74 THE LIFE OF THE BEE 



a species of chyle that is at once assimilated, with almost 

 no waste whatever. 



Here, in the new abode, there is nothing ; not a drop of 

 honey, not a morsel of wax ; neither guiding-mark nor point 

 of support. There is only the dreary emptiness of an 

 enormous monument that has nothing but sides and roof. 

 Within the smooth and rounded walls there is only darkness ; 

 and the enormous arch above rears itself over the void. But 

 useless regrets are unknown to the bee ; or in any event it 

 does not allow them to hinder its action. Far from being 

 cast down by an ordeal before which every other courage 

 would succumb, it displays greater ardour than ever. Scarcely 

 has the hive been set in its place, and the disorder allayed 

 that ensued on the bees' tumultuous fall, when we behold 

 the clearest, most unexpected division in that entangled mass. 

 The greater portion, forming in solid columns, like an army 

 obeying a definite order, will proceed to climb the vertical 

 walls of the hive. The cupola reached, the first to arrive 

 grapple it with the claws of their anterior legs, those that 

 follow hang on to the first, and so in succession, until long 

 chains have been formed that serve as a bridge to the crowd 

 that rises and rises. And, by slow degrees, these chains, as 

 their number increases, supporting each other and incessantly 

 interweaving, become garlands which, in their turn, the 

 uninterrupted and constant ascension transforms into a thick, 

 triangular curtain, or rather a kind of compact and inverted 

 cone, whose apex attains the summit of the cupola, while its 

 widening base descends to a half, or two-thirds, of the entire 

 height of the hive. And then, the last bee that an inward 

 voice has impelled to form part of this group having added 



