The Life of the Bee 
back by those who visit the calyces. Here, 
then, as everywhere else in the world, one 
part of the circle is folded in darkness ; here, 
as everywhere, it is from without, from an 
unknown power, that the supreme order 
issues; and the bees, like ourselves, obey the 
nameless lord of the wheel that incessantly 
turns on itself and crushes the wills that 
have set it in motion. 
Some little time back I conducted a friend 
to one of my hives of glass, and showed him 
the movements of this wheel, that was as 
readily perceptible as the great wheel of a 
clock—showed him, in all its bareness, the 
universal agitation on every comb, the per- 
petual, frantic, bewildered haste of the nurses 
around the brood-cells; the living gangways 
and ladders formed by the makers of wax; 
the abounding, unceasing activity of the 
entire population, and their pitiless, useless 
effort; the ardent, feverish coming and 
going of all; the general absence of sleep 
save in the cradles alone around which con- 
tinuous labour kept watch; the denial of 
even the repose of death in a home which 
permits no illness and accords no grave; 
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