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210
The Fairy-Land of Science
·
Arabella B. Buckley
173
Even
if
you
did
not
already
know
from
the
title
of
the
lecture
what
city
this
is
that
I
am
describing,
you
would
no
doubt
guess
that
it
is
a
beehive.
For
where
in
the
whole
world,
except
indeed
upon
an
anthill,
can
we
find
so
busy,
so
industrious,
or
so
orderly
a
community
as
among
the
bees?
More
than
a
hundred
years
ago,
a
blind
naturalist,
Francois
Huber,
set
himself
to
study
the
habits
of
these
wonderful
insects
and
with
the
help
of
his
wife
and
an
intelligent
manservant
managed
to
learn
most
of
their
secrets.
Before
his
time
all
naturalists
had
failed
in
watching
bees,
because
if
they
put
them
in
hives
with
glass
windows,
the
bees,
not
liking
the
light,
closed
up
the
windows
with
cement
before
they
began
to
work.
But
Huber
invented
a
hive
which
he
could
open
and
close
at
will,
putting
a
glass
hive
inside
it,
and
by
this
means
he
was
able
to
surprise
the
bees
at
their
work.
Thanks
to
his
studies,
and
to
those
of
other
naturalists
who
have
followed
in
his
steps,
we
now
know
almost
as
much
about
the
home
of
bees
as
we
do
about
our
own;
and
if
we
follow
out
to-day
the
building
of
a
bee-city
and
the
life
of
its
inhabitants,
I
think
you
will
acknowledge
that
they
are
a
wonderful
community,
and
that
it
is
a
great
compliment
to
anyone
to
say
that
he
or
she
is
"as
busy
as
a
bee."
In
order
to
begin
at
the
beginning
of
the
story,
let
us
suppose
that
we
go
into
a
country
garden
one
fine
morning
in
May
when
the
sun
is
shining
brightly
overhead,
and
that
we
see
hanging
from
the
bough
of
an
old
apple-tree
a
black
object
which
looks
very
much
like
a
large
plum-pudding.
On
approaching
it,
however,
we
see
that
it
is
a
large
cluster
or
swarm
of
bees
clinging
to
each
other
by
their
legs;
each
bee
with
its
two
fore-legs
clinging
to
the
two
hinder
legs
of
the
one
above
it.
In
this
way
as
many
as
20,000
bees
may
be
clinging
together,
and
yet
they
hang
so
freely
that
a
bee,
even
from
quite
the
centre
of
the
swarm,
can
disengage
herself
from
her
neighbours
and
pass
through
to
the
outside
of
the
cluster
whenever
she
wishes.
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