THE MYSTERY OF THE SWARM 183 



garden are of this ancient pattern. The old green 

 hive is keeping well up to its reputation. Already 

 it is the centre of a swirling crowd of bees, and, as 

 you look, a dense black stream of them is pouring 

 out of the entrance so fast and furiously that it is 

 almost impossible to distinguish what they are. 

 And the old wild trek-song is growing louder and 

 deeper with every moment, a rich vibrant tenor 

 note unlike any other sound in nature. There is 

 no doubt at all of its import, as you stand in the 

 wing-darkened sunshine, caught up in the excite- 

 ment of it all, and feeling much as if you were 

 facing a tearing sou'-west gale. Every bee of the 

 twenty or thirty thousand volleying madly to and 

 fro overhead, is singing her bravest and loudest. 

 There is only one meaning to the whole gargan- 

 tuan chorus. It is sheer jubilation melodised : a 

 wild, glad song of freedom, as though not a bee 

 amongst them had ever before set eyes on the 

 sunshine and the wealth of an English May. 



The great door-key, a ponderous, antiquated 

 piece of metal, beats out its clanging note, and the 

 swarm lifts higher and higher into the blue. 

 Gradually the sombre mist of bees draws closer 

 together, looking now like a little dark cloud 

 strayed from a forgotten summer storm. Now it 

 sails slowly northward, and lightens, as the sun- 

 light is caught by the beating wings as in a net of 

 silver ; and now it veers away into the very eye of 

 the sun, and changes into black, revolving tracery 



