276 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



City clerk, turned tail on his hereditary duty, has 

 shown you, in one short hour, a whole sheaf of 

 things about us which you — Peeping Tom that you 

 are ! — in a whole life's keyhole-prying have never 

 guessed. Out upon you ! You deserve to have 

 to do with nothing better than bumble-bees for the 

 rest of your days !" 



For the more I thought of little bee-gardens, 

 such as the one I had just visited, established here, 

 there, and everywhere throughout the land, the 

 plainer it became that this, after all, was a mission 

 for the honey-bee that had quite escaped me ; and 

 the fonder of the idea I grew. With bee-keeping 

 on a grand scale there was the difficulty that an 

 apiary might become too large for the resources of 

 the country about it, although it is all but certain 

 that crops grown specially for bees can be made to 

 pay. But a small garden could never exhaust the 

 land within its necessary three-mile radius, and all 

 the nectar its bees could gather would be obtained 

 free. Nunhead has done it gloriously, thought I, 

 tramping steadily onward through the clover. And 

 why not all the other Nunheads that hem in the 

 great cities ? There must be plenty who love the 

 dust and din, and are willing to stop there ; so the 

 little band of bee-gardeners will never be missed. 



And there was something else I thought of, too, 

 as I strode along under the English sunshine which 

 lasts for ever, swinging my box of superfluous, yet 

 much-prized honey as I went. 



