The opinion that stolen Bees will not thrive, but pine away and die, is almost universal. It is, too, of reverend antiquity, for Pliny mentions it: "It is a common received opinion, that Rue will grow the better if it be filched out of another man's garden; and it is as ordinary a saying that stolen Bees will thrive worst."
In South Northamptonshire, England, there is a superstition that Bees will not thrive in a quarrelsome family. It might be well to promulgate this and the next preceding superstition. This prevails among us.
In Hampshire, England, it is a common saying that Bees are idle or unfortunate at their work whenever there are wars. A very curious observer and fancier says that this has been the case from the time of the movements in France, Prussia, and Hungary, up to the present time.
In Bishopsbourne, England, there prevails the singular superstition of informing the Bees of any great public event that takes place, else they will not thrive so well.
In Monmouthshire, England, the peasantry entertain so great a veneration for their Bees, that, says Bucke, some years since, they were accustomed to go to their hives on Christmas eve at twelve o'clock, in order to listen to their humming; which elicited, as they believed, a much more agreeable music than at any other period; since, at that time, they celebrated, in the best manner they could, the morning of Christ's nativity.
Sampson, in his Statistical Survey of the County of Londonderry, 1802, p. 436, says that there "Bees must not be given away, but sold; otherwise neither the giver nor the taker will have luck."
A clergyman in Devonshire, England, informs us that when any Devonian makes a purchase of Bees, the payment is never made in money, but in things (corn, for instance) to the value of the sum agreed upon; and the Bees are never removed but on a Good Friday. In western Pennsylvania, it is thought by some of the old farmers that the vender of the Bees must be away from home when the hive is taken away, else the Bees will not thrive.
Another superstition is that if a swarm of Bees be met with in an open field away from any house, it is useless to hive them, for they will never do a bit of good.
In many parts of England, a popular opinion is that when Bees remove or go away from their hives, the owner of them will die soon after.
It is commonly believed among us that if Bees come to a house, it forebodes good luck and prosperity; and, on the contrary, if they go away, bad luck.
A North German custom and superstition is, that if the master of the house dies, a person must go to the Beehive, knock, and repeat these words: "The master is dead, the master is dead," else the Bees will fly away. This superstition prevails also in England, Lithuania, and in France.
Some years since, observes a correspondent of the Athenaeum, quoted by Brande, 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 a 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; and one of the party present, a few days afterward, 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 (i.e. hive) myself, and put them into mourning." I have since ascertained the existence of the same superstition in Cornwall, Devonshire (where I have seen black crape put round the hive, or on a small black stick by its side), and Yorkshire. It probably exists in every part of the kingdom. The mode of communicating is by whispering the fact to each hive separately. In Oxford I was told that if a man and wife quarreled, the Bees would leave them.
"In some part of Suffolk," says Bucke, "the peasants believe, when any member of their family dies, that, unless the Bees are put in mourning by placing a piece of black cloth, cotton or silk, on the top of the hives, the Bees will either die or fly away.
"In Lithuania, when the master or mistress dies, one of the first duties performed is that of giving notice to the Bees, by rattling the keys of the house at the doors of their hives. Unless this be done, the Lithuanians imagine the cattle will die; the Bees themselves perish, and the trees wither."
At Bradfield, if Bees are not invited to funerals, it is believed they will die.
In the Living Library, Englished by John Molle, 1621, p. 283, we read: "Who would believe without superstition (if experience did not make it credible), that most commonly all the Bees die in their hives, if the master or mistress of the house chance to die, except the hives be presently removed into some other place? And yet I know this hath happened to folk no way stained with superstition."
A similar superstition is, that Beehives belonging to deceased persons should be turned over the moment when the corpse is taken out of the house.
