THE SWARM 59 



fail in her duty to that sort of abstract divinity that we 

 should call future society, which the bees would appear 

 to regard far more seriously than we. It happens, for instance, 

 at times that apiarists, for various reasons, will prevent the 

 queen from joining a swarm by inserting a trellis into the 

 hive. The nimble and slender workers will flit through 

 it, unperceiving, but to the poor slave of love, heavier and 

 more corpulent than her daughters, it oilers an impassable 

 barrier. The bees, when they find that the queen has 

 not followed, will return to the hive and scold the unfortunate 

 prisoner, hustle and ill-treat her, accusing her of mere laziness, 

 probably, or suspecting her of feeble mind. On their second 

 departure, when they find that she still has not followed, 

 her ill-faith becomes evident to them, and their attacks grow 

 more serious. And finally, when they shall have gone forth 

 once more, and still with the same result, they will almost 

 always condemn her as irremediably faithless to her destiny 

 and to the future of the race, and put her to death in the 

 royal prison. 



35 



It is to the future, therefore, that the bees subordinate 

 all things, and with a foresight, a harmonious co-operation, a 

 skill in interpreting events and turning them to the best 

 advantage, that must compel our heartiest admiration, parti- 

 cularly when we remember in how startling and supernatural 

 a light our recent intervention must present itself to them. 

 It may be said, perhaps, that in the last instance we have 

 given they place a very false construction upon the queen's 



