The Life of the Bee 



ments, so methodically conceived that they 

 must infallibly answer some purpose which 

 no observer has as yet, I believe, been 

 able to divine. 



A few days more, and the lids of these 

 myriad urns whereof a considerable hive 

 will contain from sixty to eighty thousand 

 will break, and two large and earnest 

 black eyes will appear, surmounted by 

 antennae that already are groping at life, 

 while active jaws are busily engaged in 

 enlarging the opening from within. The 

 nurses at once come running; they help 

 the young bee to emerge from her 

 prison, they clean her and brush her, and 

 at the tip of their tongue present the 

 first honey of the new life. But the bee, 

 that has come from another world, is be- 

 wildered still, trembling and pale ; she 

 wears the feeble look of a little old man 

 who might have escaped from his tomb, 

 or perhaps of a traveller strewn with the 

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