SUPERSTITIONS CONNECTED WITH BEES.
Superstitions likely to gather around Bees--Unlucky to Buy
Bees--Ill Omen for a Swarm to Settle on a Dry Stick--"Have
the Bees been told?"--Turning Hives on the Death of the
Owner--Probable Origin of these Errors.
On _a priori_ grounds it is only to be expected that various
superstitions would arise at different times and in various countries
with regard to bees. Insects displaying such marvellous instincts, such
apparent adaptation of means to ends, such indications of reasoning and
special intelligence, were sure to be credited with powers beyond those
generally recognised in them. Hence we may account for some of the
curious ideas about bees which have prevailed in certain localities.
There are other notions, however, the origin of which is more difficult
to discover. Such, for instance, is the prejudice among ignorant
bee-keepers against selling for coin swarms or stocks. A purchase thus
made is supposed to be likely to lead to misfortune for one of the two
parties concerned. By some occult process, lying outside the range of
reason or imagination, ill luck is thought to be attracted by bargains
of this sort.
A correspondent of the _Journal of Horticulture_ thus narrates the
following incidents: "Last August I purchased a swarm, for which I paid
ten shillings. So far as I could judge from my limited experience with
bees, for the first fortnight they appeared to be doing well, but one
night, about eight o'clock, I found they had deserted the hive, and
were on the ground in a cluster the size of a large plate. I gently
lifted the hive and placed it over the cluster. About ten o'clock I
found most of the bees had gone up into the hive, which I then returned
to its stand. For a short time the bees appeared to work, but one day,
thinking they appeared very quiet, I lifted the hive, and discovered
that it was quite empty of bees. There were three nice pieces of empty
comb. I think the bees were teased by wasps. Our parishioners tell me I
did two things wrong, and that in consequence my bees could not thrive.
One was to give money for them, which is always unlucky; the other was,
that I did not have them at the right time of the year. I ought to have
had them on Old Christmas Day. Is there anything in these ideas?"
The correspondent signed herself "A Clergyman's Wife," and the
explanation of her want of success was not far to seek. She had been
taken in by the vendor of her bees. A poor swarm had been palmed off
upon her, and one so manifestly weak, and having, so late in the
comb-making and honey-gathering time as August, only three small combs,
was doomed to perish with cold and starvation. The poor insects, as a
forlorn hope, had deserted their hive for what they trusted might be
better quarters. The fallacy of the coin having had anything to do with
their destruction, takes rank with the disinclination of some people to
accept from a friend the present of a pocket-knife, unless the donor
will take a halfpenny in exchange; or with the old saying "Helping to
salt is helping to sorrow." We can hardly suppose that the kindly sort
of freemasonry, which now exists among bee-keepers, has ever proceeded
so far as to make any one always willing to _give_ his swarms or stocks
to another. If so, the benevolence once current has degenerated into
a willingness, even among the devotees to the superstition of which
we are speaking, to accept full value in the way of barter if not in
cash. Whatever its origin, we feel satisfied the days of this prejudice
are numbered. With the immense spread of apiculture now taking place
experience and common sense will sweep away this psychological cobweb,
as so many others have been made to disappear under the same powerful
agencies.
As to the other superstition about "Old Christmas Day" being the proper
time for procuring a stock, the probability is that seasons sacred to
the memory of events in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ would have
special attributes of good fortune attributed to them. But the actual
reason why stocks purchased at the above-named period would be pretty
sure to do well is, that by Old Christmas Day they would have passed
the perils of early winter, and would be hardly likely to find a buyer
unless their weight indicated that they had food supplies sufficient to
last till the flowers came again.
A second notion of this kind is, that if a swarm settles on a dry
stick or dead tree, the bees will not long survive. Doubtless, many
persons could be found to state that in their own apiaries they had
seen instances in which the one event had followed the other. We,
indeed, have had one such coincidence--a case in which a swarm settled
on a stake supporting an espalier apple-tree, and died during the
ensuing winter. Still, we are unable to believe that there is any
real connection between the incidents. Living trees offer so many
inducements to a swarm on the wing for settling--the benefit of shade
above all--that it is not to be wondered at that branches with foliage
are, if accessible, almost always chosen by the insects for alighting
on. It is just possible that an old and feeble queen may occasionally,
when heading a swarm, be unable to fly farther than a very short
distance, and, through fatigue, may settle on a post or other leafless
wood. Of course such a queen would be likely to die within a few months
at most, and thus involve the loss of the colony during the next
winter. Hence the idea we are speaking of _may_ have arisen.
We come now to a notion more widely prevalent than either of the
preceding, and perhaps even more absurd. We allude to the supposed
necessity of informing the bees of the death of their owner or of any
member of his family. So strongly is this fallacy held, that in many
country districts, especially among the cottagers, the question after
a decease in the household "Have the bees been told?" is almost as
much a matter of course as an inquiry whether the undertaker has been
sent for. Even in the depth of winter, it is thought by believers in
this superstition needful to "wake the bees," albeit we know that
they are not asleep, and tell them of the sad event, in which they are
supposed to have so profound an interest. In Maude's _Antiquities_ we
read of the following case in point: "A gentleman at a dinner table
happened to mention that he was surprised, on the death of a relative,
by his servant inquiring whether his master would inform the bees of
the event, or whether he should do so. On asking the meaning of so
strange a question, the servant assured him that bees ought always
to be informed of a death in the family, or they would resent the
neglect by deserting the hive. This gentleman resides in the Isle of
Ely, and the anecdote was told in Suffolk. One of the party present,
a few days afterwards took the opportunity of testing the prevalence
of this strange notion, by inquiring of a cottager, who had lately
lost a relative, and happened to complain of the loss of her bees,
whether she had told them all she ought to do. She immediately replied,
'Oh! yes, when my aunt died I told every skep myself, and put them
into mourning.' I have since ascertained the existence of the same
superstition in Cornwall, Devonshire, Gloucestershire (where I have
seen black crape put round the hive or on a small stick by its side),
and Yorkshire. There are many other singular notions afloat as to these
insects. In Oxfordshire I was told that, if man and wife quarrelled,
the bees would leave them.
