NEWS OF SPRING 

 rare for the other bees to contend with you for the liquid booty- 

 conquered from the smiles, from all the charms of the fair 

 azure months. Try the experiment: I promise you impunity, 

 if you touch only the heavier hives. You can turn them over 

 and empty them like so many quivering, but harmless jars. 

 What does it mean? Have the fierce amazons lost courage? 

 Has abundance unmanned them; and have they, after the 

 manner of the too-fortunate inhabitants of luxurious towns, 

 delegated the dangerous duties to the wretched mercenaries 

 that keep watch at the gates? No, it has never been observed 

 that the greatest good-fortune relaxes the valour of the bee. 

 On the contrary, the more the republic prospers, the more 

 harshly and severely are its laws applied; and the worker in 

 a hive where superfluity accumulates labours much more 

 zealously than her sister in an indigent hive. There are other 

 reasons which we cannot wholly fathom, but which are likely 

 reasons, if only we take into account the wild interpretation 

 which the poor bee must needs place upon our monstrous 

 doings. Seeing suddenly her huge dwelling-place upheaved, 

 overturned, half-opened, she probably imagines that an in- 

 evitable, a natural catastrophe is occurring against which it 

 were madness to struggle. She no longer resists, but neither 



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