The Life of the Bee 
that often waits on the simple, who find 
salvation there where the wiser will perish, 
necessarily end by discovering the friendly 
opening that restores their liberty to 
them. 
44 
The same naturalist cites yet another 
proof of the bees’ lack of intelligence, and 
discovers it in the following quotation from 
the great American apiarist, the venerable 
and paternal Langstroth: “As the fly was 
not intended to banquet on blossoms, but 
on substances in which it might easily be 
drowned, it cautiously alights on the edge 
of any vessel containing liquid food, and 
warily helps itself, while the poor bee, 
plunging in headlong, speedily perishes, 
The sad fate of their unfortunate com- 
panions does not in the least deter others 
who approach the tempting lure, from madly 
alighting on the bodies of the dying and the 
dead, to share the same miserable end! No 
one can understand the extent of their in- 
fatuation until he has seen a confectioner’s 
shop assailed by myriads of hungry bees. 
122 
