Curious Facts in the History of Insects; Including Spiders and Scorpions Part 16

Concerning the piety of Bees, we find the following legends:

"A certaine simple woman having some stals of Bees which yeelded not vnto her hir desired profit, but did consume and die of the murraine; made her mone to another woman more simple than hir selfe: who gave her councel to get a consecrated host or round G.o.damighty and put it among them. According to whose advice she went to the priest to receive the host; which when she had done, she kept it in hir month, and being come home againe she tooke it out and put it into one of hir hives. Wherevpon the murraine ceased, and the honey abounded. The woman therefore lifting vp the hive at the due time to take out the honie, sawe there (most strange to be seene) a chapel built by the Bees with an altar in it, the wals adorned by marvelous skil of architecture with windowes conveniently set in their places: also a dore and a steeple with bels.

And the host being laid vpon the altar, the Bees making a sweet noise flew round about it."[602]

Mr. Hawker's legend is to this effect: A Cornish woman, one summer, finding her Bees refused to leave their "cloistered home" and had "ceased to play around the cottage flowers," concealed a portion of the Holy Eucharist which she obtained at church:

She bore it to her distant home, She laid it by the hive To lure the wanderers forth to roam, That so her store might thrive;-- 'Twas a wild wish, a thought unblest, Some evil legend of the west.

But lo! at morning-tide a sign For wondering eyes to trace, They found above that Bread, a shrine Rear'd by the harmless race!

They brought their walls from bud and flower, They built bright roof and beamy tower!

Was it a dream? or did they hear Float from those golden cells A sound, as of a psaltery near, Or soft and silvery bells?

A low sweet psalm, that grieved within In mournful memory of the sin![603]

The following pa.s.sage, from Howell's _Parley of Beasts_, furnishes a similar legend of the piety of Bees. Bee speaks:

"Know, sir, that we have also a religion as well as you, and so exact a government among us here; our hummings you speak of are as so many hymns to the Great G.o.d of Nature; and there is a miraculous example in _Caesarius Cisterniensis_, of some of the Holy Eucharist being let fall in a meadow by a priest, as he was returning from visiting a sick body; a swarm of Bees hard-by took It up, and in a solemn kind of procession carried It to their hive, and their erected an altar of the purest wax for it, where it was found in that form, and untouched."[604]

Butler, quoting Thomas Bozius, tells us the following:

"Certaine theeves (thieves) having stolen the silver boxe wherein the wafer-G.o.ds vse to lie, and finding one of them there being loath, belike, that he should lie abroad all night, did not cast him away, but laid him under a hive: whom the Bees acknowledging advanced to a high roome in the hive, and there insteade of his silver boxe made him another of the whitest wax: and when they had so done, in worshippe of him, and set howres they sang most sweetly beyond all measure about it: yea the owner of them took them at it at midnight with a light and al.

Wherewith the bishop being made acquainted, came thither with many others: and lifting vp the hive he sawe there neere the top a most fine boxe, wherein the host was laid, and the quires of Bees singing about it, and keeping watch in the night, as monkes do in their cloisters. The bishop therefore taking the host, carried it with the greater honour into the church: whether many resorting were cured of innumerable diseases."[605]

Another legend, from the School of the Eucharist, is as follows:

"A peasant swayed by a covetous mind, being communicated on Easter-Day, received the Host in his mouth, and afterwards laid it among his bees, believing that all the Bees of the neighborhood would come thither to work their wax and honey. This covetous, impious wretch was not wholly disappointed of his hopes; for all his neighbors' Bees came indeed to his hives, but not to make honey, but to render there the honours due to the Creator. The issue of their arrival was that they melodiously sang to Him songs of praise as they were able; after that they built a little church with their wax from the foundations to the roof, divided into three rooms, sustained by pillars, with their bases and chapiters. They had there also an Altar, upon which they had laid the precious Body of our Lord, and flew round about it, continuing their musick. The peasant ... coming nigh that hive where he had put the H. Sacrament, the Bees issued out furiously by troops, and surrounding him on all sides, revenged the irreverence done to their Creator, and stung him so severely that they left him in a sad case. This punishment made this miserable wretch come to himself, who, acknowledging his error, went to find out the parish priest to confess his fault to him...." etc.[606]

We quote also another from the School of the Eucharist:

"A certain peasant of Auvergne, a province in France, perceiving that his Bees were likely to die, to prevent this misfortune, was advised, after he had received the communion, to reserve the Host, and to blow it into one of the hives. As he tried to do it, the Host fell on the ground. Behold now a wonder! On a sudden all the Bees came forth out of their hives, and ranging themselves in good order, lifted the Host from the ground, and carrying it in upon their wings, placed it among the combes. After this the man went out about his business, and at his return found that this advice had succeeded ill, for all his Bees were dead...."[607]

We will close this series of legends with one from the Lives of the Saints:

