“This is another way of giving it,” he explained, “and the best of all in the earliest part of the season. Instinct leads the bees to the flowers for pollen-food when they will not look for it elsewhere; and as the natural supply is very meagre, we just help them in this way.”
As he spoke8 I became rather unpleasantly aware of a change of manners on the part of his winged people. First one and then another came harping9 round, and, settling comfortably on my face, showed no inclination10 to move again. In my ignorance I was for brushing them off, but the bee-master came hurriedly to my rescue. He dislodged them with a few gentle puffs11 from his tobacco-pipe.
“That is always their way in the spring-time,” he explained. “The warmth of the skin attracts them, and the best thing to do is to take no notice. If you had knocked them off you would probably have been stung.”
He laughed.
“What would be the good of a sword to a soldier,” he said, “if only one blow could be struck with it? It is certainly true that the bee does not usually sting a second time, but that is only because you are too hasty with her. You brush her off before she has had time to complete her business, and the barbed sting, holding in the wound, is torn away, and the bee dies. But now watch how the thing works naturally.”
A bee had settled on his hand as he was speaking. He closed his fingers gently over it, and forced it to sting.
“Now,” he continued, quite unconcernedly, “look what really happens. The bee makes two or three lunges before she gets the sting fairly p. 33home. Then the poison is injected. Now watch what she does afterwards. See! she has finished her work, and is turning round and round! The barbs13 are arranged spirally on the sting, and she is twisting it out corkscrew-fashion. Now she is free again! there she goes, you see, weapon and all; and ready to sting again if necessary.”
The crocus-filling operation was over now, and the bee-master took up his barrow and led the way to a row of hives in the sunniest part of the garden. He pulled up before the first of the hives, and lighted his smoking apparatus14.
“These,” he said, as he fell to work, “have not been opened since October, and it is high time we saw how things are going with them.”
He drove a few strong puffs of smoke into the entrance of the hive and removed the lid. Three or four thicknesses of warm woollen quilting lay beneath. Under these a square of linen15 covered the tops of the frames, to which it had been firmly propolised by the bees. My friend began to peel this carefully off, beginning at one corner and using the smoker16 freely as the linen ripped away.
“This was a full-weight hive in the autumn,” he said, “so there was no need for candy-feeding. But they most be pretty near the end of their stores now. You see how they are all together on the three or four frames in the centre of the hive? The other combs are quite empty and deserted17. And look how near they are clustering to the top of the bars! Bees always feed upwards18, and that means we must begin spring-feeding right away.”
He turned to the barrow, on which was a large box, lined with warm material, and containing bar frames full of sealed honeycomb.
“These are extra combs from last summer. I keep them in a warm cupboard over the stove at about the same temperature as the hive we are going to put them into. But first they must be uncapped. Have you ever seen the Bingham used?”
From the inexhaustible barrow he produced the long knife with the broad, flat blade; and, poising19 the frame of honeycomb vertically20 on his knee, he removed the sheet of cell-caps with one dexterous21 cut, laying the honey bare from end to end. This frame was then lowered into the hive with the uncapped side close against the clustering bees. Another comb, similarly treated, was placed on the opposite flank of the cluster. Outside each of these a second full comb was as swiftly brought into position. Then the sliding inner walls of the brood-nest were pushed up close to the frame, and the quilts and roof restored. The whole seemed the work of a few moments at the outside.
“All this early spring work,” said the bee-master, as we moved to the next hive, “is based upon the recognition of one thing. In the south here the real great honey-flow comes all at once: very often the main honey-harvest for the year has to be won or lost during three short weeks of summer. The bees know this, and from the first days of spring they have only the one idea—to create an immense population, so that when the honey-flow begins there may be no lack of harvesters. But against this main idea there is another one—their ingrained and invincible22 caution. Not an egg will be laid nor a grub hatched unless there is reasonable chance of subsistence for it. The populace of the hive must be increased only in proportion to the amount of stores coming in. With a good spring, and the early honey plentiful23, the queen will increase her production of eggs with every day, and the population of the hive will advance accordingly. But if, on the very brink24 of the great honey-flow, there comes, as is so often the case, a spell of cold windy weather, laying is stopped at once; and, if the cold continues, all hatching grubs are destroyed and the garrison25 put on half-rations. And so the work of months is undone26.”
He stooped to bring his friendly pipe to my succour again, for a bee was trying to get down my collar in the most unnerving way, and another had apparently27 mistaken my mouth for the front-door of his hive. The intruders happily driven off, the master went back to his work and his talk together.
“But it is just here that the art of the bee-keeper comes in. He must prevent this interruption to progress by maintaining the confidence of the bees in the season. He must create an artificial plenty until the real prosperity begins. Yet, after all, he must never lose sight of the main principle, of carrying out the ideas of the bees, not his own. In good beemanship there is only one road to success: you must study to find out what the bees intend to do, and then help them to do it. They call us bee-masters, but bee-servants would be much the better name. The bees have their definite plan of life, perfected through countless28 ages, and nothing you can do will ever turn them from it. You can delay their work, or you can even thwart29 it altogether, but no one has ever succeeded in changing a single principle in bee-life. And so the best bee-master is always the one who most exactly obeys the orders from the hive.”
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1
mimic
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| v.模仿，戏弄；n.模仿他人言行的人 | |
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2
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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3
astounding
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| adj.使人震惊的vt.使震惊，使大吃一惊astound的现在分词) | |
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4
condiment
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| n.调味品 | |
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5
wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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6
forestalled
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| v.先发制人，预先阻止( forestall的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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7
inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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8
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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9
harping
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| n.反复述说 | |
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10
inclination
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| n.倾斜；点头；弯腰；斜坡；倾度；倾向；爱好 | |
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11
puffs
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| n.吸( puff的名词复数 )；（烟斗或香烟的）一吸；一缕（烟、蒸汽等）；（呼吸或风的）呼v.使喷出( puff的第三人称单数 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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12
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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13
barbs
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| n.（箭头、鱼钩等的）倒钩( barb的名词复数 )；带刺的话；毕露的锋芒；钩状毛 | |
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14
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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15
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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16
smoker
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| n.吸烟者，吸烟车厢，吸烟室 | |
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17
deserted
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| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
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18
upwards
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| adv.向上，在更高处...以上 | |
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19
poising
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| 使平衡( poise的现在分词 )； 保持（某种姿势）； 抓紧； 使稳定 | |
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20
vertically
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| adv.垂直地 | |
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21
dexterous
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| adj.灵敏的；灵巧的 | |
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22
invincible
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| adj.不可征服的，难以制服的 | |
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23
plentiful
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| adj.富裕的，丰富的 | |
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24
brink
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| n.(悬崖、河流等的)边缘，边沿 | |
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25
garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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26
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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27
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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28
countless
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| adj.无数的，多得不计其数的 | |
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29
thwart
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| v.阻挠，妨碍，反对；adj.横(断的) | |
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