BEE-MASTERS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 47 



available source of artificial light. And honey was 

 in much more universal demand than it is now, 

 because cane-sugar could hardly have developed 

 into a serious rival as a sweetening agent among 

 the masses at a time when it stood, perhaps, at 

 two shillings a pound. 



But in speculations of this kind, it must be 

 borne in mind that, although the men who wrote 

 about bees displayed so picturesque an ignorance 

 in all matters appertaining to their charges, these 

 formed a very small minority among the bee- 

 keepers as a whole. Probably the bulk of the 

 supply in honey and wax came from bee-gardens, 

 whose owners neither knew nor cared anything 

 about books, and were concerned only in the 

 practical side of the work, where their knowledge, 

 hereditary for the most part, amply sufficed for 

 the part they played in it. 



Moreover, it is only in latter-day, scientific 

 apiculture that the work of the bee-master counts 

 to any great extent. Nowadays, under the light of 

 twentieth-century knowledge, this is competent to 

 bring about the doubling, and even trebling, of the 

 honey-harvest possible under the ancient methods. 

 But the old skeppists did, and could do, little more 

 than look on at the work of their bees, and here 

 and there put a scarce availing hand to it. Nearly 

 all the credit for the results achieved in those days 

 must be given to the bees themselves, who, untold 

 ages before, had brought to finite perfection 



