perceive it.

I see the two feelers quivering outside the hole. The insect notices
the breach in the wall: that is certain. It flies off. Will it bring
back mortar from its present journey to repair the injured jar as it
did just now?

Not at all. It returns with provisions, it disgorges its honey, it
rubs off its pollen, it mixes the material. The sticky and almost
solid mass fills up the opening and oozes through with difficulty. I
roll a spill of paper and free the hole, which remains open and shows
daylight distinctly in both directions. I sweep the place clear over
and over again, whenever this becomes necessary because new provisions
are brought; I clean the opening sometimes in the Bee's absence,
sometimes in her presence, while she is busy mixing her paste. The
unusual happenings in the warehouse plundered from below cannot escape
her any more than the ever-open breach at the bottom of the cell.
Nevertheless, for three consecutive hours, I witness this strange
sight: the Bee, full of active zeal for the task in hand, omits to
plug this vessel of the Danaides. She persists in trying to fill her
cracked receptacle, whence the provisions disappear as soon as stored
away. She constantly alternates between builder's and harvester's
work; she raises the edges of the cell with fresh rows of bricks; she
brings provisions which I continue to abstract, so as to leave the
breach always visible. She makes thirty-two journeys before my eyes,
now for mortar, now for honey, and not once does she bethink herself
of stopping the leakage at the bottom of her jar.

At five o'clock in the evening, the works cease. They are resumed on
the morrow. This time, I neglect to clean out my artificial orifice