188 APIDiE — BEES, 



quently been asserted that the Bees sometimes take their 

 loss so much to heart as to alight upon the coffin whenever 

 it is exposed. A clergyman told Langstroth, that he at- 

 tended a funeral, where, as soon as the coffin was brought 

 from the house, the Bees gathered upon it so as to excite 

 much alarm. Some years after this occurrence, being en- 

 gaged in varnishing a table, the Bees alighted upon it in 

 such numbers as to convince the reverend gentleman that 

 love of varnish, rather than sorrow or respect for the dead, 

 was the occasion of their conduct at the funeral.^ 



The following is an extract from a Tour through Brit- 

 tany, published in the Cambrian Quarterly Magazine, vol. ii. 

 p. 215 : "If there are Bees kept at the house where a mar- 

 riage feast is celebrated, care is always taken to dress up 

 their hives in red, which is done by placing upon them 

 pieces of scarlet cloth, or one of some such bright color; 

 the Bretons imagining that the Bees would forsake their 

 dwellings if they were not made to participate in the re- 

 joicings of their owners: irf like manner they are all put 

 into mourning when a death occurs in a family."^ 



In the Magazine of Natural History we find the following 

 instance of singing psalms to Bees to make them thrive : 

 ''When in Bedfordshire lately, we were informed of an old 

 man who sang a psalm last year in front of some hives 

 which were not doing well, but which, he said, would thrive 

 in consequence of that ceremony. Our informant could not 

 state whether this was a local or individual superstition."^ 



It is commonly said that if you sing to your Bees before 

 they swarm, it will prevent their leaving your premises 

 when thfy do swarm. 



Peter Rotharrael, a western Pennsylvanian, had a singu- 

 lar notion that no man could have at one time a hundred 

 hives of Bees. He declared he had often as many as ninety- 

 nine, but could never add another to them.* I have since 



1 Langstroth on Honey-Bee, p. 80. 



2 Mag. of Nat. Hist., iii. 211, note. 



3 Ibid., i. 308. London, 1829. 



* Peter Rotharmel had three specialties: Bees, Wheat, and Bona- 

 parte. Concerning Bees, he had many strange notions, but the 

 above recorded is the only one of which I have any positive in- 

 formation. Concerning wheat, at one time in his life he purchased 

 an almanac, which indicated, among other things, the high and low 

 tides, and, from studying this, lie got it into his head that the tiuctua- 



