THAT WONDERFUL INSECT, THE BEE. 377 
THAT WONDERFUL INSECT, THE BEE. 
MRS. F. C. MILLER, ST. PAUL. 
That wonderful insect, the bee, is, in some respects, far ahead of man- 
kind. In these latter days of the nineteenth century, men are just beginning 
to see the great selfishness of individualism and to realize the advantages of 
co-operation. This is something which the bee knew thousands of years 
ago. Long before the people of Israel bowed low before the royal David in 
Jerusalem, the bees paid their respects to a royal mistress. The house of 
David is gone, and the people of Israel are scattered throughout the world, 
but the queen bee, a head taller than any of her subjects, still sways-the 
scepter. The hive is the most ancient communal residence in the world, 
and bids fair to outlive all human institutions. Socially considered, man is 
in only one respect ahead of the bee, and that is, man has the ability to ad- 
vance to something higher and greater. This has been denied to the bee, 
for what he was in the days of David he still remains and possibly may when 
the last trace of man has disappeared. 
We look with wonder and pride on man’s achievements. How he trans- 
forms the face of nature! How cities spring up as if by magic at his touch! 
How he has mastered steam, and compels it to carry him safely over mighty 
‘ocean and vast continent, work which in the near future he will have done 
by electricity! But if we could look with trained eyes upon the work done 
by insects, and especially bees, and realize the amount of that work, and how 
it too, no less than man’s, has changed the face of nature, our admiration 
would not be all for ourselves. 
It is certainly wise to occasionally listen to those who study bees from 
love of nature, not love of grain (or its equivalent, honey), which beekeepers 
are too apt to do. Naturalists look upon the bee as one link in a long 
chain, not as we are in danger of doing, as the chain itself; and of all natur- 
alists of the present day, none has cast a kindlier eye upon insect life and 
especially upon bees and ants, than Sir John Lubbock. As beekeepers, we 
are apt to think that the bee stands at the head of insect life, and consider- 
ing’ how it can be induced to work for man, I think it is entitled to the first 
place, but Sir John Lubbock has established the fact that the ant is far 
superior to the bee in the scale of intelligence, indeed, ranks next to man in 
that respect; because ants not only have fine social organizations, large 
communities and elaborate habitations, but they also build roadways, have 
domestic animals, and even, in some, cases, slaves. This ought to induce 
many a worthy beekeeper, whose hives are invaded by a well-disciplined 
army of ants, to look with a sympathetic eye, and even with some ad- 
miration, upon these intelligent marauders. 
In industry ants are not surpassed even by bees and wasps, but it is in 
the development of plants and the coloring of flowers that winged insects, 
and especially bees, have played a very important part. Naturalists are now 
agreed that all flowers were at first green and inconspicuous, as many yet 
remain—for instance, the oak—and in such cases the pollen is carried from 
flower to flower by the wind; while in all large and brightly colored flowers 
this is effected by the agency of insects. 
There is little doubt that bees possess a sense of color, and to prove this 
Lubbock carried on a number of very interesting experiments. He placed 
honey on blue paper, and about three feet off he put a similar quantity on 
orange paper. He then put a bee on the blue paper, and after she had got a 
