“I don’t know, except that once when the bee-hawk caught me I felt myself going away. It grew dark and I heard the hum of wings that were strange and wonderful. Somehow you go to sleep and forget.”
“I have thought of death,” he went on. “I am old and battered, my days are as the falling flowers when the frost is upon them, and the frost soon will fall.”
I waited awhile in silence, but he spoke no more. Soon he lay in that buzzing hive, asleep, and I was not long in following him to where the golden honey dripped in the garden of dreams.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A Gleaner of Honey
We awakened about the same time and began to stir about. The first thing that happened was a new experience—the wax-pickers fell upon me and raked and scraped me for the tiny bits of wax which now, on account of my voracious appetite, had begun to grow in each of the rings marking the under sections of my body. They were so rude that at first I was inclined to resent their interference, which seemed to be mere meddling. But when I looked at Crip and saw two busy wax-pickers fumbling over him, I began to understand that this was part of a routine, and so I stood still until they had finished.
“They won’t bother with me much longer,” said Crip, sadly. “You see, when one becomes old the wax grows thinly—so the pickers give over. But you! They’ll get you. I have noticed that you are rather greedy about eating honey. This means you’ll get fat and produce lots of wax.”
“Tell me about wax and comb,” I begged of him.
“Comb, my child, is made of wax; this is comb on which you are standing. It is everywhere about you. The cups that hold our honey and our bread are made of it. The cell in which you were born is of wax; and, besides, it is used to stop the holes in our house. Of course there are different kinds of comb, depending on the use to which it is put. Why, these sheets of comb with their six-sided cells are wonderful in their economy, in their plan and symmetry. The cell we build is perfect. No other structure would serve our purposes, combining such strength and capacity. The cell is indispensable to the life of the bee!—otherwise he could not exist. So don’t let me see you make ready to fight the next time the wax-pickers approach, and they’ll soon be after you again.”