BEE-KEEPING AND THE SIMPLE LIFE
IT is a quality of English sunshine that it comes and goes capriciously,
so that no man may be sure of the comradeship of his shadow from day to
day. But when there is sunshine in England, it always seems an abiding,
permanent force. The grey of yesterday, and the patter-song of the rain
on the leaves, were only a dream. You were sleeping under the changeless
blue of a summer night, and had but a vision of weeping, drab skies, gone
now with the joy that comes in the morning. And to-morrow, when perhaps
the old wild scurry of storm-cloud is alive overhead, and all the house
resounds with the runnel-music from the pouring eaves, still it will be
only a dream. Of a surety you will tell yourself so, as the sun breaks
through the griddle of cloud, and the wind relents, and the Dutchman can
get to his tailoring; and when you are stepping out amidst the swamp and
glitter and rehabilitation of life, as glad of it all as the finches and
butterflies that sweep on before you down the lane. The sun shines: you
know it has always shone, changeless as Time itself.
With such a faith—unfounded and therefore uncontestable—I came under the
glow of one brave June morning, threading field after field of blossoming
clover until I stood at the gate of the bee-garden over against the hill.
With its name I had long been familiar, for in the county paper there was
always the little five-line advertisement, quaintly worded, announcing
honey for sale. But I had never yet seen it, nor, indeed, ever set foot
in this part of the good Sussex land. So, on this brimming June morning,
giving rein for once to the indolent Shank’s mare of moods that is fated
to carry me, I set out into the bright sloth, the joyous hastelessness,
of the day; and came at length to my destination—to the bee-garden that
nestles under the green Downland hills.
It was girt about with a tall hedge of hawthorn, smothered in snowlike
blossom, with just that rosy tinge upon it which is the first hectic of
decay. Beyond the hedge I could see, stretching aloft, green
apple-boughs, whose full-blown posies were alive with the desperate
humming energy of countless bees. There was a blue wisp of smoke
trailing idly away from a chimney-stack, all that could be seen of the
snug thatched cottage within; and there were voices, a leisurely
baritone, a sudden peal of laughter high-pitched and obviously a woman’s,
and now and then a bar or two of an old song sung in an intermittent,
absent-minded way.
In one of the pauses of this song, I raised the latch of the gate. Its
sharp click drew to its full lean height a figure at the end of the
garden, which was bending down in the midst of a wilderness of hives. As
the man came towards me coatless, his rolled-up shirt-sleeves baring wiry
brown arms to the hot June sun, I took in all the busy, quiet picture.
The red-tiled, winding path, the sea of old-fashioned garden-flowers on
every hand, billows of lilac and red-may and laburnum, shadowy blue deeps
of forget-me-not, scarlet tulips amidst them like lighthouses, and
drifting shallows of amber mignonette. A decent house stood hard by, its
windows bright and clean as diamond-facets. There was a gay flicker of
linen on a line beyond. An old dog lolled in a straw-filled barrel. A
cat kept company with a milk jug on the spotless doorstep. And
everywhere there were beehives, each of a different harmonious shade of
colour, not ranged in stilted rows, but scattered here and there in twos
and threes in the orderless order beloved of bees and unsuburban men.
The bee-master had keen grey eyes, set deep in a sun-blackened, honest
face, and the ever-ready tongue of him was that of the beeman all the
world over. He was ripe and willing to talk of his work, explaining what
he was, and what he had done, as we slowly wandered through his domain.
He was a Londoner—he told me—at least, that was his fate half a dozen
years ago—a City clerk, pale as the ledger-leaves that fluttered through
his fingers from nine to six of the working day. And at home, in a
dreary desert of housetops called Nunhead—whither may an unkind fate
never lure me—his sisters sewed for a living, white-faced as himself.
But one day, in an old second-hand book-shop, he lit upon a threepenny
treasure—a book on the management of bees. He read it as his train
crawled homeward on one stifling, freezing, fog-bound winter’s night; and
there and then, in the mean, dirty cattle-box of a third-class carriage,
in fancy the bee-garden was inaugurated, that has since developed into
all I saw around me on that brave morning in June.
