers, after dispersing during the winter, return to their hamlet. but it is not thus that things happen: the halictus scorns to-day the place that once suited her. i never see her occupy the same patch of ground for two years in succession. each spring she needs new quarters. and there are plenty of them. can this mustering of the halicti be due to a wish to resume the old intercourse with their friends and relations? do the natives of the same burrow, of the same hamlet, recognize one another? are they inclined to do their work among themselves rather than in the company of strangers? there is nothing to prove it, nor is there anything to disprove it. either for this reason or for others, the halictus likes to keep with her neighbours. this propensity is pretty frequent among peace-lovers, who, needing little nourishment, have no cause to fear competition. the others, the big eaters, take possession of estates, of hunting-grounds from which their fellows are excluded. ask a wolf his opinion of a brother wolf poaching on his preserves. man himself, the chief of consumers, makes for himself frontiers armed with artillery; he sets up posts at the foot of which one says to the other: 'here's my side, there's yours. that's enough: now we'll pepper each other.' and the rattle of the latest explosives ends the colloquy. happy are the peace-lovers. what do they gain by their mustering? with them it is not a defensive system, a concerted effort to ward off the common foe. the halictus does not care about her neighbour's affairs. she does not visit another's burrow; she does not allow others to visit hers. she has her tribulations, which she endures alone; she is indifferent to the tribulations of her kind. she stands aloof from the strife of her fellows. let each mind her own business and leave things at that. but company has its attractions. he lives twice who watches the life of others. individual activity gains by the sight of the general activity; the animation of each one derives fresh warmth from the fire of the universal animation. to see one's neighbours at work stimulates one's rivalry. and work is the great delight, the real satisfaction that gives some value to life. the halictus knows this well and assembles in her numbers that she may work all the better. sometimes she assembles in such multitudes and over such extents of ground as to suggest our own colossal swarms. babylon and memphis, rome and carthage, london and paris, those frantic hives, occur to our mind if we can manage to forget comparative dimensions and see a cyclopean pile in a pinch of earth. it was in february. the almond-tree was in blossom. a sudden rush of sap had given the tree new life; its boughs, all black and desolate, seemingly dead, were becoming a glorious dome of snowy satin. i have always loved this magic of the awakening spring, this smile of the first flowers against the gloomy bareness of the bark. and so i was walking across the fields, gazing at the almond-trees' carnival. others were before me. an osmia in a black velvet bodice and a red woollen skirt, the horned osmia, was visiting the flowers, dipping into each pink eye in search of a honeyed tear. a very small and very modestly-dressed halictus, much busier and in far greater numbers, was flitting silently from blossom to blossom. official science calls her halictus malachurus, k. the pretty little bee's godfather strikes me as ill-inspired. what has malachurus, calling attention to the softness of the rump, to do in this connection? the name of early halictus would better describe the almond-tree's little visitor. none of the melliferous clan, in my neighbourhood at least, is stirring as early as she is. she digs her burrows in february, an inclement month, subject to sudden returns of frost. when none as yet, even among her near kinswomen, dares to sally forth from winter-quarters, she pluckily goes to work, shine the sun ever so little. like the zebra halictus, she has two generations a year, one in spring and one in summer; like her, too, she settles by preference in the hard ruts of the country roads. her mole-hills, those humble mounds any two of which would go easily into a hen's egg, rise innumerous in my path, the path by the almond-trees which is the happy hunting-ground of my curiosity to-day. this path is a ribbon of road three paces wide, worn into ruts by the mule's hoofs and the wheels of the farm-carts. a coppice of holm-oaks shelters it from the north wind. in this eden with its well-caked soil, its warmth and quiet, the little halictus has multiplied her mole-hills to such a degree that i cannot take a step without crushing some of them. the accident is not serious: the miner, safe underground, will be able to scramble up the crumbling sides of the mine and repair the threshold of the trampled home. i make a point of measuring the density of the population. i count from forty to sixty mole-hills on a surface of one square yard. the encampment is three paces wide and stretches over nearly three-quarters of a mile. how many halicti are there in this babylon? i do not venture to make the calculation. speaking of the zebra halictus, i used the words hamlet, village, township; and the expressions were appropriate. here the term city hardly meets the case. and what reason can we allege for these innumerable clusters? i can see but one: the charm of living together, which is the origin of society. like mingles with like, without the rendering