THE SWARM 



and fiun^ themselves upon the uncer- 

 tainties of life, they were yielding to a 

 kind of irresistible folly, a mechanical 

 impulse, a law of the species, a decree 

 of nature, or to the force that for all 

 creatures lies hidden in the revolution of 

 time. It is our habit, in the case of the 

 bees no less than our own, to regard as 

 fatality all that we do not as yet under- 

 stand. But now that the hive ha5 sur- 

 rendered two or three of its material 

 secrets, v;e have discovered that this 

 exodus is neither instinctive nor inevitable. 

 It is not a blind emigration, but appar- 

 ently the v/ell-considered sacrirlce of the 

 present generation in favour of the gen- 

 eration to come. The bee-keeper has only 

 to destroy in their cells the young 



