BEE-MASTERS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 41 
to venture near the apiary thus attired. In the 
hives the old bees and the young were believed 
to occupy separate quarters. In regard to this, 
it is a well-attested fact that, during the height 
of the honey season, the bees found in the upper 
stories of a hive are principally young ones who 
have not yet flown. 
We are told that if any of the bees have not 
returned to the hive at the end of the day, the 
queen goes out to find them and show them the 
way back. No one need be in any fear of over- 
looking the ruler of the hive, because she can 
be known by her “lofty pace and countenance 
expressing Majesty, and she hath a white spot 
in her forehead glistering like a Diadem.” 
An old writer advises that all the hives should 
have holes bored right through them to prevent 
spider-webs. He was also of opinion that the 
bees swarmed because of the queen’s tyranny, and 
if she followed them, they put her to death. He 
informs us that the drones were honey-bees which 
had lost their stings and grown fat. This was a 
very old idea, with which the sceptical Butler dealt 
in the following fashion: “The general opinion 
anent the Drone is that he is made of a honey-bee, 
that hath lost hir sting ; which is even as likelie as 
that a dwarfe, having his guts pulled out, should 
become a gyant.” But the bee-masters of the 
Middle Ages were ever intolerant of other people’s 
mistaken ideas, while supporting with the gravest 
