ith the news that "the lime-trees are blooming
to-day on the banks of the canal"; "the grass by the roadside is gay
with white clover"; "the sage and the lotus are about to open"; "the
mignonette and the lilies are overflowing with pollen." Whereupon the
bees must organize quickly and arrange to divide the work. They probably
call a council of the wise ones and after due discussion and formalities
proceed to send out their working expeditions. "Five thousand of the
sturdiest will sally forth to the lime-trees, while three thousand
juniors go and refresh the white clover." "They make daily calculations
as to the means of obtaining the greatest possible wealth of saccharine
liquid."

When Maeterlinck speaks of "the hidden genius of the hive issuing its
commands," or recognizes the existence among the bees of spiritual
communications that go beyond a mere "yes" or "no," he is true to his own
conception.

The division of labor among hive bees is of course spontaneous, like all
their other economies--not a matter of thought, but of instinct.

Maeterlinck and other students of the honey bee make the mistake of
humanizing the bee, thus making them communicate with one another as we
communicate. Bees have a language, they say; they tell one another this
and that; if one finds honey or good pasturage, she tells her sisters,
and so on. This is all wide of the mark. There is nothing analogous to
verbal communication among the insects. The unity of the swarm, or the
Spirit of the Hive, does it all. Bees communicate and cooeperate with one
another as the cells of the body communicate and cooeperate in building
up the various organs. The spirit of the body cooerdinates all the
different organs and tissues, making a unit of the body.

If some outside creature, such as a mouse or a snail, penetrates into
the hive, and dies there, the bees encase it in wax, or bury it where it
lies, so that it cannot contaminate the hive, and a foreign object in
the body, such as a bullet in the lungs, or in the muscles, becomes
encysted in an analogous manner, and is thus rendered harmless.

Kill a bee in or near the hive and the smell of its crushed body will
infuriate the other bees. But crush a bee in the fields or by the
bee-hunter's box which is swarming with bees, and the units from the
same hive heed it not.

Bees have no fear. They have no love or attachment for one another as
animals have. If one of their number is wounded or disabled, t