of any mutual service; and this is enough to summon the early halictus to the same way-side, even as the herring and the sardine assemble in the same waters. chapter 14. the halicti: parthenogenesis. the halictus opens up another question, connected with one of life's obscurest problems. let us go back five-and-twenty years. i am living at orange. my house stands alone among the fields. on the other side of the wall enclosing our yard, which faces due south, is a narrow path overgrown with couch-grass. the sun beats full upon it; and the glare reflected from the whitewash of the wall turns it into a little tropical corner, shut off from the rude gusts of the north-west wind. here the cats come to take their afternoon nap, with their eyes half-closed; here the children come, with bull, the house-dog; here also come the haymakers, at the hottest time of the day, to sit and take their meal and whet their scythes in the shade of the plane-tree; here the women pass up and down with their rakes, after the hay-harvest, to glean what they can on the niggardly carpet of the shorn meadow. it is therefore a very much frequented footpath, were it only because of the coming and going of our household: a thoroughfare ill-suited, one would think, to the peaceful operations of a bee; and nevertheless it is such a very warm and sheltered spot and the soil is so favourable that every year i see the cylindrical halictus (h. cylindricus, fab.) hand down the site from one generation to the next. it is true that the very matutinal, even partly nocturnal character of the work makes the insect suffer less inconvenience from the traffic. the burrows cover an extent of some ten square yards, and their mounds, which often come near enough to touch, average a distance of four inches at the most from one another. their number is therefore something like a thousand. the ground just here is very rough, consisting of stones and dust mixed with a little mould and held together by the closely interwoven roots of the couch-grass. but, owing to its nature, it is thoroughly well drained, a condition always in request among bees and wasps that have underground cells. let us forget for a moment what the zebra halictus and the early halictus have taught us. at the risk of repeating myself a little, i will relate what i observed during my first investigations. the cylindrical halictus works in may. except among the social species, such as common wasps, bumble-bees, ants and hive-bees, it is the rule for each insect that victuals its nests either with honey or game to work by itself at constructing the home of its grubs. among insects of the same species there is often neighbourship; but their labours are individual and not the result of co-operation. for instance, the cricket-hunters, the yellow-winged sphex, settle in gangs at the foot of a sandstone cliff, but each digs her own burrow and would not suffer a neighbour to come and help in piercing the home. in the case of the anthophorae, an innumerable swarm takes possession of a sun-scorched crag, each bee digging her own gallery and jealously excluding any of her fellows who might venture to come to the entrance of her hole. the three-pronged osmia, when boring the bramble-stalk tunnel in which her cells are to be stacked, gives a warm reception to any osmia that dares set foot upon her property. let one of the odyneri who make their homes in a road-side bank mistake the door and enter her neighbour's house: she would have a bad time of it! let a megachile, returning with her leafy disk in her legs, go into the wrong basement: she would be very soon dislodged! so with the others: each has her own home, which none of the others has the right to enter. this is the rule, even among bees and wasps established in a populous colony on a common site. close neighbourhood implies no sort of intimate relationship. great therefore is my surprise as i watch the cylindrical halictus' operations. she forms no society, in the entomological sense of the word: there is no common family; and the general interest does not engross the attention of the individual. each mother occupies herself only with her own eggs, builds cells and gathers honey only for her own larvae, without concerning herself in any way with the upbringing of the others' grubs. all that they have in common is the entrance-door and the goods-passage, which ramifies in the ground and leads to different groups of cells, each the property of one mother. even so, in the blocks of flats in our large towns, one door, one hall and one staircase lead to different floors or different portions of a floor where each family retains its isolation and its independence. this common right of way is extremely easy to perceive at the time for victualling the nests. let us direct our attention for a while to the same entrance-aperture, opening at the top of a little mound of earth freshly thrown up, like that accumulated by the ants during their works. sooner or later we shall see the halicti arrive with their load of pollen, gathered on the cichoriaceae of the neighbourhood. usually, they come up one by one; but it is not rare to see three, four or even more appearing at the same time at the mouth of one burrow. they perch on the top of the mound and, without hurrying in front of one another, with no sign of jealousy, they dive down the passage, each in her turn. we need but watch their peaceful waiting, their tranquil dives, to recognize that