SUPERSTITIONS CONNECTED WITH BEES. 263 



needful to "wake the bees," albeit we know that 

 they are not asleep, and tell them of the sad event, 

 in which they are supposed to have so profound an 

 interest. In Maude's Antiquities we read of the 

 following case in point : " A gentleman at a dinner 

 table happened to mention that he was surprised, on 

 the death of a relative, by his servant inquiring 

 whether his master would inform the bees of the 

 event, or whether he should do so. On asking the 

 meaning of so strange a question, the servant assured 

 him that bees ought always to be informed of a death 

 in the family, or they would resent the neglect by 

 deserting the hive. This gentleman resides in the 

 Isle of Ely, and the anecdote was told in Suffolk. 

 One of the party present, a few days afterwards took 

 the opportunity of testing the prevalence of this 

 strange notion, by inquiring of a cottager, who had 

 lately lost a relative, and happened to complain of 

 the loss of her bees, whether she had told them all 

 she ought to do. She immediately replied, ' Oh ! 

 yes, when my aunt died I told every skep myself, and 

 put them into mourning.' I have since ascertained 

 the existence of the same superstition in Cornwall, 

 Devonshire, Gloucestershire (where I have seen black 

 crape put round the hive or on a small stick by its 

 side), and Yorkshire. There are many other singular 

 notions afloat as to these insects. In Oxfordshire 

 I was told that, if man and wife quarrelled, the bees 

 would leave them. 



" In the Living Librairie, Englished by John 

 MoUe, 1621, page 283, we read, ' Who would beleeve 

 without superstition (if experience did not make it 

 credible) that most commonly all the bees die in 



