1919 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



343 



low logs, waiting to be transferred to 

 frames and foundation. The next day 

 I sent two men with a pack mule to 

 the hamlets around to buy all the 

 gasoline cases that they could find, 

 take them to pieces and transport 

 them to the apiary, where we nailed 

 them together to serve for supers. 

 Then I put them to nailing and wir- 

 ing frames, which had been sent 

 ahead of us around the coast in a 

 sailing vessel, and putting in founda- 

 tion. I made six bottom-boards and 

 three scaffolds for the transferred 

 colonies out of timbers from a 

 wrecked vessel, which I found plenti- 

 ful at this part of the shore. For 

 tops I used boards from cases, and 

 on top of the board a leaf of the 

 royal palm to cover the cracks. When 

 we transferred the seventh hive I 

 used the bottom-board from the first 

 one, and so on. Each colony had 

 about 2 or 3 transferred combs with 

 brood and 3 foundations. The fourth 

 day I found a colony queenless and 

 concluded to go back to Sanchez to 

 get a breeder to rear cells. So back I 

 went with my favorite man. I found 

 more work than I expected and other 

 things also kept me from going back 

 until the eighth day. When I went 

 back with my breeding queen in a 

 two-frame nucleus, about an hour af- 

 ter we left the mountains it started 

 raining, and let me tell you it came 

 down in buckets. I wished my friends 

 in southwestern Texas, who are 

 needing it, had the hundredth part of 

 it. I did not have any raincoat and 

 my umbrella was of no use in this 

 downpour. The natives have little 

 clothing and don't feel the rain. It 

 rained continuously. We crossed two 

 rivers, and towards night we reached 

 a saw-mill, where the American man- 

 ager had a nice waterproof tent. I 

 stopped, had supper and hot coffee 

 with him and borrowed his raincoat 

 to finish the trip. We arrived in Ca- 

 breras at 11 o'clock. At the saw-mill 

 I made primary arrangements to have 

 lumber sawed and dressed for supers, 

 bottom-boards, dummies and apiary 

 houses. I first provided for my 

 queen, which I had protected care- 

 fully from the rain. I put her on her 

 stand, covered the wire screen with 

 oil cloth and opened the entrance and 

 found the old lady th next day in 

 excellent condition, looking for empty 

 comb to lay in. I found material 

 enough to make 25 supers, etc., and 

 sent to Sanchez for help, which ar- 

 rived in two days. 



I found that the colonies I had trans- 

 ferred (four of them the hands had 

 filled with foundation) had drawn out 

 every foundation and built large 

 pieces of comb on the bottom-bar 

 of the frames which the queen used, 

 and the bees filled the comb with 

 nectar. I did not have lumber enough 

 for bottoms, so I used the top-boards 

 for bottoms and covered the colonies 

 with palm leaves. 



I had a letter of introduction to 

 Senor Don Domingo Rosario, in Ca- 

 breras, at whose very hospitable home 

 I spent a pleasant day. I am indebted 

 to Don Herman Eckoff, af Mantanzas, 

 for his hospitality and help in my dif- 

 ficulties. Don Herman is a physician 



and druggist, speaks fluently French 

 and English and has an unusually 

 good college education. What is 

 mostly to my liking is that he takes 

 an interest in apiculture. 



On my home trip over the moun- 

 tains we had to lift one of the horses 

 and the mule out of a moat into 

 which they sank to their bellies. 



This has been the most eventful 

 trip I have had on the island. 



Mystic Uses of Beeswax and Honey 



in Religious Customs of 



Macedonia 



By Rev. Henri Tabusteau 



EVERYBODY knows that the 

 Catholic Liturgy has a formal 

 regulation to perform the cele- 

 bration of mass with candles of pure 

 beeswax only. Similarly, for the 

 benediction of the Holy Sacrament, 

 six wax candles must be burning on 

 the altar. The church, in addition, 

 in the admirable ceremonies of Eas- 

 ter eve, sings twice the praise of the 

 mother-bee, queen of the little family 

 that gives us the sweet-smelling 

 beeswax. 



A stay of nearly two years in 

 Macedonia has enabled me to ascer- 

 tain the fact that their orthodox 

 church is not on this matter in any 

 manner behind its Latin sister; on 

 the contrary, the perfumed products 

 of the hive occupy in the Greek 

 liturgy and customs a very honorable 

 place. I wish to tell here, to the 

 glory of the bees, what I have been 

 able to see and learn over there, on 

 this subject. 



