The Life of the Bee 



one city knows not the other, and assist- 

 ance never is given. And even though 

 the bee-keeper deposit the hive, in which 

 he has gathered the old queen and her 

 attendant cluster of bees, by the side of 

 the abode they have but this moment 

 quitted, they would seem, be the disaster 

 never so great that shall now have befallen 

 them, to have wholly forgotten the peace 

 and the happy activity that once they had 

 known there, the abundant wealth and the 

 safety that had then been their portion ; 

 and all, one by one, and down to the last 

 of them, will perish of hunger and cold 

 around their unfortunate queen rather 

 than return to the home of their birth, 

 whose sweet odour of plenty, the fragrance, 

 indeed, of their own past assiduous labour, 

 reaches them even in their distress. 



60 



