Book of a lifetime: ‘The Life of the Bee’ by Maurice Maeterlinck

From The Independent archive: Magnus Mills revels in Maurice Maeterlinck’s truly remarkable early 20th-century book on bees and their perfect but pitiless society

Maeterlinck shows admiration for bees’ ‘unceasing industry and self-sacrifice for the sake of the common good’ (AP)

At the outset of this book, the author declares that he wishes to speak of the bees “very simply”. He confesses that he is not a scientist and can, therefore, only relate to us the observations he has made during 20 years of beekeeping.

Then, in the deceptive guise of an “interested amateur”, Maurice Maeterlinck embarks on an empirical masterpiece rendered in the form of a colourful epic narrative. The Life of the Bee is truly remarkable.

Shakespeare described bees as “singing masons building roofs of gold”, and, at first sight, the hive may indeed appear to resemble the gilded court of Queen Elizabeth I. Under Maeterlinck’s tuition, however, we soon learn that the hive is at once a monarchy, a republic, a democracy, a model of socialism and a totalitarian state.

The book was written at the beginning of the 20th century, and every now and then we glimpse reflections of our own civilisation. Maeterlinck clearly admires the bees’ unceasing industry and self-sacrifice for the sake of the common good; at the same time, he questions some of their morals.

The laws of nature may be profound, he admits, but they are also mercilessly harsh. Thus he proposes that we deepen our knowledge by studying nature rather than trying to imitate it. With this end in mind, he takes the reader on a guided tour of the hive during its construction, assigning human roles to the different characters we meet along the golden corridors; the architects, chemists, waxworkers, sculptors, scaffolders, street sweepers and guardians of the gate. Also, the house bees who provide ventilation with their whirring wings and the nursemaids who wait patiently on the as-yet-unborn queens.

Most numerous of all are the “austere foragers” who sally forth from the threshold of the hive in search of melliferous plants. Toiling with their burdens from dawn to dusk, the relentless devotion to duty of these workers is rewarded with nothing except a command to work even harder.

“Who gives this command?” wonders Maeterlinck. He suggests that perhaps there must be some sort of “winged assembly” or “council of the bees” that decides unanimously which bee will do what job; and that agrees when the time has come for the massacre of the drones.

This latter episode is reminiscent of the “final solution”: after the queen’s nuptial flight, the remaining male bees become superfluous to the requirements of the hive. Pottering uselessly around in their pearl helmets and doublets of iridescent velvet, they represent a kind of doomed aristocracy, failing to suspect they are about to be put to death by the resentful females.

Maeterlinck reminds us again and again that the hive is a feminine commonwealth that only requires one male to survive. The rest of them are an “idle race” who spend the summer lazing among the flowers prior to their justifiable execution. The society of bees, Maeterlinck concludes, may be perfect but it is also pitiless.