The Life of the Bee 
be soured and embittered that are essential 
for maintaining existence. The bees regard 
it as a great common duty, impartially dis- 
tributed amongst them all, and tending 
towards a future that goes further and 
further back ever since the world began. 
And, for the sake of this future, each one 
renounces more than half of her rights and her 
joys. The queen bids farewell to freedom, 
the light of day, and the calyx of flowers; 
the workers give five or six years of their 
life, and shall never know love or the joys 
of maternity. The queen’s brain turns to 
pulp, that the reproductive organs may 
profit ; in the workers these organs atrophy, 
to the benefit of their intelligence. Nor 
would it be fair to allege that the will 
plays no part in all these renouncements. 
We have seen that each worker’s larva can 
be transformed into a queen if lodged and 
fed on the royal plan; and similarly could 
each royal larva be turned into worker if 
her food were changed and her cell reduced. 
These mysterious elections take place every 
day in the golden shade of the hive. It is 
not chance that controls them, but a wisdom, 
96 
