50 THE GLORY OF THE GARDEN 



Pine away, dwine away, 



Anything to leave you. 

 But if you never grieve your bees, 



Your bees '11 never grieve you." 



The greatest scientists and most devoted students 

 of the wonderful bee commonwealth, all agree 

 with Maeterlinck that — " Beyond the appreciable 

 facts of their life we know but little of the bees, 

 and the closer our acquaintance with them, the 

 nearer is the appreciation of our ignorance brought 

 to us." 



This great bee lover, after many years of bee- 

 keeping, says : " You will find that we shall often 

 halt before the unknown," and that we most cer- 

 tainly do, in that most wonderful and complex 

 city known as the hive. 



In his book " The Life of the Bee," Maeterlinck 

 lifts the veil for us, and shows us the interior of a 

 hive from the bees' point of view, as far as our 

 limited human understanding can picture the world 

 as it looks to them. 



" Inside the hive, it would seem that 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. 



"Each of these walls, whose substance is still 

 immaculate and fragrant, of virgin, silvery freshness, 

 contains thousands of cells, stored with provisions 

 sufficient to feed the whole people for several weeks. 



" Here, lodged in transparent cells, are the pollens, 

 love ferments of every flower of the spring, making 

 brilliant splashes of red and yellow, of black and 

 mauve. 



" Close by, sealed with a seal only to be broken 