this indeed is a common passage to which each has as much right as another. when the soil is exploited for the first time and the shaft sunk slowly from the outside to the inside, do several cylindrical halicti, one relieving the other, take part in the work by which they will afterwards profit equally? i do not believe it for a moment. as the zebra halictus and the early halictus told me later, each miner goes to work alone and makes herself a gallery which will be her exclusive property. the common use of the passage comes presently, when the site, tested by experience, is handed down from one generation to another. a first group of cells is established, we will suppose, at the bottom of a pit dug in virgin soil. the whole thing, cells and pit, is the work of one insect. when the moment comes to leave the underground dwelling, the bees emerging from this nest will find before them an open road, or one at most obstructed by crumbly matter, which offers less resistance than the neighbouring soil, as yet untouched. the exit-way will therefore be the primitive way, contrived by the mother during the construction of the nest. all enter upon it without any hesitation, for the cells open straight on it. all, coming and going from the cells to the bottom of the shaft and from the shaft to the cells, will take part in the clearing, under the stimulus of the approaching deliverance. it is quite unnecessary here to presume among these underground prisoners a concerted effort to liberate themselves more easily by working in common: each is thinking only of herself and invariably returns, after resting, to toil at the inevitable path, the path of least resistance, in short the passage once dug by the mother and now more or less blocked up. among the cylindrical halicti, any one who wishes emerges from her cell at her own hour, without waiting for the emergence of the others, because the cells, grouped in small stacks, have each their special outlet opening into the common gallery. the result of this arrangement is that all the inhabitants of one burrow are able to assist, each doing her share, in the clearing of the exit-shaft. when she feels fatigued, the worker retires to her undamaged cell and another succeeds her, impatient to get out rather than to help the first. at last the way is clear and the halicti emerge. they disperse over the flowers around as long as the sun is hot; when the air cools, they go back to the burrows to spend the night there. a few days pass and already the cares of egg-laying are at hand. the galleries have never been abandoned. the bees have come to take refuge there on rainy or very windy days; most, if not all, have returned every evening at sunset, each doubtless making for her own cell, which is still intact and which is carefully impressed upon her memory. in a word, the cylindrical halictus does not lead a wandering life; she has a fixed residence. a necessary consequence results from these settled habits: for the purpose of her laying, the bee will adopt the identical burrow in which she was born. the entrance-gallery is ready therefore. should it need to be carried deeper, to be pushed in new directions, the builder has but to extend it at will. the old cells even can serve again, if slightly restored. thus resuming possession of the native burrow in view of her offspring, the bee, notwithstanding her instincts as a solitary worker, achieves an attempt at social life, because there is one entrance-door and one passage for the use of all the mothers returning to the original domicile. there is thus a semblance of collaboration without any real co-operation for the common weal. everything is reduced to a family inheritance shared equally among the heirs. the number of these coheirs must soon be limited, for a too tumultuous traffic in the corridor would delay the work. then fresh passages are opened inwards, often communicating with depths already excavated, so that the ground at last is perforated in every direction with an inextricable maze of winding tunnels. the digging of the cells and the piercing of new galleries take place especially at night. a cone of fresh earth on top of the burrow bears evidence every morning to the overnight activity. it also shows by its volume that several navvies have taken part in the work, for it would be impossible for a single halictus to extract from the ground, convey to the surface and heap up so large a stack of rubbish in so short a time. at sunrise, when the fields around are still wet with dew, the cylindrical halictus leaves her underground passages and starts on her foraging. this is done without animation, perhaps because of the morning coolness. there is no joyous excitement, no humming above the burrows. the bees come back again, flying low, silently and heavily, their hind-legs yellow with pollen; they alight on the earth-cone and at once dive down the vertical chimney. others come up the pipe and go off to their harvesting. this journeying to and fro for provisions continues until eight or nine in the morning. then the heat begins to grow intense and is reflected by the wall; then also the path is once more frequented. people pass at every moment, coming out of the house or elsewhence. the soil is so much trodden under foot that the little mounds of refuse surrounding each burrow soon disappear and the site loses every sign of underground habitation. all day long, the halicti remain indoors. withdrawing to the bottom of the galleries, they occupy themselves probably in making and polishing the cells. next morning, new cones of rubbish appear, the result of the night's work, and the pollen-harvest is resumed for a few hours; then everything ceases again. and so the work goes on, suspended by day, renewed at night and in the morning hours, until completely finished. the passages of the cylindrical halictus descend to a depth of some eight inches and branch into secondary corridors, each giving access to a set of cells. these number six or eight to each set and are ranged side by side, parallel with their main axis, which is almost horizontal. they are oval at the base and contracted at the neck. their length is nearly twenty millimetres (.78 inch.