n says, very obscure and but little known.

BEES.

AN IDYL OF THE HONEY-BEE.

There is no creature with which man has surrounded himself that seems
so much like a product of civilization, so much like the result of
development on special lines and in special fields, as the honey-bee.
Indeed, a colony of bees, with their neatness and love of order, their
division of labor, their public spiritedness, their thrift, their
complex economies and their inordinate love of gain, seems as far
removed from a condition of rude nature as does a walled city or a
cathedral town. Our native bee, on the other hand, "the burly, dozing
humble-bee," affects one more like the rude, untutored savage. He
has learned nothing from experience. He lives from hand to mouth. He
luxuriates in time of plenty, and he starves in times of scarcity.
He lives in a rude nest or in a hole in the ground, and in small
communities; he builds a few deep cells or sacks in which he stores a
little honey and bee-bread for his young, but as a worker in wax he is
of the most primitive and awkward. The Indian regarded the honey-bee as
an ill-omen. She was the white man's fly. In fact she was the epitome of
the white man himself. She has the white man's craftiness, his industry,
his architectural skill, his neatness and love of system, his foresight;
and above all his eager, miserly habits. The honeybee's great ambition
is to be rich, to lay up great stores, to possess the sweet of every
flower that blooms. She is more than provident. Enough will not satisfy
her, she must have all she can get by hook or by crook. She comes from
the oldest country, Asia, and thrives best in the most fertile and
long-settled lands.

Yet the fact remains that the honey-bee is essentially a wild creature,
and never has been and cannot be thoroughly domesticated. Its proper
home is the woods, and thither every new swarm counts on going;
and thither many do go in spite of the care and watchfulness of the
bee-keeper. If the woods in any given locality are deficient in trees
with suitable cavities, the bees resort to all sorts of makeshifts; they
go into chimneys, into barns and outhouses, under stones, into rocks,
and so forth. Several chimneys in my locality with disused flues are
taken possession of by colonies of bees nearly every season. One day,
while bee-hunting, I developed a line that went toward a farm-house
where I had reason to believe no bees were kept. I follow