She has darted in at the door, and has stopped in mid-air a foot or two within the room. The sound she makes is very different from that of a bee in ordinary flight. You cannot mistake its meaning; it is one long-drawn-out, musical note of exclamation, an intense, reiterated wonder at all about her—the subdued light, the walls covered with book-shelves, the littered table, and the vast wingless, drab-coloured creature sitting in the midst of it all, like a funnel-spider in his snare. Bees entering a room in this way seldom stop more than a second or two, and, more rarely still, alight. As a rule, they are gone the next moment as swiftly as they came, leaving the impression that their quick retreat was due to a sudden accession of fear; just as children, venturing into some dark unwonted place, at first boldly enough, will suddenly turn tail and flee, with terror hard upon their heels.
But what should bring bees into such unlikely situations during these warm bright breaks in the wintry weather, when they seldom or never venture out of the range of hives and fields in the season of plenty? It would be curious to know whether people who have never kept bees, nor handled hives, are habitually pried upon in this way; or whether it is only among bee-men the thing occurs. Naturalists are commonly agreed that bees possess an extraordinary sense of smell; indeed, the fact is patent to all who know anything of hive-life. Now, years of stinging render the bee-master immune to the ordinary results of a prod from a bee’s acid-charged stiletto. There is only a sharp prick, a little irritation at the moment, but seldom any after-effects of swelling or inflammation, local or general. But all this injection of formic acid under the skin year after year might very well have a cumulative effect, so that the much-stung bee-man would eventually acquire in his own person the permanent odour of the hive. And this, scented afar off, may well be the attraction that brings these roving scrutineers to places having, in themselves, no sort of interest to the winged hive-people.
The Perils of “Immunity”
The mention of stinging brings back a thought that has often occurred to me. Do lovers of honey ever quite realise the price that must be paid before their favourite sweet is there for them on the breakfast-table, filling the room with the mingled perfume from a whole countryside? It is easy to talk of immunity from the effect of bee-stings; but the truth is that this immunity means, for the bee-master, no more than power to go on with his work in spite of the stinging. And this power is not a permanent one. It is brought about by incessant pricks from the living poisoned needle; the ordeal must be continuous, or the immunity will soon pass away. Over-care in handling bees is good only up to a certain point. The bee-man who, by continual practice, has brought this gentlest art to its highest perfection, so that he can do what he likes with his own bees without fear of harm, has, in a sense, created for himself a kind of fools’ paradise. All the time his once dear-bought privilege is slowly forsaking him. He is like the Listerist faddist, who so destroys all disease germs in his vicinity that his natural disease-resisting organisation becomes atrophied through want of work. Then, perhaps, his precautions are upheld for a season, whereupon a particularly virulent microbe happens by; and, finding the house empty, swept, and garnished, calls in the seven devils with a will.
Such a contingency is always in wait for the stay-at-home, never-stung bee-master of neighbourly proclivities. Sooner or later he will be called to help some maladroit in bee-craft, whose bees have been thoroughly vitiated by years of “monkeying.” And then the rod will come out of pickle to a lively tune. Of course, a little stinging is nothing; but there is no doubt that, with anything over a dozen stings or so at a time, the most hardened and experienced bee-man may easily stand, for a minute or two at least, in danger of losing his life.
So it happened to me once. I had gone to look at a neighbour’s stocks. The bees were as quiet as lambs until I came to the seventh hive; and then, with hardly a note of warning, they set upon me like a pack of flying bull-dogs. It is long enough ago now, but I can still give a pretty accurate account of the symptoms of acute formic-acid poisoning. It began with a curious pricking and burning over the entire inner surface of the mouth and throat. This rapidly spread, until my whole body seemed on fire, and the target, as it were, for millions of red-hot darts. Then first my tongue and lips, and every other part of head and neck, in quick succession, began to swell. My eyes felt as though they were being driven out of my head. My breathing machinery seized up, and all but stopped. A giddy congestion of brain followed. Finally, sight and hearing failed, and then almost consciousness.
I can just remember crawling away, and thrusting head and shoulders deep into a thick lilac bush, where the bees ceased to molest me. But it was a good hour or more before I could hold the smoker straight again, and get on with the next stock.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE LONG NIGHT IN THE HIVE
There are few things more mystifying to the student of bee-life than the way in which winter is passed in the hive. Probably nineteen out of every twenty people, who take a merely theoretical interest in the subject, entertain no doubt on the matter. Bees hibernate, they will tell you—pass the winter in a state of torpor, just as many other insects, reptiles, and animals have been proved to do. And, though the truth forces itself upon scientific investigators that there is no such thing as hibernation, in the accepted sense of the word, among hive-bees, the perplexing part of the whole question is that, as far as modern observers understand it, the honey-bee ought to hibernate, even if, as a matter of fact, she does not.
For consider what a world of trouble would be saved if, at the coming of winter, the worker-bees merely got together in a compact cluster in their warm nook, with the queen in their midst; and thenceforward slept the long cold months away, until the hot March sun struck into them with the tidings that the willows—first caterers for the year’s winged myriads—were in golden flower once more; and there was nothing to do but rouse, and take their fill. It would revolutionise the whole aspect of bee-life, and, to all appearances, vastly for the better. There would be no more need to labour through the summer days, laying up winter stores. Life could become for the honey-bee what it is to most other insects—merry and leisurely. There would be time for dancing in the sunbeams, and long siestas under rose-leaves; and it would be enough if each little worker took home an occasional full honey-sac or two for the babies, instead of wearing out nerve and body in all that desperate toiling to and fro.