Major de Hruschka invented the Honey-Extractor, which enables the honey to be withdrawn by centrifugal force without breaking the combs, etc. And thus, in a few years, the methods of apiculture underwent a radical change. The capacity and fruitfulness of the hives were trebled. Great and productive apiaries arose on every side. An end was put to the useless destruction of the most industrious cities, and to the odious selection of the least fit which was its result. Man truly became the master of the bees, although furtively, and without their knowledge; directing all things without giving an order, receiving obedience but not recognition. For the destiny once imposed by the seasons he has substituted his will. He repairs the injustice of the year, unites hostile republics, and equalises wealth. He restricts or augments the births, regulates the fecundity of the queen, dethrones her and instals another in her place, after dexterously obtaining the reluctant consent of a people who would be maddened at the mere suspicion of an inconceivable intervention. When he thinks fit, he will peacefully violate the secret of the sacred chambers, and the elaborate, tortuous policy of the palace. He will five or six times in succession deprive the bees of the fruit of their labour, without harming them, without their becoming discouraged or even impoverished. He proportions the store-houses and granaries of their dwellings to the harvest of flowers that the spring is spreading over the dip of the hills. He compels them to reduce the extravagant number of lovers who await the birth of the royal princesses. In a word he does with them what he will, he obtains what he will, provided always that what he seeks be in accordance with their laws and their virtues; for beyond all the desires of this strange god who has taken possession of them, who is too vast to be seen and too alien to be understood, their eyes see further than the eyes of the god himself; and their one thought is the accomplishment, with untiring sacrifice, of the mysterious duty of their race. {4} Let us now, having learned from books all that they had to teach us of a very ancient history, leave the science others have acquired and look at the bees with our own eyes. An hour spent in the midst of the apiary will be less instructive, perhaps; but the things we shall see will be infinitely more stimulating and more actual.