I04 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



worker-bees will be cut off at its source. Unless 

 the bee-master supplies the colony with a new 

 queen, properly fecundated, the hive will gradually 

 fill up with drones, the old worker-bees will die off, 

 and the stock must ultimately become extinct. 



When once the study of the inner life of the 

 honey-bee has been undertaken, the watcher will 

 soon realise that he has embarked on a stranger 

 voyage than he ever contemplated, even in his 

 most daring moments. In the old bee-garden 

 there was a serenity, a quiet enduring bliss of 

 ignorance, that chimed in well with his slothful, 

 holiday mood. The sunshine, the flowers, the song 

 of the wind in the tree-tops, and the drowsy song 

 of the hives ; the voice of the old white-headed 

 cottager weaving in his listeaer's ear the old, com- 

 fortable arabesque of error ; the sudden, jubilant 

 uproar of a swarm, filling the blue sky with music 

 and the flash of unnumbered wings ; the night- 

 quiet, with its deep underground bee-murmur, its 

 dim half- moon peering over the hill-top, the 

 shadowy bent figure of the old beeman listening at 

 hive-doors for the battle-cry of rival queens, that 

 should mean trouble on the morrow- — it all comes 

 back to the watcher now as a haven he has left in- 

 considerately, for a voyage over unknown, stormy 

 seas. For now, with the inner life of the hive 

 going on unmasked before his very eyes, wonder 

 succeeds wonder almost without a break; and each 

 new fact that reveals itself is more perturbing, 



