192 THE BEE-MASTER OF WARRILOW 
worker-bee gets crotchety time an’ again. Wimmin- 
creeturs is all of much the same kidney, whether 
tis bees or humans. Their natur’ is not to look 
ahead, but just to do the next thing. They sees 
sideways mostly, like a horse with an eye-shade but 
no blinkers. But now and then they ups and looks 
straight afore ‘em, and then ’tis trouble brewing 
fer masters o’ all kinds, whether in hives or homes 
o’ men. Lot’s wife, she were a kind o’ bee-woman; 
and so were Eve. I’d ha’ been glad to ha’ knowed 
’em both, bless ’em! The world ’ud be all the 
sweeter fer a few more like they. Harm done 
through being too much of a woman-creetur is 
never all harm in the long run, depend on’t.”’ 
With his great sunburnt hand he stirred the 
flimsy, dog-eared pamphlets about thoughtfully, as 
a man will stir leaves with a stick. 
‘‘ Now, ’tis just this way with bees,’’ he went on. 
“Tf you study how to keep ’em busy, with plain, 
right-down necessity hard at their heels, all goes 
well. The bees have no time for anything but 
work. As the supers fill with honey you take them 
off and put empty ones in their place. The queen 
below fills comb after comb with eggs, and you 
make the brood-nest larger and larger. There is 
allers more room everywhere, dropped down from 
the skies, like; no matter how fast the stock 
increases, nor how much the bees bring in. Just 
their plain day’s work is enough, and more’n 
enough, for the best of them. And so the summer 
heat goes by; the honey harvest is ended; and the 
bees have had no chance to dwell upon, and grow 
rebellious over, the wise wrong that nature has 
done their sex. In bee-life ’tis always evil that’s 
