32 THE LIFE OF THE BEE 



corridors that divide the parallel walls the workers are busily 

 making preparation for the journey. And each one will first 

 of all burden herself with provision of honey sufficient for 

 five or six days. From this honey that they carry within 

 them they will distil, by a chemical process still unexplained, 

 the wax required for the immediate construction of buildings. 

 They will provide themselves also with a certain amount of 

 propolis, a kind of resin with which they will seal all the 

 crevices in the new dwelling, strengthen weak places, varnish 

 the walls, and exclude the light ; for the bees love to work 

 in almost total obscurity, guiding themselves with their many- 

 faceted eyes, or with their antenna perhaps, the seat, it would 

 seem, of an unknown sense that fathoms and measures the 

 darkness. 



i6 



They are not without prescience, therefore, ot what is 

 to befall them on this the most dangerous day of all their 

 existence. Absorbed by the cares, the prodigious perils of 

 this mighty adventure, they will have no time now to visit 

 the gardens and meadows ; and to-morrow, and after to- 

 morrow, it may happen that rain may fall, or there may be 

 wind ; that their wings may be frozen or the flowers refuse 

 to open. Famine and death would await them were it not 

 for this foresight of theirs. None would come to their 

 help, nor would they seek help of any. For one city 

 knows not the other, and assistance never is given. And 

 even though the apiarist deposit the hive in which he has 

 gathered the old queen and her attendant cluster of bees by 



