"Nonsense! I know all about them," said Linette, as she saw them fly away with their burden; "these are bees who make honey, such as I have brought you for your breakfast;" and the young girl put into her sister's hand a double slice of bread and honey.
Without noticing her breakfast, Piccolissima eagerly tasted of what remained of the yellow dust of the stamens of the lily.
"But, Linette," said she, "this does not taste like honey."
"Very true; it is for the bees to entitle it to that name, and not for me. All that I know is, that they call them honey bees because they make honey. They also make wax; and I have often seen them carry away little balls of the dust of flowers. Whether they make it afterwards into honey or wax, is their business. You have only to ask them."
Piccolissima meant to do this as soon as she had courage. Meanwhile, she rubbed in her fingers the dust of the lily, yellowed the end of her nose in smelling of it, her lips in tasting of it, still without finding in it the consistency of wax, or the taste of honey.
"How do the flies do it?" said she. "I have tasted at the bottom of the tube of a honeysuckle, or of a jasmine, something more like honey than this powder." While speaking, she was going to her bread and honey, when she perceived some one had got the start of her. A number of bees were on the edge of it, and were so busily employed that Piccolissima had an opportunity of examining them closely without fear of disturbing them. It was a pleasure to see them. From under their chins protruded, as far as their teeth, a little case of shell, opening with two little leaves, whence projected a second little case, polished and shining, half open, from which was thrust a transparent tongue, covered with hairs. This tongue was stretched out and plunged into the honey, and was then moved round and round and soaked in it; soon it was contracted, and now again it became larger; the insect seemed to enjoy all these various movements. Through the hairs and the opening pores, Piccolissima saw the liquid ascend; and between the teeth of the bee, above its admirable trunk, she saw a pretty large mouth open to receive the honey.
The little observer was willing to give up all her breakfast to the little winged gormand for the sake of the satisfaction she received from seeing how he managed to eat.
"Do not let all your honey be swallowed by those greedy flies," said Linette, who was the economist of the family.
"O, it is only just that they should have part, if they have made it," said Piccolissima, still watching them. "These are larger than those other bees who carry away the golden powder. Are they not satisfied? How their antennae come down! Does it not seem as if they were tasting thus the perfume of the honey which their wonderful trunks draw up?"
"They are just the same flies; they belong to our neighbor Thomas; one is not larger than another. I have seen them ever since I was born. I don't see any thing wonderful in them," said Linette. "It is because you are so little that you are astonished at every thing."