Page:The life of the bee (IA cu31924101469827).pdf/94

The Life of the Bee flowers, the guard at the entrance will abandon their post; and foreign marauders, all the parasites of honey, forever on the watch for opportunities of plunder, will freely enter and leave without any one giving a thought to the defence of the treasure that has been so laboriously gathered. And poverty, little by little, will steal into the city; the population will dwindle; and the wretched inhabitants soon will perish of distress and despair, though every flower of summer burst into bloom before them.

But let the queen be restored before her loss has become an accomplished, irremediable fact, before the bees have grown too profoundly demoralised,—for in this they resemble men: a prolonged regret, or misfortune, will impair their intellect and degrade their character,—let her be restored but a few hours later, and they will receive her with extraordinary, 82