80 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
deposits her first eggs, thus laying the foundation 
of a colony which, populous enough in the season, 
must nevertheless perish with the next winter 
chills. 
In the primeval tropics the honey-bees may 
have lived in separate families, each with its 
teeming mother, its indolent, lie-abed father—the 
Turveydrop of creation—and its bevy of youngsters, 
every one going out, when grown, to establish a 
home for itself. The modern bee-city, with its 
complicated systems and laws, and its innumerable 
multitudes, may have originated only when change 
of habitat and climate brought about the necessity 
for a new order of things. Living in perpetual 
warmth, in a land where blossom followed blossom 
in unending succession, there would be no need 
for such co-operation. The one little family, 
snugging close in its moss-roofed corner, could 
sustain its own temperature; and where there was 
unceasing array of nectar-producing flowers, fore- 
sight would have been folly: the winter larder 
would have been left to take care of itself. 
But as the young bees, leaving their homes, and 
flying ever northward, came first into temperate 
zones, and then into the fringe of Arctic influences, 
the conditions gradually changed. The perpetual 
sipping-garden was left behind; and a season came 
in each year—short at first, but inevitably lengthen- 
ing—when there were no flowers. Hard necessity 
must have taught the bee, then, first to gather 
