IN THE ABBOT’S BEE-GARDEN 117 
behind them, you promise yourself, these monks 
will have clung to their bee-keeping medizvalism 
as to some sacred, inviolable thing. There will be 
no movable comb-frames, nor American sections, 
nor weird, foreign races of bees. They will never 
have heard even of foul-brood, or napthol-beta, or 
the host of things that bless or curse modern apicul- 
ture at every turn of the way. But, instead, there 
will be a tangled wilderness of late blossom, stich 
as only Devonshire can show in November; dome- 
shaped hives of straw, each with its singing com- 
pany about it; perhaps a superannuated brother or 
two quietly making straw hackles to shield the hives 
against coming winter weather; even, perchance, 
the smell of burning brimstone on the air, as the 
last remnant of the honey-harvest is gathered in the 
ancient way, by “‘ taking up’’ the strongest and 
the weakest colonies of bees. 
And then a wicket-gate in the old wall determines 
the path and your ruminations together. A sudden 
burst of sunshine; the rich medley of sound from 
fourscore hives lifting high above the song of the 
purling stream; and you are out on the broad, green 
river-bank, looking on at a scene very different from 
the one you have expected. 
There are no old-fashioned hives; they are all of 
the latest, most scientific pattern, ranged under the 
shelter of the wall in two wide terraces of close- 
shaven turf, looking southward over the stream. 
There are outhouses of the most approved design, 
where all the business of a modern apiary is going 
on. Here and there you see black-frocked figures 
at work, dexterously examining the colonies. There 
is the deep, whirring note of honey-extractors; the 