It was a long time in the doing, he told me, as we sauntered among the
busy hives, speaking with a delightful Sussex intonation already veneered
upon his Cockney brogue—a long and weary and scraping time. There was
money to be saved, the capital needed for the enterprise; and this was no
easy matter out of a total family income of forty shillings a week. But
at last it was done, and well done. There came a day when the three of
them shook the dust of Nunhead from their feet, and took over possession
of the little tumbledown cottage with its bare half-acre of neglected
ground. Well, those were hard times to begin with—he said, with an
unaccountable relish in the recollection;—but now, look how all was
changed! He waved a triumphant, proudly proprietary arm around him. The
cottage was sound and well furnished throughout. The three or four
bought hives, with which he had started his business, had multiplied into
sixty or seventy, all made by his own hands. Where had he got the bees?
Well, that threepenny book had taught him a secret—the art of
bee-driving. Nearly all the cottagers for miles round were in the habit
of sulphuring their bees to get at the honey. The first autumn, and
every autumn since then, he had gone to his neighbours and told them he
would take the bees out of the hives for them, and leave them all the
combs and a good trink-geld into the bargain, if they would let him have
the bees for his trouble. And they were more than willing. And thus he
had gradually built up his little principality of hives.
But, the profit of the thing? This, indeed, was nothing much to boast
of. He sold all the honey and wax he got, sending it away, for the most
part, by post, and extending the circle of his custom by little and
little with every year. Taking the bad years with the good, he had made
a net return of £2 for every hive; in bumper-seasons it was always much
more. It was not a great deal, but there were only three of them, and
their wants were simple. Their greatest needs—fresh air, peace, and
quiet, the healthful life of the country—these were to be had for nothing
at all. And as for clothes—you never know, until you give over trying to
keep up appearances, how very little appearances count in the world. At
any rate, for them, the whole thing was a complete success. There were
men round about that country-side who farmed whole provinces, and still
grumbled; but here was he, getting peace and plenty from half an acre;
and as for the girls, they did nothing but laugh and sing all day long.
Thus we wandered and talked; and I—feigning ignorance of bee-matters,
lest he might think I was but carrying coals to Newcastle in clumsy
charity—bought honey, and asked many questions; and slowly the entire
meaning of what had been done by these emancipated slaves of City
clerkdom was revealed. The bee-master pushed his old straw hat back over
his clever forehead, and lit the most comfortable pipe I had ever set
eyes on. He had evidently thought the whole thing out long ago, and got
it down to its essential elements.
[Picture: A forest apiary]
“What we are doing here,” he said, “could be done by hundreds of others
who are still in London in what was once our old plight. Large bee-farms
are all very well, but they are more or less a thing of the
future—something that is still to be evolved out of twentieth-century
needs. But the bee-garden has its immediate use and place in every
district where there is an average population. People generally have got
out of the habit of eating honey because it is so seldom on sale in the
shops; but if you steadily and continuously remind them of it, they will
buy, and soon grow to wonder how they did without it for so long. But it
must be set before them in an attractive way. Run-honey must be bright
and pure to look at, and neatly bottled and labelled. If you sell honey
in the comb, the section-boxes must be spotlessly clean and white. In
that old book that first led me to bee-keeping, it says that only the
English bee should be kept, because it is a better honey-gatherer. But,
from the salesman’s point of view, there is a much more weighty reason
for abjuring all foreign strains of bees. English bees leave a thin film
of air between the honey and the cell cappings, and the result is that
the comb always looks perfectly white. But nearly all foreigners fill
their cells to the brim, and this means that the finest honeycomb will
have a dark and dirty appearance, and no one will be tempted to buy.
That is the sort of thing a business-man thinks of first, so the old
training days in London have not been altogether without their use even
here.”
The song, aloof and desultory, that I had heard from the garden-gate, was
growing clearer as we walked; and now we turned the house-corner, and
came upon more hives, with a neat, girlish figure busy among them; and,
hard by, a tiny laundry-shed, wherein I caught a glimpse of brown arms
deep in a wash-tub, and heard the last stanza of the vagulous song.
