AT THE CITY GATES 65 
and begin their noontide gambols about the hive, 
filling the air with a gay, roistering song. Ina 
little while they will be all gone to their revels, 
and the bee-garden will seem, by comparison, 
strangely quiet. But now the sudden accession 
of energy is unmistakable. With the awakening 
of the drones there seems to be a new spirit 
abroad. The air is no longer filled to overflow- 
ing with busy foragers. Many of these have 
joined the dance round the hives, so that each 
bee-dwelling is the centre of a singing, gambolling 
crowd, moved rather by a spirit of play, almost of 
idleness. But this brief moment of relaxation 
soon passes. The drones betake themselves 
to their marital pleasuring in the fields. The 
noisy midday symphony dies down to the old 
steady monotone of work. And the watcher at 
the gates of the bee-city turns to retrace his steps 
down the flower-garlanded way of the old pleas- 
ance, satiated with wonders, yet not satisfied, his 
curiosity only quickened a thousandfold for that 
which has been inexorably held from him, a 
glimpse of what is happening behind those baffling 
walls of straw. 
Wending slowly homeward, and pondering, he 
asks himself many questions. What is the reason, 
the final outcome, of all this earnest, well-directed 
labour? What is done with the pollen that has 
been carried in all the morning long? Where 
there is obviously so much system, and unanimity, 
5 
