14 THE LIFE OF THE BEE 



The first time that we open a hive there comes over us 

 an emotion akin to that we might feel at profaning some 

 unknown object, charged perhaps with dreadful surprise, as a 

 tomb. A legend of menace and peril still clings to the bee. 

 There is the distressful recollection of her sting, which produces 

 a pain so characteristic that one knows not wherewith to com- 

 pare it : a kind of destroying dryness, a flame of the desert 

 rushing over the wounded limb, as though these daughters 

 of the sun had distilled a dazzling poison from their father's 

 angry rays, in order more effectively to defend the treasure they 

 gather from his beneficent hours. 



It is true that were some one, who neither knows nor 

 respects the customs and character of the bee, suddenly to fling 

 open the hive, it would turn at once into a burning-bush of 

 heroism and anger ; but the slight amount of skill that is needed 

 to handle it with impunity can be most readily acquired. Let 

 but a little smoke be deftly applied, much coolness and gentle- 

 ness be shown, and our well-armed workers will suffer them- 

 selves to be despoiled without dreaming of drawing their sting. 

 It is not the fact, as some have maintained, that the bees re- 

 cognise their master, nor have they any fear of man ; but, at 

 the smell of the smoke, at the large, slow gestures that traverse 

 their dwellings without threatening them, they imagine that 

 this is not the attack of an enemy against whom defence is 

 possible, but that it is a force or a natural catastrophe whereto 

 they do well to submit. Instead of vainly struggling, therefore, 

 they do what they can to safeguard the future ; and, obeying 

 a foresight that for once is in error, they fly to their reserves 



