The freshman at this fascinating branch of nature-study, brought out into the quiet night to hear such gargantuan music, is always strangely affected by it, some natures incredibly so. In all the great placid void of darkened hill and dale around him, in the whole blue arch overhead, alive with the flinching silver of the stars, there is no sound but a chance trill of a nightingale, the bark of a shepherd’s dog on the distant upland, or, now and then, the droning song of a beetle passing invisibly by. All the world seems at rest, save these mysterious people in the hives; and with them the sound of labour is only redoubled. Bending down to the nearest hive in the darkness, the note comes up to one like the angry roar of the sea. A light brought cautiously to bear upon it, discloses the alighting-board covered with rows of bees, working, as it were, for their lives; while other bees continually wander in and out of the entrance—the sentries that guard it night and day, just as soldiers guarded the gates of human cities in olden times. The novice at bee-craft, even the most staid and matter-of-fact, is invariably plunged into marvelling silence at the sight. But if the night be exceptionally hot and oppressive, and the fanning army unusually large, the bee-master with an eye for dramatic effect generally finishes the tiro’s wonderment by showing him an old trick. He lowers the candle until the flame is just behind the squadron of ventilating bees, and at once all is darkness: the current of air drawn out of the hive has proved strong enough to extinguish the light. It has been said that there are guard-bees who watch the hive-door day and night. To the unskilled human eye one bee looks very like another, and it is difficult to understand how, in the many thousands that pass, the guards manage to detect an intruder so unerringly, and to eject her with such unceremonious promptitude as is always shown. Probably it is not by sight alone that these occasional interlopers are singled out. The sense of smell in the honey-bee is extraordinarily acute, and this, no doubt, assists the guards in their difficult work. It is well known that a queen-bee must possess a very distinct odour, as her mere presence abroad, even when shut up in a box, will attract the drones from all quarters. In all likelihood the peculiar aroma from each queen-bee impregnates the whole colony, and thus the guard-bees are able at once to distinguish their own kin from that of alien stocks.