The Life of the Bee 
which was as readily perceptible as the 
great wheel of a clock; showed him, in 
all its’ bareness, the universal agitation 
on every comb, the perpetual, frantic, 
bewildered haste of the nurses around 
the brood-cells; the living gangways and 
ladders formed by the makers of wax, the 
abounding, unceasing activity of the entire 
population, and their pitiless, useless ef- 
fort; the ardent, feverish coming and 
going of all, the general absence of sleep 
save in the cradles alone, around which 
continuous labour kept watch; the denial 
of even the repose of death in a home 
which permits no illness and accords no 
grave; and my friend, his astonishment 
over, soon turned his eyes away, and in 
them I could read the signs of I know 
not what saddened fear. 
And truly, underlying the gladness that 
we note first of all in the hive, underly- 
ing the dazzling memories of beautiful 
219 
