The Life of the Bee 



chant of the eager flowers, hymn of their 

 gladness and echo of their soft fragrance, 

 the voice of the white carnations, the 

 maijoram, and the thyme. They have, 

 however, a whole gamut of sounds that 

 we can distinguish, ranging from pro- 

 found delight to menace, distress, and 

 anger ; they have the ode of the queen, 

 the song of abundance, the psalms of 

 grief, and, lastly, the long and mysterious 

 war-cries the adolescent princesses send 

 forth during the combats and massacres 

 that precede the nuptial flight. May this 

 be a fortuitous music that fails to attain 

 their inward silence ? In any event they 

 seem not the least disturbed at the noises 

 we make near the hive ; but they regard 

 these perhaps as not of their world, and 

 possessed of no interest for them. It is 

 possible that we on our side hear only 

 a fractional part of the sounds that the 

 bees produce, and that they have many 

 54 



