The Life of the Bee

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Pages: 110

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About this book

The Life of the Bee is by Maurice Maeterlinck, translated by Alfred Sutro. The contents list chapters titled On the Threshold of the Hive, The Swarm, The Young Queens and The Progress of the Race. The chapter headed On the Threshold of the Hive says the writer does not intend to write a treatise on apiculture, or on practical bee-keeping.

A sort of aged philosopher had retired to a spot where his apiary was composed of twelve domes of straw, some of which he had painted a bright pink, and some a clear yellow, but most of all a tender blue. The workers always avoid turning their back on the queen, and they will invariably arrange themselves so as to face her with eyes and antennae and to walk backwards before her. The text calls the humble-bee's city ephemeral, saying it will perish in the autumn, its three or four hundred inhabitants dying and but a single female surviving.

About the author

Maurice Maeterlinck

Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also known as Count/Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French.