THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE HIVE 77 
foreign rivals, and partly, it would seem, because 
she is not black at all, but a rich brown—but all 
do not know her origin. Probably she came to 
us from the tropics by easy stages, swarm out- 
flying swarm, until the most adventurous crossed 
the English Channel in remote ages, when it was 
only a narrow race of water, or even before 
Great Britain was detached from the mainland. 
It was the black bee, and not the motley- 
coloured Italian or other varieties, who came to 
us thus, for the same reason, probably, that the 
Celts came—because they were a hardy race, loving, 
and being more fitted for the bracing northern 
atmosphere than the heat and languor of the 
south. Modern bee-breeders who are trying so 
hard to acclimatise in Britain the golden-girdled 
or silver-fringed bee-races of other lands, might 
well ponder this fact. No keener controversy 
rages to-day among English bee-masters than this 
one of the relative merits of native and foreign 
stocks. But assuredly Nature has not erred in this 
respect. South Down sheep can be reared in any 
county, but nowhere so fine as on the Sussex 
Downs. The like principle holds good with the 
English bee. The ages have evolved her from 
her tropic beginnings to make her what she is—a 
doughty,~essentially British creature, thriving 
against all odds of fickle climate, when her more 
tender sisters from the south are hard put to it 
for a living. She has held her own against them, 
