42 THE LIFE OF THE BEE 



eat their fill, and revel, to heart's content, in the delights 

 of the treasure themselves have amassed. It is as though 

 they were prisoners to whom freedom had at last been given, 

 who had been suddenly led to a land of refreshment and 

 plenty. They exult, they cannot contain the joy that is 

 in them. They come and go aimlessly — they whose every 

 movement has always its precise and useful purpose — they 

 depart and return, sally forth once again to see if the queen 

 be ready, to excite their sisters, to beguile the tedium of 

 waiting. They fly much higher than is their wont, and 

 the leaves of the mighty trees round about all quiver re- 

 sponsive. They have left trouble behind, and care. They 

 no longer are meddling and fierce, aggressive, suspicious, 

 untameable, angry. Man — the unknown master whose sway 

 they never acknowledge, who can subdue them only by con- 

 forming to their every law, to their habits of labour, and 

 following step by step the path that is traced in their life 

 by an intellect nothing can thwart or turn from its purpose, 

 by a spirit whose aim is always the good of the morrow — 

 on this day man can approach them, can divide the glitter- 

 ing curtain they form as they fly round and round in song- 

 ful circles ; he can take them up in his hand, and gather 

 them as he would a bunch of grapes ; for to-day, in their 

 gladness, possessing nothing, but full of faith in the future, 

 they will submit to everything and injure no one, provided 

 only they be not separated from the queen who bears that 

 future within her. 



