The Swarm 
Here again we touch one of the thousand 
enigmas of the waxen city; and it is once 
more proved to us that the habits and 
the policy of the bees are by no means 
narrow, or rigidly predetermined; and 
that their actions have motives far more 
complex than we are inclined to suppose. 
[32] 
But we are constantly tampering with 
what they must regard as immovable 
laws of nature; constantly placing the 
bees in a position that may be compared 
to that in which we should ourselves -be 
placed.were the laws of space and gravity, 
of light and heat, to be suddenly sup- 
pressed around us. What are the bees to 
do when we, by force or by fraud, intro- 
duce a second queen into the city? It is 
probable that, in a state of nature, thanks 
to the sentinels at the gate, such an event 
has never occurred since they first came 
99 
