The bee-master led the way towards the extracting-house at the end of the garden, as full of his work, seemingly, as ever he had been in the press of summer days. There was noise enough going on in the long lighted building ahead of us, but I missed the droning song of the great extractor itself.
“No; we have done with honey work for this year,” said the old bee-man. “It is all bottled and cased long ago, and most of it gone to London. But there’s work enough still, as you’ll see. The bees get their long rest in the winter; but, on a big honey-farm, the humans must work all the year round.”
As we drew into the zone of light from the windows, many sounds that from afar had seemed incongruous enough on the silent, frost-bound evening began to explain themselves. The whole building was full of busy life. A furnace roared under a great caldron of smoking syrup, which the foreman was vigorously stirring. In the far corner an oil engine clanked and spluttered. A circular saw was screaming through a baulk of timber, slicing it up into thin planks as a man would turn over the leaves of a book. Planing machines and hammers and handsaws innumerable added their voices to the general chorus; and out of the shining steel jaws of an implement that looked half printing-press and half clothes-wringer there flowed sheet after sheet of some glistening golden material, the use of which I could only dimly guess at.
But I had time only for one swift glance at this mysterious monster. The bee-master gripped me by the arm and drew me towards the furnace.
“This is bee-candy,” he explained, “winter food for the hives. We make a lot of it and send it all over the country. But it’s ticklish work. When the syrup comes to the galloping-point it must boil for one minute, no more and no less. If we boil it too little it won’t set, and if too much it goes hard, and the bees can’t take it.”
He took up his station now, watch in hand, close to the man who was stirring, while two or three others looked anxiously on.
“Time!” shouted the bee-master.
The great caldron swung off the stove on its suspending chain. Near the fire stood a water tank, and into this the big vessel of boiling syrup was suddenly doused right up to the brim, the stirrer labouring all the time at the seething grey mass more furiously than ever.
“The quicker we can cool it the better it is,” explained the old bee-keeper, through the steam. He was peering into the caldron as he spoke, watching the syrup change from dark clear grey to a dirty white, like half-thawed snow. Now he gave a sudden signal. A strong rod was instantly passed through the handles of the caldron. The vessel was whisked out of its icy bath and borne rapidly away. Following hard upon its heels, we saw the bearers halt near some long, low trestle-tables, where hundreds of little wooden boxes were ranged side by side. Into these the thick, sludgy syrup was poured as rapidly as possible, until all were filled.