The Life of the Bee Part 2

{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 pa.s.sion 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 r.e.t.a.r.d 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 a.s.sumed by the necessities of life, the fear of suffering or death, and the attraction of pleasure. Let it be so; look on it all as a figure of speech; it is a matter to which I attach no importance. The one thing certain here, as it is the one thing certain in all other cases, is that, under special circ.u.mstances, 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 ma.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.sembled mult.i.tude; 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 a.s.semblage 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, a.s.suming 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 a.s.sistance. 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 a.s.sistance?

And further, is this not the history of ourselves; and does not all that the angry old naturalist says apply equally to every one of our human 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 s.p.a.ce 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 b.l.o.o.d.y 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 cuira.s.ses, 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 pa.s.s 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 subst.i.tuted 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 a.s.surance, 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 impa.s.sable 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 circ.u.mference 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 G.o.d, 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 sh.e.l.l. But in this case the sh.e.l.ls 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 s.p.a.ce 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 pa.s.sage 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 a.s.sembly 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, const.i.tutes 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 s.p.a.ce, 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 st.i.tching; 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 s.p.a.ce 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 cl.u.s.ter 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 s.p.a.ce, having indeed almost forgotten the use of her wings.

The bee-keeper waits till the ma.s.s 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 cl.u.s.ter will fall as heavily as an over-ripe fruit. Or, if the branch be too stout, he can plunge a spoon into the ma.s.s; 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 a.s.sembly 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 ma.s.s 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 quant.i.ty 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 a.s.similated, 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 succ.u.mb, 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 ma.s.s. 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 r.e.t.a.r.d 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 circ.u.mference of the common dwelling. Every crevice is pa.s.sed 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, pa.s.sages 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 ma.s.ses 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.