Watching bees at work of a fair morning in May, nothing excites the wonder of the casual looker-on more than the mysterious burdens they are for ever bringing home upon their thighs; semi-globular packs, always gaily coloured, and often so heavy and cumbersome that the bee can hardly drag its weary way into the hive. This is pollen, to be stored in the cells, and afterwards kneaded up with honey as food for the young bees. The old man could say at once by the colour from which flower each load was obtained. The deep brown-gold panniers came from the gorse-bloom; the pure snow-white from the hawthorns; the vivid yellow, always so big and seemingly so weighty, had been filled in the buttercup meads. Now and again, in early spring, a bee would come blundering home with a load of pallid sea-green hue. This came from the gooseberry bushes. And later, in summer, when the poppies began to throw their scarlet shuttles in the corn, many of these airy cargoes would be of a rich velvety black. But there was one kind which the old bee-man had never yet succeeded in tracing to its flowery origin. He saw it only rarely, perhaps not a dozen times in the season—a wonderful deep rose-crimson, singling out its bearer, on her passage through the throng, as with twin danger-lamps, doubly bright in the morning glow.
Keeping watch over the comings and goings of his bees was always his favourite pastime, year in and year out; but it was in the later weeks of May that his interest in them culminated. He had always had swarms in May as far back as his memory could serve him; and the oldest hive in the garden was generally the first to swarm. As a rule the bees gave sufficient warning of their intended migration some hours before their actual issue. The strenuous pell-mell business of the hive would come to a sudden portentous halt. While a few of the bees still darted straight off into the sunshine on their wonted errands, or returned with the usual motley loads upon their thighs, the rest of the colony seemed to have abandoned work altogether. From early morning they hung in a great brown cluster all over the face of the hive, and down almost to the earth beneath; a churning mass of insect-life that grew bigger and bigger with every moment, glistening like wet seaweed in the morning sun. In the cluster itself there was an uncanny silence. But out of the depths of the hive came a low vibrating murmur, wholly distinct from its usual note; and every now and again a faint shrill piping sound could be heard, as the old queen worked herself up to swarming frenzy, vainly seeking the while to reach the royal nursery where the rival who was to oust her from her old dominion was even then steadily gnawing through her constraining prison walls.
At these momentous times a quaint ceremonial was rigidly adhered to by the old bee-master. First he brought out a pitcher of home-brewed ale, from which all who were to assist in the swarm-taking were required to drink, as at a solemn rite. The dressing of the skep was his next care. A little of the beer was sprinkled over its interior, and then it was carefully scoured out with a handful of balm and lavender and mint. After this the skep was covered up and set aside in the shade; and the old bee-keeper, carrying an ancient battered copper bowl in one gnarled hand, and a great door-key in the other, would lead the way towards the hive, his drab smock-frock mowing the scarlet tulip-heads down as he went.
Sometimes the swarm went off without any preliminary warning, just as if the skep had burst like a bombshell, volleying its living contents into the sky. But oftener it went through the several stages of a regular process. After much waiting and many false alarms, a peculiar stir would come in the throng of bees cumbering the entrance to the hive. Thousands rose on the wing, until the sunshine overhead was charged with them as with countless fluttering atoms of silver-foil; and a wild joyous song spread far and wide, overpowering all other sounds in the garden. Within the hive the rich bass note had ceased; and a hissing noise, like a great caldron boiling over, took its place, as the bees inside came pouring out to join the carolling multitude above. Last of all came the queen. Watching for her through the glittering gauzy atmosphere of flashing wings, she was always strangely conspicuous, with her long pointed body of brilliant chestnut-red. She came hustling forth; stopped for an instant to comb her antenna on the edge of the foot-board; then soared straight up into the blue, the whole swarm crowding deliriously in her train.
Immediately the old bee-man commenced a weird tom-tomming on his metal bowl. “Ringing the bees” was an exact science with him. They were supposed to fly higher or lower according to the measure of the music; and now the great door-key beat out a slow, stately chime like a cathedral bell. Whether this ringing of the old-time skeppists had any real influence on the movements of a swarm has never been absolutely determined; but there was no doubt in this case of the bee-keeper’s perfect faith in the process, or that the bees would commence their descent and settle, usually in one of the apple trees, very soon after the din began.
The rapid growth of the swarm-cluster was always one of the most bewildering things to watch. From a little dark knot no bigger than the clenched hand, it swelled in a moment to the size of a half-gallon measure, growing in girth and length with inconceivable swiftness, until the branch began to droop under its weight. A minute more, and the last of the flying bees had joined the cluster; the stout apple-branch was bent almost double; and the completed swarm hung within a few inches of the ground, a long cigar-shaped mass gently swaying to and fro in the flickering light and shade.
The joyous trek-song of the bees, and the clanging melody of key and basin, died down together. The old murmuring, songful quiet closed over the garden again, as water over a cast stone. To hive a swarm thus easily within reach was a simple matter. Soon the old bee-man had got all snugly inside the skep, and the hive in its self-appointed station. And already the bees were settling down to work; hovering merrily about it, or packed in the fragrant darkness busy at comb-building, or lancing off to the clover-fields, eager to begin the task of provisioning the new home.
CHAPTER VI
HEREDITY IN THE BEE-GARDEN
We were in the great high-road of Warrilow bee-farm, and had stopped midway down in the heart of the waxen city. On every hand the hives stretched away in long trim rows, and the hot June sunshine was alive with darting bees and fragrant with the smell of new-made honey.
“Swarming?” said the bee-master, in answer to a question I had put to him. “We never allow swarming here. My bees have to work for me, and not for themselves; so we have discarded that old-fashioned notion long ago.”