--translator's note.) and their greatest width eight. (.312 inch.--translator's note.) they do not consist simply of a cavity in the ground; on the contrary, they have their own walls, so that the group can be taken out in one piece, with a little precaution, and removed neatly from the earth in which it is contained. the walls are formed of fairly delicate materials, which must have been chosen in the coarse surrounding mass and kneaded with saliva. the inside is carefully polished and upholstered with a thin waterproof film. we will cut short these details concerning the cells, which the zebra halictus has already shown us in greater perfection, leave the home to itself and come to the most striking feature in the life-history of the halicti. the cylindrical halictus is at work in the first days of may. it is a rule among the hymenoptera for the males never to take part in the fatiguing work of nest-building. to construct cells and to amass victuals are occupations entirely foreign to their nature. this rule seems to have no exceptions; and the halicti conform to it like the rest. it is therefore only to be expected that we should see no males shooting the underground rubbish outside the galleries. that is not their business. but what does astonish us, when our attention is directed to it, is the total absence of any males in the vicinity of the burrows. although it is the rule that the males should be idle, it is also the rule for these idlers to keep near the galleries in course of construction, coming and going from door to door and hovering above the work-yards to seize the moment at which the unfecundated females will at last yield to their importunities. now here, despite the enormous population, despite my careful and incessant watch, it is impossible for me to distinguish a single male. and yet the distinction between the sexes is of the simplest. it is not necessary to take hold of the male. he can be recognized even at a distance by his slenderer frame, by his long, narrow abdomen, by his red sash. they might easily suggest two different species. the female is a pale russet-brown; the male is black, with a few red segments to his abdomen. well, during the may building-operations, there is not a bee in sight clad in black, with a slender, red-belted abdomen; in short, not a male. though the males do not come to visit the environs of the burrows, they might be elsewhere, particularly on the flowers where the females go plundering. i did not fail to explore the fields, insect-net in hand. my search was invariably fruitless. on the other hand, those males, now nowhere to be found, are plentiful later, in september, along the borders of the paths, on the close-set flowers of the eringo. this singular colony, reduced exclusively to mothers, made me suspect the existence of several generations a year, whereof one at least must possess the other sex. i continued therefore, when the building-who was over, to keep a daily watch on the establishment of the cylindrical halictus, in order to seize the favourable moment that would verify my suspicions. for six weeks, solitude reigned above the burrows: not a single halictus appeared; and the path, trodden by the wayfarers, lost its little heaps of rubbish, the only signs of the excavations. there was nothing outside to show that the warmth down below was hatching populous swarms. july comes and already a few little mounds of fresh earth betoken work going on underground in preparation for an exodus in the near future. as the males, among the hymenoptera, are generally further advanced than the females and quit their natal cells earlier, it was important that i should witness the first exits made, so as to dispel the least shadow of a doubt. a violent exhumation would have a great advantage over the natural exit: it would place the population of the burrows immediately under my eyes, before the departure of either sex. in this way, nothing could escape from me and i was dispensed from a watch which, for all its attentiveness, was not to be relied upon absolutely. i therefore resolve upon a reconnaissance with the spade. i dig down to the full depth of the galleries and remove large lumps of earth which i take in my hands and break very carefully so as to examine all the parts that may contain cells. halicti in the perfect state predominate, most of them still lodged in their unbroken chambers. though they are not quite so numerous, there are also plenty of pupae. i collect them of every shade of colour, from dead-white, the sign of a recent transformation, to smoky-brown, the mark of an approaching metamorphosis. larvae, in small quantities, complete the harvest. they are in the state of torpor that precedes the appearance