The Life of the Bee 



that differs so much from our own. 

 And note, too, in these same little crea- 

 tures, her unjust avarice and insensate 

 waste. From her birth to her death, 

 the austere forager has to travel abroad 

 in search of the myriad flowers that 

 hide in the depths of the thickets. She 

 has to discover the honey and pollen 

 that lurk in the labyrinths of the nectaries 

 and in the most secret recesses of the 

 anthers. And yet her eyes and olfactory 

 organs are like the eyes and organs of 

 the infirm, compared with those of the 

 male. Were the drones almost blind, had 

 they only the most rudimentary sense of 

 smell, they scarcely would suffer. They 

 have nothing to do, no prey to hunt 

 down ; their food is brought to them 

 ready prepared, and their existence is spent 

 in the obscurity of the hive, lapping honey 

 from the comb. But they are the agents 

 of love ; and the most enormous, most use- 

 S°9 



