Page:How to Keep Bees.djvu/27

Rh which have been executed inexorably through countless centuries in the bee commune.

Last, but by no means least, one may keep bees because they belong to home life and should have place in every well-kept garden or orchard. There is no more beautiful domestic picture to be found in the world than a fine garden with a row of hollyhocks hiding the boundary fence and affording a fitting background for a neat row of white hives. It is not alone the æsthetic beauty the bees bring to the garden which touches the deeper currents of feeling and is productive of profound satisfaction; it is something more fundamental; for since the thyme of Hymettus yielded nectar, the happy hum of the bee has yielded comfort to the human senses. The garden without bees seems ever to lack something; mayhap, the silent longing of the flowers for their friendly visitors, intangible but real, so permeates the place that we are dimly conscious of it. Be that as it may, the perfect garden can only be attained through the presence of happy and populous bee-hives.