THE SWARM 63 



all, and tending towards a future that goes further and 

 further back ever since the world began. And, for the sake 

 of this future, each one renounces more than half of her 

 rights and her joys. The queen bids farewell to freedom, 

 the light of day, and the calyx of flowers ; the workers 

 give five or six years of their life, and shall never know love 

 or the joys of maternity. The queen's brain turns to pulp, 

 that the reproductive organs may profit ; in the workers 

 these organs atrophy, to the benefit of their intelligence. 

 Nor would it be fair to allege that the will plays no part 

 in all these renouncements. We have seen that each worker's 

 larva can be transformed into a queen if lodged and fed on 

 the royal plan ; and similarly could each royal larva be 

 turned into worker if her food were changed and her cell 

 reduced. These mysterious elections take place every day 

 in the golden shade of the hive. It is not chance that controls 

 them, but a wisdom, deep loyalty, gravity, and unsleeping 

 watchfulness man alone can betray : a wisdom that makes 

 and unmakes, and keeps careful watch over all that happens 

 v/ithin and without the city. If sudden flowers abound, or 

 the queen grow old or less fruitful, if the population increase 

 and be pressed for room, you then shall find that the bees 

 will proceed to rear royal cells. But these cells may be de- 

 stroyed if the harvest fail or the hive be enlarged. Often 

 they will be retained so long as the young queen have not 

 accomplished, or succeeded in, her marriage flight, to be at 

 once annihilated when she returns, trailing behind her, trophy- 

 wise, the infallible sign of her impregnation. Who shall 

 say where the wisdom resides that can thus balance present 

 and future, and prefer what is not yet visible to that which 



