The midday sun shone warm from a cloudless sky. Up in the highest elm-tops the south-west wind kept the chattering starlings gently swinging, but below in the bee-garden scarce a breath moved under the rich soft light.
As I lifted the latch of the garden-gate, the sharp click brought a stooping figure erect in the midst of the hives; and the bee-master came down the red-tiled winding path to meet me. He carried a box full of some yellowish powdery substance in one hand, and a big pitcher of water in the other; and as usual, his shirt-sleeves were tucked up to the shoulder, baring his weather-browned arms to the morning sun.
“When do we begin the year’s bee-work?” he said, repeating my question amusedly. “Why, we began on New Year’s morning. And last year’s work was finished on Old Year’s night. If you go with the times, every day in the year has its work on a modern bee-farm, either indoors or out.”
“But it is on these first warm days of spring,” he continued, as I followed him into the thick of the hives, “that outdoor work for the bee-man starts in earnest. The bees began long ago. January was not out before the first few eggs were laid right in the centre of the brood-combs. And from now on, if only we manage properly, each bee-colony will go on increasing until, in the height of the season, every queen will be laying from two thousand to three thousand eggs a day.”
He stopped and set down his box and his pitcher.
“If we manage properly. But there’s the rub. Success in bee-keeping is all a question of numbers. The more worker-bees there are when the honey-flow begins, the greater will be the honey-harvest. The whole art of the bee-keeper consists in maintaining a steady increase in population from the first moment the queens begin to lay in January, until the end of May brings on the rush of the white clover, and every bee goes mad with work from morning to night. Of course, in countries where the climate is reasonable, and the year may be counted on to warm up steadily month by month, all this is fairly easy; but with topsy-turvy weather, such as we get in England, it is a vastly different matter. Just listen to the bees now! And this is only February!’”
A deep vibrating murmur was upon the air. It came from all sides of us; it rose from under foot, where the crocuses were blooming; it seemed to fill the blue sky above with an ocean of sweet sound. The sunlight was alive with scintillating points of light, like cast handfuls of diamonds, as the bees darted hither and thither, or hovered in little joyous companies round every hive. They swept to and fro between us; gambolled about our heads; came with a sudden shrill menacing note and scrutinised our mouths, our ears, our eyes, or settled on our hands and faces, comfortably, and with no apparent haste to be gone. The bee-master noted my growing uneasiness, not to say trepidation.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “It is only their companionableness. They won’t sting—at least, not if you give them their way. But now come and see what we are doing to help on the queens in their work.”
At different stations in the garden I had noticed some shallow wooden trays standing among the hives. The old bee-man led the way to one of these. Here the humming was louder and busier than ever. The tray was full of fine wood-shavings, dusted over with the yellow powder from the bee-master’s box; and scores of bees were at work in it, smothering themselves from head to foot, and flying off like golden millers to the hives.