of the pupa. i prepare boxes with a bed of fresh, sifted earth to receive the larvae and the pupae, which i lodge each in a sort of half-cell formed by the imprint of my finger. i will await the transformation to decide to which sex they belong. as for the perfect insects, they are inspected, counted and at once released. in the very unlikely supposition that the distribution of the sexes might vary in different parts of the colony, i make a second excavation, at a few yards' distance from the other. it supplies me with another collection both of perfect insects and of pupae and larvae. when the metamorphosis of the laggards is completed, which does not take many days, i proceed to take a general census. it gives me two hundred and fifty halicti. well, in this number of bees, collected in the burrow before any have emerged, i perceive none, absolutely none but females; or, to be mathematically accurate, i find just one male, one alone; and he is so small and feeble that he dies without quite succeeding in divesting himself of his nymphal bands. this solitary male is certainly accidental. a female population of two hundred and forty-nine halicti implies other males than this abortion, or rather implies none at all. i therefore eliminate him as an accident of no value and conclude that, in the cylindrical halictus, the july generation consists of females only. the building-operations start again in the second week of july. the galleries are restored and lengthened; new cells are fashioned and the old ones repaired. follow the provisioning, the laying of the eggs, the closing of the cells; and, before july is over, there is solitude again. let me also say that, during the building-period, not a male appears in sight, a fact which adds further proof to that already supplied by my excavations. with the high temperature of this time of the year, the development of the larvae makes rapid progress: a month is sufficient for the various stages of the metamorphosis. on the 24th of august there are once more signs of life above the burrows of the cylindrical halictus, but under very different conditions. for the first time, both sexes are present. males, so easily recognized by their black livery and their slim abdomen adorned with a red ring, hover backwards and forwards, almost level with the ground. they fuss about from burrow to burrow. a few rare females come out for a moment and then go in again. i proceed to make an excavation with my spade; i gather indiscriminately whatever i come across. larvae are very scarce; pupae abound, as do perfect insects. the list of my captures amounts to eighty males and fifty-eight females. the males, therefore, hitherto impossible to discover, either on the flowers around or in the neighbourhood of the burrows, could be picked up to-day by the hundred, if i wished. they outnumber the females by about four to three; they are also further developed, in accordance with the general rule, for most of the backward pupae give me only females. once the two sexes had appeared, i expected a third generation that would spend the winter in the larval state and recommence in may the annual cycle which i have just described. my anticipation proved to be at fault. throughout september, when the sun beats upon the burrows, i see the males flitting in great numbers from one shaft to the other. sometimes a female appears, returning from the fields, but with no pollen on her legs. she seeks her gallery, finds it, dives down and disappears. the males, as though indifferent to her arrival, offer her no welcome, do not harass her with their amorous pursuits; they continue to visit the doors of the burrows with a winding and oscillating flight. for two months, i follow their evolutions. if they set foot on earth, it is to descend forthwith into some gallery that suits them. it is not uncommon to see several of them on the threshold of the same burrow. then each awaits his turn to enter; they are as peaceable in their relations as the females who are joint owners of a burrow. at other times, one wants to go in as a second is coming out. this sudden encounter produces no strife. the one leaving the hole withdraws a little to one side to make enough room for two; the other slips past as best he can. these peaceful meetings are all the more striking when we consider the usual rivalry between males of the same species. no rubbish-mound stands at the mouth of the shafts, showing that the building has not been resumed; at the most, a few crumbs of earth are heaped outside. and by whom, pray? by the males and by them alone. the lazy sex has bethought itself of working. it turns navvy and shoots out grains of earth that would interfere with its continual entrances and exits. for the first time i witness a custom which no hymenopteron had yet shown me: i see the males haunting the interior of the burrows with an assiduity equalling that of the mothers employed in nest-building. the cause of these unwonted operations soon stands revealed. the females seen flitting above the burrows are very rare; the majority of the feminine population remain sequestered under ground, do not perhaps come out once during the whole of the latter part of summer. those who do venture out go in again soon, empty-handed of course and always without any amorous teasing from the males, a number of whom are hovering above the burrows. on the other hand, watch as carefully as i may, i do not discover a single act of