54 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
thing, and to find himself recklessly, almost 
breathlessly, looking on at what is nothing else 
than a great informing pageant of life. 
He stands, as it were, a stranger at the gates 
of a city, inhabited by the most interesting, and 
in some respects the most advanced, people in 
the world. Of the inner life of the city, apart 
from the deep busy murmur that surges out to 
him, he learns nothing, and will learn nothing 
until he puts sentimental pride in his pocket, and 
makes pilgrimage to the great bee-farm on the 
hill. But here, in the meanwhile, is food enough 
to satisfy the keenest appetite for the marvellous. 
In and out through the yawning entrance-gate 
of the city, under the hot May sunshine, there 
are thousands of busy people coming and going. 
The broad threshold of the hive is completely 
hidden under opposing streams, the one setting 
out towards the fragrant fields and hedgerows, 
the other tumbling and seething in, almost every 
bee dragging after her some kind of mysterious 
treasure. 
The outgoing bees start on their journey in 
two different fashions. Some emerge from the 
hive and rise at once on the wing, lancing straight 
off into the sunshine ; and these are foragers, who 
have already made several journeys afield since 
the sun broke, hot and rosy, over the eastward 
hill. But others, essaying their first excursion 
for the day, creep out of the murmurous darkness 
