The Life of the Bee 
great, the city of virgins will not lose heart 
so long as the queen be alive. Break their 
comb twenty times in succession, take twenty 
times from them their young and their food, 
you still shall never succeed in making them 
doubt of the future; and though they be 
starving, and their number so smal] that 
it scarcely suffices to shield their mother 
from the enemy’s gaze, they will set about 
to reorganise the laws of the colony, and to 
provide for what is most pressing ; they will 
distribute the work in accordance with the 
new necessities of this disastrous moment, and 
thereupon will immediately reassume their 
labours with an ardour, a patience, a tenacity 
and intelligence not often to be found ex- 
isting to such a degree in nature, true 
though it be that most of its creatures 
display more confidence and courage than 
man. 
But the presence of the queen is not even 
essential for their discouragement to vanish 
and their love to endure. It is enough that 
she should have left, at the moment of her 
death or departure, the very slenderest hope 
of descendants. ‘‘ We have seen a colony,” 
jo 
