78 THE BLESSED BEES. 



been rearing queens for all. The other two nuclei 

 were kept so as to have their queens to supply any- 

 stock that might accidentally become queenless. 



It was the twenty-ninth of May that the work of 

 Italianizing was completed. The work had been 

 really exciting. I entered into it with an abandon 

 which I believe is seldom found. People often 

 complain that their work is slavish toil. Mine had 

 been a daily delight. Although several years have 

 passed since then, and I now number my hives by 

 the thousand, still as I write this account of those 

 absorbing days something of the old enthusiasm 

 stirs within me. I was only seventeen. My mother, 

 my brother, my sister, and our farm of eighty acres 

 made up my little world, — a world in which it would 

 seem to many that life must be very monotonous. 

 For me life had always been happy, now it was 

 glorified by enthusiastic devotion to a chosen call- 

 ing. Here in the heart of Michigan, far from what 

 is called society, I had created a world which had 

 for me a stronger interest than any of the throbbing 

 centres of human life. I am not sure but my Avork 

 in rearing those beautiful insects, being for them a 

 providence to secure every best condition of life, 

 was far nobler than that of the titled courtiers who 

 attend upon queens and kings in the great hive of 

 human life. Nay, I am sure; it was nobler. My 

 work was strengthening to the body, and sweeten- 

 ing to the soul. 



