The Life of the Bee | Page 6

not a
single one of his principal statements that has been disproved, or
discovered in error; and in our actual experience they stand untouched,
and indeed at its very foundation.
[3]
Some years of silence followed these revelations; but soon a German
clergyman, Dzierzon, discovered parthenogenesis, _i. e._ the virginal
parturition of queens, and contrived the first hive with movable combs,
thereby enabling the bee-keeper henceforth to take his share of the
harvest of honey, without being forced to destroy his best colonies and
in one instant annihilate the work of an entire year. This hive, still very
imperfect, received masterly improvement at the hands of Langstroth,
who invented the movable frame properly so called, which has been
adopted in America with extraordinary success. Root, Quinby, Dadant,
Cheshire, De Layens, Cowan, Heddon, Howard, etc., added still further
and precious improvement. Then it occurred to Mehring that if bees
were supplied with combs that had an artificial waxen foundation, they
would be spared the labour of fashioning the wax and constructing the
cells, which costs them much honey and the best part of their time; he
found that the bees accepted these combs most readily, and adapted
them to their requirements.
Major de Hruschka invented the Honey-Extractor, which enables the
honey to be withdrawn by centrifugal force without breaking the combs,
etc. And thus, in a few years, the methods of apiculture underwent a
radical change. The capacity and fruitfulness of the hives were trebled.
Great and productive apiaries arose on every side. An end was put to
the useless destruction of the most industrious cities, and to the odious
selection of the least fit which was its result. Man truly became the
master of the bees, although furtively, and without their knowledge;
directing all things without giving an order, receiving obedience but not
recognition. For the destiny once imposed by the seasons he has
substituted his will. He repairs the injustice of the year, unites hostile
republics, and equalises wealth. He restricts or augments the births,
regulates the fecundity of the queen, dethrones her and instals another
in her place, after dexterously obtaining the reluctant consent of a
people who would be maddened at the mere suspicion of an
inconceivable intervention. When he thinks fit, he will peacefully

violate the secret of the sacred chambers, and the elaborate, tortuous
policy of the palace. He will five or six times in succession deprive the
bees of the fruit of their labour, without harming them, without their
becoming discouraged or even impoverished. He proportions the
store-houses and granaries of their dwellings to the harvest of flowers
that the spring is spreading over the dip of the hills. He compels them
to reduce the extravagant number of lovers who await the birth of the
royal princesses. In a word he does with them what he will, he obtains
what he will, provided always that what he seeks be in accordance with
their laws and their virtues; for beyond all the desires of this strange
god who has taken possession of them, who is too vast to be seen and
too alien to be understood, their eyes see further than the eyes of the
god himself; and their one thought is the accomplishment, with untiring
sacrifice, of the mysterious duty of their race.
[4]
Let us now, having learned from books all that they had to teach us of a
very ancient history, leave the science others have acquired and look at
the bees with our own eyes. An hour spent in the midst of the apiary
will be less instructive, perhaps; but the things we shall see will be
infinitely more stimulating and more actual.
I have not yet forgotten the first apiary I saw, where I learned to love
the bees. It was many years ago, in a large village of Dutch Flanders,
the sweet and pleasant country whose love for brilliant colour rivals
that of Zealand even, the concave mirror of Holland; a country that
gladly spreads out before us, as so many pretty, thoughtful toys, her
illuminated gables, and waggons, and towers; her cupboards and clocks
that gleam at the end of the passage; her little trees marshalled in line
along quays and canal-banks, waiting, one almost might think, for
some quiet, beneficent ceremony; her boats and her barges with
sculptured poops, her flower-like doors and windows, immaculate
dams, and elaborate, many-coloured drawbridges; and her little
varnished houses, bright as new pottery, from which bell-shaped dames
come forth, all a-glitter with silver and gold, to milk the cows in the
white-hedged fields, or spread the linen on flowery lawns, cut into
patterns of oval and lozenge, and most astoundingly green.
To this spot, where life would seem more restricted than elsewhere--if
it be possible for life indeed to become restricted--a sort