SifPEJiSTlTIONS WITH RECAJ^D TO BEES. 191 



Nor tires in her labour nor flags in her flight : 

 From numberless blossoms of every hue, 

 She gathers the nectar and sips the dew. 



Then homeward she speeds 



O'er the fragrant meads, 

 And she hums, as she goes, her thankful lay : 



Let our thanks, too, rise, 



For our daily supplies. 

 As homeward and heavenward we haste on our way.' 



Bee Journal, 1877. 



CHAPTER XLII. 



SUPERSTITIONS WITH REGARD TO BEES. 



Throughout this book I have endeavoured to point 

 out from time to time that for everything in the 

 natural history of bees, their structure and their 

 habits, there is good and sufficient cause. We 

 thought, for instance, of the tongue and the sting, 

 and of their legs and wings, of the young they rear, 

 and the combs they build, and each bee doing its 

 own appointed work; and we saw wise purpose in 

 everything. 



In this chapter I will speak not ofthe bee's wisdom 

 but of man's foolishness. I will tell you of one or two 

 curious things, sometimes said to be true, by those 

 who are ignorant and superstitious, but for which 

 there is but little foundation of either truth or reason. 



' Bad luck,' as it is called, in bee-keeping, is con- 

 nected by superstition with many things which can 

 by no possibility have anything to do with failure. 

 Very likely, in years gone by, people, as they do now, 

 lost their bees through bad management, and then, 



