148 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



to set aside obvious, humdrum duties in beeman- 

 ship has a stifrmore capable ally. 



The beeman with a microscope has given the 

 seven-leagued boots to his conscience ; he will 

 never catch up with it again in a whole life's 

 march. If the daily work in the hive, as seen 

 with the naked eye, is a fascinating, duty-dispers- 

 ing study, a microscopic acquaintance with the 

 hive-worker herself, and the details of her extra- 

 ordinary equipment, lets one into a whole new 

 world of fact and thought. 



It is only under a strong glass that the true 

 place of the honey-bee in the scale of creation can 

 be entirely estimated. Her work is evident to the 

 most casual eye, but of the worker herself we get 

 only a vague idea of a dim-hued, crystal-winged 

 atom running a perpetual race with the wind and 

 sunshine, or forming an all but undistinguishable 

 speck in the seething, heaving multitudes within 

 the hive. 



But here, on the stage of the microscope, the 

 honey-bee is revealed as a totally new creature ; 

 and, by little and little, a story unfolds itself about 

 her which, in its way, is a perfect epic of life. 

 No one can study the perplexities of hive-life for 

 long without a conviction that a creature executing 

 such varied and elaborate works must, of necessity, 

 be herself highly developed in body and mind. 

 But it seldom happens, even with the veriest tiro, 

 that the expectation comes anywhere near the 



