THE PASTORAL BEES. 15 



pick up enough sweet to pay the running expenses 

 of their establishment. The purple asters and the 

 golden-rod are about all that remain to them. 



Bees will go three or four miles in quest of honey, 

 but it is a great advantage to move the hive near the 

 good pasturage, as has been the custom from the 

 earliest times in the Old World. Some enterprising 

 person, taking a hint perhaps from the ancient Egyp- 

 tians, who had floating apiaries on the Nile, has tried 

 the experiment of floating several hundred colonies 

 north on the Mississippi, starting from New Orleans 

 and following the opening season up, thus realizing a 

 sort of perpetual May or June, the chief attraction 

 being the blossoms of the river willow, which yield 

 honey of rare excellence. Some of the bees were no 

 doubt left behind, but the amount of virgin honey 

 secured must have been very great. In September 

 they should have begun the return trip, following the 

 retreating summer South. 



It is the making of the wax that costs with the 

 bee. As with the poet, the form, the receptacle, 

 gives him more trouble than the sweet that fills it, 

 though, to be sure, there is always more or less empty 

 comb in both cases. The honey he can have for the 

 gathering, but the wax he must make himself must 

 evolve from his own inner consciousness. When 

 wax is to be made the wax-makers fill themselves 

 with honey and retire into their chamber for private 

 meditation : it is like some solemn religious rite ; 

 they take hold of hands, or hook themselves together 



