carpentry. With this resinous substance* (quite distinct from wax) they fix their combs to the sides and roof, fasten the hives to the stand, stop up crevices, varnish the cell-work of their combs, and embalm any dead or noxious animal that they catch within their hive: 'Caulk every chink where rushing winds may roar, And seal their circling ramparts to the floor.'-Evans. Bees may often be seen settling on the bark of the fir, the gummy leaf of the hollyhock, or on the-we dare not use Horace Walpole's expression-varnished bud of the horse-chestnut. They are then collecting neither bread nor honey, but gum for the purposes above mentioned. Huish mentions a case of their coating over a dead mouse within the hive with this gum, thus rendering their home proof against any impure effluvium; but they were much more cunning with a snail, which they sealed down, only round the edge of the shell, thus fixing him as a standing joke, a laughing-stock, a living mummy (for a snail, though excluded from air, would not die), so that he who had heretofore carried his own house was now made his own monument. As one of the indirect products of the bee we must not forget Mead, the Metheglin† of Shakspeare and Dryden. It was the drink of the antient Britons and Ñorsemen, and filled the skullcups in the Feast of Shells in the Hall of Odin. In such esteem was it held, that one of the old Welsh laws ran thus: 6 There are three things in court which must be communicated to the king before they are made known to any other person:-1st. Every sentence of the Judge. 2nd. Every new song. 3rd. Every cask of Mead.' Queen Bess was so fond of it, that she had some made for her own especial drinking every year; and Butler, who draws a distinction between Mead and Metheglin, making Hydromel the generic term, gives a luculent receipt for the latter and better drink, the same used by our renowned Queen Elizabeth of happy memory.' The Romans softened their wine sometimes with honey (Georg. iv., 102.), sometimes with mead-mulso. (Hor., 1. 2, 4, 24.) The good bee,' says More, as other good people, hath many bad enemies;' and though opinions and systems of management have changed, the bees' enemies have remained much the same from the time of Aristotle. Beetles, moths, hornets, wasps, * As a further proof of the minute attention with which the ancients studied bees, the Greeks had three names at least for the different qualities of this substance :— πρόπολις ; κόμμωσις; and πισσόκηρος. The derivation of this word, which one would rather expect to be Celtic or Scandinavian, is very plausible, if not true, from the Greek: μitu ykńev. spiders, spiders, snails, ants, mice, birds, lizards, and toads, will all seek the hives, either for the warmth they find there, or oftener for the bees, and, more frequently still, for the honey. The wax-moth is a sad plague, and when once a hive is infested with it, nothing effectual is to be done but by removing the bees altogether into a new domicile. Huish tells of an old lady, who, thinking to catch the moths, illuminated her garden and bee-house at night with flambeaux-the only result of which was that, instead of trapping the marauders, she burnt her own bees, who came out in great confusion to see what was the matter. The great death's-head moth (Sphinx atropos), occasionally found in considerable numbers in our potato-fields-the cause of so much alarm wherever its awful note and badge are heard and seen- -was noticed first by Huber as a terrible enemy to bees. It was against the ravages of this mealy monster that the bees were supposed to erect those fortifications, the description and actual drawing of which by Huber threw at one time so much doubt on his other statements. speaks of bastions, intersecting arcades, and gateways masked by walls in front, so that their constructors pass from the part of simple soldiers to that of engineers.' Few subsequent observers * have, we believe, detected the counterscarps of these miniature Vaubans, but as it is certain that they will contract their entrance against the cold of winter, it seems little incredible that they should put in practice the same expedient when other necessities call for it; and to style such conglomerations of wax and propolis bastions, and battlements, and glacis, is no more unpardonable stretch of the imagination than to speak of their queens and sentinels. He An old toad may be sometimes seen sitting under a hive, and waiting to seize on such as, coming home loaded with their spoil, accidentally, fall to the ground. We can hardly fancy this odious reptile in a more provoking position. Tomtits, which are called bee-biters in Hampshire, are said to tap at the hive, and then snap up the testy inmates who come out to see what it is all about: if birds chuckle as well as chirp, we can fancy the delight of this mischievous little ne'er-do-good at the success of his lark. The swallow is an enemy of old standing, as we may learn from the verses of Euenus, prettily translated by Merivale : 'Attic maiden, honey-fed, Chirping warbler, bear'st away * The ever-amusing Mr. Jesse says, 'I have now in my possession a regular fortification made of propolis, which my bees placed at the entrance of their hive, to enable them the better to protect themselves from the wasps.'—Gleanings, vol. i., p. 24. It may have been with some such idea that the Greeks gave the name 'propolis,' 'outwork,' to the principal material with which they construct these barricades; and Virgil has munire favos. Did Byron allude to this in his 'fragrant fortress?' Thou the busy buzzing bee Yellow guest, whom summer brings!' Many are the fables and stories of the bear and the bees, and the love he has for honey. One, not so well known, we extract from Butler. The conteur is one Demetrius, a Muscovite ambassador sent to Rome. 'A neighbour of mine,' saith he, 'searching in the woods for honey, slipt down into a great hollow tree; and there sunk into a lake of honey up to the breast: where-when he had stuck fast two days, calling and crying out in vain for help (because nobody in the meanwhile came nigh that solitary place)-at length, when he was out of all hope of life, he was strangely delivered by the means of a great bear, which coming thither about the same business that he did, and smelling the honey (stirred with his striving), clambered up to the top of the tree, and thence began to let himself down backward into it. The man bethinking himself, and knowing that the worst was but death (which in that place he was sure off), beclipt the bear fast with both his hands about the loins, and withall made an outcry as loud as he could. The bear, being thus suddenly affrighted (what with the handling and what with the noise), made up again with all speed possible: the man held, and the bear pulled until with main force he had drawn Dun out of the mire; and then being let go, away he trots, more afeard than hurt, leaving the smeared swain in a joyful fear.'