Woodside | Page 9

the open door of a house and ran inside, up the
stairs, and crouched under a cot where a little child lay fast asleep! The
mistress of the house saw the fox rush in, and she instantly shut the
front door, as she knew she would have the whole pack of hounds in
her house. As it was, two dogs, a little in front of the others, rushed past
her through the hall into the kitchen, then into the yard; so they at once
shut the kitchen door, and the dogs just missed the fox. There was a
sight all round the house; the dogs were just mad to get in, and
trampled down the flower-beds--for there was no keeping them out of
the front garden--making such a yelling and barking as you never heard.
At last one of the huntsmen came into the house, caught the fox, and
carried him away in a bag. The next day a gentleman sent his gardener

to put the garden straight again, after the dogs; but the crocuses, which
were just showing nicely for bloom, were quite spoiled. They sent the
fox's brush--that's his tail, you know--to the mistress. I've been inside
this very house, and seen where the fox went to hide himself. It's not
the way of the creatures that live in the woods to come into houses, but
the poor fox was hard drove; he was.
"But now, Master Jack, I've finished my job in this shed, and I must
go."

V.
HIVING THE BEES.
"Busy bee, busy bee, where do you go?"-- "To meadows and gardens
whose sweets I know; Filling my baskets with spoils from the flowers,
Working hard for the hive in sunny hours."--C. H.
In a sunny corner of the kitchen garden stood a row of bee-hives. Many
a time did the children stand to watch the busy workers, flying out of
the hive to gather honey from the flowers, either to feed the bees or to
store it into cells for future use.
They would watch them returning laden, not only with honey, but with
pollen, the yellow dust found in the inside of flowers.
Bees get covered with this powder while they are sucking the honey out
of the flowers; and they carefully brush it off their bodies with their
hairy legs, make it into lumps, and then place it in a curious kind of
basket or pocket which every bee has in the middle of each of its hind
legs. The children often saw the bees with these yellow lumps piled up
so high that it seemed a wonder they did not fall off. And so they might
have done, had it not been for the fringe of long hairs at the edge of the
basket, which, by making a kind of lid, kept the precious load safe.
They watched the bees fly into the hive, but they could not see what
happened next and what became of their treasure.

Shall I tell you?
First of all, other bees come to help them to unload; then those that are
hungry eat the honey; and what is not wanted is stored away in the cells
which those that stay at home are making.
But how do they get the wax for their cells? It does not grow in
flowers.
No; they make it out of honey which they retain instead of storing. It
comes while the bees are quiet; and many bees hang together for a long
time while the wax is forming. It then oozes out in thin flakes on their
bodies; and this they knead till it is soft enough to build with.
They bring home from the fields something besides pollen and honey;
it is a gummy substance which they get from the buds of trees. They
use it with the wax, partly as a varnish and partly to make it stronger.
They mend up broken places with it, and it answers the purpose of
cement.
They use their cells for three things: to store honey, to store bee bread,
and others are used to rear the young bees,--nurseries, in fact.
Bees have a great deal to do besides getting honey and building their
cells. They have their young ones to take care of. As soon as an egg is
hatched they feed the grub with great care; and in about ten days it
wants no more food, but spins a kind of web round itself, and lies quite
still for about ten days more, when it comes out a bee, ready for work.
Only one bee lays eggs. She is the queen and the mother of all the
others. She is a good deal larger than they are, and they all obey her.
One day about the end of May, just