56 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



It is exceedingly difficult, nay, rather, impossible, 

 although we are but thinking of the little bee, to 

 realise the wonderful complexity and capability of 

 this brain and ganglionic system, with its countless 

 nerve fibres and numerous nerve cells ever transact- 

 ing the mystic and involved telegraphy of life, 

 receiving messages and transmitting replies with a 

 quickness as little to be conceived as that of the 

 electric current itself, besides stimulating and co- 

 ordinating a great diversity of parts, and bringing all 

 into a conscious unit, and so endowing that unit, that 

 it is but part of a greater whole, which, in turn, 

 puts itself into true, determinate, and useful relation 

 to the world which forms its environment ; but we 

 shall hereafter remember, that no muscle can move, 

 no heart throb, no organ of sense receive an im- 

 pression, no gland secrete, and no digestion be per- 

 formed, without the operation of some part of these 

 strange transparent threads, with their accompanying 

 ganglia. 



