THE ANCIENTS AND BEES
Before we go on to consider the habits of the bees, I think you will be
interested to hear something about their early history, and how they
used to be kept in bygone ages. Thus we shall be able to trace the
progress of bee-keeping from its earliest sources to the present day,
and to realise the wonderful improvements of modern methods upon those
of the ancients.
It is not possible for us to tell with any certainty when bee-keeping
actually commenced, but it has a very ancient origin. No doubt for ages
past it has been the custom of men to obtain honey from the store of
wild bees. For instance, we read in the Bible that John the Baptist
lived for some time in the wilderness on locusts and wild honey. The
earliest records in existence show us that the Egyptians kept bees in
some kind of hive, and that they carefully studied their habits. If
you visit the Egyptian rooms at the British Museum, you may perhaps
see the sarcophagus which contains the mummified remains of a great
king, called Mykernos. This coffin dates back to 3633 years B.C., and
Mykernos was at that time the King of Lower Egypt. On the outside of
the coffin is a peculiar drawing, or hieroglyphic as it is called. It
is something like this:--
[Illustration]
This funny little figure represents a bee, for at that time it was
thought that the bees were ruled over by a king-bee, which the
Egyptians knew to be larger than all the others. Because the bees
always appeared to be so happy under their king, the Egyptians thought
it would be a good symbol to place on the coffin of their ruler. This
is the very earliest known record relating to bees, but we know now, of
course, that the large bee, which seemed to the Egyptians to rule the
others, is not a king but a queen.
Those of you who learn Latin may some day have to translate some books
called the _Georgics_. They were written by a clever man called Virgil,
and although schoolboys do not always like them, yet they are most
interesting, especially the Fourth Book, which tells us a great deal
about bees. Virgil lived in a town called Parthenope, which we now know
as Naples. He was a great bee-keeper, and was never tired of watching
his bees at their work, and moreover he left very accurate accounts of
his observations. Hives in those days were dome-shaped, and made from
pieces of bark stitched together, or sometimes of osiers or plaited
willows. We can imagine the learned Virgil walking in his garden,
surrounded by sweet-smelling flowers and herbs, and by his quaint
bee-hives. Below, down the mountain side, lay “sweet Parthenope,” as
he called it, with its orange and lemon groves. Beyond the town lay
the most beautiful bay in the world, the Bay of Naples, whose water,
as blue as turquoise, shimmered in the summer sun. Over all stood the
crater of mighty Vesuvius, from the cone of which a thin wisp of smoke
hung lazily in the atmosphere. In this way Virgil spent many happy
days, and in the book I have mentioned we may read of his doings, and
of his bees. Most of his ideas about bees were false, but some of the
rules which he laid down for bee-keeping hold good even at the present
time.
Up to the time of Virgil, and even later, the duties of the workers in
the hive were not properly understood. It was not known even that the
largest bee was really the mother of them all, and that the workers
looked after and tended the eggs, which later on would develop into
young bees. In the days of Virgil it was supposed that bees were born
in flowers, or that if an ox was killed and left to decay, a swarm of
bees would be formed in its body and could then be put into a hive.
In the Fourth Georgic very careful instructions are given by Virgil
as to how to prepare an ox for this purpose. Many years ago this was
translated into our language by a bee-keeper, and the wording is so
quaint that I think you will be interested to read the following
extract from the curious directions. We are told that we must find
“a two-year-old bull calf, whose crooked horns be just beginning to
bud. The beaste, his nose-holes and breathing are stopped, in spite
of his much kicking! After he hath been thumped to death, he is left
in the place, and under his sides are put bits of boughs and thyme
and fresh-plucked rosemarie. In time the warm humor beginneth to
ferment inside the soft bones of the carcase, and wonderful to tell
there appear creatures, footless at first, but which soon getting unto
themselves wings, mingle together and buzz about, joying more and more
in their airy life. At last they burst forth, thick as raindroppes from
a summer cloude....”
The supposition that bees were obtained from a dead ox lasted right
down to the seventeenth century, and there is no doubt that the
Egyptians believed in this too, for in some of their records we find
that they buried the body of an ox, leaving the horn-tips just above
the soil. After it had been left so for about a week, the tips of the
horns were sawn off, and a swarm of bees issued, like smoke from a
chimney. What a foolish idea this was, just as though the body of an
ox could, in any manner imaginable, change into a swarm of bees! It
probably originated in the fact that the decaying body of an ox or
other animal quickly becomes surrounded by swarms of flies, wasps, and
other insects.
Up to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the people had no other
substance than honey with which to sweeten their food, for the mode
of extracting the sweet juice contained in the sugar-cane was not
known till later. Sugar-cane was actually discovered somewhere about
the first century A.D. and a learned writer, Strabo by name, has told
how the chief admiral of the fleet of Alexander the Great found what
he called “a wonderful honey-bearing reed,” whilst on a voyage of
discovery to India. It was not until the fifteenth century, however,
that the Spaniards set up a sugar plantation in Madeira, and extracted
the juice from the cane: even then it was only the rich people who
could afford the new luxury, and others had still to use honey. From
these remarks, then, we can easily understand how necessary bees were
to the people, and how much depended on a good honey year.
Besides using honey for sweetening purposes, the Anglo-Saxons made from
it a drink called Mead. You have no doubt read of this in your history
books, but perhaps you did not know that it was made principally from
honey. Sometimes the juice of mulberries was added to it, to give the
drink a flavour, and it was then called Morat. People who could afford
to do so flavoured it with spices, or sometimes even added wine, and
in this form it was used in the royal palace. In some country places
old-fashioned people still make and drink mead, but it is very rarely
heard of nowadays.
Bees also provided the ancients with wax, from which a sort of candle
was made, for in those times there was no electricity or even gas, and
so the people were very glad to be able to use the wax for lighting
purposes. Nowadays, beeswax, mixed with a little turpentine, is used
for polishing furniture and oilcloth.
[Illustration: PLATE XIV
The New and the Old]