The Swarm 
has its own code of morals. There are 
some that are very virtuous and some 
that are very perverse; and a careless 
bee-keeper will often corrupt his people, 
destroy their respect for the property 
of others, incite them to pillage, and 
induce in them habits of conquest and 
idleness which will render them sources 
of danger to all the little republics around. 
These things result from the bee’s dis- 
covery that work among distant flowers, 
whereof many hundreds must be visited to 
form one drop of honey, is not the only 
or promptest method of acquiring wealth, 
but that it is easier to enter ill-guarded 
cities by stratagem, or force her way 
into others too weak for self-defence. 
Nor is it easy to restore to the paths 
of duty a hive that has become thus 
depraved. 
51 
