XVI 



PIONEERS OF COMMUNAL LIFE: WASPS AND BEES 



Creatures that by a rule in Nature teach 

 The art of order to a peopled kingdom. . . . 



Oo Shakespeare calls the Bees, and we Germans have a name for 

 them, Immen, which means "the diligent ones." And indeed, everyone 

 who has ever glanced into a beehive must have marvelled at the 

 delicate work performed there, and the diligence of the workers. 

 Even from the outside, at the entrance to the hive, we perceive the 

 signs of a busy and bustling life. Fresh bees are for ever creeping 

 out, spreading their wings, and hurrying off with an assured flight, 

 as though they had not the slightest doubt as to their destination. 

 Others are returning from distant excursions and landing on the 

 alighting-board, bearing visible signs of the success of their work, 

 for the "bread-baskets" on their hindlegs are heavily laden with 

 yellow pollen. And now bees appear at the entrance, emerging from 

 the hive, which do not at once fly away; instead, they turn back, 

 and for a time they fly to and fro in front of the hive, as though 

 anxious to impress the details of their home on their memory. 

 And as a matter of fact these are bees which, ever since they crept 

 out of their chrysalids, have been constantly occupied in the hive, 

 and are now, for the first time, about to go out into the wide 

 world. 



But who directs all this activity? Who tells these little creatures 

 that it is now time to fly abroad: who tells these insects, which 

 hitherto have never seen anything of the kind, where to find pollen 

 and nectar, and how they should be collected? In a human com- 

 munity, as we know, there is no order where there is no govern- 

 ment. Who gives the orders in the kingdom of the Bees, and who 

 distributes the tasks? 



Everyone knows that the community of the Bees has a "queen." 

 But this name is really too pompous for the insect that bears it — 

 namely, for the only fertile female in the hive. The "queen" is 

 nothing more than a living egg-laying mechanism. She has no 

 orders to give ; indeed, even her own work of laying eggs is con- 

 trolled by the workers, for these build the cells of the comb of their 

 own initiative, in such numbers as are necessary for drones, workers, 



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