BEE-MASTERS IN THE MIDDLE AGES 39 



more plentiful than they are now, the custom had 

 at least one undeniable merit : it proclaimed to 

 the various hive-owners in the vicinity that a 

 swarm was in the air, and that its rightful owner 

 was on the alert. In this way, no doubt, dis- 

 honest claims to its possession were largely pre- 

 vented, or, at least, discouraged. 



The question whether the noise made by ring- 

 ing has any real effect on the swarming bees is 

 still not absolutely decided. With the exception 

 of the old skeppists, not a few of whom still exist 

 in out-of-the-way rural corners, modern apicultu- 

 rists have long discarded the custom as a gross 

 superstition. But it has recently been suggested 

 that the din made by old-fashioned bee-keepers 

 when a swarm is up may have a real use after all. 

 It is conjectured that the cloud of bees — which at 

 first is nothing but a chaos of flashing wings, the 

 whole contingent darting and whirling about in- 

 discriminately over a large area together — is really 

 dispersing in search of the queen. The suggestion 

 put forward is that they follow her by ear, as she 

 is supposed to utter a peculiar piping sound when 

 flying. The din of the key and pan may, it is 

 said, prevent the bees hearing this note and 

 following her in her first erratic convolutions, and 

 thus the swarm is more likely to pitch on a station 

 near home. The theory is interesting, but hardly 

 tenable. Old popular observances of this kind 

 are seldom based on even the vaguest thread 



