200) THE BEE-MASTER OF WARRILOW 
again and again throughout the day as the bees 
within drank it dry. 
The Old Style and the New 
A queer figure my father cut in his short grey 
smock and his long lean bent legs encased in 
leathern gaiters, legs between which, when I was 
little, and trotting after him, I had always a fine 
view of the sky. He was never at fault in his 
estimate of a hive’s prosperity. The rich clear 
song and steady traffic of a well-to-do bee-nation 
he knew at once from the anxious note and frantic 
coming and going of a starvation-threatened hive. 
It was the tune that told him. Nowadays we just 
rip the coverings from a hive and, lifting the combs 
out one by one, judge by sheer brute-force of 
eyesight whether there be need or plenty. ‘‘ One- 
thirty-two! ’’—from my sunny seat under the pink 
currant blossom I can hear the call of the foreman 
to the booking ’prentice down in the bee-farm— 
“ One-thirty-two—six frames covered—no moth— 
medium light—brood over three—mark R.Q.” 
R.Q. means that the stock is to be re-queened at the 
earliest opportunity. She has been a famous queen 
in her time—One-thirty-two. This would have been 
her fourth year, had she kept up her fertility. But 
‘brood over three ’’—that is to say, only three 
combs with young bees maturing in them—is not 
good enough for progressive, up-to-date Warrilow 
in April, and she must be pinched at last. In the 
common course, I never let a queen remain at the 
head of affairs after her second season. Nine out 
of ten of them break down under the wear and stress 
