1883 



JUVENILE GLEANINGS. 



555 



Finds rest and space a family to rear; (15) 

 Or spider, of Minerva hated sore, (16) 

 Hangs her loose webs in every cranny door. 



BEES STIMULATED BY TAKING AWAY THEIR HONEY. 



The more their honied stores are snatched away, 

 So much the more with sharp vehemence they 

 Devote themselves the ruins to restore. 

 Of their impoverished clan, and yet once more 

 They'll fill the chasms, from flowers enrich their 



homes, 

 And cap again the rough and yawning combs. 



(1) I read somewhere in a recent journal of the first 

 discovery of smoke for quieting bees. A poor Irish- 

 man (or was it a Scotchman?) for a trifling reward 

 revealed the secret to somebody's grandfather;' and 

 thus the world became possessed of a very valuable 

 piece of knowledge. Is there no limit to this sort of 

 thing? Why, we must expect to hear soon that it 

 was a Dakota girl who first discovered how to chew 

 gum! Virgil makes no claim to discovering the use 

 of smoke. That was very likely known centuries 

 before him. 



(2) This is very ingenious, and may be said to be 

 the best method of dealing with bees known up to 

 the time when modern smokers were invented. 

 With a little practice a big- mouthful of water can 

 be ejected as fine spray. The "patent" feature of 

 Virgil's arrangement is holding a smoke before the 

 face and driving the spray through it. The bees are 

 both sprinkled and smoked at the same instant, as 

 the spray and breath carry the smoke along with 

 them. More than this, the tine particles of water 

 dissolve some of the smoke, and retain it so it does 

 not immediately drift away as smoke alone would. 



(3) It is the same with us. First comes the harvest 

 of white honey, which our teachers advise us to take 

 off before borders of darker honey are put around 

 It, and later the fall harvest of various colors. 



(4) Taygete rises with the sun May 18th. This 

 would be too early for the main harvest of white 

 honey in our latitude; but we must remember that 

 Italy is further south, with seasons much more for- 

 ward than ours. 



(5) The poet's language here is florid and a little dif- 

 ficult, and critics are puzzled to know whether the 

 date is the rising of the sun with Pisces, or with 

 Scorpio, or with the Dolphin —or what not? I don't 

 believe he intends any precise date, only to be sure 

 to have it done before winter. 



(6) Theory and practice do not always correspond, 

 and it was the same in ancient times, it seems. In 

 theory the bees ought to behave like little angels 

 while the keeper is going through them; but in 

 practice they would sometimes go for a fellow. 

 'Spects that the laurel-crowned poet danced and 

 shook his robes, and lost the aforesaid crown off in 

 the weeds, just as an ordinary mortal might do; but 

 when the muss was over he sat down and figured 

 the whole thing out very accurately. 



(7) He knew, it seems, that there was a receptacle 

 of poison attached to the ^ing. 



(8) Doesn't he, though? And more than that, what 

 astonishing wisdom he shows in choosing the spot! 

 Three times as many will sting a thin spot on a 

 glove, where there is some chance of doing execu- 

 tion, as will leave their stings on a thick place of 

 equal size on the same glove. 



(9) Even at the present day only well-posted per- 

 sons know this. The dart of the sting is not single, 

 but triple, and the two smaller shafts often separate 



and remain in the wound, when the victim thinks he 

 has pulled the sting out. 



(10) The opinion that the bee dies after stinging 

 still prevails, and very likely is correct; but some- 

 how the positive proof of it seems to linger strange- 

 ly behind. This summer, after hiving a very cross 

 swarm that wasted dozens of stings on me, I saw, 

 some hours after, quite a lot of dead bees on their 

 alighting-board. Had I not been hurried and heed- 

 less I might have examined to see if each one was 

 minus a sting. In that case I should have had tol- 

 erable evidence that stinging results in death. Per- 

 haps the children will say, shut up a bee after he 

 has been stinging, and see if he dies. The trouble 

 is, that any hee will soon die if made a prisoner. 



(11) The curiosity of it is, that Virgil from first to 

 last does not say a word about destroj ing a colony 

 outright and appropriating their stores. He pleads 

 earnestly that suflicient food be spared them, but 

 not for their lives. I think it must be that, in warm 

 climates, bee-keepers hardly ever destroy a colony. 

 Instead of slaughter they just cut out h11 of the hon- 

 ey that is worth taking, and then leave them to live 

 or die, according as the winter may prove open and 

 flowery, or severe and barren. 



(12) Here we have conjured up before us the keep- 

 er standing before a hive that is light in stores. 

 Gentle Mercy says, "Spare them;" but he scratches 

 his head, and draws up the corner of his mouth, as 

 Greed whispers in his off ear, " Take the honey, and 

 be sure of it; and may be they'll live through, any 

 way." At this point the poet breaks in with his 

 blunt question and command. The fumigation 

 with thyme, I suppose, is to correct any bad smells 

 that may be getting started. The number and mag- 

 nitude of the evils that are counted up as resulting 

 from leaving too much empty comb is almost start- 

 ling. 



(13) As lizards eat bees, this is rather " cheeky." 



(14) A rather novel idea, and perhaps there may be 

 something in it — that bees do not kill off drones so 

 promptly and thoroughly when there is too large an 

 expanse of empty comb for them to dodge away in. 

 But queenless stocks are pretty sure to have unoc- 

 cupied comb, and lots of drones also; and more like- 

 ly that's the way the idea got afloat. 



(15) I see no reason to doubt that this is the fa- 

 miliar bee-moth, well known to modern bee-keepers. 

 And I suspect that the reason Italian bees fight moth- 

 worms so well is that they have been steadily bred 

 to it from ancient times; while to northern regions, 

 where black bees live, the moth has spread in much 

 more recent days. 



(16) Minerva was a great weaver; and, on the prin- 

 ciple that "two of a trade can never agree," she 

 and the spider were enemies. There is also a tale 

 told that an ancient lady once engaged Minerva in a 

 matched trial of skill in weaving. Minerva got 

 mad, and changed her rival to a spider. After this 

 arbitrary act of wrong she will, of course, always 

 feel mean and hateful whenever she sees a spider — 

 just as we shall, children, if we wrong others, and 

 neglect to set the wrong right again. 



Richards, C, Sept. 8, 1883. E. E. Hasty. 



Well, I declare, friend Hasty, if you 

 haven't gone and fished up the idea of cold- 

 blast smokers away back in Virgil's time! 

 and he not only used cold air, but cold water 

 also. Why not sweeten the water, and so 

 both coax and drive the bees all at once in 

 the same time? No doubt Virgil would ex- 



