224 



NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



In spite of my wishes and all my endeavors the bees had been 

 swarming lately. "Who is our mistress, nature or you?" they 

 seemed to laugh back at me as, in a rushing, singing cloud, they 

 would rise and whirl and sail off to 

 some tree top, leaving the hive where 

 I had given them abundant room and 

 ventilation and plenty of combs to 

 build, with only the bees too young 

 for the journey and those out in the 

 fields and with pupae queens still sleep- 

 ing in their sealed cells. To-day as I 

 went into the garden the whole air was 

 exulting with that well-known sound 

 of thousands upon thousands of tiny, 

 rushing wings. Over my head there 

 was whirling a cloud of mad bees, and 

 I "flew" as best I could to the apiary 

 •to see from which hive they were com- 

 ing. To my dismay they were pouring 

 from every hive! After the shock of 

 that first sight of all my dear bees dash- 

 ing off in one wild torrent to leave the 

 homes I had tried to arrange just to 

 their liking, I helplessly sat down near 

 a hive to watch. "What!" I exclaimed, "Here are bees rush- 

 ing in as well as out in an endless stream," They were not 

 caught in the current of those leaving but were steadily enter- 

 ing the hive with loads of honey that made them fly heavily. 

 This was not like a swarm and every hive, as I went about, had 

 the same stream of returning bees. I caught at a new hope which 

 was confirmed as I watched for some time and saw that the cloud 

 grew neither less nor more dense but continued endlessly to sail 

 off in one direction; the same direction, in fact, in which the 

 bees had been flying lately. Such a mad, vast torrent of bees 

 I had never seen nor heard, even when a great swarm would 

 first rise into the air. As my eyes followed them my mind went 

 flying off keeping pace with their swift flight, and away I went, 

 presently, beneath the long straight cloud. How I wished for 

 .singing wings! 



