THE BEE MIND 



as proof that the bee does not wish to overcrowd a 

 neighbourhood. But, if so, why, when the swarm is 

 shaken down in the cool of the evening on a white sheet 

 outside the empty hive, do the bees promptly crowd 

 up, with all the music of satisfaction, carrying their 

 queen with them, and take possession ? 



No the bee intelligence is strictly circumscribed. 

 What we term " reasoning power " does not seem to 

 exist among bees. The arrangement, the order of 

 their State is marvellously beautiful. The spirit of 

 the hive is beyond praise in its devotion, discipline, 

 endurance, fiery patriotism. But here end the virtues 

 of the bee. Compared with those qualities her intellect 

 is beneath contempt. Her machinery of mind cannot 

 move outside the deep worn grooves of habit, which I 

 suppose were slowly made geologically slow in the 

 unreckoned thousands (or should it be millions ?) of 

 years of her unknown history for one cannot doubt 

 that this is one of the most ancient civilizations in the 

 world to-day it may even be the most ancient. 