pairing out of doors. the weddings are clandestine, therefore, and take place under ground. this explains the males' fussy visits to the doors of the galleries during the hottest hours of the day, their continual descents into the depths and their continual reappearances. they are looking for the females cloistered in the retirement of the cells. a little spade-work soon turns suspicion into certainty. i unearth a sufficient number of couples to prove to me that the sexes come together underground. when the marriage is consummated, the red-belted one quits the spot and goes to die outside the burrow, after dragging from flower to flower the bit of life that remains to him. the other shuts herself up in her cell, there to await the return of the month of may. september is spent by the halictus solely in nuptial celebrations. whenever the sky is fine, i witness the evolutions of the males above the burrows, with their continual entrances and exits; should the sun be veiled, they take refuge down the passages. the more impatient, half-hidden in the pit, show their little black heads outside, as though peeping for the least break in the clouds that will allow them to pay a brief visit to the flowers round about. they also spend the night in the burrows. in the morning, i attend their levee; i see them put their head to the window, take a look at the weather and then go in again until the sun beats on the encampment. the same mode of life is continued throughout october, but the males become less numerous from day to day as the stormy season approaches and fewer females remain to be wooed. by the time that the first cold weather comes, in november, complete solitude reigns over the burrows. i once more have recourse to the spade. i find none but females in their cells. there is not one male left. all have vanished, all are dead, the victims of their life of pleasure and of the wind and rain. thus ends the cycle of the year for the cylindrical halictus. in february, after a hard winter, when the snow had lain on the ground for a fortnight, i wanted once more to look into the matter of my halicti. i was in bed with pneumonia and at the point of death, to all appearances. i had little or no pain, thank god, but extreme difficulty in living. with the little lucidity left to me, being able to do no other sort of observing, i observed myself dying; i watched with a certain interest the gradual falling to pieces of my poor machinery. were it not for the terror of leaving my family, who were still young, i would gladly have departed. the after-life must have so many higher and fairer truths to teach us. my hour had not yet come. when the little lamps of thought began to emerge, all flickering, from the dusk of unconsciousness, i wished to take leave of the hymenopteron, my fondest joy, and first of all of my neighbour, the halictus. my son emile took the spade and went and dug the frozen ground. not a male was found, of course; but there were plenty of females, numbed with the cold in their cells. a few were brought for me to see. their little chambers showed no efflorescence of rime, with which all the surrounding earth was coated. the waterproof varnish had been wonderfully efficacious. as for the anchorites, roused from their torpor by the warmth of the room, they began to wander about my bed, where i followed them vaguely with my fading eyes. may came, as eagerly awaited by the sick man as by the halicti. i left orange for serignan, my last stage, i expect. while i was moving, the bees resumed their building. i gave them a regretful glance, for i had still much to learn in their company. i have never since met with such a mighty colony. these old observations on the habits of the cylindrical halictus may now be followed by a general summary which will incorporate the recent data supplied by the zebra halictus and the early halictus. the females of the cylindrical halictus whom i unearth from november onwards are evidently fecundated, as is proved by the assiduity of the males during the preceding two months and most positively confirmed by the couples discovered in the course of my excavations. these females spend the winter in their cells, as do many of the early-hatching melliferous insects, such as anthophorae and mason-bees, who build their nests in the spring, the larvae reaching the perfect state in the summer and yet remaining shut up in their cells until the following may. but there is this great difference in the case of the cylindrical halictus, that in the autumn the females leave their cells for a time to receive the males under ground. the couples pair and the males perish. left alone, the females return to their cells, where they spend the inclement season. the zebra halicti, studied first at orange and then, under better conditions, at serignan, in my own enclosure, have not these subterranean customs: they celebrate their weddings amid the joys of the light, the sun and the flowers. i see the first males appear in the middle of september, on the centauries. generally there are several of them courting the same bride. now one, then another, they swoop upon her suddenly, clasp her, leave her, seize hold of her again. fierce brawls decide who shall possess her. one is accepted and the others decamp. with a swift and angular flight, they go from flower to flower, without alighting. they hover on the wing, looking about them, more intent on pairing than on eating. the early halictus did not