THE BEE-MASTER OF WARRILOW 23 
He thought it over a little, the gun on his 
shoulder again. 
‘Well, they might take warning from this same 
King Solomon,”’ he said, ‘“‘ and beware the foreign 
feminine element. Let British bee-keepers cease to 
import queen bees from Italy and elsewhere, and 
stick to the good old English Black. All my bees 
are of this strain, and mostly from one pure 
original Sussex stock. The English black bee is a 
more generous honey-maker in indifferent seasons; 
she does not swarm so determinedly, under proper 
tree‘ment, as the Ligurians or Carniolans; and, 
above all, though she is not so handsome as some 
of her Continental rivals, she comes of a hardy 
northern race, and stands the ups and downs of the 
British winter better than any of the fantastic 
yellow-girdled crew from overseas.” 
