A Thirsty June 
and they certainly seem to have fancies in flowers, Scillas, 
Arabis, and Clover being evidently grateful to them. 
About the Crown Imperials and Bees I am rather 
doubtful, however, as I watched a Bee the other day go up 
inside the flower and certainly stay there a long time, and 
I think he must have been taking the honey-drops. There 
is a local belief the stings of Bees are a cure for rheumatism. 
An old village elder told me he had applied this cure only 
a few days before to a man suffering very much. I inquired 
with interest if the patient was cured. But the doctor 
“ had not seen him since ! ” An old Lancashire cure for 
rheumatism used to be Goose-grease. I think I should have 
preferred that to the Scotch cure. To dream of Bees is 
said to be lucky. I heard such a curious story about Bees 
the other day. A boxful of knitted helmets was sent to 
some soldiers in South Africa, and when opened one of 
them was found to be doing duty as an impromptu hive, 
being full of honeycomb and Bees ! Bee-masters get quite 
knowing about their Bees, and say the Bees know people 
apart. I do not know whether any of the Border Beemen 
have their Bees in such good order as to be able to let 
them loose, like dogs, on people, and call them back, as 
I have heard some Soudanese mountaineers are able to do. 
Some Egyptian soldiers were once, so the story goes, sent 
to levy taxes for the Government on the Nubas, a set of 
wild mountaineers somewhere in the Soudan, and the tribe 
let loose their Bees on the soldiers, and only consented 
to call them off when the Egyptian commandant agreed to 
the terms of the Nuba Sheik. I was interested to learn 
recently that the old practice of banging tin pans, &c., 
when Bees are swarming, originates in the old Roman law 
of Justinian, that any one was free to pursue a flying swarm 
provided he let all the world know it by ringing a bell or 
otherwise making a noise. It is commonly believed now 
that the din is a pleasure to the bee ! In Cutwode’s 
“ Caltha Poetarum ” is the following delightful description 
of a Bee going on a pilgrimage : 
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