The Life of the Bee

by Maurice Maeterlinck

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About a week has passed since the departure of the old queen. The royal nymphs asleep in the capsules are not all of the same age, for it is to the interest of the bees that the births should be nicely gradationed, and take place at regular intervals, in accordance with their possible desire for a second swarm, a third, or even a fourth. The workers have for some hours now been actively thinning the walls of the ripest cell, while the young queen, from within, has been simultaneously gnawing the rounded lid of her prison. And at last her head appears; she thrusts herself forward; and, with the help of the guardians who hasten eagerly to her, who brush her, caress her, and clean her, she extricates herself altogether and takes her first steps on the comb. At the moment of birth she too, like the workers, is trembling and pale, but after ten minutes or so her legs become stronger, and a strange restlessness seizes her; she feels that she is not alone, that her kingdom has yet to be conquered, that close by pretenders are hiding; and she eagerly paces the waxen walls in search of her rivals. But there intervene here the mysterious decisions and wisdom of instinct, of the spirit of the hive, or of the assembly of workers. The most surprising feature of all, as we watch these things happening before us in a hive of glass, is the entire absence of hesitation, of the slightest division of opinion. There is not a trace of discussion or discord. The atmosphere of the city is one of absolute unanimity, preordained, which reigns over all; and every one of the bees would appear to know in advance the thought of her sisters. And yet this moment is the gravest, the most vital, in their entire history. They have to choose between three or four courses whose results, in the distant future, will be totally different; which, too, the slightest accident may render disastrous. They have to reconcile the multiplication of species—which is their passion, or innate duty—with the preservation of the hive and its people. They will err at times; they will successively send forth three or four swarms, thereby completely denuding the mother-city; and these swarms, too feeble to organise, will succumb, it may be, at the approach of winter, caught unawares by this climate of ours, which is different far from their original climate, that the bees, notwithstanding all, have never forgotten. In such cases they suffer from what is known as "swarming fever;" a condition wherein life, as in ordinary fever, reacting too ardently on itself, passes its aim, completes the circle, and discovers only death.

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Of all the decisions before them there is none that would seem imperative; nor can man, if content to play the part of spectator only, foretell in the slightest degree which one the bees will adopt. But that the most careful deliberation governs their choice is proved by the fact that we are able to influence, or even determine it, by for instance reducing or enlarging the space we accord them; or by removing combs full of honey, and setting up, in their stead, empty combs which are well supplied with workers' cells.

The question they have to consider is not whether a second or third swarm shall be immediately launched,—for in arriving at such a decision they would merely be blindly and thoughtlessly yielding to the caprice or temptation of a favourable moment,—but the instantaneous, unanimous adoption of measures that shall enable them to issue a second swarm or "cast" three or four days after the birth of the first queen, and a third swarm three days after the departure of the second, with this first queen at their head. It must be admitted, therefore, that we discover here a perfectly reasoned system, and a mature combination of plans extending over a period considerable indeed when compared with the brevity of the bee's existence.

These measures concern the care of the youthful queens who still lie immured in their waxen prisons. Let us assume that the "spirit of the hive" has pronounced against the despatch of a second swarm. Two courses still remain open. The bees may permit the first-born of the royal virgins, the one whose birth we have witnessed, to destroy her sister-enemies; or they may elect to wait till she have performed the perilous ceremony known as the "nuptial flight," whereon the nation's future depends. The immediate massacre will be authorised often, and often denied; but in the latter case it is of course not easy for us to pronounce whether the bees' decision be due to a desire for a second swarm, or to their recognition of the dangers attending the nuptial flight; for it will happen at times that, on account of the weather unexpectedly becoming less favourable, or for some other reason we cannot divine, they will suddenly change their mind, renounce the cast that they had decreed, and destroy the royal progeny they had so carefully preserved. But at present we will suppose that they have determined to dispense with a second swarm, and that they accept the risks of the nuptial flight. Our young queen hastens towards the large cradles, urged on by her great desire, and the guard make way before her. Listening only to her furious jealousy, she will fling herself on to the first cell she comes across, madly strip off the wax with her teeth and claws, tear away the cocoon that carpets the cell, and divest the sleeping princess of every covering. If her rival should be already recognisable, the queen will turn so that her sting may enter the capsule, and will frantically stab it with her venomous weapon until the victim perish. She then becomes calmer, appeased by the death that puts a term to the hatred of every creature; she withdraws her sting, hurries to the adjoining cell, attacks it and opens it, passing it by should she find in it only an imperfect larva or nymph; nor does she pause till, at last, exhausted and breathless, her claws and teeth glide harmless over the waxen walls.

The bees that surround her have calmly watched her fury, have stood by, inactive, moving only to leave her path clear; but no sooner has a cell been pierced and laid waste than they eagerly flock to it, drag out the corpse of the ravished nymph, or the still living larva, and thrust it forth from the hive, thereupon gorging themselves with the precious royal jelly that adheres to the sides of the cell. And finally, when the queen has become too weak to persist in her passion, they will themselves complete the massacre of the innocents; and the sovereign race, and their dwellings, will all disappear.

This is the terrible hour of the hive; the only occasion, with that of the more justifiable execution of the drones, when the workers suffer discord and death to be busy amongst them; and here, as often in nature, it is the favoured of love who attract to themselves the most extraordinary shafts of violent death.

It will happen at times that two queens will be hatched simultaneously, the occurrence being rare, however, for the bees take special care to prevent it. But whenever this does take place, the deadly combat will begin the moment they emerge from their cradles; and of this combat Huber was the first to remark an extraordinary feature. Each time, it would seem that the queens, in their passes, present their chitrinous cuirasses to each other in such a fashion that the drawing of the sting would prove mutually fatal; one might almost believe that, even as a god or goddess was wont to interpose in the combats of the Iliad, so a god or a goddess, the divinity of the race, perhaps, interposes here; and the two warriors, stricken with simultaneous terror, divide and fly, to meet shortly after and separate again should the double disaster once more menace the future of their people; till at last one of them shall succeed in surprising her clumsier or less wary rival, and in killing her without risk to herself. For the law of the race has called for one sacrifice only.

The cradles having thus been destroyed and the rivals all slain, the young queen is accepted by her people; but she will not truly reign over them, or be treated as was her mother before her, until the nuptial flight be accomplished; for until she be impregnated the bees will hold her but lightly, and render most passing homage. Her history, however, will rarely be as uneventful as this, for the bees will not often renounce their desire for a second swarm. In that case, as before, quick with the same desires, the queen will approach the royal cells; but instead of meeting with docile servants who second her efforts, she will find her path blocked by a numerous and hostile guard. In her fury, and urged on by her fixed idea, she will endeavour to force her way through, or to outflank them; but everywhere sentinels are posted to protect the sleeping princesses. She persists, she returns to the charge, to be repulsed with ever increasing severity, to be somewhat roughly handled even, until at last she begins vaguely to understand that these little inflexible workers stand for a law before which that law must bend whereby she is inspired.