SHERWOOD HONEY FLOWS 223 



August I — Virginia creeper blooming — covered with bees. 

 August 9 — on clematis, heartsease, sweet clover blooming. 



rain, fog. 

 August 16 — blue vervain, joepie weed in swamp — full bloom. 



iron weed beginning. 



a few white asters. 

 August 2 1 — strong odor around hives. 



golden rod in full bloom — bees working on it. 

 September 13 — cold nights. 

 Sept. 16 — asters in full bloom, all varieties. 



goldenrod fading, iron weed gone. 

 Sept. 19 — slight frost during night. 



Sept. 20 — on — bees excited by aster flow. 



hot days bees in trees after propolis. 

 Sept. 26 — A. M. thick fog, bees lost in air. 



Sept. 27 — on ■ — equinoxial storm. 

 Oct. 3 — on — cold nights. 

 Oct. 7 — looked over colonies — loaded with aster honey, 



still raising brood. 

 Oct. 15 — on — asters almost gone. 



dead drones in front of hives. 



bees mostly quieting down. 

 A year ago this would have had no meaning whatever to me. 

 Now, how many joyous moments it recalls — ^what strange sights 

 and soimds in a most mysterious world! 



It would be impossible to tell of these things with a hiiman 

 tongue for who could understand or care? It is only when our 

 ears are awakened to the music of the bees and our eyes are reading; 

 secrets in the smiles of flowers that our human mirids or souls 

 can catch here and there a fleeting insight, a revelation of great 

 wonder and beauty in this world where there is no intellect other 

 than nature's, perhaps, where perfect lives are lived without 

 thought, without knowledge. Where and what is the conscious 

 force that wills these things to come to pass among creatures so- 

 totally unconscious of what they do? 



It was the thirteenth of July and the breath of July was in the 

 air. The garden was gay with many colors and the fields glowing- 

 and smiling under the hot sun. I had noticed that for several 

 days my bees had been flying in steady streams in one direction,. 

 but what they were finding so much to their liking I did not know. 



