THE SONG OF THE HIVES 101 
air and sunshine held nothing to account for it; and 
the stranger unversed in honey-bee lore, after taking 
his fill of this melodious mystery, generally ended 
by giving up the problem as insoluble, and passing 
on to his business or pleasure in the little green- 
garlanded hamlet under the hill. 
That the bees of a fairly large apiary should 
produce a considerable volume of sound in their 
passage to and fro between the hives and the honey- 
pastures is in no way remarkable. In the heyday of 
the year—the brief six weeks’ honey-flow of the 
English summer—probably each normal colony of 
bees would send out an army of foragers at least 
twenty thousand strong. What really seems matter 
for wonder is the way in which bees appear to 
concentrate their movements to certain well-defined 
tracks in the atmosphere, They do not distribute 
themselves broadcast over the intervening space, 
as they might be expected to do, but wonderfully 
keep to certain definite restricted thoroughfares, 
no matter how near or how remote their foraging 
grounds may be. 
And this particular gap in the chain of hedgerows 
really marked the great main highway for the bees 
between the hives and the clover-fields silvering the 
whole wide stretch of hill and dale beyond. Every 
moment had its winged thousands going and 
returning. At any time, if a fine net could have 
been cast suddenly a few fathoms upward, it would 
have fallen to earth black and heavy with bees; but 
the singing multitude went by at so fast and furious 
a pace that, to the keenest sight, not one of the 
eager crew was visible. Only the sound of their 
going was plain to all; a mighty tenor note abroad 
