The Children's Life of the Bee

by Maurice Maeterlinck

THE PROGRESS OF THE RACE

It is as well, before ending this book—as we have ended the story of the hive with the silence that winter brings—to add a few words about the extraordinary industry of the bees. People are apt to say, while admitting that it is very wonderful, that it has always been the same from the very beginning of time. Have the bees not, for thousands of years, built their combs, their marvelous combs, in just the same way; these combs that combine the most perfect science of chemist and architect, mathematician and engineer; combs in which it would be impossible for us to suggest a single improvement? Where shall we find any instance of progress, of the bees having discovered some new method or change in the old; show us that, and we will gladly admit that the bees, besides their instinct, possess also an intellect worthy of being compared with that of man!

This method of reasoning is not without its perils. It is the same kind of "mere common sense" that the people of Galileo's time displayed when they refused to believe that the earth revolved in space. "The earth cannot possibly turn," they would say, "for we can see the sun move in the sky, see it rise in the morning and set in the evening. Nothing can deceive our eyes." Common-sense is all very well; but it is not a sure guide unless it go hand in hand with a certain reflection and judgment.

The bees give abundant proof that they are capable of reason. As an instance, we may mention that Andrew Knight, a wellknown student of insect life, once covered the bark of some diseased trees with a kind of cement which he had made out of turpentine and wax. Some time after he noticed that the bees round about were making use of this mixture, which they had tried and adopted; they had found it close to their hive, and appeared to prefer it to their own. As a fact, the science of bee-keeping consists largely in giving the bees the opportunity of developing the spirit of initiative that they undoubtedly possess. Thus the bee-keeper, when pollen is scarce and it is important that there should be food for the larvæ, will scatter a quantity of flour near to the hive. This is a substance that the bees, in a state of nature, in their native forests in Asia, can never have met with, or known. And yet, if care be taken to tempt them with it—if one or two be placed on the flour, and induced to touch it and try it, they will quickly realize that it more or less resembles the pollen of which they are in need; they will spread the news among their sisters, and we shall soon find every forager-bee hurrying to gather this strange food, and supplying it to the infant-bees in place of the accustomed pollen.

It is only during the last hundred years that the bees have been seriously studied by man; only fifty years ago that the movable frames and combs were designed by means of which we were able to watch their movements. Need we wonder, then, if our knowledge is still somewhat limited? The bees have existed many thousands of years; we have observed them only for what is relatively a very short time. And if it could be proved that, during that time, no change has taken place in the hive, should we be right in assuming that there had been no change before our first questioning glance? Remember that a century is no more than a drop of rain that falls into the river; that a thousand years glide over the history of nature as a single one over the life of man.

It is of interest to compare the honey-bee of the hive with the great tribe of "Apiens," which includes all the wild bees. We shall discover differences more extraordinary than those that exist among men. But let us merely, for the moment, consider what is known as the domestic bee, of which there are sixteen different kinds, all, the largest as the smallest, exactly alike, except for the slight modifications caused by the climate or the conditions in which they exist. The difference between them, in appearance, is no greater than between an Englishman and a Russian, a European or a Japanese.

Bees do not, like ourselves, dwell in towns that are open to the sky and exposed to the caprice of rain and storm, but in cities that are entirely covered with a protecting envelope. If they were guided solely by their instinct, they would build their combs in the air. In the Indies we find that they do not even seek a hollow tree or a cleft in the rocks. The swarm will hang down from the branch of a tree, and the comb will be lengthened, the queen's eggs laid, provisions stored, with no shelter other than that which the workers' own bodies provide. Our Northern bees have at times been known to do this, deceived perhaps by a too gentle sky; and swarms have been found living in the center of a bush.

But even in the Indies this exposure to all weathers is by no means an advantage. So many workers are compelled to remain always on one spot, in order to keep up the heat that is required for those who are molding the wax and rearing the brood, that they are unable to erect more than a single comb; whereas, if they have the least shelter, they will build four or five more, thereby increasing the wealth and population of the hive. And so we find that every species of bee that lives in cold and temperate regions has given up building its hive in exposed places. Its intelligence has decided that it is better to select more sheltered spots. But it is none the less true that, in forsaking the open sky that was so dear to them, and seeking shelter in the hollow of a tree or a cave, the bees have been guided by what was at first a daring idea, which came to them through their observation, experience and reasoning.

There can be no doubt that they have made great progress. We have already mentioned the intelligence they show in using flour instead of pollen, cement in place of wax. We have seen with what skill they are able to adapt a new building to their requirements, and the amazing cleverness they display in the matter of combs made of foundation wax. They handle these marvelous combs, which are so curiously useful and yet so incomplete, in the most ingenious fashion, and actually contrive to meet interfering man half-way.

Imagine for a moment that we had for centuries past been building our cities, not with bricks, stones and lime, but with a substance as soft as is the wax secreted by the bees. One day an all-powerful being lifts us into the air and places us in the midst of a fairy city. We recognize that it is made of a substance resembling the wax that we have been using; but, as regards all the rest, we are merely lost and bewildered. We are called upon to make this city suit our requirements. Each of the houses in it is so small that our two hands can cover it. We can distinguish the beginnings of thousands of incomplete walls. There are many things that we have never come across before; there are gaps to be filled and joined up with the rest, there are many parts that have to be propped up and supported. We see a chance of getting things right, but around us there is nothing but hardship and danger. Some superior intellect, able to guess at most of our desires, has evidently been at work, but has been baffled and confused by the vastness and variety of the necessary details.