“Hetty, there,” explained the bee-master, “helps in the garden, and—
Helps, did I say? Why, she is far and away a better hand at it than I.
There is so much in hive-work that needs the light touch which only a
woman can give. And Deborah, she keeps house for us. Did you know that
the word Deborah was Hebrew for a honey-bee? But come and see where I
make the hives on winter days, and where we sling the honey, and fill the
super-crates with the sections, and all the rest of it.”
He showed me then his workshop and a little gauze-windowed shed where
there was a homemade honey-extractor—a cunning, centrifugal thing by
which the combs could be emptied and restored unbroken to the bees, to be
charged again and again. And there was a storehouse, where long rows of
honey-jars, and stacks of sections, and blocks of pale yellow wax were
waiting for the purchaser, and a packing-shed where the postboxes of
corrugated cardboard were made up. Finally there was pointed out to me,
in a far-off corner of the garden, a donkey—shaggy, well-fed, placidly
browsing—and, under a neighbouring pent-roof, a little cart that was a
curiosity in its way. Its wooden tilt was made to represent a big
beehive, and on it was painted the name of the bee-garden and a list of
hive-products which it carried for sale. The bee-master put an admiring
hand upon it.
“It was all Hetty’s idea,” he said. “London girls for pluck, you know!
And she goes into the town with it once a fortnight in the season; takes
it away crammed full, mind, and never brings back an ounce! Somehow or
other, I think those girls ought to change names!”
* * * * *
Journeying back to the railroad-station under the eternal English
sunshine and through the chain of blossoming fields, I listened to the
chant of the bees around me; and though it was the familiar sound of a
lifetime, there was something in it then which I had never heard before.
The rich note rose and fell; died down to silence as the path led through
impregnable red-clover; swelled again as the land paled to the rosy hue
of the sainfoin; burst out into a loud, glad symphony where a patch of
charlock blent its despised, uncoveted gold with the farmer’s drill.
“You thought you knew our ways of life from Alpha to Omega”—so seemed to
run, in fancy, the wavering refrain. “You have pried upon us day and
night, in season and out of season. You have chloroformed us, vivisected
us, torn our dead sisters limb from limb to feed the cruel, glittering
eyes of that binocular of yours. You have come at last to think that
there was nothing about us, within or without or round about, that you
had not got to know. And here a common City clerk, turned tail on his
hereditary duty, has shown you, in one short hour, a whole sheaf of
things about us which you—Peeping Tom that you are!—in a whole life’s
keyhole-prying have never guessed. Out upon you! You deserve to have to
do with nothing better than bumble-bees for the rest of your days!”
For the more I thought of little bee-gardens, such as the one I had just
visited, established here, there, and everywhere throughout the land, the
plainer it became that this, after all, was a mission for the honey-bee
that had quite escaped me; and the fonder of the idea I grew. With
bee-keeping on a grand scale there was the difficulty that an apiary
might become too large for the resources of the country about it,
although it is all but certain that crops grown specially for bees can be
made to pay. But a small garden could never exhaust the land within its
necessary three-mile radius, and all the nectar its bees could gather
would be obtained free. Nunhead has done it gloriously, thought I,
tramping steadily onward through the clover. And why not all the other
Nunheads that hem in the great cities? There must be plenty who love the
dust and din, and are willing to stop there; so the little band of
bee-gardeners will never be missed.
And there was something else I thought of, too, as I strode along under
the English sunshine which lasts for ever, swinging my box of
superfluous, yet much-prized honey as I went.
The song and that pleasant ripple of laughter—they were in my ears still,
and mingling with the labour-song of the wayside bees. Now, only a dozen
miles or so, away over the hill-tops in the blue Sussex weald, I knew of
just such another bee-garden, where two brothers—not Londoners this time,
but true-born Downland lads—had well established themselves, were getting
comfortably off, but were still single men. And only a week ago they had
deplored this fact to me, and— But avast! Match-making was never yet to
be reckoned part of the Lore of the Honey-Bee.
