IN A BEE-CAMP m1 
multitude round the entrance to this hive seemed 
larger and busier than with any other, and the note 
within as deeply resonant. 
“Ay! they’re erpulous enough,’’ said the bee- 
master, as he lighted his tin-nozzled bellows-smoker 
and coaxed it into full blast. ‘‘ But hark to the din! 
’Tis not work this time; ’tis mortal fear of some- 
thing. Flying strong? Ah, but only a yard or 
two up, and back again. There’s trouble at hand, 
and they’ve only just found it out. The matter is, 
they have lost their queen.” 
He was hurriedly removing the different parts of 
the hive as he spoke. A few quick puffs from the 
smoker were all that was needed at such a time. 
With no thought but for the tragedy that had come 
upon them, the bees were rushing madly to and fro 
in the hive, not paying the slightest attention to the 
fact that their house was falling asunder piecemeal 
and the sudden sunshine riddling it through and 
through, where had been nothing but Cimmerian 
darkness before. Under the steady slow hand of 
the master, the teeming section-racks came off one 
by one, until the lowest chamber—the nursery of 
the hive—was reached, and a note like imprisoned 
thunder in miniature burst out upon us. 
The old bee-keeper lifted out the brood-frames, 
and subjected each to a lynx-eyed scrutiny. At last 
he dived his bare hand down into the thick of the 
bees, and brought up something to show me. It 
was the dead queen; twice the size of all the rest, 
with short oval wings and a shining red-gold body, 
strangely conspicuous among the score or so of 
dun-coloured workers which still crowded round her 
on the palm of his hand. 
