FULL-BLOWN SUMMER 201 



behind, the hard work of the harvest still to come, 

 while every creature and organism on the place is 

 engaged in yielding its annual handsome dividend. 

 Lambs are fat for the butcher, calves follow their 

 mothers through the grass, foals gambol on the hill- 

 side, chicks and ducklings abound in the poultry- 

 yard. To-day we opened a hive into which the 

 swarm entered on foundations eleven days ago. We 

 found the combs glistening with several pounds of 

 unsealed honey, all the foundations drawn out into 

 comb, grubs, eggs, and one comb solid with sealed 

 brood. The bee-book tells us that this is nearly, 

 if not quite, impossible. There should be allowed 

 a day at least for the drawing out of the first comb, 

 two days for the laying of four thousand eggs, three 

 days for incubation, and six days more till the grubs 

 are large enough to be sealed up. Yet our bees have 

 done all this in ten days. The book does not allow 

 for the mad energy of early summer. The queen, 

 as we see in an observatory hive, does not lay in 

 the foundation some say she could only lay drone 

 eggs there but she does lay when the cell walls 

 are only raised to half their height. The honey in 

 our new hive and all the pounds consumed in the 

 preparation of wax and the feeding of five or ten 

 thousand grubs came from the apple blossom, 

 snatched thence in a feverish ten days' foray. The 

 apple blossom is gone, so will the hawthorn blossom, 

 now pouring its sweets into the hive, so will the 

 fragrant horse-bean, the white clover, the raspberry, 

 and all the other delights of summer. Carpe diem ! 

 is the instinct of every summer thing, whether it be 

 treasure or pleasure that is to be made sure of. 



