Alice and Beatrice

								

miss, your grandmamma will like me to take the new Scotch hive which
came last week, so I will bring that and a straw one, and ask her which
is to be used.’
Alice went with John: and Alice carried the straw hive, and John carried
the Scotch hive, which was an octagon, or eight-sided, wooden one,
painted red, with glass windows and shutters; and he took two boards as
well, and they both hastened to the kitchen garden, where the new swarm
of bees had settled.
‘What luck the little ladies have, ma’am!’ said the gardener. ‘You
promised them the second swarm; and what a fine one it is, much bigger
than the one I have just hived!’
‘Yes, this is the children’s swarm, and I am glad that it is such a
large one. But how will you take it, John? it is in such an awkward
place.’
‘With the ladder, quite easy, ma’am; but,’ added John, looking up at it,
‘I can’t shake them off the branch, and shall have to take them as I
can.’
John ran to fetch the ladder, which was close by against the wall, where
he had been pruning some fruit trees.
The little girls were very impatient, and watched the gardener mount the
ladder; then their grandmamma handed him the Scotch hive; and to their
great astonishment, John said—
‘I must sweep these bees into the hive.’
The gardener fixed the wooden hive between the ladder and his own knee,
and then with one rapid sweep with his hands, he threw the whole lump of
bees into the hive, and turned the hive down on the board.
A great number of the bees flew off and rose again high up into the air,
but John said—
‘Don’t be afraid, ma’am, they never sting when they are swarming.’
Alice and Beatrice began crying out, for the bees were flying all about
their grandmamma; but John was soon down from the ladder, and taking the
board with the hive upon it very gently, he placed them carefully on a
garden bench close by, and raising one side of the hive a little, as he
had done with the first swarm, he left the bees, and they all stood at a
little distance and watched them.
The bees still rose in great numbers high into the air, and whirled
about in great confusion, and John began to fear that the queen bee was
not in the hive; but by degrees they began to cluster round the hive and
cover it. For it seemed that one or two had found out that the queen was
safely housed in the strange-looking box, and had told the news to the
others, for they came lower, flying closer and closer, and crept all
over it until they had found the entrance, and before a quarter of an
hour had passed, there was scarcely a bee to be seen out of the hive.
‘You can leave them safely now, I think, John, till the evening, and
then I shall like these two swarms to be placed in the new bee-house.
And now you know, dear Alice and Beatrice, that the Ayrshire hive is
yours, and all the honey the bees make will be yours too.’