THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE HIVE 71 
Watching bees at work for the first time through 
the glass panels of an observation hive, or in the 
almost equally informing modern hive with movable 
combs, this question continually arises, and there 
seems only one answer for it. There is something 
curiously human-like in their movements over the 
crowded combs, and the old comparison of a bee- 
hive to acity of men is never out of mind. There 
are the incessant hurryings to and fro; chance 
meetings of friends at odd street-corners ; alterca- 
tions where we can almost hear the surly complaint 
and tart reply; busy masons and tilers and 
warehouse-hands at work everywhere: a hundred 
different enterprises going forward in every throng- 
ing thoroughfare or narrow side-lane, from the 
great main entrance to the remotest drone-haunted 
corner of the hive. 
You will see the huge, full-bodied queen labour- 
ing over the combs, with a circle of attendants 
ever about her, guiding her from cell to cell. In 
the highest stories of the hive the honey-makers 
are at work, pouring the new-garnered sweets into 
the vats, or sealing over with impervious wax the 
mature honey. Where the nurseries are estab- 
lished, in the central and warmest region of the 
hive, the nurse-bees are hurrying incessantly over 
the combs, looking into each cell to mark the 
progress of the larvae; giving each its due ration 
of bee-milk ; or, when the time arrives, walling up 
the cell with a covering that shall insure its privacy, 
