The Life of the Bee 
cradles that she must fill. On the other 
hand she alone will know the disquiet of 
love. Not even twice, it may be, in her life 
shall she look on the light—for the depar- 
ture of the swarm is by no means inevitable ; 
on one occasion only, perhaps, will she make 
use of her wings, but then it will be to fly 
to her lover. It is strange to see so many 
things—organs, ideas, desires, habits, an 
entire destiny—depending, not on a germ, 
which were the ordinary miracle of the plant, 
the animal, and man, but on a curious inert 
substance: a drop of honey.’ 
70 
About a week has passed since the de- 
parture of the old queen. The royal nymphs 
asleep in the capsules are not all of the same 
age, for it is to the interest of the bees that 
1 It is generally admitted to-day that workers and 
queens, after the hatching of the egg, receive the same 
nourishment—a kind of milk, very rich in nitrogen, that 
a special gland in the nurse’s head secretes. But after 
a few days the worker larvze are weaned, and put on a 
coarser diet of honey and pollen; whereas the future 
queen, until she be fully developed, is copiously fed on 
the precious milk known as “ royal jelly.” 
200 
