174 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



the eye. Some buds begin to glow as they begin 

 to swell. The bud scales change color and become 

 a delicate rose pink. I note this especially in the 

 European maple. The bud scales flush as if the 

 effort to "keep in" brought the blood into their 

 faces. The scales of the willow do not flush, but 

 shine like ebony, and each one presses like a hand 

 upon the catkin that will escape from beneath it. 



When spring pushes pretty hard, many buds 

 begin to sweat as well as to glow; they exude a 

 brown, fragrant, gummy substance that affords the 

 honey-bee her first cement and hive varnish. The 

 hickory, the horse-chestnut, the plane-tree, the pop- 

 lars, are all coated with this April myrrh. That 

 of certain poplars, like the Balm of Gilead, is the 

 most noticeable and fragrant. No spring incense 

 more agreeable. Its perfume is often upon the 

 April breeze. I pick up the bud scales of the pop- 

 lars along the road, long brown scales like the beaks 

 of birds, and they leave a rich gummy odor in my 

 hand that lasts for hours. I frequently detect the 

 same odor about my hives when the bees are mak- 

 ing all snug against the rains, or against the millers. 

 When used by the bees, we call it propolis. Virgil 

 refers to it as a "glue more adhesive than bird-lime 

 and the pitch of Phrygian Ida." Pliny says it is 

 extracted from the tears of the elm, the willow, 

 and the reed. The bees often have serious work to 

 detach it from their leg-baskets, and make it stick 

 only where they want it to. 



The bud scales begin to drop in April, and by 



