342 MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. [Ch. vr. 



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 " ? This difficulty is, however, not likely to 

 be experienced, for the keeping of superior sorts 

 implies an intelligence that would be above any such 

 pitiable nonsense. Fancy a man in this nineteenth 

 century haranguing his bees after the above-mentioned 

 fashion ! Mr. Langstroth says that " some supersti- 

 tious folk in America assert that the bees sometimes 

 take the loss of their master so much to heart as to 

 alight upon the coffin whenever it is exposed." A 

 clergyman told him that he attended a funeral where, 

 as 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 varnishing 

 a table, the bees alighted upon it in such numbers as to 

 convince the clergyman that love of the varnish on the 

 outside, rather than any respect for the deceased within, 

 was the occasion of their conduct at the funeral. Mr. 

 Langstroth adds : " How many superstitions, believed 

 even by intelligent persons, might be as easily explained. 



