PROPOLIS. 109 
exclusion of air, they were obliged to be more lavish in the 
use of their embalming material, and to case over the 
‘‘slime-girt giant,’’ so as to guard themselves from his noi- 
some smell. What means more effectual could human wis- 
dom have devised, under similar circumstances? 
243. In bygone days, it was a prevalent belief, that 
when any member of a family died, the bees knew what 
had happened; and some were superstitious enough to put 
the hives in mourning, to pacify-their sorrowing occupants ; 
imagining that, unless this was done, the bees would never 
afterwards prosper!* It was frequently asserted that they 
sometimes took their loss so much to heart, as to alight 
upon the coffin whenever it was exposed. A clergyman 
told the writer that he attended a funeral, where, as soon as 
the coffin was brought from the house, the bees gathered 
upon it so as to excite much alarm. Some years after this 
occurrence, being engaged in varnishing a table, the bees 
alighted upon it in such numbers, as to convince him, that 
love of varnish, rather than sorrow or respect for the dead, 
was the occasion of their conduct at the funeral. How many 
superstitions, believed even by intelligent persons, might be 
as easily explained, if it were possible to ascertain as fully 
all the facts connected with them! 
244. Commerciat Uszs or Proro.is.— “ Dissolved in alcohol 
and filtered, it is used as a varnish, and gives a polish to wood, 
and a golden color to tin. A preparation made with finely-ground 
propolis, gum arabic, incense, storax, benzoin, sugar, nitre, and 
charcoal, in quantities varied at will, is moulded into fumigating 
cones, for perfuming rooms or halls.”—(Dubini, Milan, 1881.) 
245. The following letter from a noted Russian Apiarist, 
to Mr. E. Bertrand, editor of the Revue Internationale 
d’ Apiculture, of Nyon, Switzerland, one of the most pro- 
gressive bee-publications, will be found of interest: 
* Whittier has written a little poem entitled ‘‘Telling the Bees,’’ apropos of 
their knowing of some one’s death. 
