It is well-nigh two months now since the hives were packed down for the winter, and the bees are flying as thick as on many a summer’s day.

“The Guardian of the Hives”

Yet no one could mistake their flight for the summer flight. It is not the straight-away eager rush up into the blue vault of the sunny morning—high away over hedgerow and village roof-top towards the clover-fields, whitening the far-off hillside with their tens of thousands of honey-brimming bells. It is rather the vagrant, purposeless hanging-about of an habitually busy people forced to make holiday. Through it all there runs the pathetic interest in trifles, half-hearted and wholly artificial, that you see among the lolling crowd of men when a great strike is on—the thoughtful kicking at odd pebbles; stride-measuring on the flag-stones; little vortices of excitement got up over minute incidents that would otherwise pass unnoticed; the earnest flagellation of memory over past happenings more trivial still.

Thus the bees idle about and wander, on this still November morning, doing just the things you would never expect a bee to do. The greater number of them merely take long desultory reaches a-wing through the sunshine, going off in one objectless direction, turning about at the end of a few yards with just as little apparent reason, coming back to the hive at length on no more obvious errand than that, where there is nothing to do, doing it in another place bears at least the semblance of achievement.

But many of them succeed in conjuring up an almost ludicrous assumption of business. One comes driving out of the hive-entrance at a great pace, designedly, as you would think, going out of her way to bustle the few bees lounging there, as if the entrance-board were still thronged with the streaming crowd of summer days foregone. She stops an instant to rub her eyes clear of the hive-darkness; tries her wings a little to make sure of their powers for a heavy load; then, with a deep note like the twang of a guitar-string, launches out into the sun-steeped air. But it is all a vain pretence, and well she knows it. Watch her as she flies, and you will see her busy ding-dong pace slacken a dozen yards away. She fetches a turn or two above the leafless apple-branches of the garden, with the rest of the chanting, workless crew. She may presently start off again at a livelier speed than ever, as though vexed at being allured, even for a moment, from the duty that calls her away to the mist-clad hill. But it always ends in the same fashion. A little later she is fluttering down on the threshold of the silent hive, and running busily in, keeping up the transparent fiction, you see, to the last.

An Officious Dame

Many more set themselves to look for sweets where they must know there is little likelihood of finding any. Scarce one goes near the glowing belt of pompons rimming the garden on every side. But here is one bee, an ancient dame, with ragged wings and shiny thorax, poised outside a cranny in the old brick wall, and examining it with serious, shrill inquiry. She is obviously making-believe, to while away the time, that it is a choice blossom full of nectar. She knows it is nothing of the kind; but that will neither check her ardour nor expedite the piece of play-acting. She spins it out to the utmost, and leaves the one dusty crevice at last only to go through the same performance at the next.

I often wonder wherein lies the fascination to a hive-bee of an open window or door. Sitting here ledgering in the little office of the bee-farm—where no honey, nor the smell of honey, is ever allowed to come—sooner or later, in the quiet of the golden morning, the familiar voice peals out. It is startling at first, unless you are well used to it—this sudden high-pitched clamour breaking the silence about you; and the oldest bee-man must lay down pen or rule, and look up from his work to scan the intruder.

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.