On the Threshold of the Hive 
unspeakable delights of those immaculate 
days that revolved on themselves in the 
fields of space, forming merely a transparent 
globe, as void of memory as the happiness 
without alloy. 
5 
In order to follow, as simply as possible, 
the life of the bees through the year, we 
will take a hive that awakes in the spring 
and duly starts on its labours; and then we 
shall meet, in their natural order, all the 
great episodes, viz., the formation and de- 
parture of the swarm, the foundation of the 
new city, the birth, combat, and nuptial 
flight of the young queens, the massacre of 
the males, and, finally, the return of the 
sleep of winter. With each of these epi- 
sodes there will go the necessary explana- 
tions as to the laws, habits, peculiarities, and 
events that produce and accompany it; so 
that, when arrived at the end of the bee’s 
short year, which extends only from April 
to the last days of September, we shall have 
gazed upon all the mysteries of the palace 
of honey. Before we open it, therefore, 
19 
