“Human experience renders it daily more clear that the highest thought we can attain will long be inferior still to the mysterious truth we seek.”

I just loved it. Everything about it. How it is written, what it conveys. I can reccomend it to everyone.

dropped it, just couldnt stand his way of telling things

Delightful, vintage piece on bees.


Never thought I would have so many feelings about bumble bees.

A beautiful little book, an extended essay really, a poetic paean to the bee. As a hobby beekeeper I learned much from Maeterlink; his observations of bees are peerless, his love for them unmatched. But I have to knock a star off for his frequent digressions into flowery Victorian nature-worship and philosophical speculations.

No living creature, not even man, has achieved, in the centre of his sphere, what the bee has achieved in her own: and were some one from another world to descend and ask of the earth the most perfect creation of the logic of life, we should needs have to offer the humble comb of honey.

This book is a beautifully written treatise on the life of bees, the structure of their colonies and the formation of swarms, the perfection of the hexagonal comb cell, and their fascinating ways of reproduction. The book ends with a philosophical chapter on how bee societies compare with human ones in terms of progress as a species, adaptation to change, inventiveness and intelligence. A marvellous meditation on a species that can still teach us a thing or two.

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