The Life of the Bee 
flowers, the guard at the entrance will 
abandon their post; and foreign marau- 
ders, all the parasites of honey, forever 
on the watch for opportunities of plunder, 
will freely enter and leave without any 
one giving a thought to the defence of 
the treasure that has been so laboriously 
gathered. And poverty, little by little, 
will steal into the city; the population 
will dwindle ; and the wretched inhabitants 
soon will perish of distress and despair, 
though every flower of summer burst 
into bloom before them. 
But let the queen be restored before 
her loss has become an accomplished, 
wremediable fact, before the bees have 
grown too profoundly demoralised, — for 
in this they resemble men: a prolonged 
regret, or misfortune, will impair their 
intellect and degrade their character, — let 
her be restored but a few hours later, and 
they will receive her with extraordinary, 
82 