-Butler, p. 115. The bear, from his love of honey, acts as a pointer to the beehunters of the North, who note the hollow trees which he frequents and rubs against, knowing thereby that they contain honey. The bears,' said a bee-hunter to Washington Irving, is the knowingest varmint for finding out a bee-tree in the world. They'll gnaw for days together at the trunk till they make a hole big enough to get in their paws, and then they 'll haul out the honey, bees and all.' Wasps are sad depredators upon bees, and require to be guarded against. The large mother-wasp, which is often observed quite early in the spring, and which common people call a hornet, should always be destroyed, as it is the parent of a whole swarm. In many places the gardeners will give sixpence a-piece for their destruction, and bee-masters should not refuse at least an equal amount of head-money. These brazen-mailed invaders take good care never to attack any but a weak hive: here they very soon make themselves at home, and walk in and out in the most cool, amusing manner possible. As an instance of the extent to which their intrusion may be carried, there was sent to the Entomological Entomological Society, in July last, a very complete wasps'-nest, found in the interior of a bee-hive, the lawful inhabitants of which had been put to flight by the burglars. But not any one of these' (we quote from the old fellow of Magdalen, from whom so many have borrowed without acknowledgment) nor all the rest together, do half so much harm to the Bees as the Bees.' And here again they too truly represent human nature. As riches increase, they set their hearts the more upon them. The stronger the stock is, the more likely are they to turn invaders, and of course they fix upon the weakest and most resistless of their brethren as the subjects of their attack. Then comes the tug of war; and a terrible struggle it is. Here is an extract from Mr. Cotton's note-book : 'I was sitting quietly in the even of a fine day, when my sister came puffing into the room, "Oh! Willy, make haste and come into the garden, the bees are swarming!" Nonsense," I said; "they cannot be swarming; it is August, and four o'clock in the even." Nevertheless I was bound, as a loving brother, to see what grounds my wise sister had for her assertion. I got up, went to the window, and although I was at least 400 yards from my bees, the air seemed full of them. I rushed out to the garden; the first sight of my hive made me think my sister was right. On looking more narrowly, I perceived that the bees were hurrying in, instead of swarming out; and on peeping about, I saw lying on the ground the "defuncta corpora vitâ Magnanimûm heroum." They all had died fighting, as the play-book says, pro hares et foxes. My thoughts then turned to my other stock, which was about a quarter of a mile off. I ran to it as fast as I could; hardly had I arrived there, when an advanced body of the robber regiment followed me; they soon thickened; I tried every means I could think of to disperse them, but in vain I threw dust into the air among the thickest; and read them the passage in Virgil, which makes the throwing of the dust in the air equivalent to the Bees' Riot Act: "Hi motus animorum atque hæc certamina tanta Pulveris exigui jactu compressa quiescent."'-p. 319. But all in vain. We know how often this same experiment has failed, though nothing can be more true than the rest of Virgil's description of the Battle of the Bees; but dust is certainly efficacious in causing them speedily to settle when they are swarming, whether it is that the dust annoys them, or that they mistake it for hail or rain. There is yet one greater enemy than all, and that is Man. And this leads us to consider the different systems of management and harvesting which he has adopted; and some consolation it is that, various as may be the plans proposed, there is only one exception, exception, among the many bee-books we have lately read, to the heartily expressed wish that the murderous system of stifling the bees may be wholly condemned and abolished. Indeed, if Mr. Cotton's statement be correct, England shares with the valley of Chamouni the exclusive infamy of destroying the servants whose toil has been so serviceable. Cobbett says it is whimsical to save the bees, if you take the honey; but on the other hand, to sacrifice them for the sake of it, is killing the goose for her golden eggs. A middle line is the safest: take a part. First, be sure that you leave enough to carry a stock fairly through the winter-say 30lbs., hive and all-and the surplus is rightly your own, for the hives and the flowers you have found them, and the trouble and time you have bestowed. To devise such a method has engaged the attention of English bee-masters for many generations back; and to eke out the hive by a temporary chamber which may be removed at pleasure, has been the plan most commonly proposed. Dr. Bevan (pp. 115-120) gives a detailed account of the different schemes, to which we refer our readers curious in such matters. There can be but three ways of adding to a hive-first, at the top, by extra boxes, small hives, caps, or bell-glasses, which may be called generally the storifying system-(we use the bee-man's vocabulary as we find it); secondly, at the side, by box, &c., called the collateral system; and thirdly, by inserting additional room at the bottom, called nadiring. To enter into all the advantages and disadvantages of these plans would be to write a volume; we must therefore content ourselves with Dr. Bevan's general rule, which we think experience fully bears out, that old stocks should be supered and swarms be nadired. Side-boxes are the leading feature of Mr. Nutt's plan, about which so much has been written and lectured-but that there is nothing new in this, the title of a pamphlet published in 1756 by the Rev. Stephen White, Collateral Bee-boxes,' will sufficiently show. The object of Mr. Nutt's system is to prevent swarming, which he seems to consider an unnatural process, and forced upon the bees by the narrowness and heat of the hive, caused by an overgrown population. To this we altogether demur: the unnatural part of the matter is that which, by inducing an artificial temperature, prevents the old Queen from indulging her nomadic propensities, and, like the Gothic sovereigns of old, heading the emigrating body of her people. Moreover, with all his contrivances Mr. Nutt, or at least his followers, cannot wholly prevent swarming-the old people still contrive to make their home too hot' for the young ones. But great praise is due to him for the attention which he has called to the ventilation of the hive. Whatever be the system pursued, this is a point that should never be neglected, and henceforth a thermo 6 meter, |