supply me with any definite information, partly through my own fault, partly through the difficulty of excavation in a stony soil, which calls for the pick-axe rather than the spade. i suspect her of having the nuptial customs of the cylindrical halictus. there is another difference, which causes certain variations of detail in these customs. in the autumn, the females of the cylindrical halictus leave their burrows seldom or not at all. those who do go out invariably come back after a brief halt upon the flowers. all pass the winter in the natal cells. on the other hand, those of the zebra halictus move their quarters, meet the males outside and do not return to the burrows, which my autumn excavations always find deserted. they hibernate in the first hiding-places that offer. in the spring, the females, fecundated since the autumn, come out: the cylindrical halicti from their cells, the zebra halicti from their various shelters, the early halicti apparently from their chambers, like the first. they work at their nests in the absence of any male, as do also the social wasps, whose whole brood has perished excepting a few mothers also fecundated in the autumn. in both cases, the assistance of the males is equally real, only it has preceded the laying by about six months. so far, there is nothing new in the life of the halicti; but here is where the unexpected appears: in july, another generation is produced; and this time without males. the absence of masculine assistance is no longer a mere semblance here, due to an earlier fecundation: it is a reality established beyond a doubt by the continuity of my observations and by my excavations during the summer season, before the emergence of the new bees. at this period, a little before july, if my spade unearth the cells of any one of my three halicti, the result is always females, nothing but females, with exceedingly rare exceptions. true, it may be said that the second progeny is due to the mothers who knew the males in autumn and who would be able to nidify twice a year. the suggestion is not admissible. the zebra halictus confirms what i say. she shows us the old mothers no longer leaving the home but mounting guard at the entrance to the burrows. no harvestingor pottery-work is possible with these absorbing doorkeeping-functions. therefore there is no new family, even admitting that the mothers' ovaries are not depleted. i do not know if a similar argument is valid in the case of the cylindrical halictus. has she any general survivors? as my attention had not yet been directed on this point in the old days, when i had the insect at my door, i have no records to go upon. for all that, i am inclined to think that the portress of the zebra halictus is unknown here. the reason of this absence would be the number of workers at the start. in may, the zebra halictus, living by herself in her winter retreat, founds her house alone. when her daughters succeed her, in july, she is the only grandmother in the establishment and the post of portress falls to her. with the cylindrical halictus, the conditions are different. here the may workers are many in the same burrow, where they dwell in common during the winter. supposing that they survive when the business of the household is finished, to whom will the office of overseer fall? their number is so great and they are all so full of zeal that disorder would be inevitable. but we can leave this small matter unsettled pending further information. the fact remains that females, females exclusively, have come out of the eggs laid in may. they have descendants, of that there is no room for doubt; they procreate though there are no males in their time. from this generation by a single sex, there spring, two months later, males and females. these mate; and the same order of things recommences. to sum up, judging by the three species that form the subject of my investigations, the halicti have two generations a year: one in the spring, issuing from the mothers who have lived through the winter after being fecundated in the autumn; the other in the summer, the fruit of parthenogenesis, that is to say, of reproduction by the powers of the mother alone. of the union of the two sexes, females alone are born; parthenogenesis gives birth at the same time to females and males. when the mother, the original genitrix, has been able once to dispense with a coadjutor, why does she need one later? what is the puny idler there for? he was unnecessary. why does he become necessary now? shall we ever obtain a satisfactory answer to the question? it is doubtful. however, without much hope of succeeding we will one day consult the gall-fly, who is better-versed than we in the tangled problem of the sexes. index. alpine odynerus. amadeus' eumenes. ammophila (see also hairy ammophila). andrena. andrenoid osmia. ant. anthidium (see the varieties below, cotton-bee, resin bee). anthidium bellicosum. anthidium cingulatum (see girdled anthidium). anthidium diadema (see diadem anthidium). anthidium florentinum (see florentine anthidium). anthidium latreillii (see latreille's resin-bee). anthidium manicatum (see manicate anthidium). anthidium quadrilobum (see four-lobed resin-bee). anthidium scapulare (see scapular anthidium). anthidium septemdentatum (see seven-pronged resin-bee). anthocopa papaveris (see upholsterer-bee). anthophora (see also anthophora of the walls, hairy-footed anthophora, masked anthophora). anthophora of the