122 THE BEE-MASTER OF WARRILOW 
ancient form of hive fifteen or twenty thousand bees 
meant a crowded citadel, and there was nothing 
for it but to relieve the congestion by swarming. 
But the swarming habit has always been the 
principal obstacle to large honey-takes; and the 
problem which the modern bee-keeper has to solve 
is how to prevent his stocks from thus breaking 
themselves up into several hopelessly weak 
detachments. 
It is all a war of wits between the bees and their 
masters. In nature the honey-bee is possessed of 
an inveterate caution. Famine is especially dreaded, 
and the number of mouths to fill in a hive is always 
kept strictly to the limits of the incoming food- 
supply. Thus a natural bee-colony is seldom ready 
for the honey-flow when it begins in early April, 
because it is only then that the raising of the young 
brood is allowed its fullest scope. This, however, 
is of no importance as far as the bees themselves are 
concerned, for a balance of stores of about twenty 
pounds weight at the end of a season will safely 
carry the most populous colony through any ordinary 
winter. 
But from the bee-master’s point of view it means 
practically a lost harvest. All the arts and devices 
of the modern bee-keeper, therefore, are set to 
work to overcome this timid conservatism of the 
hives, and to induce the creation of immense colonies 
of worker-bees as early as possible in the season, so 
that there may be no lack of labourers when the 
harvest is ready. 
These first warm days of March, that bring the 
elm-blossom, and the cry of the lambs, and the old 
sweet music of the bee-gardens together, really 
