246 THE APIARY. ■ 



'to put the bees into mourning, by placing black crape or 

 some such material round the hives. Bees also receive 

 intelligence when a marriage or a christening takes 

 place : in these cases, the hives are draped with red 

 cloth. In fact, it is considered an essential element of 

 "good luck" to inform the bees of any remarkable 

 circumstance that occurs in the family of the bee-keeper. 

 How would these good people manage with the newly- 

 imported foreign bees, for. they can hardly be expected 

 to have learned our '.' lingo s'' ? This difSculty is, however, 

 not "likely" to be experienced, for it is to.be hoped that 

 intelligent bee-keepers do not believe in such nonsense. 

 Fancy "a man in -this nineteenth century haranguing his 

 bees after the above-mentioned fashion ! Mr. Langstroth 

 says that " some superstitious folk in America assert that 

 the bees sometimes take the loss of their master so much to 

 heart as to alight upon the cofBn whenever it is exposed," 

 A clergyman told him that he attended a funeral where, 

 2& soon as the coffin was brought from the house, the bees 

 gathered on it so much as to excite alarm. Some 

 years after this occurrence, being engaged in varnish- 

 ing a table, the bees alighted upon it in such numbers 

 ciS to convince;the clergyman that love of the varnish on 

 the outside, rather than any respect for the deceased 

 within, was the occasion .of "tlieir: conduct at the funeratl- 

 Mr.- Langstroth adds:""" How many superstitions, be- 

 lieved' even by intelligent persons, might be a^ easily 

 explained, if it were possible to ascertain as fully all the 



