THE AUNT JANE STORIES. 



VI. THE BLESSED BEES. 



"The larks and finches twitter all around, 

 And o'er the fountain swings the golden bees." 



— Theocritus. 



"Aunt Jane, do please come out to the 

 apiary, and sit under the dwarf pear tree 

 while you tell us all about bees," pleaded 

 the children, one beautiful spring after- 

 noon. 



"Shall I begin with an anecdote?" she 

 questioned, as she reached the selected 

 tree where the children had already 

 arranged a seat for her, while they ranged 

 themselves on the grass around her. 



"By all means," said Howard, "for 

 an anecdote is really a little story." 



"And we dote on stories," said Madge. 



"Some German gentlemen who were 

 unknown to each other were once riding 

 in a coach. One of them proposed to 

 tell the vocation of the rest if they would 

 write, without hesitation, an answer to 

 the question : 'What destroys its own 

 offspring?' One wrote, Vital force. 'You,' 

 said the questioner, 'are a biologist.' 

 Another wrote, War. 'You are a soldier.' 

 The publicist revealed himself by writing 

 Revolution, and the farmer, Bees." 



"Do bees really kill each other?" 

 queried Madge. "Why, I thought they 

 had no bad traits except stinging." 



"Although the character of the bee is 

 so nearly above reproach, the farmer's 

 answer was a true one. And notwith- 

 standing the high repute of bees as 

 examples of thrift, foresight, and econ- 

 omy, it must be confessed that they are 

 also arrant little burglars. The knight 

 of the gold and brown armor, going 

 forth to gather with such laborious dili- 

 gence his golden treasures, seems almost 

 a miraculous creature engaged at a self- 

 imposed, herculean task of turning twen- 

 ty-five pounds of honey into one comb. 

 He is crafty, systematic, and ambitious 

 to be rich; so, with no thought but 

 that of plunder, he rides the buckwheat 

 patches, levies on the blossoming trees, 

 and seizes the coveted wealth of the 

 clover fields. He lias been seen to visit 

 twenty flowers in a single moment. If 

 he finds one nectary dry, he seeks another 



without delay. Unconsciously, indeed, 

 he is doing the flowers a great service, 

 but little he knows or cares as he climbs 

 from the lower blossoms which open first 

 on a bunch, to those above, which have 

 opened later, that he is leaving pollen on 

 the female flowers and receiving pollen 

 from the upper male flowers to carry off. 

 This helpful act is no concern of the 

 sweet-toothed robber, whose long, hairy 

 tongue is busy filling the honey bag with 

 richest nectar. Yet, curiously enough, 

 upon each journey he is careful to visit 

 only one kind of flower." 



"If he should forget, what curious 

 mixed up flowers we should have, to be 

 sure," cried Howard. "My! but isn't 

 Botany interesting !" 



"Not half so much so as natural 

 history," John responded. "It's the bee, 

 not the flower, we are talking about." 



"It's the relation of the two, the insect 

 and the flower, I think, that is so curious," 

 said Alice. 



"No doubt," Aunt Jane continued, "the 

 reputation of the bee stands high because 

 his amber stores are so useful to man. 

 Think of what honey must have been to 

 the world before sugar was invented ! 



"As bees were most useful to man the 

 study of them began at an early day. It 

 is interesting to contrast the knowledge 

 of the wisest of bee-lovers of the olden 

 time with the results of modern discov- 

 eries regarding bees." 



"What did the ancients say about them, 

 Auntie?" asked Edith. 



"Aristotle, a wise philosopher, was 

 much perplexed about their production. 

 He concluded that one queen was the 

 king and leader, yet he could not under- 

 stand why the workers, who are women, 

 should carry the sting as a weapon ; it 

 was unwomanly, very! Yet they must 

 be the mothers, for who ever saw fathers 

 labor so for their children? He says it 

 is difficult to know how bees perceive, for 

 it is obvious they have no noses, and 



