WHERE THE BEE SUCKS 221 
But here we do her an injustice: a pure-bred 
Italian worker-bee is as good or as bad tempered 
as any other of her species. It is the first crosses 
with the native bee which display so much vin- 
dictive aggressiveness, and have given to the 
whole race its general bad name. 
In the time of the great honey-flow—which in 
southern England begins in May, early or late, 
according to the season, and may endure for six 
weeks—it is a common thing in the country to 
see people turn back from the footpaths, running 
through the white-clover or sainfoin fields, because 
of the huge and terrifying uproar made by the 
foraging bees. When there is a large acreage 
under these crops, and the day is a fair one, this 
note reaches a volume hardly to be credited as a 
sound of work and peace. It is much more like 
the din of a great bee-war, and it is small wonder 
that the stranger, unlearned in the ways of the 
hives, should fear to go through what is very like 
a scene of battle and carnage. 
And yet there is no time of year when the 
honey-bee is so little inclined to molest her human 
fellow-creatures as this. So long as the honey- 
weather holds—the warm nights when the nectar 
is secreted, and the rainless days when it can be 
gathered—she can hardly be induced to attack, 
even if her home is being turned inside out, and 
the sudden sunlight riddling its darkness through 
and through. 
