May and June that year were in very truth the months of flowers. Never had Flanders known the hawthorn so fragrant, never the gardens so gay with roses, jasmine, and honeysuckle. And when the wind blew eastwards from England it carried with it the breath of all this flowery land, and the people, at Antwerp and elsewhere, sniffed the air joyfully and cried aloud: "How good the scent of the wind that blows from Flanders!" Then it was that the bees were busy sucking honey from the flowers, making wax, and laying their eggs within the hives that were all too small to house the swarms. What workman's music they made, under that canopy of azure sky that was spread so dazzlingly over the rich earth! The hives were made of rushes, straw, osiers or of wattled hay. And there the bees, like clever basket-makers, lined and tunnelled the hives with their beautifully fitting tools. And as for the bread-makers, this long time past their numbers were scarce sufficient for the work they had to do. In a single swarm there would be as many as three thousand bees and two thousand seven hundred drones! The quality of the comb was so exquisite that the Dean of Damme dispatched eleven combs to the Emperor Charles out of gratitude for the new edicts that had revived in Flanders the earlier vigour of the Holy Inquisition. It was Philip, forsooth, that ate them all; but little good did they do him! But in Flanders, the rascals of the roads, the beggars and vagabonds and all that lazy good-for-nothing crowd who would risk hanging rather than do a day's work, were soon enticed by the taste of the honey to come along and steal their share. And by night they prowled around the hives in gangs. Now Claes had made some hives for the purpose of attracting the wandering swarms of bees, and some of these hives were full already, but there were others that stood empty waiting for the bees. Claes kept watch all night to guard this sugary wealth of his; and when he was tired he asked Ulenspiegel to take his place, the which Ulenspiegel did right willingly. It was a cold night, and Ulenspiegel to avoid the chill took refuge in one of the hives, curling himself up inside, and looking out from two openings that had been made in the roof of the hive. Just as he was going off to sleep, he heard a rustle in the bushy hedge near by, and then the voices of two men. They were thieves, no doubt, and peering forth from the openings aforesaid, Ulenspiegel saw that they both had long hair and long beards, which was strange, for a long beard is usually the sign of a nobleman. However, the two men went peering from hive to hive, and coming at last to the one in which Ulenspiegel was hiding, they tried its weight, and then---- "Let us take this one," they said. "It is the heaviest."