But what she does need is the joys of an active family. Many are deprived of these. The Dipteron’s burglary has destroyed the household. The sorely-tried Bees then abandon the deserted burrow. It is these who, ragged and careworn, wander through the hamlet. They move in short flights; more often, they remain motionless. It is they who, embittered in their natures, offer violence to their acquaintances and seek to dislodge them. They grow rarer and more languid from day to day; then they disappear for good. What has become of them? The little grey lizard had his eye on them: they are easy mouthfuls.
Those settled in their own demesne, those who guard the honey-factory wherein their daughters, the heiresses of the maternal establishment, work display a wonderful vigilance. The more I visit them, the more I admire [[217]]them. In the cool hours of the early morning, when the harvesters, not finding the pollen-flour sufficiently ripened by the sun, remain indoors, I see the portresses at their posts, at the top of the gallery. Here, motionless, their heads flush with the earth, they bar the door to all invaders. If I look at them too closely, they retreat a little way and, in the shadow, await the indiscreet observer’s departure.
I return when the harvest is in full swing, between eight o’clock and twelve. There is now, as the Halicti go in or out, a succession of prompt descents to open the door and ascents to close it. The portress is in the busy exercise of her functions.
In the afternoon, the heat is too great, the workers do not go to the fields. Retiring to the bottom of the house, they varnish the new cells, they bake the round loaf that is to receive the egg. The grandmother is still upstairs, stopping the door with her bald head. For her, there is no nap during the stifling hours: the general safety will not allow of it.
I come back again at night-fall, or even later. By the light of a lantern, I rebehold the overseer, as zealous and assiduous as in the day-time. The others are resting, but not she, for fear, apparently, of nocturnal dangers known to herself alone. Does she nevertheless end by descending to the quiet of the floor below? It seems probable, so essential must rest be, after the fatigue of such a watch!
It is evident that, guarded in this manner, the burrow is exempt from calamities similar to those which, too often, dispeople it in May. Let the Gnat come now, if she dare, to steal the Halictus’ loaves! Her audacity, her stubborn lurking ways will not conceal her from the watchful one, who will put her to flight with a threatening gesture or, if [[218]]she persist, crush her with her nippers. She will not come; and we know the reason: until spring returns, she is underground in the pupa state.
But, in her absence, there is no lack, among the Muscid rabble, of further sweaters of other insects’ labour. There are parasites for every sort of business, for every sort of theft. And yet my daily visits do not catch one of these in the neighbourhood of the July burrows. How well the rascals know their trade! How well-aware are they of the guard who keeps watch at the Halictus’ door! There is no foul deed possible nowadays; and the result is that no Muscid puts in an appearance and the tribulations of last spring are not repeated.
The grandmother who, dispensed by age from maternal worries, mounts guard at the entrance of the home and watches over the safety of the family tells us of sudden births in the genesis of the instincts; she shows us an immediate capacity which nothing, either in her own past conduct or in the actions of her daughters, could have led us to suspect. Timorous in her prime, in the month of May, when she lived alone in the burrow of her making, she has become gifted, in her decline, with a superb contempt of danger and dares, in her impotence, what she never dared do in her strength.
Formerly, when her tyrant, the Gnat, entered her home in her presence, or, more often, stood at the entrance, face to face with herself, the silly Bee did not stir, did not even threaten the red-eyed bandit, the dwarf whose doom she could so easily have sealed. Was it terror on her part? No, for she attended to her duties with her usual punctiliousness; no, for the strong do not allow themselves to be thus petrified by the weak. It was ignorance of the danger, it was sheer foolishness. [[219]]
And behold, to-day, the ignoramus of three months ago, without serving any apprenticeship, knows the peril, knows it well. Every stranger that appears is kept at a distance, without distinction of size or race. If the threatening gesture be not enough, the keeper sallies forth and flings herself upon the persistent one. Poltroonery has developed into courage.