The Bee-Master of Warrilow. 



ing was allowed among- your bees. How do you manage 

 to prevent it?" 



" It is not so much a question of prevention as of cure. 

 Each hive must be watched carefully from the beginning. 

 From the time the queen commences to lay, in the first 

 mild days of spring, we keep the size of the brood nest just 

 a Httle ahead of her requirements. Every week or two I 

 put in a new frame of empty comb, and when she has ten 

 frames to work upon, and honey is getting plentiful, I begin 

 to put on the store-racks above, just as I am doing now. 

 This will generally keep them to business; but with all the 

 care in the world the swarming fever will sometimes set in. 

 And then I always treat it in this way." 



He had stopped before one of the hives, where the bees 

 were hanging in a glistening brown cluster from the alight- 

 ing-board; idling while their fellows in the bee-garden 

 seemed all possessed with a perfect fury of work. I 

 watched him as he lighted the smoker, a sort of bellows 

 with a wide tin funnel packed with chips of dry rotten wood. 

 He stooped over the hive, and sent three or four dense puffs 

 of smoke into the entrance. 



" That is called subduing the bees," he explained, " but 

 it really does nothing of the kind. It only alarms them, 

 and a frightened bee always rushes and fills herself with 

 honey, to be ready for any emergency. She can imbibe 

 enough to keep her for three or four days; and once secure 

 of immediate want, she waits with a sort of fatalistic calm 

 for the development of the trouble threatening." 



He halted a moment or two for this process to complete 

 itself, then began to open the hive. First the roof came 

 off; then the woollen quilts and square of linen beneath were 

 gradually peeled from the tops of the comb-frames, laying 

 bare the interior of the hive. Out of its dim depths came 

 up a steady rumbling note like a train in a tunnel, but only 

 a few of the bees got on the wing and began to circle round 

 our heads viciously. The frames hung side by side, with 

 a space of half an inch or so between. The bee-master 

 lifted them out carefully one by one. 



" Now, see here," he said, as he held up the first frame 



In the sunlight, with the bees clinging in thousands to it, 



** this end comb ought to have nothing but honey in it, but 



you see its centre is covered with brood-cells. The queen 



38 



