BLUNDERS OF A BEE-KEEPER.

tE seldom fails to look up in your face, as much as to say, What the deuce do you want 7—when he stoops i scent again, is it not probable that he means to say, lo/, you, let me alone ?" Such is Beckford's apt remark naming a hound at a check ; and it suggests many a 2 beyond the hunting-field. It is obvious that, for a social acts to be effective, he should know, even if be the society he lives in. But if this be true of life ur fellows, what of our dealings with animals, whose 6 never can really know P May we not seem to them absurd when we blunder against their imperious If our intervention in the little worlds of ants is to be at all analogous to Divine miracle in the , our responsibility seems almost intolerable. For these small folk find supreme goodness in some of positions P And perchance in real wisdom Man as far short of the bee as her enthusiastic self- eels cels his.

e autumn of 1909 we took over the care of three ome time after the turn of the year a few mild days brought us the welcome words from the gardener, " The bees are working for you," a phrase the memory of which pricks now like a sting. We found two of the hives very busy, but one showed very little sign of life.

When winter was passing into spring we concocted some syrup and administered it for a short time. As spring advanced we decided on a coup &Etat. For on opening out the two smaller hives we found neither very strong; and the best search we could make in the weaker disclosed no queen. We resolved to put both communities under a single roof with one sovereign.

With peppermint we scented some syrup; and having sprinkled the bars of both hives with this to prevent quarrelling we placed only the best combs in one of the hives, with-

drawing the worst and shaking their bees off on to a board sloped upwards to the entrance. Had we failed in

diplomatic courtesy to our supposed subjects P Were we too rough and hurried P Had the bees sipped too much or too little honey or syrup P They flew about in the wildest fashion and seemed to despise our efforts to make them at home. As days passed the hive was very still. So we opened it out again. We had, alas! united but for ruin. Hopeless of

raising a colony and wishing to avoid risk of possibly per-

petuating foul brood, we destroyed this old hive with its frames and combs. Our hopes were now centred in the larger hive, which was of antique pattern, with many frames, but little height above them for section honey. Perhaps for that very reason its colony seemed well settled in it and amply

supplied with spare honey in the frames. It possessed a

queen. There was no sign of foul brood. Why not let well alone ? So we did—for a time. As the few summer weeks of honey-flow approached we watched this hive with keen interest. On bright, warm days our little friends seemed to have among them golden yellow strangers, as if the sun's rays

had come straight to life and joined in the merry labour of

honey-getting. Some of us thought these yellow flies were wasps ; some guessed they were drones. Corydon welcomed them with joy, as young queens returning from their first flight. Vain imaginings of poetry and adventure ! We soon recognized, in these busy yellow balls, homely workers, who in the fury of honey or pollen seeking had besprinkled

their bodies with the fine powder of the flowers. But in time the lumbering drones did appear, and in large

numbers. A. spell of hot weather stimulated the whole life of the hive. The coming and going were incessant; workers arriving heavy, departing light; others standing almost on their heads on the alighting board and fanning the air with invisibly vibrating wings even far outside the door; big drones tumbling in among the throng or pushing their way out into the bright sunshine, while a wondrous humming industry ever lived upon the dark combs within.

But one day the workers seemed to tire. Though some came and went as usual, many clustered in masses about the board. A spirit of drowsy, gossipy pondering had seized the

colony, as if the summer's work were already finished and a time for well-earned sleep had come. From hour to hour we

scanned the entrance, hoping to see the sudden exit of thousands, their whirling, circling, brilliant flight, their pause and rest upon some near tree. But many days passed, and

no swarm issued. On some days work was resumed, on others the clusters increased again. We fell to misgiving and consultation—whether to try artificial swarming. Having failed to unite two colonies, could we hope to divide one P The sporting instinct prevailed, and we resolved, with friendly help, to divide this huge colony. Two modern hives

were prepared. Having " smoked " the bees, we moved about half the old frames, with their combs rich in brood and honey, into one of the new hives and about half into the other. We

believed that one hive received the queen of the colony, while the other received a frame which we found had an enlarged cell, possibly containing a young queen. We made out the extra space in the two new hives by introducing a few new "foundation" frames.

Now arose a difficulty which, by ignorant mismanagement, occasioned calamity and thousands of deaths. Among the old frames we had found an undue amount of " drone-comb."

One sheet of this we kept out; and having forgotten to ask our friendly helper what should be done with it, we considered the question "by the light of nature." As this sheet of drone- comb contained near its rim .a good deal of honey, we thought

the bees should have it. So we put it edgewise on the ground near the new hives, and presently saw it actively attacked by the bees in dense crowds. To our joy they carried off in a. few hours a large part of the spare honey and made great inroads on the wax.

