AFTER THE FEAST 253 



sentinel bees at the entrance recognise their own 

 comrades, while they promptly fall upon all inter- 

 loping strangers. 



The preparation of the hive for the winter is of 

 a piece with all else that the bee undertakes. As 

 the area of the brood-nest shrinks, the empty cells 

 are filled with honey, this being brought down 

 from the store-cells farthest away. The foragers 

 keep steadily at work whenever the weather holds, 

 gathering up the remnants of the feast and bring- 

 ing them home to swell the winter-larder. Where 

 there is much ivy, a fine October will often see 

 the hives as busy again as ever they were in the 

 bravest days of June ; but the throng of bees is 

 manifestly smaller. The rich song of life begins 

 later in the day, and lasts only during the brightest 

 hours ; and that wonderful night-sound, the deep 

 underground thunder of the fanning bees, is gone 

 from the bee-garden, just as the scent of the 

 clover-nectar, brewing and steaming in the hives, 

 no longer drifts across in the darkness, filling the 

 bee-master's house with the fragrance he loves 

 more than all else in the world. 



The old ragged-winged bees, that have stood 

 the brunt of the season, are now, too, nearly all 

 gone. The hives are filled with bees of the same 

 race, inspired by the same traditions ; but they are 

 at the beginning of life, the raw recruits of destiny, 

 a mere stop-gap crew. They have no memories 

 of the time when work was a fever, a tumultuous 



