Ill 



AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE 



rpHERE is no creature with which man has sur- 

 -*- rounded himself that seems so much like a 

 product of civilization, so much like the result of 

 development on special lines and in special fields, 

 as the honey-bee. Indeed, a colony of bees, with 

 their neatness and love of order, their division of 

 labor, their public-spiritedness, their thrift, their 

 complex economies, and their inordinate love of 

 gain, seems as far removed from a condition of rude 

 nature as does a walled city or a cathedral town. 

 Our native bee, on the other hand, "the burly, 

 dozing humblebee," affects one more like the rude, 

 untutored savage. He has learned nothing from 

 experience. He lives from hand to mouth. He 

 luxuriates in time of plenty, and he starves in times 

 of scarcity. He lives in a rude nest, or in a hole in 

 the ground, and in small communities; he builds a 

 few deep cells or sacks in which he stores a little 

 honey and bee-bread for his young, but as a worker 

 in wax he is of the most primitive and awkward. 

 The Indian regarded the honey-bee as an ill-omen. 

 She was the white man's fly. In fact she was the 

 epitome of the white man himself. She has the 



