the bees,--for we cannot tell in what magical, formidable fashion
things may be reflected in the 6,000 or 7,000 facets of their
lateral eyes and the triple cyclopean eye on their brow,--but as it
would seem to us, were we of their stature. From the height of a
dome more colossal than that of St. Peter's at Rome waxen walls
descend to the ground, balanced in the void and the darkness;
gigantic and manifold, vertical and parallel geometric
constructions, to which, for relative precision, audacity, and
vastness, no human structure is comparable. Each of these walls,
whose substance still is immaculate and fragrant, of virginal,
silvery freshness, contains thousands of cells, that are stored with
provisions sufficient to feed the whole people for several weeks.
Here, lodged in transparent cells, are the pollens, love-ferment of
every flower of spring, making brilliant splashes of red and yellow,
of black and mauve. Close by, in twenty thousand reservoirs, sealed
with a seal that shall only be broken on days of supreme distress,
the honey of April is stored, most limpid and perfumed of all,
wrapped round with long and magnificent embroidery of gold, whose
borders hang stiff and rigid. Still lower the honey of May matures,
in great open vats, by whose side watchful cohorts maintain an
incessant current of air. In the centre, and far from the light
whose diamond rays steal in through the only opening, in the warmest
part of the hive, there stands the abode of the future; here does it
sleep, and wake. For this is the royal domain of the brood-cells,
set apart for the queen and her acolytes; about 10,000 cells wherein
the eggs repose, 15,000 or 16,000 chambers tenanted by larvae,
40,000 dwellings inhabited by white nymphs to whom thousands of
nurses minister.* And finally, in the holy of holies of these partss
are the three, four, six, or twelve sealed palaces, vast in size
compared with the others, where the adolescent princesses lie who