A BEE-MAN OF THE ’FORTIES = 45 
pansy-spangles veering to every breeze. And last 
of all you became gradually aware that every bright 
nook or shade-dappled corner round you had its 
nestling bee-skep, half hidden in the general riot 
of blossom, yet marked by the steadier, deeper 
song of the homing bees. 
To stand here, in the midst of the hives, of a fine 
May morning, side by side with the old bee-man, 
and watch with him for the earliest swarms of the 
year, was an experience that took one back far 
into another and a kindlier century. There were 
certain hives in the garden, grey with age and 
smothered in moss and lichen, that were the 
traditional mother-colonies of all the rest. The old 
bee-keeper treasured them as relics of his sturdy 
manhood, just as he did the percussion fowling- 
piece over his mantel; and pointed to one in 
particular as being close on thirty years old. 
Nowadays remorseless science has proved that the 
individual life of the honey-bee extends to four or 
five months at most; but the old bee-keeper firmly 
believed that some at least of the original members 
of this colony still flourished in green old age deep 
in the sombre corridors of the ancient skep. Bend- 
ing down, he would point out to you, among the 
crowd on the alighting-board, certain bees with 
polished thorax and ragged wings worn almost to 
a ‘stump. While the young worker-bees were 
charging in and out of the hive at breakneck speed, 
these superannuated amazons doddered about in 
the sunlight, with an obvious and pathetic assump- 
tion of importance. They were really the last 
survivors of the bygone winter’s brood. Their 
task of hatching the new spring generation was 
