SHERWOOD HONEY FLOWS 227 



laden bees come gliding in, their wings would seem to sing in 

 human words. The words were always the same, and it was when 

 their burdens of nectar and pollen were heaviest that their wings 

 sang most joyfully, "For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." 



When the sumac flow was at its height under the hot, still sun 

 of July the weather treacherously changed and violent thunder 

 storms would suddenly rise and descend every afternoon. The 

 air, which had been so pleasing to the sumac, was now kept cool 

 and damp and agitated, while the yellow cones drooped and broke 

 under the swift blows of the rain. At first, when these storms 

 arose, when black clouds appeared in the west and leaped across 

 the sky to the eastern mountains sending down to the hot earth 

 strange, silent breath that was almost cold, the stream of out- 

 going bees would stop as suddenly as the storm arose. Through 

 the hushed and darkening air a great stream of swift, silent bees 

 would come gliding home to their various hives from the sumac 

 fields. I, holding my breath too, would hope that they all might 

 reach home before the clouds should crash. As if they knew how 

 to gauge the time, there were usually only a few stragglers coming 

 in by the time the rain actually fell. 



As the rainy weather increased, the sumac bloom ended and the 

 bees, who had been so excessively happy, grew irritable. There 

 was no purpose evident now among their armies. Instead of 

 flying straight for a nectar scource on wings that sang, some would 

 go in different directions, some would hang lazily about the hives 

 and some would dart about the entrance of a neighbor's hive 

 trying to pass the sentinels and steal a load of honey. I missed 

 the song of their wings as I went about placing tufts of grass 

 smelling of kerosene oil at the entrances of colonies that showed 

 any signs of being robbed and trying not to provoke the irritable 

 creatures into stinging me. The remainder of the summer was 

 unusually rainy and there were no glorious feasts laid out for the 

 bees by the plants that waited for sunshine. 



It was not until late September that the aster family opened 

 its lavender-tinted blossoms in great profusion over all the mead- 

 ows. Then, with intense excitement — as if they knew this was 

 the last feast and when the asters were gone, unfriendly winter 

 would do away with flowers — ^the bees streamed forth to gather 

 every priceless drop they could. The prosperous asters had 

 wisely waited until other flowers had closed their shops, and 



