Transactions. 89 



(]uite a number of old people still hold iirmly superstitious beliefs 

 regarding their bees." I have several other instances given to 

 me of this custom, but they mostly relate to forty or fifty years 

 since. ^Vhittier, the American poet, in a poem entitled " Telling- 

 the Bees," alludes to this custom, as also to that of putting the 

 bees in mourning, which is another attention it was deemed neces- 

 sary to pay to bees on a death taking place in the family. This is 

 done by draping the hives with black ribbons, shreds of black 

 cloth, or such like. A correspondent writes : " Ten years ago my 



mother died, and when her cousin Mrs R came to the funeral 



she asked if the bees had been told of the death, and after she 

 left I believe she regretted not having tied something- black about 

 the ' skeps.' AVhether she was animated by actual superstitious 

 belief in what she said, or in deference to an old custom. I do not 

 know." I was speaking shortly since to a gentleman belonging- 

 to this district about these superstitions, and mentioned the custom 

 of putting the bees into mourning. He said, "Oh! I have seen 

 black ribbons on the hives in remote ]iarts of the country, but 

 never knew what it meant." The custom was very general some 

 time ago, and several of my correspondents mention instances 

 of old people having- seen it observed. It is not altogether 

 extinct yet. Perhaps the most pleasing of all the superstitious 

 beliefs connected with bees is the idea of their singing a hymn on 

 Christmas eve (old style). One of my correspondents says " he 

 remembers, when he was a boy, his grandfather taking him to a 

 ' skep ' in the winter time, and making- him listen to the bees 

 singing- a hymn," but he has no recollection whether it was 

 Christmas day or not ; no doubt it was. An old man I have heard 

 of in -Kirkbean, who died about thirty years ago, always main- 

 tained that the bees sang- a hymn on Christmas day. This pretty 

 superstition has, I fear, quite died out. As the old Suffolk man, 

 alluded to above, said, '' they 'ont do unless things is as they like." 

 The belief was universal at one time that the susceptibilities of 

 bees were offended if sold for money, and in the remoter rural 

 districts this idea is still found to exist. Many quaint devices 

 were used by people who wished to possess bees, and those who 

 were willmg to part with th-^ni, in order to get over this difficulty. 

 One correspondent writes me that an old farmer told him that in 

 his early days they had a custom called " half manner," which was 

 that anyone who wanted bees took them upon the understanding 



