FEBRUARY AMONGST THE HIVES 27 
feeders on, and give each hive as much syrup as the 
bees can take down; and this, again, leads the 
queens into the belief that the year’s food-supply 
has begun in earnest. The result is that the winter 
lethargy in the hive is soon completely overthrown, 
the queens begin to lay unrestrictedly, and the whole 
colony is forging on towards summer strength long 
before there is any natural reason for it.’’ 
We were stooping down, watching the bees at 
the nearest hive. A little cloud of them was 
hovering in the sunshine, heads towards the 
entrance, keeping up a shrill jovial contented note 
as they flew. Others were roving round with a 
vagrant, workless air, singing a low desultory 
song as they trifled about among the crocuses, 
passing from gleaming white to rich purple, then 
to gold, and back again to white, just as the mood 
took them. In the hive itself there was evidently a 
kind of spring-cleaning well in progress. Hundreds 
of the bees were bringing out minute sand-coloured 
particles, which accumulated on the alighting- 
board visibly as we watched. Now and again a 
worker came backing out, dragging a dead bee 
laboriously after her. Instantly two or three others 
rushed to help in the task, and between them 
they tumbled the carcass over the edge of the foot- 
board down among the grass below. Sometimes 
the burden was of a pure white colour, like the 
ghost of a bee, perfect in shape, with beady black eyes, 
and its colourless wings folded round it like a cere- 
cloth. Then it seemed to be less weighty, and its 
carrier usually shouldered the gruesome thing, and 
flew away with it high up into the sunshine, and 
swiftly out of view. : fio ike) 
