slight amount of skill needed to handle it with impunity can be most
readily acquired. Let but a little smoke be deftly applied, much
coolness and gentleness be shown, and our well-armed workers will
suffer themselves to be despoiled without dreaming of drawing their
sting. It is not the fact, as some have maintained, that the bees
recognise their master; nor have they any fear of man; but at the
smell of the smoke, at the large slow gestures that traverse their
dwellings without threatening them, they imagine that this is not
the attack of an enemy against whom defence is possible, but that it
is a force or a natural catastrophe whereto they do well to submit.

Instead of vainly struggling, therefore, they do what they can to
safeguard the future; and, obeying a foresight that for once is in
error, they fly to their reserves of honey, into which they eagerly
dip in order to possess within themselves the wherewithal to start a
new city, immediately and no matter where, should the ancient one be
destroyed or they be compelled to forsake it.

[7]

The first impression of the novice before whom an observation-hive*
is opened will be one of some disappointment. He had been told that
this little glass case contained an unparalleled activity, an
infinite number of wise laws, and a startling amalgam of mystery,
experience, genius, calculation, science, of various industries, of
certitude and prescience, of intelligent habits and curious feelings
and virtues. All that he sees is a confused mass of little reddish
groups, somewhat resembling roasted coffee-berries, or bunches of
raisins piled against the glass. They look more dead than alive;
their movements are slow, incoherent, and incomprehensible. Can