* * * * *
THE END
INDEX
A
Advice to Bee-masters, Butler, 35
After-swarms, 189
Athol Brose, 261
Ancient Roman Hives, 22
Anglo-Saxon Bee-keeping, 22
Antennæ of Bee, Functions of, 155
Ants and Bees, Analogy in Swarming, 178
Aristotle’s Bee-lore, 2
Artificial Food for Bees, 262
B
Barat-Anac, the Country of Tin, 19
Bee-bikes, 139
breeding, 48
burning, 48
city: problems involved in construction, 202
colony, Progress of, 97
craft, Mediæval, 46
culture in Ancient Britain, 21
driving, 271
farming, Success in, 262
garden, Profits of, 271
gardens, Scarcity of, in England, 257
generation, 33
hives in First Century, 4
in Mythology, v
keeping as a Livelihood, 261
in Anglo-Saxon Times, 24
Modern, 47
larva, Spinning of Cocoon, 137
Bee life, Study of, 146
the Old-Age Problem in, 134
lines, 224
masters, Mediæval, 29
milk, its Nature and Uses, 123 166
monarchy, 32
scouts in Swarming, 186
stings, 52
superstitions, 40
under Microscope, 148
Bees and Birds, 87
and Holy Wafer, Story of, 37
and Spiders, 41
Cleansing-flights, 90
English and Foreign, 220
from Dead Lion, 46
Generated in Flowers, 32
in Ancient Egyptian Times, 6
Knowledge of, among Ancients, 30
Bees’ Sense of Smell, 62
Breathing-system of Bee, 163
British Beer (?) in Third Century, B.C. 21
Brood-cells, Cappings of, 140
Dimensions of, 108
nest, Globular Form of, 31
Butler’s “Feminine Monarchie,” 33
C
Chapel built by Bees, 36
Classic Bee-fathers, 28
Comb built Upwards, 217
cell, Reasons for Hexagonal Shape of, 135 206
Comb-construction, 99, 197, 204
Evolution of, 135
Mathematics of, 208
Supposed Laws of Mutual Interference and Pressure in, 212
Preservation of Verticality in, 215
Communal Mind in Hive, 69
Corsica’s Tribute of Wax to Romans, 16
Country Housewife’s Garden, 42
D
Dead Bees, Method of Bringing to Life, 46
Decline of Mead-drinking among Saxons, 26
Discipline in Hive, 14
Divine Origin of Bees, 6
Drone, 14, 41, 43, 74, 118
and Worker-eggs, Theory of Laying, 122
His Place in the Hive, 237
Drone-breeding Queen, 110
cells, 213
fly, 10
Drones in Winter, 246
Mid-day Flight, 64
Slaughter of, 244
E
Egg-stealing by Bees, 111
Emergency Comb, 201
English Black Bee, 76
Ethelwold’s Allowance of Mead to Monks, 24
Evolution in Hive-life, xviii, 79
Eyes of Bee, Compound and Simple, 154
F
Fanning-army, 59, 92
Strength of Air-current, 62
Fertile Worker, Anomaly of, 144
First Bee-hunter, xi
Flight of Bee, Mechanism of, 157
Extent of, 224
of the Drones, 240
Foot of Bee, Construction of, 151
Freemasonry of Bee-keeping, 195
“Further Discovery of Bees,” by Rusden, 1679, 31
G
Glandular System of Bee, 167
Guard-bees of Hive, 62
H
Hexagonal Principle in Hive, 134
Hive, Division of Labour in, 83
life, System and Order in, 128
Preparation for Winter, 253
Hiving Swarms, 182
Honey as Hair-restorer, 45
a Manufactured Product, 222
and Sugar: Comparative Values as Food, 259
“Honey-bearing Reed,” 23
Honey-bee, Origin of, 78
bees, Varying Intelligence of, 143
bee’s Year, Beginning of, 84
comb, Construction of, 137
crops, 226
dew, 226
flow, Duration of, 95, 221
from the Skies, 5
Imports, 258
in Mediæval Cookery, 23
In Middle Ages, 24
Medicinal Properties of, 44, 260
Preparation of, for Market, 273
Huber’s Leaf-hive, 30
