The Life of the Bee 
god who has taken possession of them, 
who is too vast to be seen and too alien 
to be understood, their eyes see further 
than the eyes of the god himself; and 
their one thought is the accomplishment, 
with untiring sacrifice, of the mysterious 
duty of their race. 
[4] 
Let us now, having learned from books 
all that they had to teach us of a very 
ancient history, leave the science others 
have acquired and look at the bees with 
our own eyes. An hour spent in the 
midst of the apiary will be less instruc- 
tive, perhaps; but the things we shall see 
will be infinitely more stimulating and 
more actual. 
I have not yet forgotten the first apiary 
I saw, where I learned to love the bees. 
It was many years ago, in a large village 
of Dutch Flanders, the sweet and pleasant 
18 
