'Oh, no,' she said, brightly; 'I'm not afraid of a few bees. Are
you?'
'Rather not!'
'You know what to do if one of them flies at you?'
'Well, it would, anyway--what? What I mean to say is, I could
leave most of the doing to the bee.'
Elizabeth was more disapproving than ever. This was mere bravado.
She did not speak again until they reached the hives.
In the neighbourhood of the hives a vast activity prevailed. What,
heard from afar, had been a pleasant murmur became at close
quarters a menacing tumult. The air was full of bees--bees
sallying forth for honey, bees returning with honey, bees
trampling on each other's heels, bees pausing in mid-air to pass
the time of day with rivals on competing lines of traffic.
Blunt-bodied drones whizzed to and fro with a noise like miniature
high-powered automobiles, as if anxious to convey the idea of being
tremendously busy without going to the length of doing any actual
work. One of these blundered into Lord Dawlish's face, and it
pleased Elizabeth to observe that he gave a jump.
'Don't be afraid,' she said, 'it's only a drone. Drones have no
stings.'
'They have hard heads, though. Here he comes again!'
'I suppose he smells your tobacco. A drone has thirty-seven
thousand eight hundred nostrils, you know.
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