EARLY WORK IN THE BEE-CITY 85 
be in desperate case. The beés are tearing open 
every store-cell, casting away the solidified honey 
as refuse, to get at the moister portion below. If 
the cold spell does not break, or the bee-master is 
unready with his artificial supplies, the colony 
must perish. So the water-bearers watch for the 
sunshine, and its first warm glance brings them out 
to rifle the nearest dewdrops, or track down by its 
bubbling music the hidden woodland stream. 
Many die at this work in the early months of the 
year, chilled by their load on the homeward 
journey, or snapped up by hungry birds. But at 
every cost the future life of the colony must be 
assured, though, of all the hive-people, none but 
the queen-mother will be alive to see it in its 
summer fulness. 
We are accustomed to think of a hive of bees 
as a permanent institution, Death playing his old, 
unceasing, busy part, but young Life more than 
outplaying him, just as the way is in a city-hive 
of men. The analogy holds good, but in bee- 
life the changes are infinitely more rapid. The 
life of the worker-bee extends, at most, to six 
months or so; and in the busy season she may 
die, worn out by labour, in as many weeks. The 
reapers of last year’s honey-harvest were dead by 
the autumn. The late-born bees, that went into 
winter quarters with polished thorax and ragged 
wings, survived only long enough to nurture their 
immediate successors; and these, again, will live 
