104 THE LORE OF. THE HONEY-BEE 
worker-bees will be cut off at its source. Unless 
the bee-master supplies the colony with a new 
queen, properly fecundated, the hive will gradually 
fill up with drones, the old worker-bees will die off, 
and the stock must ultimately become extinct. 
When once the study of the inner life of the 
honey-bee has been undertaken, the watcher will 
soon realise that he has embarked on a stranger 
voyage than he ever contemplated, even in his 
most daring moments. In the old bee-garden 
there was a serenity, a quiet enduring bliss of 
ignorance, that chimed in well with his slothful, 
holiday mood. The sunshine, the flowers, the song 
of the wind in the tree-tops, and the drowsy song 
of the hives; the voice of the old white-headed 
cottager weaving in his listener’s ear the old, com- 
fortable arabesque of error; the sudden, jubilant 
uproar of a swarm, filling the blue sky with music 
and the flash of unnumbered wings ; the night- 
quiet, with its deep underground bee-murmur, its 
dim half-moon peering over the hill-top, the 
shadowy bent figure of the old beeman listening at 
hive-doors for the battle-cry of rival queens, that 
should mean trouble on the morrow—it all comes 
back to the watcher now as a haven he has left in- 
considerately, for a voyage over unknown, stormy 
seas. For now, with the inner life of the hive 
going on unmasked before his very eyes, wonder 
succeeds wonder almost without a break; and each 
new fact that reveals itself is more perturbing, 
