A Bee's-Eye View 



Helen Lee Sherwood. 



Cornwell, N. Y. 



From the upper porch of my home I often look down over the 

 little flower garden whose stone path leads to my log-cabin honey- 

 house and my bee hives, with a view of soft moimtains not far 

 beyond. There could scarcely be found a sweeter scene of flowers 

 and sunny green slopes and fields, of quiet mountains and smiling 

 skies; and then there are bees whirring past me, sometimes in a 

 steady stream. I see them gleam in the sun as they pass and hear 

 their swift wings. Of all their secrets, the one I long most to know 

 is how this scene looks to their curious eyes. What do they see 

 from above the garden and hives? Sometimes I think one of 

 them stupid and blind when ^he flies right against my face on her 

 way, or when I wave a finger a very few inches from the head 

 of a resting bee and she never moves. The Polistes, those long- 

 legged brown wasps who build their paper combs under the eaves 

 of my cabin, are very quick to greet me when I wave to them from 

 quite a distance. The whole family rise to their full height and 

 face me, standing at attention. 



But when the young bees come rushing out for their "play 

 flights" and soar above their hives to learn their directions they 

 must be using some, at least, of their eyes taking in all the land- 

 marks by which they can find their homes again. I have but to 

 move a hive a foot or so, or turn it to in face a different direction, 

 and the home coming bees will fly round and round the exact 

 spot where their doorway used to be. This becomes largely 

 matter of habit, no doubt, for if I move a hive at night when all 

 the bees are in they fail to notice the change in the morning as 

 they go off, and keep coming back to the spot which, in some 

 strange way, they have learned by heart. Surely the flower's effort 

 to entice them with colors are not wasted, for the bees are quick to 

 distinguish colors and some colors are much more pleasing to 

 them than others. Could an artist's eye rejoice more keenly 

 than a bee does in the most enchanting of all flower colors — a 

 piu-e, clear blue when the sun shines through the petals? 



The mystery which is, most likely, forever to be concealed from 

 us is how the world looks to the bee. Does she see thousands of 

 flowers standing on their heads with her compoimd eyes and a few 



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