A TWENTIETH CENTURY BEE-FARMER 35 
be laid nor a grub hatched unless there is reason- 
able chance of subsistence for it. The populace 
of the hive must be increased only in proportion 
to the amount of stores coming in. With a good 
spring, and the early honey plentiful, the queen will 
increase her production of eggs with every day, and 
the population of the hive will advance accordingly. 
But if, on the very brink of the great honey-flow, 
there comes, as is so often the case, a spell of cold 
windy weather, laying is stopped at once; and, if 
the cold continues, all hatching grubs are destroyed 
and the garrison put on half-rations. And so the 
work of months is undone.” 
He stooped to bring his friendly pipe to my 
succour again, for a bee was trying to get down 
my collar in the most unnerving way, and another 
had apparently mistaken my mouth for the front- 
door of his hive. The intruders happily driven off, 
the master went back to his work and his talk 
together. 
‘But it is just here that the art of the bee- 
keeper comes in. He must prevent this interruption 
to progress by maintaining the confidence of the 
bees in the season. He must create an artificial 
plenty until the real prosperity begins. Yet, after 
all, he must never lose sight of the main principle, 
of carrying out the ideas of the bees, not his own. 
In good beemanship there is only one road to 
success: you must study to find out what the bees 
intend to do, and then help them to do it. They 
call us bee-masters, but bee-servants would be much 
the better name. The bees have their definite plan 
of life, perfected through countless ages, and 
nothing you can do will ever turn them from it. 