I
Ideal Hive, The, 265
Infant Mortality in Bee-life, 63
Insects: Reasons for Bodily Construction, 158
Isle of Honey, 18, 22
Italian Bee, 77
J
Jaws of Bee, Construction of, 154
L
Larva-cocoons, Differences in 138
Larva, Hatching of, 72
Laying Queen’s Attendants, 107
Legs of Bee, 149
Life of the Hive, 54
of the Queen, 119
Longevity of Bee, 15
M
Master-Bees, 42
Matriarchy in the Hive, xiii
Mead: Ancient Recipe, 26
in Anglo-Saxon Times, 24, 25
like Canary-sack, 27
making, Modern, 26
Modern Bee-culture: Its Infuence on Bee-life, 190
Hive, Capacity of, 95
Morat, 25
Moses Rusden, King’s Bee-Master, 31
N
Nectar: Temperature required for its Secretion, 228
Night in the Bee-Garden, 60
Nursery-work in the Hive, 71
O
Oil of Wax, 45
Old Bee-garden, 51
Overseers in Hive, 64
Oxen-born Bees, 7
Oxymel, 44
P
Parthenogenesis, 105, 122
Pigment, 25
Pliny and the Bee, 11
Pliny’s Mirror-stone Hive, 30
Poison-sac of Bee: Its Contents, 223
Pollen from Evening Primrose, 34
gathering, 32, 55
loads, Homogeneity of, 57
Sources of, 56
Prehistoric Man and Honey-Bee, x
Propolis: Its Nature and Uses, 57, 204
Q
Queen and Worker: Differences in Bodily Structure, 101
Eggs, Identity of, 100
Queen-bee, 34, 41, 68, 71, 86
Apparent Rulership of, 96
Battle-cry of, 166, 193
Death of, 115
Duration of Life, 255
Fecundity of, 72
Fertilisation of, 121
Hatching of, 113
Her Mating-flight, 72, 117
in Swarming-time, 178
Physiology of, 101
Rearing of, 103
Supersession of, 109
the Original Female Bee, 98
Workers’ Management of, 123
cell, Construction of, 100, 110
larva Feeding of, 113
Rearing of, 99
Queenless Hives, 105, 144
Queens: Five in Single Hive, 96
Mutual Antagonism, 114
Plurality of, in Hive, 94
R
Reason and Instinct, 69
“Ringing the Bees,” Roman Origin of, 38
Robber-bees, 144, 250
S
Samson and the Lion, 11
Sanitation in the Hive, 88
Sexes, Proportion of, in Hive, 124
Sex-question in Hive, xvi
Sirius, the Honey-Star, 13
Skep, Ancient Method of Dressing, 37
Small-holder and Bee-keeping, 259
Socialism and Hive-life, 75, 130
Soot-fungus, 229
Sororicide in the Hive, 120
Sources of Honey, 230
Sting of Bee, Construction of, 170
Sugar-cane, First Introduction of, 23
Swarm-hiving, First Century, 5
in Middle Ages, 37
Swarm in May, 174
Legal Rights in, 40
Site selected by, 185
Swarming, 38
Impulse, 96, 175
Objects of, 189
Signs of, 182
T
Temper in Bees, 219
Temperature of Hive, 91, 161
Tongue of Bee, Construction of, 152
U
Undertakers in Hive, 63
V
Variation in Hive-rules, 94
Ventilation of Hive, 60, 91
Virgil as Bee-master, 2
Voice-apparatus of Bee, 163
W
Wax, 15, 198
Ancient Sources of, 16
Bees’ Method of Working, 201
in the Bronze Age, xi
Medicinal Properties of, 44
making, Food Consumed during, 161
production, a Profitable Industry, 266
Water, Need of, in Hive, 84
Winter-feeding, Method of, 86
life in Hive, 86
Worker-bee, 81, 85, 233
Age of, 85, 254
Artificial Creation of, 130
Birth of, 140
Early Life in Hive, 141
Glandular System of, 142
Supremacy of, in Hive, 68
Various Occupations of, 127
larvæ, Feeding of, 131
* * * * *
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BILLING AND SONS, LTD.
GUILDFORD
FOOTNOTE.
{218} Dr. Herbert MacDonald Phillpotts, of Kingswear, Devon.