The Life of the Bee 
ments, so methodically conceived that they 
must infallibly answer some purpose which 
no observer has as yet, I believe, been 
able to divine. 
A few days more, and the lids of these 
myriad urns— whereof a considerable hive 
will contain from sixty to eighty thousand 
—will break, and two large and earnest 
black eyes will appear, surmounted by 
antenne that already are groping at life, 
while active jaws are busily engaged in 
enlarging the opening from within. The 
nurses at once come running; they help 
the young bee to emerge from her 
prison, they clean her and brush her, and 
at the tip of their tongue present the 
first honey of the new life. But the bee, 
that has come from another world, is be- 
wildered still, trembling and pale; she 
wears the feeble look of a little old man 
who might have escaped from his tomb, 
or perhaps of a traveller strewn with the 
236 
