THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE HIVE 71 



Watching bees at work for the first time through 

 the glass panels of an observation hive, or in the 

 almost equally informing modern hive with movable 

 combs, this question continually arises, and there 

 seems only one answer for it. There is something 

 curiously human-like in their movements over the 

 crowded combs, and the old comparison of a bee- 

 hive to a city of men is never out of mind. There 

 are the incessant hurryings to and fro; chance 

 meetings of friends at odd street-corners ; alterca- 

 tions where we can almost hear the surly complaint 

 and tart reply ; busy masons and tilers and 

 warehouse-hands at work everywhere : a hundred 

 different enterprises going forward in every throng- 

 ing thoroughfare or narrow side-lane, from the 

 great main entrance to the remotest drone-haunted 

 corner of the hive. 



You will see the huge, full-bodied queen labour- 

 ing over the combs from cell to cell, with a 

 circle of attendants ever about her. In the 

 highest stories of the hive the honey-makers are 

 at work, pouring the new-garnered sweets into 

 the vats, or sealing over with impervious wax the 

 mature honey. Where the nurseries are estab- 

 lished, in the central and warmest region of the 

 hive, the nurse-bees are hurrying incessantly over 

 the combs, looking into each cell to mark the 

 progress of the larvae ; giving each its due ration 

 of bee-milk ; or, when the time arrives, walling up 

 the cell with a covering that shall insure its privacy, 



