And yet every moment had its business, not to be delayed beyond its imminent season. Down in the bee-farm the work of honey-harvesting always carried with it a certain stress and bustle. The great centrifugal extractor would be roaring half the night through, emptying the super-combs, which were to be put back into the hives on the morrow, and refilled by the bees. But here, on the moors, modern bee-science is powerless to hurry the work of the sunshine. The thick heather-honey defies the extracting-machine, and cannot be separated without destroying the comb. Moorland honey—except where the wild sage is plentiful enough to thin down the heather sweets—must be left in the virgin comb; and the bee-man can do little more than look on as vigilantly as may be at the work of his singing battalions, and keep the storage-space of the hives always well in advance of their need.
Yet there is one danger—contingent at all seasons of bee-life, but doubly to be guarded against during the critical time of the honey-flow.
As we loitered round the great circle, the old bee-keeper halted in the rear of every hive to watch the contending streams of workers, the one rippling out into the blue air and sunshine, the other setting more steadily homeward, each bee weighed down with her load of nectar and pale grey pollen, as she scrambled desperately through the opposing crowd and vanished into the seething darkness within. As we passed each hive, the old bee-man carefully noted its strength and spirit, comparing it with the condition of its neighbours on either hand. At last he stopped by one of the largest hives, and pointed to it significantly.
“Can ye see aught amiss?” he asked, hastily rolling his shirt-sleeves up to the armpit.
I looked, but could detect nothing wrong. The multitude round the entrance to this hive seemed larger and busier than with any other, and the note within as deeply resonant.
“Ay! they’re erpulous enough,” said the bee-master, as he lighted his tin-nozzled bellows-smoker and coaxed it into full blast. “But hark to the din! ’Tis not work this time; ’tis mortal fear of something. Flying strong? Ah, but only a yard or two up, and back again. There’s trouble at hand, and they’ve only just found it out. The matter is, they have lost their queen.”
He was hurriedly removing the different parts of the hive as he spoke. A few quick puffs from the smoker were all that was needed at such a time. With no thought but for the tragedy that had come upon them, the bees were rushing madly to and fro in the hive, not paying the slightest attention to the fact that their house was falling asunder piecemeal and the sudden sunshine riddling it through and through, where had been nothing but Cimmerian darkness before. Under the steady slow hand of the master, the teeming section-racks came off one by one, until the lowest chamber—the nursery of the hive—was reached, and a note like imprisoned thunder in miniature burst out upon us.
The old bee-keeper lifted out the brood-frames, and subjected each to a lynx-eyed scrutiny. At last he dived his bare hand down into the thick of the bees, and brought up something to show me. It was the dead queen; twice the size of all the rest, with short oval wings and a shining red-gold body, strangely conspicuous among the score or so of dun-coloured workers which still crowded round her on the palm of his hand.
“In the old days,” said the bee-master, “before the movable-comb hive was invented, if the queen died like this, it would throw the whole colony out of gear for the rest of the season. Three weeks must elapse before a new queen could be hatched and got ready for work; and then the honey-harvest would be over. But see how precious time can be saved under the modern system.”
He led the way to a hive which stood some distance apart from the rest. It was much smaller than the others, and consisted merely of a row of little boxes, each with its separate entrance, but all under one common roof. The old bee-man opened one of the compartments, and lifted out its single comb-frame, on which were clustered only a few hundred bees. Searching among these with a wary forefinger, at last he seized one by the wings and held it up to view.