HAPPY 



Close, close to one another we packed during the 

 cold days and nights, and in this way generated enough 

 heat to keep the hive warm and habitable. Life was 

 monotonous. We were limited in our activities to 

 caring for the brood and to policing the hive. There 

 was little enough to do on the latter score, save on 

 warm days. Then we searched out every nook and 

 corner to see that the moth had not entered, for she 

 was the mother of the web-worms, and I, for one, 

 had the utmost respect for them. Sometimes harm- 

 less beetles were found, and, much as we hated to send 

 them into the cold, we felt it must be done. Some- 

 times they went peacefully, but often enough we were 

 compelled to drag them bodily forth and occasionally 

 we were forced to destroy them. 



And so the days ran on. As for me, I employed them 

 in meditation. What could be more conducive to re- 

 flection than the long, dark hours of quiet that reign 

 in a winter-bound hive? Slowly, ever so slowly, I 

 neared the end of my task. 



And now I have come to the end. There remains 

 only to tell what these last days held for me. Already 

 the winter has gone and I am ready. Even as poor 

 Buzz-Buzz, I feel that my labors are done. I am old 

 and worn and need to make way for the young life 

 which is already singing about me. The Queen- 

 Mother, aware of conditions, has been scattering her 

 brood over wide spaces, and already young bees, flap- 

 ping their wings frantically, are stumbling over the 

 combs, and hundreds more of them soon will be wait- 

 ing for the signal to go into the fields. Eagerly will 

 they try their first wings and eagerly will they gather 



