52 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
of shady, unpremeditated corners; and steeped 
themselves in medizvalism up to the eyes. The 
very song of the bees seemed to belong entirely 
to past days. None, surely, but a hopeless Vandal 
could put a colony of bees in one of the ugly 
square hives, and expect them to go honey-seeking 
in the old harmonious, happy way, sanctified of 
the ages. And so they never ventured up the hill 
to the great bee-farm, but kept to the garden 
below, and listened by the hour together to the 
quaint talk of its white-headed, smock-frocked 
owner, or stood valiantly at the foot of the ladder 
when he climbed up to dislodge a swarm from the 
moss-grown apple-boughs, or helped him to scour 
the new straw skeps with handfuls of mint and 
lavender, or beat out weird, unskilful music with 
the door-key on the old brass-pan when a swarm 
was high in the air. 
Much could be learnt, it is true, from quiet 
days spent in the old bee-garden, especially in 
May, before the earliest swarms were ready to 
forsake the hives. 
The first faculty to be acquired was that of 
wandering among the bees, or standing between 
their straw houses, undismayed at their incessant 
and often terrifying approaches. Whatever con- 
fidence one may place in bee-keepers’ assertions 
that their bees never sting, it is a bold man who 
can preserve entire equanimity when bees are 
settling continuously on his hands, his face, his 