"When a thief by night had stolen St. Medard's Bees, they, in their master's quarrel, leaving their hive, set upon the malefactor, and eagerly pursuing him which way soever he ran, would not cease stinging of him until they had made him (whether he would or no) to go back again to their master's house; and there, falling prostrate at his feet, submissly to cry him mercy for the crime committed. Which being done, so soon as the Saint extended unto him the hand of benediction, the Bees, like obedient servants, did forthwith stay from persecuting him, and evidently yielded themselves to the ancient possession and custody of their master."[608]

By the Greeks, Bees were accounted an omen of future eloquence;[609] the soothsayers of the Romans, however, deemed them always of evil augury.[610] They afforded also to the Romans presages of public interest, "cl.u.s.tering, as they do, like a bunch of grapes, upon houses or temples; presages, in fact, that are often accounted for by great events."[611] The instances of happy omens afforded by swarms of Bees are the following:

"It is said of Pindar," we read in Pausanias' History of Greece, "that when he was a young man, as he was going to Thespia, being wearied with the heat, as it was noon, and in the height of summer, he fell asleep at a small distance from the public road; and that Bees, as he was asleep, flew to him and wrought their honey on his lips. This circ.u.mstance first induced Pindar to compose verses."[612]

A similar incident is mentioned in the life of Plato:

"Whilst _Plato_ was yet an infant carried in the arms of his mother _Perictione, Aristo_ his father went to _Hymettus_ (a mountain in _Attica_ eminent for abundance of Bees and Honey) to sacrifice to the Muses or Nymphs, taking his Wife and Child along with him; as they were busied in the Divine Rites, she laid the Child in a Thicket of Myrtles hard by; to whom, as he slept (_in cunis dormienti_) came a Swarm of Bees, Artists of Hymettian Honey, flying and buzzing about him, and (as it is reported) made a Honeycomb in his mouth. This was taken for a presage of the singular sweetness of his discourse; his future Eloquence foreseen in his infancy."[613]

From Butler's Lives of the Saints we have the following:

"The birth of St. Ambrose happened about the year 340 B.C., and whilst the child lay asleep in one of the courts of his father's palace, a swarm of Bees flew about his cradle, and some of them even crept in and out at his mouth, which was open; and at last mounted up into the air so high, that they quite vanished out of sight. This," concludes the Reverend Alban, "was esteemed a presage of future greatness and eloquence."[614]

Another instance is mentioned in the Feminine Monarchie, printed at Oxford in 1634, p. 22.

"When _Ludovicus Vives_ was sent by Cardinal Wolsey to Oxford, there to be a public professor of Rhetoric, being placed in the College of Bees, he was welcomed thither by a swarm of Bees; which sweet creatures, to signifie the incomparable sweetnesse of his eloquence, settled themselves over his head, under the leads of his study, where they have continued to this day.... How sweetly did all things then accord, when in this neat ??sa??? newly consecrated to the Muses, the Muses'

sweetest favorite was thus honoured by the Muses' birds."[615]

Moufet, in his Theater of Insects, and Topsel, in almost the same words in his History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents, gives the following list of remarkable omens drawn from Bees:

"Whereas the most high G.o.d did create all other creatures for our use; so especially the Bees, not only that as mistresses they might hold forth to us a patern of politick and conomic vertues, and inform our understanding; but that they might be able as extraordinary foretellers, to foreshew the success and event of things to come; for in the years 90, 98, 113, 208, before the birth of Christ, when as mighty huge swarms of Bees did settle in the chief market-place, and in the beast-market upon private citizens' houses, and on the temple of Mars, there were at that time stratagems of enemies against Rome, wherewith the whole state was like to be surprised and destroyed. In the reign of Severus, the Bees made combes in his military ensigns, and especially in the camp of Niger. Divers wars upon this ensued between both the parties of Severus and Niger, and battels of doubtful event, while at length the Severian faction prevailed. The statues also of Antonius Pius placed here and there all over Hetruria, were all covered with swarms of Bees; and after that settled in the camp of Ca.s.sius; what great commotions after followed Julius Capitolinus relates in his history. At what time also, through the treachery of the Germans in Germany, there was a mighty slaughter and overthrow of the Romans. P. Fabius, and Q. Elius being consuls in the camp of Drusus in the tent of Hostilius Rutilus, a swarm of Bees is reported to have sate so thick, that they covered the rope and the spear that held up the tent. M. Lepidus, and Munat. Plancus being consuls, as also in the consulship of L. Paulus, and C. Metellus, swarms of Bees flying to Rome (as the augurs very well conjectured) did foretell the near approach of the enemy. Pompey likewise making war against Caesar, when he had called his allies together, he set his army in order as he went out of Dyrrachium, Bees met him and sate so thick upon his ensigns that they could not be seen what they were. Philistus and aelian relate, that while Dionysius the tyrant did in vain spur his horse that stuck in the mire, and there at length left him, the horse quitting himself by his own strength, did follow after his master the same way he went with a swarm of Bees sticking on his mane; intimating by that prodigy that tyrannical government which Dionysius affected over the Galeotae. In the Helvetian History we read, that in the year 1385, when Leopoldus of Austria began to march towards Sempachum with his army, a swarm of Bees flew to the town and there sate upon the tyles; whereby the common people rightly foretold that some forain force was marching towards them. So Virgil, in 7 aeneid:

The Bees flew buzzing through the liquid air: And pitcht upon the top o' th' laurel tree; When the Soothsayers saw this sight full rare, They did foretell th' approach of th' enemie.

