THE EVOLUTION OF THE BEE AND THE BEEHIVE 



reach the stage of the comb of a honey-bee, and there is 

 developed a community of insects that rivals in complexity 

 and in division of labour anything that we meet v^ith in 

 human communities. A clearer example of evolution could 

 hardly be imagined — the gradual development from a simple 

 primitive state of life to one of the highest complexity. 



REFERENCES 



Edwardes, Tickner. The Lore of the Honey-Bee. London, 



Methuen & Co. 

 Maeterlinck, Maurice. Le Vie des Abeilles. Paris, Bibliotheque 



Charpentier. 

 Maeterlinck, Maurice. The Life of the Bee (translated by Alfred 



Sutro) . London, George Allen & Sons. 

 Shipley, A. E. Life. Cambridge University Press. 

 Shipley, A. E. Studies in Insect Life. London, T. Fisher Unwin. 

 Sladen, F. W. The Humble Bee. London, Macmillan & Co., Ltd. 

 Stabler, Hans von. Die Biologie der Biene. Wurzburg, H. 



Sturtz. 



"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?" — Maeterlinck's The Life of the Bee, 



[209] 



