Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Bee-Master of Warrilow
Luckily for English bee-keeping, there is a third class upon which the hopes of all who love the ancient ways and days, and yet recognise the absorbing interest and value of modern research in apiarian science, may legitimately rely. Born and bred amongst the hives, and steeped from their earliest years in the lore of their skeppist forefathers, these interesting folk seem, nevertheless, imbued to the core with the very spirit of progress. While retaining an unlimited affection for all the quaint old methods in bee keeping, they maintain themselves, unostentatiously, but very thoroughly, abreast of the times. Nothing new is talked of in the world of bees that these people do not make trial of, and quietly adopt into their daily practice, if really serviceable or as quietly discard, if the contrivance prove to have little else than novelty to recommend it.
As a rule, they are reserved, silent men, difficult of approach; and yet, when once on terms of familiarity, they make the most charming of companions. Then they are ever ready to talk about their bees, or discuss the latest improvements in apiculture to explain the intrica cies of bee-life, as revealed by the foremost modern obser vers, or to dilate by the hour on the astounding delusions of mediaeval times. But they all seem to possess one invariable characteristic - that of whole-hearted reverence for the customs of their immediate ancestors, their own fathers and grandfathers. In a long acquaintance with bee-men of this class, I have never yet met with one who could be trapped into any decided admission of defect in the old methods, which - to say truth - were often as sense less as they were futile, even when not directly contrary to the interest of the bee-owner, or the plain, obvious dic tates of humanity. In this they form a refreshing con trast to the ultra-modern, pushing young apiculturist of to-day and it is as a type of this class that the Bee Master of Warrilow is presented to the reader.
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