where the bee-garden lay, under its sheltering crest of pine-wood, the april sunbeams seemed to gather, as water gathers in the lap of enclosing hills. out in the lane the sweet hot wind sang in the hedgerows, and the white dust lifted under every footfall and went bowling merrily away on the breeze. but once among the crowding hives, you were launched on a still calm lake of sunshine, where the daffodils hardly swayed on their slender stems; and the smoke from the bee-master’s pipe, as he came down the red-tiled path, hung in the air behind him like blue gossamer spread to catch the flying bees.
as usual, the old bee-man had an unexpected answer ready to the most obvious question.
“when will the new honey begin to come in?” he said, repeating my inquiry. “well, the truth is honey never comes into the hives at all; it only goes out. that’s the old mistake people are always falling into. good bees never gather honey: they leave that to the wicked ones. if i had a hive of bees that took to honey-gathering, i should have to stop them, or end them altogether. it would have to be either kill or cure.”
he took a quiet whiff or two, enjoying the effect of this seeming paradox, then went on to explain.
“what the bees gather from the flowers,” said he, “is no more honey than barley and hops are beer. honey has to be manufactured, first in the body of the bee, and then in the comb-cells. it must stand to brew in the heat of the hive, just as the wort stands in the gyle-tun; and when it is ready to be bunged down, before the bee adds the last little plate of wax to the cell-capping, she turns herself about and, as i believe, injects a drop of the poison from her sting—or seems to do so. then it is real honey, but not before. now, about these bad bees, the honey-gatherers—”
he stopped, putting his hand suddenly to his face. a bee had unexpectedly fastened her sting into his cheek. at the same moment another came at me like a spent shot from a gun, and struck home on my own face. the old bee-man took a hurried survey of his hives.
“why,” said he, “as luck, or ill-luck, will have it, i think i can show you the honey-gatherers at work now. there’s only one thing that would make my bees wild on such a morning as this; and we must find out where the trouble is, and stop it.”
he was looking about him in every direction as he spoke; and at last, on the farther side of the bee-garden, seemed to make out something amiss. as we passed between the long rows of bee-dwellings every hive was the centre of its own thronging busy life. from each there was a steady stream of foragers setting outward into the brilliant sunshine, and as constant a current homeward, as the bees returned heavily weighed down under loads of golden pollen from the willows by the neighbouring riverside. but round the hive, near which the bee-master presently came to a halt, there was a very different scene enacting. the deep, rich note of labour was replaced by an angry hubbub of war. the alighting-board of the hive was covered with fighting bees; company launched against company; single combats to the death; writhing masses of bees locked together and tumbling furiously to the ground in every direction. the soil about the hive was already thickly strewn with the dead and dying: and the air, for yards round, was filled with the piercing note of the fray. it seemed as hopeless to attempt to stop the carnage as it was manifestly perilous to go near.
but the bee-master had his own short way with this, as with most other difficulties. he took up a big watering-can and filled it hastily from the butt close by.
“this hive is a weak stock,” he explained, “and it is being robbed by one of the stronger ones. that is always the danger in spring. we must try to drive the robbers home, and only one thing will do it. that is, a heavy rainstorm; and as there is no chance of getting the real thing, we must make one for ourselves.”
he strode into the thick of the flying bees, and raising the can above his head, sent a steady cascade of water over the whole hive. the effect was instantaneous. the fighting ceased at once. the marauding bees rose on the wing and streamed away homeward. those belonging to the attacked hive scrambled into its friendly shelter, a bedraggled, sodden crew. when at length all was quiet, the old bee-man fetched an armful of hay and heaped it up before the hive, completely covering its entire front.
“if the robbers come back,” said he, “that will stop them going in, while the bees inside can crawl to and fro if they wish. but at sunset we must do away with the stock altogether by uniting it to another colony, and so put temptation out of the robbers’ way. and now we must go and look for the robbers’ den.”
he refilled his pipe, and led the way down the long thoroughfare of the bee-city, examining every hive in turn as he passed.
“it is trouble of this kind,” he said, “that does more than anything else to upset the instinct-theory of the old-fashioned naturalists, at least as far as the honey-bee is concerned. why should a whole houseful of them suddenly break away from their old orderly industrious habits, and take to thieving and violence? but so it often happens. there is character, or the want of it, among bees just as there is in the human race. some are gentle and others vicious; some are hard workers early and late, and others seem to take things easily, or to be subject to unaccountable moods and caprices. then the weather has an extraordinary influence on the temper of most hives. on sunny, calm days, when the glass is ‘set fair,’ and the clover in full bloom, the bees will take no notice of any interference. the hives can be opened and manipulated without the slightest fear of a sting. but if the glass is falling, or the wind rising and backing, the bees will be often as spiteful as cats, and as timid as squirrels. and there are times, just before a storm, when to touch some hives would mean bringing the whole population out upon you like a nest of hornets.”
he stopped by one of the hives, and laid his great sunburnt hand down flat on the entrance-board. the bees took no account of the obstacle, but ran to and fro over his fingers with perfect unconcern.
“and yet,” said he, “there are bees that follow none of these general rules. here is a stock which it is almost impossible to ruffle. you may turn their home inside out, and they will go on working just as if nothing had happened. they are famous honey-makers, while they keep to it; but, like all mild-tempered bees, they are too fond of swarming, and have to be put back into the hive two or three times before they settle down to the season’s work.”
as he talked, he was looking about him carefully, and at last made a short cut towards a hive standing a little apart from the rest. the bees of this hive were behaving in a very different fashion from those we had just inspected. they were running about the flight-board in an agitated way, and the whole hive gave out a note of deep unrest. the old bee-man puffed his “smoker” up into full draught, and set to work to open the hive.
“these are the honey thieves,” he said, as he pulled off the coverings of the hive and laid bare its rumbling, seething interior to the searching sunlight, “and when once bees have taken to robbing their neighbours there is only one way to cure them. you must exterminate the whole brood. in the old days, a stock of bees with confirmed bad habits would be taken to the sulphur-pit and settled at once for good and all. but modern bee-keepers have a better and less wasteful way. now, look out for the queen!”
he was lifting out the comb-frames one by one, and subjecting them to a close examination. at last, on one of the most crowded frames, he spied the huge full-bodied queen, and lifted her off by the wings. then he closed the hive up again as expeditiously as possible.
“now,” said he, as he ground the discredited monarch under his heel, “we have stopped the mischief at the fountain-head. of course, if we left the bees to raise another queen for themselves, she would be of the same blood as the first one, and her children would inherit the same undesirable traits. but to-morrow, when the bees are thoroughly sobered and frightened at the loss of their ruler, we will give them another full-grown fertile queen of the best blood in the apiary. in three weeks’ time the new population will begin to take over the citadel; and in a month or two all the old bees will have died off, and with them the last of the robber taint.”
