The Life of the Bee 
Nor is this book to be a scientific 
monograph on Apis Mellifica, Ligustica, 
Fasciata, Dorsata, etc., or a collection of 
new observations and studies. I shall 
say scarcely anything that those will not 
know who are somewhat familiar with 
bees. The notes and experiments I have 
made during my twenty years of bee- 
keeping I shall reserve for a more techni- 
cal work; for their interest is necessarily 
of a special and limited nature, and I 
am anxious not to over-burden this 
essay. I wish to speak of the bees very 
simply, as one speaks of a subject one 
knows and loves to those who know 
it not. I do not intend to adorn the 
truth, or merit the just reproach Réaumur 
addressed to his predecessors in the study 
of our honey-flies, whom he accused of 
substituting for the marvellous reality 
marvels that were imaginary and merely 
plausible. The fact that the hive con- 
4 
