The quality and consistency of honey varies extraordinarily as between the different sources of true nectar; but there is no doubt that honeydew well merits the evil name it has gained with modern bee-keepers. There are, perhaps, three hundred distinct kinds of aphides known to English naturalists, and all these eject the sweet liquid which, under certain conditions, bees are tempted to gather. This honeydew varies in flavour according to the species of tree from whose sap it is derived. Probably much of it is only a sweet, slightly mawkish liquor, which, in its pure state, combines with the genuine honey without causing noticeable deterioration, at least to the unexpert taste and eye. But, unfortunately for bee-keepers, the oak is a great favourite with these parasites, no fewer than six varieties preying on this one tree alone. And oak-honeydew is a pestilent thing indeed.
It is commonly supposed that the first cold nights, that mark the beginning of the end of the honey season, stimulate the production of honeydew; for it is after a chilly night that bees are usually seen at work on the trees where the aphides abound. A much more likely theory, however, is that the cold does not accelerate the secretion of the honeydew, but cuts off the more legitimate resources of the hive just when they are in fullest activity; and so the huge armies of foragers are momentarily thrown out of work, and must seek new outlets for their energy. The secretion of true nectar takes place mainly at night, and requires a temperature of about 70°. Anything much lower than this means dearth on the morrow, no matter how fine and warm the weather may then prove.
The dark colour of aphis-syrup—a very little of which will ruin for market the finest honey—seems to be due as much to foreign matter as to its natural evil character. There is a peculiar growth on the bark of many trees where aphides congregate, which is known as soot-fungus. This and the honeydew get mingled together in a cimmerian slime, and, no doubt, the merest trace of it would serve to darken and spoil the purest honey. There seems to be no way for bee-keepers but to watch for the first chilly nights, as the honey-season draws towards its close; and then to be up early and get the surplus honey-chambers off the hives, before the bees have had a chance to spoil them. But the bee is no desperately early riser, for all her lofty place in the moral-maxim books. She generally waits until the morning sun has drunk up the night dews, and warmed the flower-calyces, before getting down to her work in earnest. The very early bees that may sometimes be seen winging out into the first light of a summer’s morning, are probably only water-carriers. The water-supply is the day’s first and last care with each hive in the breeding season. Every bee-garden seems to have its regular watering-place, generally on the oozy margin of some neighbouring pond; and here, in the early morning, and again towards late afternoon, the bees may be seen drinking in whole battalions, while the meridian hours of the day will find it all but deserted. Curiously, these water-fetching times coincide with the times when the nectar is least get-atable, or when the supply is exhausted for the day; which is another sidelight on honey-bee economics.
To follow the bees through their honey-harvesting season is to review nearly the whole year’s natural growth and life. In southern England the earliest nectar is drawn from the willows, which come into flower with late March, but hold back their sweets until the first spate of fine hot weather comes flooding in the track of the chilly northern gales. Of willow-honey there may be much or little, according to the night-temperatures. Generally it goes by fits and starts. For a day or two here and there the trees may be crowded with bees, or they may be deserted for weeks together. Whenever the sun shines, indeed, the trees that stand up like torches of gold in the misty purple of budding woods, are always full of the singing multitude; but these are only the pollen-gatherers. The nectar-bearing willows are far less showy. Their catkins are small, tight-girt tassels of green, and when a warm night has brought them into profit, they attract all the noisy minstrels for miles round. Bee-keepers generally seem to leave the willows out of their calculations as a source of honey, but in riverside districts, and in favourable seasons, they are not to be overlooked. It sometimes happens that April comes in with a succession of mild sunny days and warm nights, and then the hives may suddenly overflow with willow-honey. When the yellow catkins fade out of sight, the willows are apt to fade out of memory; and it does not seem to be commonly known that the female catkins continue to secrete abundant nectar often up to the end of May.
Good honey-years are scarce under the changing English skies; yet Nature’s design for the hive-people is obviously to give an unbroken succession of honey-yielding plants throughout the whole spring and summer, and pollen whenever a bright break of sunshine may lure them out of doors. The white-clover is seldom ready until the first week in June; but, from the earliest willows in March until the last of the flowering seed-crops is down in late July, there is abundance of provender, if only the fickle sun will do its part in the matter. The clover, as farming goes nowadays, is the great main source of honey, in southern England at least; but the connoisseurs are at variance as to what yields the absolute perfection of honey. Scotsmen are all of one mind, for a rare chance, in this; and will hear of nothing but the heather, carefully discriminating between the bell-heather, which is good, and the ling-heather, which is immeasurably better. Yet there is a honey, or rather a honey-blend, which far outstrips them all, though it is as rare and almost as priceless as the once famous Comet vintages. It is to be had only when the apple-blossom and the hawthorn come into full flower together, and this is only when a chill April has delayed the one and a summer-like May has forced on the other. Then, to the mellow refinement of the apple-nectar, is added the delicate almond flavour of the hawthorn, and the resulting honey is easily the finest sweetmeat in the world.
Wonder is often expressed that one of the most generally cultivated crops, the red-clover, is seldom visited by the honey-bee, although the bumblebees fill it with their deep trombone-music at all times of the day. It is true that the tongue of the hive-bee cannot reach to the bottom of the long red-clover calyx, but this would not deter her if the nectar were worth the gathering. She would cut through the petal at its base, as she does with many other flowers, and so steal an effective march on her better caparisoned rival. But red-clover nectar is poor in consistency and coarse of flavour. When the main crop is in flower, it would yield a practically unlimited amount of honey, but this is just the time when the bee can employ herself more profitably elsewhere. After the red-clover has been cut, a second growth springs up, bearing flower-tubes less developed, and therefore shorter than those of the first crop. But now other and better sources of supply are rapidly failing. The bee—for whom, in prosperous times, nothing but the best is good enough—must revise her tastes to meet her necessities. At this time she is as busy as the rest in the red-clover fields. And when her clearer, sweeter note is heard there, mingling its contralto with the hoarser music of the bumblebee, it is a token that the heyday of the year is past: the honey-chambers must be taken off the hives without delay.
CHAPTER XIV
THE DRONE AND HIS STORY
It is true that all bee-keepers are enthusiasts, and true that long years spent in the companionship of the hives invariably create a fearless fellowship, a prime understanding between the bee-master and his legions. But it is equally true that the longer you study the nature of the honey-bee, the less enamoured you become of certain of her ways.
In the minds of old beemen there grows up, as the years glide, a sort of awe of her. She is so manifestly a power, supreme in her little world. She is so courageous, resourceful, brainy. All the weaknesses and compromises, and most of the pleasures, have long ago been driven out of her life, seemingly by her own act and will; yet, in doing this, she has but refined the science of citizenship to its pure elements. Her entire unselfishness, her readiness to sacrifice her individual good for the good of the State, are as unquestionable as they are changeless. The hive-polity, taken as a whole, is so admirable, and compares so advantageously with certain human efforts in the same way, that you are apt to exalt all her qualities into virtues; and to conclude that a far-seeing, wise benevolence must have gone to the making of the perfect Bee-State, instead of the cold, undeviating logic that alone has fashioned it.