The Life of the Bee 
habitually sluggish, and calculated to dis- 
courage the curiosity more needful to man 
than wisdom—or the hypothesis of the fixity 
of the species and of divine creation, which 
is less demonstrable than the other, banishes 
for all time the living elements of the 
problem, and explains nothing. 
106 
Of wild bees approximately 4500 varieties 
are known. It need scarcely be said that we 
shall not go through the list. Some day, 
perhaps, a profound study, and searching 
experiments and observations of a kind 
hitherto unknown, that would demand more 
than one lifetime, will throw a decisive 
light upon the history of the bee’s evolu- 
tion. All that we can do now is to enter 
this veiled region of supposition, and, dis- 
carding all positive statement, attempt to 
follow a tribe of hymenoptera in their pro- 
gress towards a more intelligent existence, 
towards a little more security and comfort; 
lightly indicating the salient features of this 
ascension that is spread over many thousands 
316 
