The Life of the Bee 
has been so laboriously amassed. And 
poverty, little by little, will steal into the 
city ; the population will dwindle, and the 
wretched inhabitants soon will perish of 
distress and despair, though every flower 
of summer burst into bloom before them. 
But let the queen be restored before her 
loss has become an accomplished, irremedi- 
able fact, before the bees have grown too 
profoundly demoralised—for in this they 
resemble men: a prolonged regret, or mis- 
fortune, will impair their intellect and de- 
grade their character; let her be restored 
but a few hours later, and they will receive 
her with extraordinary, pathetic welcome. 
They will flock eagerly round her; excited 
groups will climb over each other in their 
anxiety to draw near; as she passes among 
them they will caress her with the long 
antenne that contain so many organs as yet 
unexplained; they will present her with 
honey, and escort her tumultuously back to 
the royal chamber. And order at once is 
restored, work resumed from the central 
comb of the brood-cells to the farthest 
annexe, where the a ee honey is stored ; 
