i82 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



When you have once lived among hives it is a 

 sore thing to be without their music. On warm 

 days, winter and summer alike, there is always 

 this drowsy, dreamy song in the air ; and dancing 

 without the fiddlers is no more depressing an 

 occupation than, to a beeman, is loitering in a 

 garden of mere silent vegetables and flowers. 

 Sitting now under the bower of apple-blossoms 

 and watching for the swarms, the full sweet note 

 from the hives comes over to you like the very 

 voice of serene content. It pervades the sun- 

 shine. It gently qualifies the slow wind in the 

 tree-tops. It lifts and falls like the lilt of a far-off 

 summer sea. This is the labour-song : the song 

 of the swarm is very different. To the trained 

 ear the caesura that presently comes in the midst 

 of the music is as clear as a pistol-shot, though 

 you may detect no change. The old bee-keeper 

 stops short in his wandering tale about famous 

 honey-years of half a lifetime back, seizes key and 

 pan, and hurries across the garden. It is the old 

 green hive again, he tells you, as you press hard 

 upon his heels — it is always the old green hive 

 that has swarmed the earliest every May for years 

 back. And forthwith the key and pan begin their 

 clattering ding-dong melody. 



Old-fashioned bee-keeping is not always a 

 matter of straw. Box-hives, without, of course, the 

 modern inside furniture, have been in use nearly 

 as long as the straw skep ; and the hives in the 