That which Herodotus, Pausanias, Dio Ca.s.sius, Plutarch, Julius Caesar, Julius Capitolinus, and other historians with greater observation then reason have confirmed. Saon Acrephniensis, when he could by no means finde the oracle Trophonius; Pausanias in his ticks saith he was lead thither by a swarm of Bees. Moreover, Plutarch, Pausanias, aelian, Alex.

Alexandrinus, Theocritus and Textor are authors that Jupiter Melitaeus, Hiero of Syracuse, Plato, Pindar, Apius Comatus, Xenophon, and last of all Ambrose, when their nurses were absent, had honey dropt into their mouths by Bees, and so were preserved."[616]

In East Norfolk, England, if Bees swarm on rotten wood, it is considered portentous of a death in the family.[617] This superst.i.tion is as old at least as the time of Gay, for, among the signs that foreshadowed the death of Blonzelind, it is mentioned:

Swarmed on a rotten stick the Bees I spy'd Which erst I saw when Goody Dobson dy'd.[618]

In Ireland, the mere swarming of Bees is looked upon as prognosticating a death in the family of the owner.

In parts of England it is believed, that if a swarm of Bees come to a house, and are not claimed by their owner, there will be a death in the family that hives them.[619]

It is a very ancient superst.i.tion that Bees, by their acute sense of smell, quickly detect an unchaste woman, and strive to make her infamy known by stinging her immediately. In a pastoral of Theocritus, the shepherd in a pleasant mood tells Venus to go away to Anchises to be well stung by Bees for her lewd behavior.

Now go thy way to Ida mount-- Go to Anchises now, Where mighty oaks, where banks along Of square Cypirus grow, Where hives and hollow trunks of trees, With honey sweet abound, Where all the place with humming noise Of busie Bees resound.

Incontinence in men, as well as unchast.i.ty in women, was thought to be punished by these little insects. Thus in the lines of Pindarus:

Thou painful Bee, thou pretty creature, Who honey-combs six angled, as the be, With feet doest frame, false Phcus and impure, With sting has p.r.i.c.kt for his lewd villany.[620]

Pliny says: "Certain it is, that if a menstruous woman do no more but touch a Bee-hive, all the Bees will be gone and never more come to it again."[621]

In Western Pennsylvania, it is believed that Bees will invariably sting red-haired persons as soon as they approach the hives.

It is a common opinion that Bees in rough and boisterous weather, and particularly in a violent storm, carry a stone in their legs, in order to preserve themselves by its weight against the power of the wind. Its antiquity is also great, for in the writings of Plutarch we find an instance of this remarkable wisdom. "The Bees of Candi," says this philosopher, "being about to double a point or cape lying into the sea, which is much exposed to the winds, they ballase (ballast) themselves with small grit or petty stones, for to be able to endure the weather, and not be carried away against their wills with the winds through their lightness otherwise."[622]

Virgil, too, about a century earlier, mentions this curious notion in the following lines:

And as when empty barks on billows float, With sandy ballast sailors trim the boat; So Bees bear gravel stones, whose poising weight Steers through the whistling winds their steady flight.[623]

Swammerdam, who has noticed this belief of the ancients, makes the following remarks: "But this, as Clutius justly observes, has not been hitherto remarked by any Bee-keeper, nor indeed have I myself ever seen it. Yet I should think that there may be some truth in this matter, and probably a certain observation, which I shall presently mention, has given rise to the story. There is a species of wild Bees not unlike the smallest kind of the Humble-Bee, which, as they are accustomed to build their nests near stone walls, and construct their habitations of stone and clay, sometimes carry such large stones that it is scarcely credible by what means so tender insects can sustain so great a load, and that even flying while they are obliged also to support their own body.

Their nest by this means is often so heavy as to weigh one or two pounds."[624]

It was the general opinion of antiquity that Bees were produced from the putrid bodies of cattle. Varro says they are called ??????a? by the Greeks, because they arise from petrified bullocks. In another place he mentions their rising from these putrid animals, and quotes the authority of Archelaus, who says Bees proceed from bullocks, and wasps from horses.[625] Virgil, however, is much more satisfactory, for he gives us the recipe in all its details for producing these insects:

First, in a place, by nature close, they build A narrow flooring, gutter'd, wall'd, and til'd.

In this, four windows are contriv'd, that strike To the four winds oppos'd, their beams oblique.

A steer of two years old they take, whose head Now first with burnished horns begins to spread: They stop his nostrils, while he strives in vain To breathe free air, and struggles with his pain.

Knock'd down, he dies: his bowels bruis'd within, Betray no wound on his unbroken skin.

Extended thus, in his obscene abode, They leave the beast; but first sweet flowers are strow'd Beneath his body, broken boughs and thyme, And pleasing Ca.s.sia, just renew'd in prime.

This must be done, ere spring makes equal day, When western winds on curling waters play; Ere painted meads produce their flowery crops, Or swallows twitter on the chimney tops.