On the Threshold of the Hive 
shall be as accurate as though they appeared 
in a practical manual or scientific mono- 
graph, but I shall relate them in a some- 
what livelier fashion than such works would 
allow, shall group them more harmoniously 
together, and blend them with freer and 
more mature reflections. The reader of this 
book will not gather therefrom how toy 
manage a hive; but he will know more or 
less all that can with any certainty be known 
of the curious, profound, and intimate side 
of its inhabitants. What he will have 
learned will be ouc little compared with 
what he still has to learn. I shall pass over 
in silence the hoary traditions that in the 
country and many a book still constitute 
the legend of the hive. When there may 
be doubt, disagreement, hypothesis, when 
I arrive at the unknown, I shall declare it 
loyally. You will find that we often shall 
halt before the unknown. Beyond the 
appreciable facts of their life we know but 
little of the bees. And the closer our 
acquaintance with them, the nearer is our 
ignorance brought to us of the depths of 
their real: existence; but such ignorance is 
