It is not the fault of the bees
if he does not become ashamed of himself in some respects; nor are they
to blame if the wisest men fail quite to comprehend some of the wonders
they perform. Only by those "who list with care extreme," are their
gentle tones heard aright; and even from such are some secrets hidden.
How is it that an egg deposited by the queen-mother in a more than
ordinarily capacious compartment hatches a grub, "just like any other,"
which grub, feasting upon the concentrated food stored within its cell,
expands and lengthens and emerges an amber queen in all her glory?
Bee-keepers learn that the queen and the drones are the only perfect
insects in the hive, the hoard of willing, bustling slaves being females
in a state of arrested development. Each worker might have been a queen
but for the fact that environment and a special food were not vouchsafed
in the embryonic stage. By making artificial queen-cells, which the
workers provide for, men bring about the birth of queens at will. Not yet
has the secret of the manufacture of royal jelly been revealed. But is it
not the common belief that the spacious compartment and the special food
work the transformation of what otherwise would have been a brief-lifed
toiler to an insect of majestic proportions, regal adornment and imperial
instinct, whose wants are anticipated and who has no duty to perform save
that of increasing and multiplying her faithful subjects? Man controls
the development of an insect.
Pages:
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83