SUPERSTITIONS CONNECTED WITH BEES. 261 



as a forlorn hope, had deserted their hive for what 

 they trusted might be better quarters. The fallacy 

 of the coin having had anything to do with their 

 destruction, takes rank with the disinclination of some 

 people to accept from a friend the present of a pocket- 

 knife, unless the donor will take a halfpenny in ex- 

 change ; or with the old saying " Helping to salt is 

 helping to sorrow." We can hardly suppose that the 

 kindly sort of freemasonry, which now exists among 

 bee-keepers, has ever proceeded so far as to make 

 any one always willing to give his swarms or stocks 

 to another. If so, the benevolence once current has 

 degenerated into a willingness, even among the 

 devotees to the supersition of which we are speak- 

 ing, to accept full value in the way of barter if not in 

 cash. Whatever its origin, we feel satisfied the days 

 of this prejudice are numbered. With the immense 

 spread of apiculture now taking place experience and 

 common sense will sweep away, this psychological 

 cobweb, as so many others have been made to dis- 

 appear under the same powerful agencies. 



As to the other superstition about " Old Christmas 

 Day " being the proper time for procuring a stock, 

 the probability is that seasons sacred to the memory 

 of events in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ would 

 have special attributes of good fortune attributed to 

 them. But the actual reason why stocks purchased 

 at the above-named period would be pretty sure to 

 do well is, that by Old Christmas Day they would 

 have passed the perils of early winter, and would 

 be hardly likely to find a buyer unless their weight 

 indicated that they had food supplies sufficient to 

 last till the flowers came again. 



