8o THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



deposits her first eggs, thus laying the foundation 

 of a colony which, populous enough in the season, 

 must nevertheless perish with the next winter 

 chills. 



In the primaeval tropics the honey-bees may 

 have lived in separate families, each with its 

 teeming mother, its indolent, lie-abed father — the 

 Turveydrop of creation — and its bevy of youngsters, 

 every one going out, when grown, to establish a 

 home for itself. The modern bee-city, with its 

 complicated systems and laws, and its innumerable 

 multitudes, may have originated only when change 

 of habitat and climate brought about the necessity 

 for a new order of things. Living in perpetual 

 warmth, in a land where blossom followed blossom 

 in unending succession, there would be no need 

 for such co-operation. The one little family, 

 snugging close in its moss-roofed corner, could 

 sustain its own temperature; and where there was 

 unceasing array of nectar-producing flowers, fore- 

 sight would have been folly : the winter larder 

 would have been left to take care of itself. 



But as the young bees, leaving their homes, and 

 flying ever northward, came first into temperate 

 zones, and then into the fringe of Arctic influences, 

 the conditions gradually changed. The perpetual 

 sipping-garden was left behind ; and a season came 

 in each year — short at first, but inevitably lengthen- 

 ing — when there were no flowers. Hard necessity 

 must have taught the bee, then, first to gather 



