In the old bee-gardens, where the “swarm in May” is still a living, present thing, it is pleasant to sit with the proprietor under the rosy shade of apple-boughs waiting for the swarms to issue, and “talking bees,” which is the most nerve-soothing, soul-refreshing occupation in the world. There never was a bee-keeper, new style or old style, too busy to talk, provided that you met him with understanding, and were as impatient as he of digressions from the all-important theme. One soon gets tired of imparting information as to the wonders of hive-life to the ignorant and plainly apprehensive stranger, and none sooner than he of the old school. In the quietest apiary of pure-bred English bees there are always a few individuals of crotchety nature, who will search you out in the shady orchard seat, and, as like as not, knife you on the least provocation. If you are a beeman, you treat these vindictive approaches with unconcern. You go on listening to the old man’s talk, while the bee shrills away at your eyelids, or creeps into your ear and out again. If you keep quiet, she will soon relinquish the dull sport, and wing harmlessly away; and the thread of the master’s discourse is not interrupted. But the uninformed stranger is a nuisance at these solitudes for two. He flinches and shudders; makes little irritating retreats; beats about wildly with his hands; or, if he is made of the sternest metal, he sits rigidly upright when he should be reclining at his ease, and turns such a painfully polite, though distracted, ear to his informant, that the stream of talk is sure to dry up incontinently, and he feels as little welcome as ghostly Banquo at the feast. When you have once lived among hives it is a sore thing to be without their music. On warm days, winter and summer alike, there is always this drowsy, dreamy song in the air; and dancing without the fiddlers is no more depressing an occupation than, to a beeman, is loitering in a garden of mere silent vegetables and flowers. Sitting now under the bower of apple-blossoms and watching for the swarms, the full sweet note from the hives comes over to you like the very voice of serene content. It pervades the sunshine. It gently qualifies the slow wind in the tree-tops. It lifts and falls like the lilt of a far-off summer sea. This is the labour-song: the song of the swarm is very different. To the trained ear the cæsura that presently comes in the midst of the music is as clear as a pistol-shot, though you may detect no change. The old bee-keeper stops short in his wandering tale about famous honey-years of half a lifetime back, seizes key and pan, and hurries across the garden. It is the old green hive again, he tells you, as you press hard upon his heels—it is always the old green hive that has swarmed the earliest every May for years back. And forthwith the key and pan begin their clattering ding-dong melody. [Picture: Hiving the swarm]