“Yes, they’re good fish,” Bert said. “But will you take them, please, Nan. I have to go with Sam and tell Mr. Watson about his swarm of bees.”
“What’s this about the bees?” Mrs. Bobbsey wanted to know. The boys, taking turns, quickly told her, and Bert added:
“I’m going to watch Mr. Watson catch them.”
“Oh, so am I!” cried Freddie.
Nan hurried back to the farmhouse with the two strings of fish, which were to be put in the cool cellar until needed. Sam said he would come back and get his after the bees were caught.
“So some of my bees got away, did they?” asked Mr. Watson when he had been told the news. He was about to set out for another of his orchards where peaches were being picked, but when he heard about his honey-makers he decided to postpone his orchard trip.
Followed by the Bobbsey twins, their mother and Sam, Mr. Watson hurried to the little valley where he kept about a hundred hives of bees. Like little dog-houses the hives were, only with flat instead of peaked roofs, and of course only a small slit was needed in the bottom of each hive-house to let the bees fly in and out. The hives stood in rows in an orchard of apple trees near a small garden. There was a farmhouse in this valley in which lived a man and his wife who looked after the bees.
“I had three swarms out to-day,” called Jason Stern, the bee-keeper, to Mr. Watson when the latter arrived. “I couldn’t get them all. One got away.”
“I know where it is,” the peach-grower answered. “Bert and Sam saw the swarm alight when they were coming back from fishing. I’ll take an empty hive on the small hand-cart and bring them back. You’d better come along to help—that is, if you have the other swarms safe.”
“Yes, they’re all right except the one that got away,” said Mr. Stern.