THE LIFE OF A BEE 



rain had begun to fall. I could not then understand 

 what terrors were couched in these words rain and 

 darkness else I might better have appreciated the 

 thanksgiving hymn which these late-returning, rain- 

 draggled workers were uttering. In days to come I 

 was to learn what danger meant, for more than once 

 I, too, was forced to flee before a storm in the growing 

 blackness, bearing a load almost too much for my 

 wings; and to spend a night in the woods, hiding as 

 best I might under a leaf, and quaking at the nameless 

 fears that beat about me in the gloom. There was no 

 comfort even in the tiny lights that glowed over my 

 head, nor in the small voices that called to me in the 

 night. It was not fear that I should be lost that op- 

 pressed me, but that the load I had gathered with so 

 much travail should never reach the storehouse upon 

 which the life of the colony depended, for food was 

 necessary to life. And life? I knew naught of it. But 

 was it consciousness of imperative duty that made me 

 shake in every passing wind? Even to this day my own 

 life has given me no concern. I scarcely know that I 

 have any interest in living, apart from serving, apart 

 from the lives of these, my little brothers. 



I noticed as I moved onward that the workers 

 brought home no pollen. Their baskets were empty. 

 I thought this strange and inquired about it, learning 

 that the flowers yield pollen more freely in the morning; 

 that the sun, wind, and insects tend to dissipate it, and 

 that, therefore, bread was largely gathered in the early 

 hours. I also learned that as a food it was far less 

 important than honey; and that honey, too, was more 

 abundant when the day was young. I knew that the 



2 S 



