274 'fHE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



deep in a wash-tub, and heard the last stanza of 

 the vagulous song. 



" Hetty, there," explained the bee-master, "helps 



in the garden, and Helps, did I say ? Why, 



she is far and away a better hand at it than I. 

 There is so much in hive-work that needs the 

 light touch which only a woman can give. And 

 Deborah, she keeps house for us. Did you know 

 that the word Deborah was Hebrew for a honey- 

 bee ? But come and see where I make the hives 

 on winter days, and where we sling the honey, and 

 fill the super-crates with the sections, and all the 

 rest of it." 



He showed me then his workshop and a little 

 gauze-windowed shed where there was a home- 

 made honey-extractor — a cunning, centrifugal thing 

 by which the combs could be emptied and restored 

 unbroken to the bees, to be charged again and 

 again. And there was a storehouse, where long 

 rows of honey-jars, and stacks of sections, and 

 blocks of pale yellow wax were waiting for the 

 purchaser, and a packing-shed where the post- 

 boxes of corrugated cardboard were made up. 

 Finally there was pointed out to me, in a far-off 

 corner of the garden, a donkey— shaggy, well-fed, 

 placidly browsing — and, under a neighbouring 

 pent-roof, a little cart that was a curiosity in its 

 way. Its wooden tilt was made to represent a big 

 beehive, and on it was painted the name of the 

 bee-garden and a list of hive-products which it 