But strange events were developing, which we now better understand. The crowded insect household had indeed been divided — divided against itself, and not equally. The hive with the queen would have an advantage. The queenless colony, whatever hopes it might cherish, would be at present less spirited in defence of the brood and honey within its walls. At such a moment it was indeed dangerous to arouse, by exposure of honeycomb, a demon of rapine in a race as full of courage and energy as any maritime people of the Middle Ages, and also as acquisitive, piratical, and ruthless to rivals even of its own kin. For a time the air is alive with the sharp buzz of hurrying, darting, and circling bees. Soon we find that furious conflicts are daily waged upon the alighting boards of both hives. The queenless colony suffers heavy losses. It seems to us, as these horrible days of massacre peas by, that it is disheartened, and much weaker than the other, perhaps through desertions as well as deaths. What will be the end of this ghastly invasion P All possible means must be used to repel it. We narrow the front that is open to attack to a very Thermopylm by closely contracting the door of the queenless hive. We put grassy obstacles before it. We hang carbolic cloths, abhorred by bees, over and about the entrance. But the frenzy of pillage and massacre is now like a possession. The assaulting bees despise carbolic, push their impetuous way through the grass-blades, and force the passage of the door. It is now quite clear that the weak hive must be removed. We carry it into a field at some distance and for a time keep the door quite shut, so that the pillagers, even if they discover it, shall be unable to enter. There is a special arrangement for ventilation, and we hope that our measures are in great degree, if not entirely, successful.

The slaughter had been enormous, and it seemed we were guilty. We had tempted them to an appalling crime. Their attacks on the exposed comb had whetted their appetite and inflamed their passion so that they robbed and murdered their blood-relations wholesale. For a time, at least, their lofty civilization was degraded. Their indefatigable and cheerful industry, the proverbial example to mere mankind, was changed to fratricidal outrage almost as savage as any that even human history records.

The stronger hive produced some sections of good honey. The weaker seemed still to be queenless in mid-July, and its work, if any, aimless and desultory. There was none of that civic bustle that animates the alighting board of a populous hive in summer. A careful watcher might see now and then a solitary bee arriving or departing, and might well wonder upon what errand it went to or from that silent and dreary edifice. At last we were so uncertain whether even a nucleus garrison still held the place that we lifted the cover to inspect. Instead of thronging masses of bees, we saw nothing on the bars and edges of the combs. But there came a threatening buzz from below, and out flew some isolated bees, so that we quickly covered the hive again to keep what few remained.

After the disasters of the year we must by all means strive 10 save the remnant, if, indeed, these were not mere strangers and robbers battening on the honeycombs. There must still be a good stock of food and, perchance, a quantity of young brood nearing the time for quitting their cells. In default of a young queen from this colony the best chance seemed to obtain a fresh queen from one of the various bee-farms that now exist, and we resolved to do so. What a waiting for the post! What an excitement at breakfast on the day of her arrival with several attendants and a little candy in a small cage of wood and wire. The tiny queen and her attenuated court won Stella's heart at once. And we wondered sadly whether she would be the mother of millions or die of cold in the sparsely peopled palace she was to enter. She was placed on one of the combs, still in her little cage, for a day or two, lest the bees of the hive should kill her as a stranger. During that time, and after she had been liberated to wander over the combs, many were the thoughts and good wishes lavished on the "dear little queen." Who can tell the mysterious conversations and ceremonial etiquette which marked her arrival within those desolated wooden walls ? What wise counsels guided the few inhabitants? What organization or rearrangement of duties took place? Above all, what spirit of despair or of new hope possessed the bees as the year waned at the advent of the queen P Ws could but wait and hope that all might be well with her and her new kingdom, that she might retrieve the calamities which Corydon, that clumsy (though not malign) Thaama- turge, had wrought.

As autumn closed over the country and the late flowers still afforded precarious forage, we noticed with great gladness some few bees entering the hive with pollen on their thighs. Had the workers accepted the offered monarch ? Was the orderly life of the hive restored ? Could there possibly be enough bees before winter to keep each other warm P If we now fed with syrup should we promote increase, or would the syrup ferment ? Numbers being essential, we took the risk for a short time, and later we gave some dry candy. The top of the hive was well packed against cold. And a large sheltering board being placed at the side exposed to the bitter easterly winds, we hoped against hope that this wasted community which had incurred so much disaster and risk at our hands might sleep safe and sound through the winter. When hibernation had well begun we moved the hive to its old stand near the other. Early in the New Year we sometimes saw bees on the alighting board. But so scarce were they beside the numbers flying out from the strong colony that we feared they were a tiny residue only, or else mere visitors. Suspicion almost became certainty when we noticed indi- viduals, though not fighting, passing now and then from the front of one hive to the other. A peep through a shutter behind the floor-board revealed many corpses upon it. No knock or shake to the box brought any answer from the silence within. As warmer days came we lifted and examined the frames. We found the stock of food not exhausted, but near the top of the combs a small cluster of dead bees.

There is fair reason to suppose the queen had been accepted, but the community perished through cold from lack of num- bers. If we had presented her earlier, boldly contracted the brood nest, and taken other precautions known to experts, we might have better helped the bees to combat that destiny which our interference in their affairs had challenged. It is small comfort to say we bare learned by experience. By whose experience ? Our increased knowledge avails our dead friends just as little as the thought that they and their tragedy will long live in our memory.