"In the _Living Librairie_, Englished by John Molle, 1621, page 283, we
read, 'Who would beleeve without superstition (if experience did not
make it credible) that most commonly all the bees die in their hives
if the master or mistress of the house chance to die, except the hives
be presently removed into some other place? And yet I know this hath
hapned to folke no way stained with superstition.' A vulgar prejudice
prevails in many places of England that, when bees remove or go away
from their hives, the owner of them will die soon after."
A correspondent of _The Bee Journal_ writes under the head of "Norfolk
Bee-Superstition": "A neighbour of mine had bought a hive of bees at
an auction of the goods of a farmer, who had recently died. The bees
seemed very sickly, and not likely to thrive; when my neighbour's
servant bethought him they had never been put in mourning for their
late master. On this he got a piece of crape and tied it to a stick,
which he fastened to a hive. After this the bees recovered; and when
I saw them they were in a very flourishing state--a result which was
unhesitatingly attributed to their having been put into mourning."
It is more difficult to suggest the possible origin of these curious
fancies than to explain those previously mentioned. We may, perhaps, be
on the right track in supposing that it has often happened, when the
master or mistress of the bees has been ill or has died, the insects
have missed, especially in autumn or early spring, the attention
required for their welfare, and have, in consequence, perished.
Then other persons of the household, unacquainted with the actual
connection--in many instances a _vital_ connection--between the bees
and their owner, have attributed to them a bond not actually existing;
and so, being led to the silly notion of the insects grieving, or
needing to be informed, and to have their hive put in mourning, they
have easily diffused a superstition in which each favouring coincidence
would tell widely for its extended belief.
In the Norfolk case, narrated in _The Bee Journal_, several possible
explanations suggest themselves. In the first place, if the deceased
farmer was an inhabitant of the same village as the buyer of his
bees, and the hives were removed to a new home near their old one,
most of the bees which had previously flown would return to their
accustomed spot, and perish, not knowing their way to their changed
abode. Then, in the course of a fortnight or three weeks, a good number
of freshly-hatched insects would have strengthened the community,
and these, naturally, would return with their supplies to the fresh
domicile, and soon put matters into a flourishing condition.
Again, if dull gloomy weather followed the purchase of the bees, and
was succeeded by brighter days, coincidently with the fastening of
the stick and crape to the hives, the improved appearances would, of
course, be due to warmer temperature and sunnier hours, without any
change in the feelings of the insects from their abode being duly
adorned with the emblems of mourning.
Lastly, the explanation may be simply that, when the stock was bought
it was in poor condition, but that in two or three weeks, by the
hatching of brood in the natural course of events, a greatly improved
condition of affairs had come about. The first of these explanations,
however, is probably the correct one.
One more superstitious custom is said to prevail in Devonshire, viz.,
at the funeral of a deceased bee keeper, the turning round of every
hive that belonged to the departed, and this just at the moment the
corpse is being carried out of the house. We do not pretend to explain
this curious fancy. It may have originated in an experiment to avert
the supposed disastrous connection between the bees and the death of
their owner. Anything would seem to do for a charm to minds imbued with
superstition.
Borlase, in his _Antiquities of Cornwall_, mentions one other
superstition of apiarians of that county. He says: "The Cornish to this
day invoke the spirit Browny when their bees swarm; and think that
their crying 'Browny, Browny,' will prevent their returning to their
former hive, and make them pitch and form a new colony."
It is not wonderful that the many extraordinary facts connected with
bees, coming at various times under human observation, should have
led to notions of marvels, founded, not on observation, but on fancy.
There is a strong tendency in the human mind to desire explanations
of phenomena, and where there has been no scientific training in
observation, false deductions are easily arrived at, or guesses as to
causes are made, which have no foundation in fact. Bee-keeping has, for
the most part, till in quite recent times, been chiefly in the hands
of people of the more ignorant classes, among whom wonderful stories
easily arise, are rapidly propagated, and tenaciously believed. Any
circumstances seeming to support a previously established fancy would
serve to increase the strength of superstition; while any number of
instances not corroborating prevailing ideas would be disregarded.
But, when once the spirit of sound investigation is applied to these
vulgar errors, they become so manifestly absurd, that the marvel is how
they can possibly have arisen.
Without doubt, there are many extraordinary facts connected with
bees still awaiting the observation and the explanation of explorers
in this department of natural history. Problems connected with the
working of mind in the lower animals; the relations between reason
and instinct; the functions of particular organs in these and other
insects; the transmission of faculties not possessed by either parent
in particular races; the direction and variation in the working of
inherent faculties, through the agency of man, are subjects opening up
most interesting fields of inquiry, which we would point out to those
who have the inclination, leisure, and opportunities for pursuing
investigations. We are satisfied that efforts and time thus devoted
will be well repaid by the pleasure which springs from knowledge, and
will lead in all devout minds to enlarged admiration of the wisdom and
beneficence of Him, from whose creative power the varied structures
of animal life have come, and from whose infinite resources have been
bestowed all those faculties which call forth our astonishment and
delight as we study the facts of insect life. The deepest impression on
mind and heart will be that embodied in the exclamation of the ancient
Hebrew poet, "O Lord, how manifold are Thy works: in wisdom hast Thou
made them all."