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