walls. anthophora parietina (see anthophora of the walls). anthophora pilipes (see hairy-footed anthophora). anthrax (see anthrax sinuata). anthrax sinuata. aphis (see plant-louse). archimedes. augustus, the emperor. bee. beetle. bembex. black, adam and charles. black plant-louse. black psen. black-tipped leaf-cutter. blue osmia. book-louse. brown snail. bulimulus radiatus. bumble-bee. calicurgus (see pompilus). capricorn. carpenter-bee. cat. cemonus unicolor. cerambyx (see capricorn). ceratina (see also the varieties below). ceratina albilabris. ceratina callosa. ceratina chalcites. ceratina coerulea. cerceris. cetonia. chaffinch. chalicodoma (see mason-bee). chrysis flammea. cockroach. coelyoxis caudata. coelyoxis octodentata. colletes. common snail. common wasp. cotton-bee (see also the varieties of anthidium). crayfish. cricket. crioceris merdigera (see lily-beetle). cryptus bimaculatus. cryptus gyrator. cylindrical halictus. darwin, charles robert. decticus verrucivorus. devillario, henri. diadem anthidium. dioxys cincta. dog. dragon-fly. dryden, john. dufour, jean marie leon. dung-beetle. dzierzon, johann. early halictus. earth-worm. earwig. epeira (see garden spider). ephialtes divinator. ephialtes mediator. ephippiger. eumenes amadei (see amadeus' eumenes). euritema rubicola. fabre, emile, the author's son. fabricius, johann christian. feeble leaf-cutter. field-mouse. florentine anthidium. fly (see also house-fly). foenus pyrenaicus. four-lobed resin-bee. franklin, benjamin. garden snail. garden spider. girdled anthidium. girdled snail (see brown snail). gnat. golden osmia. goldfinch. grasshopper (see also great green grasshopper). great green grasshopper. great peacock moth. green grasshopper (see ephippiger, great green grasshopper). green osmia. grey lizard. hairy ammophila. hairy-footed anthophora. halictus (see also the varieties below). halictus cylindricus (see cylindrical halictus). halictus malachurus (see early halictus). halictus zebrus (see zebra halictus). hare-footed leaf-cutter. helix algira. helix aspersa (see common snail). helix caespitum (see garden snail). helix nemoralis. helix striata. heriades rubicola. herring. hive-bee. honey-bee (see hive-bee). horned osmia. house-dog (see dog). house-fly. kid. kirby, william. la fontaine, jean de. lamb. languedocian sphex. lanius collurio (see red-backed shrike). la palice, jacques de chabannes, seigneur de. latreille, pierre andre. latreille's osmia. latreille's resin-bee. leaf-cutter, leaf-cutting bee (see megachile). leaf-insect. leucopsis. lily-beetle. lithurgus (see also the varieties below). lithurgus chrysurus. lithurgus cornutus. lizard (see also grey lizard). locust. locusta viridissima (see great green grasshopper). macmillan co. "mademoiselle mori", author of. manicate anthidium. mantis, mantis religiosa (see praying mantis). masked anthophora. mason-bee (see also the varieties below). mason-bee of the pebbles (see mason-bee of the walls). mason-bee of the sheds. mason-bee of the shrubs. mason-bee of the walls. may-fly. meade-waldo, geoffrey. megachile (see also the varieties below). megachile albocincta (see white-girdled leaf-cutter). megachile apicalis (see black-tipped leaf-cutter). megachile argentata (see silvery leaf-cutter). megachile dufourii (see silky leaf-cutter). megachile imbecilla (see feeble leaf-cutter). megachile lagopoda (see hare-footed leaf-cutter). megachile sericans (see silky leaf-cutter). melitta (see colletes). miall, bernard. midwife toad. morawitz' osmia. odynerus (see also the varieties below) odynerus alpestris (see alpine odynerus). odynerus delphinalis. odynerus rubicola. oil-beetle. omalus auratus. osmia (see also the varieties below). osmia andrenoides (see andrenoid osmia). osmia aurulenta (see golden osmia). osmia cornuta (see horned osmia). osmia cyanea (see blue osmia). osmia cyanoxantha. osmia detrita (see ragged osmia). osmia latreillii (see latreille's osmia). osmia morawitzi (see morawitz' osmia). osmia parvula (see tiny osmia). osmia rufo-hirta (see red osmia). osmia tricornis (see three-horned osmia). osmia tridentata (see three-pronged osmia). osmia versicolor (see variegated osmia). osmia viridana (see green osmia). pelopaeus. perez, professor jean. philanthus (see philanthus apivorus). philanthus apivorus. plant-louse (see also black plant-louse). pompilus. praying mantis. prosopis confusa. psen atratus (see black psen). rabelais, francois. ragged osmia. reaumur, rene antoine ferchault de. red-backed shrike. red-osmia. resin-bee (see also the varieties). ringed calicurgus (see pompilus). rodwell, miss frances. rosechafer (see cetonia). sapyga (see spotted sapyga). sardine. scapular anthidium. scolia. scorpion. seven-pronged resin-bee. shrike (see red-backed shrike). silky leaf-cutter. silvery leaf-cutter. snail (see also the varieties) social wasp (see common wasp). solenius lapidarius. solenius vagus. sophocles. sparrow. spence, william. sphex (see also languedocian sphex, yellow-winged sphex.) spotted sapyga. stick-insect. stizus. tachina. tachytes. tarantula. teixeira de mattos, alexander. termite. three-horned osmia. three-pronged osmia. tiberius, the emperor. tiny osmia. tripoxylon figulus. unarmed zonitis (see zonitis mutica). upholsterer-bee. variegated osmia. virgil. wasp (see also common wasp). weaving spider. weevil. white-girdled leaf-cutter. wolf. worm (see earth-worm). xylocopa violacea (see carpenter-bee). yellow-winged sphex. zebra halictus. zonitis mutica. 