Waterbury evening Democrat., 1890-12-01
TRADITION Asour BEES.
The IS6sy Insects Object to Being Kept
~ Quarrelseme Families.

~ Quarrelsome Families.
There Is probably no insect in which
mankind takes more interest than the
bee, says the London Standard, and
there certainly is none around which SO
many superstitions have clustered from
time ifnmcmorial. The important part
the busy little bee has ever played in our
domestic life, how it's deeds have been
sung by our poets and moralized on by
our preachers, it is not proposed to dilate
| on here; but some of the current supersti-
tions connected with it, though very
amusing, may not be generally known.
Primarily, euarrelsome people, if in
cIined to live in the country and keep
bees, are warned to mend their ways or
| their hives will soon become deserted.
| Bees may be, and we believe are, very
pugnacious among themselves, but they
| strongly object, so say the country folk,
, to belong to contentious household.
! A querulous family, we are assured, will
get no honey, keep as many bees as
they may. Another good example set by
, them is that they object to thrive If dis
! honestly come by; on the contrary, they
{ forthwith pine away and die, thereby
showing highly commendable respect
for the eighth commandment. And if
, they must not be stolen, neither must
. they be sold. To sell them for money is
considered most unlucky proceeding,
but they may be bartered away, and all
will go right.
A bushe1 OF corn was always eonSid-
cred fair equivalent for a swarm, or a
small pig would be taken in exchange
So long as the bees are bartered they
ho, lo,14 60 he f1I af ca11i in
them is grievous omen indeed, than
which nothing can be more dreadful
evidently their self-respect is touched,
and they refuse to work for an owner
who has bought them into slavery.
! Their sympathy with mankind and his
troubles were shown in a variety of
ways. 1t is common saying in Hamp-
shire that bees do not succeed at all in
storing up honey whenever there are
wars abroad. A large bee-keeper says
| he has constantly noticed this during
the last European wars, though ordi-
nary people will reflect that they can
not remember any great scarcity of
honey at those particular times. But
the most commonly-accepted belief is
that the bees in certain cases share our
troubles, and this is more particularly
noticeable in connection with death.
In some districts the entrance of a
bumble-bee into a cottage is looked
upon as certain sign of death, and in
others their swarming upon a piece of
dead wood is regarded as equally omi-
nous. A story is told of the wife of a
respectable cottager living in Sussex
who died in childbirth whose husband
accepted the blow quite pbilosophically
because he said they had been warned
of the event a fortnight before her con-
finement. The woman went into the
garden and saw that their bees. in the
act of swarming, had made choice of a
dead hedge-stake for their settling
place. This is considered an infallible
token of approaching death in the
family, and in this instance it is more
than probable that the prediction
brought about its own fulfllment.
Informing bees of a death in the
family is custom still, we believe,
practiced in many parts of England.
The necessary formalities were very
precise, and if they were not fully con-
formed with the bees Id certainly
take offense and leave their hives never
to return. So universal was the custom
few years ago that an inquiry after a
cottager's bees would occasionally elicit
some such reply as this: ''They have
all gone away since the death of poor
Dick, for we forgot to knock at the hives
and tell them that he was gone dead"
The answer would be given with as much
gravity as if the speaker were relating
how her hen roost had been devastated
by fox, or her pigs had died of swine
fever. If neighbors were talking of the
death of a friend some one in the COM
pany would most likely wonder if the
bees had been informed of the sad cir
cumstance, and would be comforted by
a reply in the affirmative, and that q
piece of the funeral cake had been de-
posted in their hives A correspondent
writing on this subject says this super
stition is common among the small
farmers of Devon. He once knew an
+ apprentice boy sent back from the
funeral oortege by the nurse to tell the
bees of it, as it had been forgotten, and,
to make up for the omission, a little
wine and honey was put in front of the
hives as solace to the inmates in their
presumable sorrow. In some districts
the country people go even further than
this. Not only do they, on death oc-
curing, deck their apiaries with Grape
after duly informing the inmates of the
cause, but they invite the bees to the
funeral.
New Excuse for SIoenv Man.