GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



13 



I have written this lengthy letter to correct 

 any mistaken impression 1 may have created. 

 Pretoria is not all roses. There are many 

 thornd. 



Pretoria, South African Republic. 



ANCIENT LEGENDS REGARDING BEES. 



ABILITY OF BEES TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN 

 GENUINE AND ARTIFICIAL FLOWERS; 

 AN INTERESTING ARTICLE. 



By T. S. Ford. 



In the Sunday-school quarterly sent out by 

 the M. E. Church South, and in Peloubet's 

 notes on the International Sunday-school Les- 

 sons for 1896, an example is quoted to illustrate 

 the wisdom of Solomon, as follows: " When the 

 queen of Sheba placed two wreaths before the 

 monarch, and asked him to tell which was real 

 and which was artificial, he opened a window; 

 and a bee alighting upon the natural wreath 

 told him what he wished to know." Peloubet 

 quotes this story from Geikie and Farrar, and 

 Stanley's History of the Jewish Church. It is 

 supposed that these authors got the story from 

 some rabbinical compilation, and it really shows 

 how easy it is to get away from the open book 

 of nature. A Greek historian would never have 

 Invented such a story; and if he had found it 

 he would have rejected it at once. The truth 

 is, if Solomon was the close observer that he 

 must have been he would never have permitted 

 an appeal from the verdict of his own senses to 

 those of an insect. 



The writer was sitting one day last summer 

 by an open window. A hand-painted fire-screen 

 of enameled cloth hid the fireplace, and upon It 

 was painted in water-colors, upon a dark back- 

 ground, some water-lilies rather clumsily ex- 

 ecuted, and some passion-flowers (May-pops) 

 which were quite life-like. The whole vine 

 was shown with flowers and fruit hanging. An 

 enormous bumble- bee came buzzing in at the 

 window, and made straight for the painted 

 flower, and cluug to it, extending bis tongue in 

 a frantic endeavor to get at the supposed nectar. 

 He persisted in his efforts for at least twenty 

 seconds— long enough to call the attention of 

 other members of the family to the scene. 

 Finally he gave it up, and flew straight out of 

 the window, apparently without ever realizing 

 how he had been cheated. 



In a contest between two ancient Greek paint- 

 ers, as related in Rollin'.s Ancient History, 

 grapes were painted so naturally that the birds 

 came and pecked at them; and another great 

 artist painted a mare so artfully as to cause a 

 horse, when led up to it, to whinner. Now, the 

 senses of a" bird or animal, reinforced as they 

 are with a higher degree of intelligence, were 

 thus cheated. 



In the crest of the king-bird or bee-martin 

 are hidden, under a dark exterior, a cluster of 



scarlet feathers which ^how beautifully when 

 the crest is erected. The current belief among 

 our common people is that this semblance of a 

 scarlet flower on the top of a bee- bird's head 

 attracts the unwary bee to the jaws of the 

 hungry bird; and I have myself seen bees 

 swerve from their line of flight and circle round 

 the sitting bird until snapped up. 



It is said that Solomon " spake of trees, from 

 the cedar tree that is in Lebanon, even unto 

 the hyssop that springeth out of the wall; he 

 spake also of beasts and of fowl, and of creep- 

 ing things" (insects) "and of fishes." In other 

 words, this great man, who probably had no 

 access to works on entomology and natural his- 

 tory, as do we. was a close observer of all the 

 phenomena of animal and insect life, as he saw 

 them. To say that such a man, gifted above 

 all men who lived before or since in all the 

 faculties of observation as well as reasoning, 

 and therefore a closer observer than Darwin 

 himself, should have been so silly as not to 

 know that any gay color, having the semblance 

 of a flower, will attract a bee, is a striking 

 illustration of why it was that He of whom he 

 himself said, "A greater than Solomon is here," 

 treated with contempt " the tradition of the 

 elders." This story of Solomon's artifice of 

 using the bee to aid him in detecting the arti- 

 ficial from the natural flowers is evidently one 

 of the monkish inventions of the ancient Jew- 

 ish rabbis, living as far from the real truths of 

 nature as they did from the truth of the Spirit, 

 and who erected a hideous system of ethics, 

 false to the real teachings of the Angel of the 

 Covenant. 



The rabbi who, in ancient times, coined the 

 false story of Solomon and the honey-bee, 

 thereby imputing to the insect more acute 

 power of observation than the wisest of men, 

 found his counterpart in a Methodist bishop 

 whom the writer heard in the pulpit on a great 

 occasion, enlarging upon the wonderful facul- 

 ties which the Creator had bestowed upon the 

 honey-bee. He said the senses of the insect 

 were so acute, and that they were always so 

 sensitive to the approach of rain, that the last 

 individual of the busy hive was always safely 

 housed before the storm began. The idea 

 clothed in his beautiful language (which I can 

 not undertake to quote) was very impressive; 

 but, as every bee-keeper knows, he was far 

 from the truth. Last summer a thunderstorm 

 came up in the middle of the day. There was 

 a furious wind accompanying the first dash of 

 rain; and while probably the great majority of 

 the busy workers reached the hive before the 

 bursting of the tempest, thousands were seen so 

 buft'eted by the wind and rain that they took 

 refuge in the shrubbery, many yards from the 

 hives. The writer thinks that the Jewish 

 legends of the several incidents attending the 

 visit of the Sabaean queen are squarely on a 



