A Twentieth-Century Bee-Farmer. 



He stooped to bring- his friendly pipe to my succour 

 again, for a bee was trying to get down my collar in the 

 most unnerving way, and another had apparently mistaken 

 my mouth for the front-door of his hive. The intruders 

 happily driven off, the master went back to his work and 

 his talk together. 



'* But it is just here that the art of the bee-keeper comes 

 in. He must prevent this interruption to progress by 

 maintaining- the confidence of the bees in the season. He 

 must create an artificial plenty until the real prosperity 

 begins. Yet, after all, he must never lose sight of the 

 main principle, of carrying- out the ideas of the bees, not 

 his own. In g-ood beemanship there is only one road (o 

 success : you must study to find out what the bees intend 

 to do, and then help them to do it. They call us bee- 

 masters, but bee-servants would be much the better name. 

 The bees have their definite plan of life, perfected throug-h 

 countless ages, and nothing you can do will ever turn them 

 from it. You can delay their work, or you can even 

 thwart it altogether, but no one has ever succeeded in 

 changing a single principle in bee-life. And so the best 

 bee-master is ahvays the one who most exactly obeys the 

 orders from the hive." 



24 



