several hundred colonies north on the Mississippi, starting from New
Orleans and following the opening season up, thus realizing a sort of
perpetual May or June, the chief attraction being the blossoms of the
river willow, which yield honey of rare excellence. Some of the bees
were no doubt left behind, but the amount of virgin honey secured must
have been very great. In September they should have begun the return
trip, following the retreating summer south.

It is the making of wax that costs with the bee. As with the poet, the
form, the receptacle, gives him more trouble than the sweet that fills
it, though, to be sure, there is always more or less empty comb in both
cases. The honey he can have for the gathering, but the wax he must
make himself,--must evolve from his own inner consciousness. When wax
is to be made, the wax-makers fill themselves with honey and retire
into their chamber for private meditation; it is like some solemn
religious rite: they take hold of hands, or hook themselves together in
long lines that hang in festoons from the top of the hive, and wait for
the miracle to transpire. After about twenty-four hours their patience
is rewarded, the honey is turned into wax, minute scales of which are
secreted from between the rings of the abdomen of each bee; this is
taken off and from it the comb is built up. It is calculated that about
twenty-five pounds of honey are used in elaborating one pound of comb,
to say nothing of the time that is lost. Hence the importance, in an
economical point of view, of a recent device by which the honey is
extracted and the comb returned intact to the bees. But honey without
the comb is the perfume without the rose,--it is sweet merely, and soon
degenerates into candy. Half the delectableness is in breaking down
these frail and exquisite walls yourself, and tasting the nectar before
it has lost its freshness by contact with the air. Then the comb is a
sort of shield or foil that prevents the tongue from being overwhelmed