The Bee-Master of Warrilow. 



into its mellifluous cavern, and began its deep song- once 

 more. The bee-master g-ave up his post to the foreman, 

 and came towards me, wiping- the honey from his hands. 

 He was very proud of his big extractor, and quite willing 

 to explain the whole process. " In the old days," he said, 

 ** the only way to get the honey from the comb was to press 

 it out. You could not obtain your honey without destroy- 

 ing the comb, which at this season of the year is worth 

 very much more than the honey itself ; for if the combs can 

 be emptied and restored perfect to the hive, the bees will 

 fill them again immediately, without having to waste valu- 

 able time in the height of the honey-flow by stopping to 

 make new comb. And w^hen the bees are wax-making they 

 are not only prevented from gathering honey, but have to 

 consume their own stores. While they are making one 

 pound of comb they will eat seventeen or eighteen pounds 

 of honey. So the man who hit upon the idea of drawing 

 the honey from the comb by centrifugal force did a splen- 

 did thing for modern bee-farming. English honey was 

 nothing until the extractor came and changed bee-keeping 

 from a mere hobby into an important industry. But come 

 and see how the thing is done from the beginning. ' ' 



He led the way towards one end of the building. Here 

 three or four men were at work at a long table surrounded 

 by great stacks of honeycombs in their oblong wooden 

 frames. The bee-master took up one of these. " This," 

 he explained, ** is the bar-frame just as it comes from the 

 hive. Ten of them side by side exactly fill a box that 

 goes over the hive proper. The queen stays below in the 

 brood-nest, but the w^orker-bees come to the top to store 

 the honey. Then, every two or three days, when the honey- 

 flow is at its fullest, we open the super, take out the sealed 

 combs, and put in combs that have been emptied by the 

 extractor. In a few days these also are filled and capped 

 by the bees, and are replaced by more empty combs in the 

 same way ; and so it goes on to the end of the honey- 

 harvest. " 



We stood for a minute or two watching the work at the 

 table. It went on at an extraordinary pace. Each work- 

 man seized one of the frames and poised it vertically over a 

 shallow metal tray. Then, from a vessel of steaming hot 

 water that stood at his elbow, he drew a long, flat-bladed 

 42 