The following item is clipped from the Argus, a London newspaper, printed Sept. 13, 1790: "A superstitious custom prevails at every funeral in Devonshire, of turning round the Bee-hives that belonged to the deceased, if he had any, and that at the moment the corpse is carrying out of the house. At a funeral some time since, at Columpton, of a rich old farmer, a laughable circumstance of this sort occurred: for, just as the corpse was placed in the hearse, and the horsemen, to a large number, were drawn in order for the procession of the funeral, a person called out, 'Turn the Bees,' when a servant who had no knowledge of such a custom, instead of turning the hives about, lifted them up, and then laid them down on their sides. The Bees, thus hastily invaded, instantly attacked and fastened on the horses and their riders. It was in vain they galloped off, the Bees as precipitately followed, and left their stings as marks of indignation. A general confusion took place, attended with loss of hats, wigs, etc., and the corpse during the conflict was left unattended; nor was it till after a considerable time that the funeral attendants could be rallied, in order to proceed to the interment of their deceased friend."
After the death of a member of a family, it has frequently been asserted that the Bees sometimes take their loss so much to heart as to alight upon the coffin whenever it is exposed. A clergyman told Langstroth, 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 the reverend gentleman that love of varnish, rather than sorrow or respect for the dead, was the occasion of their conduct at the funeral.
The following is an extract from a Tour through Brittany, published in the Cambrian Quarterly Magazine, vol. ii. p. 215: "If there are Bees kept at the house where a marriage feast is celebrated, care is always taken to dress up their hives in red, which is done by placing upon them pieces of scarlet cloth, or one of some such bright color; the Bretons imagining that the Bees would forsake their dwellings if they were not made to participate in the rejoicings of their owners: in like manner they are all put into mourning when a death occurs in a family."
In the Magazine of Natural History we find the following instance of singing psalms to Bees to make them thrive: "When in Bedfordshire lately, we were informed of an old man who sang a psalm last year in front of some hives which were not doing well, but which, he said, would thrive in consequence of that ceremony. Our informant could not state whether this was a local or individual superstition."
It is commonly said that if you sing to your Bees before they swarm, it will prevent their leaving your premises when they do swarm.
Peter Rotharmel, a western Pennsylvanian, had a singular notion that no man could have at one time a hundred hives of Bees. He declared he had often as many as ninety-nine, but could never add another to them.
The Apiarians of Bedfordshire, England, have a custom of, as they call it, ringing their swarms with the door-key and the frying-pan; and if a swarm settles on another's premises, it is irrecoverable by the owner, unless he can prove the ringing, but it becomes the property of that person upon whose premises it settles.
The practice of beating pans, and making a great noise to induce a swarm of Bees to settle, is, at least, as old as the time of Virgil. He thus mentions it:
But when thou seest a swarming cloud arise, That sweeps aloft, and darkens all the skies: The motions of their hasty flight attend; And know to floods, or woods, their airy march they bend. Then melfoil beat, and honey-suckles pound, With these alluring savors strew the ground, And mix with tinkling brass the cymbal's drowning sound.
But concerning this practice, Langstroth says: "It is probably not a whit more efficacious than the hideous noises of some savage tribes, who, imagining that the sun, in an eclipse, has been swallowed by an enormous dragon, resort to such means to compel his snakeship to disgorge their favorite luminary."
Dr. Toner informs me that when a boy he witnessed a mode of alluring a swarm of Bees to settle, performed by a German man and his wife, which struck him at the time as being remarkable, and which was as follows: Having first put some pig-manure upon the hive into which they wished the Bees to enter, they placed it upon the ground, and then, standing some distance from each other, they repeatedly threw a string, about the size of a common clothes-line, to each other, so that it would pass through the swarm. This they continued until the Bees began to descend and enter the hive.
they wished the Bees to go, they ran to and fro under the swarm, singing a monotonous German hymn; and this they continued till the Bees were settled and hived.
Another strange mode of alluring Bees into a new hive is practiced near Gloucester, England, but only when all the usual ways of preparing hives fail; it is this: When a swarm is to be hived, instead of moistening the inside of the hive with honey, or sugar and water, the Bee-master throws into it, inverted, about a pint of beans, which he causes a sow to devour, and immediately then, it is said, will the Bees take to it.
Pliny, as follows, incidentally mentions another curious mode of preparing the hives to best suit the Bees: "Touching Baulme, which the Greeks call Melittis or Melissophyllon: if Bee-hives be rubbed all over and besmeared with the juice thereof, the Bees will never go away; for there is not a flower whereof they be more desirous and faine than of it."