118 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
knew it, but singularly damping to the ardours, 
and great ideas of destiny, that gather within 
her day by day. At length the call comes for 
which all are secretly waiting, and obeying irre- 
sistibly, she presses out into the light. 
As she stands hesitating, the hot June sun falls 
upon her, laving her in molten gold. The blue 
sky beckons her upward. All the world of colour 
and incense and life calls her to her wooing, and 
she must needs obey. With a little glad flutter of 
the wings, she breaks at last from the scrambling 
company about her, and soars up into the light. 
Warily now she hovers, taking careful stock of 
her home and its surroundings. Then round and 
round, in ever widening and lifting circles, each 
sweep upward giving her a broader view of the 
world that lies beyond. And then away into the 
blue sky so swiftly that no human eye can follow ; 
yet only for a short flight. She is back again 
now, almost before you have missed her, and 
hurrying, frightened at her own audacity, into the 
old safe gloom of the hive. 
Thus she dallies, to and fro between the sun- 
shine and the darkness, each time adventuring 
a little farther into the blue playground of the 
upper air, until at length the inevitable comes to 
pass. A great drone—one of the roistering crowd 
that fills the bee-garden with its hoarse noontide 
music—spies her, and gives instant chase. At 
sight of him she wheels, and darts away into the 