The first object that strikes the 

 visitor, when entering an orthodox 

 Greek church, is a sort of high, long 

 table, a counter near the door. Upon 

 it are spread 6 or 7 bundles of wax 

 candles, the largest of which are of 

 the size of a man's finger, and about 

 20 inches long; the smallest, of about 

 the size of a child's finger, are hardly 

 6 inches long. These candles are of 

 absolutely pure beeswax and their 

 sweet odor scents the entire build- 

 ing. Each member, upon entering, 

 buys one of these candles, according 

 to his or her means, lights it, walks 

 around the nave and the chapels 

 kissing the holy icons, leaving the 

 lighted taper before the one icon 

 which is the more particular object 

 of his or her worship. 



There are no religious ceremonies 

 here without the use of those wax 

 candles. I was present once at the 

 funeral of a little girl. Each person 

 held a wax candle in hand and did 

 not extinguish it until after the 

 three prostrations and the touching 

 homage of a last kiss on the poor 

 angel face, in which no life but the 

 next was shining. Here, at the 

 funerals, the dead are always dressed 

 in their finest clothes. 



But before describing the cult of 

 the dead, let us tell of the living, and 

 show what place honey fills in divers 

 ceremonies, which are celebrated at 

 births, at the early birthdays and at 

 weddings. I will close by telling 

 what I saw at Christmas. 

 As soon as a child is born they up- 



lift over its head both bread and 

 salt, as symbols of the abundance 

 with which they hope its life will be 

 blessed. Then, to drive away disease 

 and conjure bad luck, they fasten a 

 clove of garlic to its little cap and 

 place an onion under its pillow. 

 Then a large loaf of bread, marked 

 with three crosses and the crust of 

 which is entirely covered with honey, 

 is placed near the mother's bed, with 

 a glass of wine and a glass of honey 

 on each side of the loaf. The follow- 

 ing morning the midwife moistens 

 with the wine and honey the lips of 

 the child and the breasts of the 

 mother. As was explained to me, 

 wine symbolizes the strength, the 

 health which they wish to the child 

 and the mother, and honey symbol- 

 izes a long and happy life. 



The day upon which the child be- 

 gins to walk alone is cause for great 

 rejoicing in the family, and a very 

 curious ceremony. It is upon that 

 day that they expect the child to re- 

 veal the future avocation, and in the 

 following extraordinary fashion : In 

 the center of the largest room of the 

 home, where the entire family is 

 present, they place a large butter- 

 cake, liberally covered with honey. 

 Around this cake they place objects 

 of all kinds, money, wheat, writing 

 material, scissors, trowels, hammers, 

 etc. The young mother then allows 

 the child to leave her arms. The 

 first object that he will seize with 

 his grasping little hands will indi- 

 cate the profession that he will fol- 

 low some day. If, happily, he takes 

 to the cake first, it is a sure sign that 

 he will prosper, almost without need- 

 ing to work — a very desirable thing 

 in the Orient — until the days of the 

 greatest old age. 



Every Macedonian wedding takes 

 the form of a real event, not only in 

 the families of the wedded, but in the 

 entire village. The multiple and 

 complicated proceedings which pre- 

 cede, accompany and follow a wed- 

 ding extend from the Wednesday of 

 one week to Thursday of the week 

 following. The ceremony proper al- 

 ways takes place on Sunday after- 

 noon. I will describe this ceremony 

 only from the matter in which we 

 are interested. 



On the morning of the wedding, the 

 groom knocks at the door of the 

 home of his affianced. A choir of 

 young men accompany him and sing: 

 She has shut herself in, the blonde 



young girl; 

 What shall we offer her, so she may 



open the door? 

 We have given her a vine and grapes 

 So she might open to us; 

 We have given her a branch of 



quince. 

 She did not open the door; 

 But we are offering to her a be- 

 trothed ; 

 She will surely open the door; yes, 

 she will open it. 



A choir of girls answer from with- 

 in : 

 Knock at the door and open it, 



brother-in-law, 

 To see the young bride, 

 Adorned and standing ready. 

 The door then opens. The groom 



