The Life of the Bee 
that differs so much from our own. 
And note, too, in these same little crea- 
tures, her unjust avarice and insensate 
waste. From her birth to her death, 
the austere forager has to travel abroad 
in search of the myriad flowers that 
hide in the depths of the thickets. She 
has to discover the honey and pollen 
that lurk in the labyrinths of the nectaries 
and in the most secret recesses of the 
anthers. And yet her eyes and olfactory 
organs are like the eyes and organs of 
the infirm, compared with those of the 
male. Were the drones almost blind, had 
they only the most rudimentary sense of 
smell, they scarcely would suffer. They 
have nothing to do, no prey to hunt 
down; their food is brought to them 
ready prepared, and their existence is spent 
in the obscurity of the hive, lapping honey 
from the comb. But they are the agents 
of love ; and the most enormous, most use- 
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