Conjecture, text fragments and carbon dating suggest the rise of human civilization coinciding with the rise of bee-culture. Entire libraries, it is said, were devoted to the study of the honeybee, though most of these libraries were burnt and plundered, along with the rest of the ancient world, and the knowledge lost. François Huber, the 18th-century French beekeeper, blind since childhood as a result of scarlet fever, discovered, or rediscovered, much of what is now known about the honeybee. Some of what is known is that the majority of the hive is made up of workers, who assume a variety of roles for the maintenance of the hive. All workers are female: genetically, each worker is considered identical. Drones are males, somewhat graceless and clumsy, larger than any worker, yet comprising only a small percentage of the hive’s overall inhabitants. They neither guard nor for-age, their role being solely to impregnate the virgin queen, after which they die or are killed. Huber focused much of his energies on solving what he called the queen’s mystery, specifically, how she becomes impregnated, what transpires in the air. After her initial nuptial flight as a virgin, the queen spends the rest of her life as a virtual slave, never leaving the darkness of the hive, continuously laying the eggs that will become the workers. The only difference between the queen and a worker is that the queen is raised on a diet of royal jelly, which transforms her, the composition of which is still somewhat mysterious. Only one queen at a time can exist in each hive. A queen can live for three or four years; a worker, depending upon the level of activity, lives from two months to a year. Burnens (his first name lost) was Huber’s lifelong assistant. Their experiments spanned fifty years.

notes

“Swarm”: Not two is a line from what is considered the first Zen writing, according to M.P. Landis.

The epigraph that begins the second section is taken from the Orson Welles film.

“Melitopoles”: The word translates as “honey merchants.”

“Wax (Jesus)”: Inspired by Edison’s line: I’ll make electricity so cheap only rich men will be able to afford candles.

“Paper Wasp”: When the Lord God created bees, the devil tried to make some, but his became wasps. (German folklore, from Hilda Ransome, The Sacred Bee)

“Xenophon’s Soldiers”: Reference taken from Ransome, The Sacred Bee.

The epigraph that begins the third section is taken from Ransome, The Sacred Bee.

“Without”: The book referred to is the Koran.

“Blind Huber (x)”: Lines in italics are taken from Huber’s letter to M. Bonnet, 1821.

“Wax Father”: He who offers a wax hand, the wound on his hand is healed; he who offers a wax foot, his foot becomes sound. (Heine, 1810)

“Statuary”: Image taken from Maurice Maeterlinck, The Life of the Bee.

“Burnens (i)”: Lines in italics are Huber’s.