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stated of the same colony lasting many years. Della Rocca speaks of hives in Syria continuing through forty or fifty summers; and Butler relates a story, of the year 1520, that

"When Ludovicus Vives was sent by Cardinal Wolsey to Oxford, there to be Public Professor of Rhetoric, being placed in the College of Bees,* * he was welcomed thither by a swarm of bees; which sweetest creatures, to signify the incomparable sweetness of his eloquence, settled themselves over his head, under the leads of his study, where they have continued above 100 years ;'

and they ever went by the name of Vives' Bees.

In the year 1630 the leads over Vives' study, being decayed, were taken up and new cast; by which occasion the stall was taken, and with it an incredible mass of honey. But the bees, as presaging their intended and imminent destruction (whereas they were never known to swarm before), did that spring (to preserve their famous kind) send down a fair swarm into the President's garden. The which in the year 1633 yielded two swarms; one whereof pitched in the garden for the President; the other they sent up as a new colony into their old habitation, there to continue the memory of this "Mellifluous Doctor," as the University styled him in a letter to the Cardinal. How sweetly did all things then concord, when in this neat μsoatov, newly consecrated to the Muses, the Muses' sweetest favourite was thus honoured by the Muses' birds!'

Whatever may be the period which nature or man allots to the life of the queen and the worker, there is one sad inhabitant of the hive who is seldom allowed, even by his own species, to bring his dreary autumn to a natural close. About the middle of August, the awful massacre of the innocents,' the killing of the drones, begins. After which time,' as Butler has it, 'these Amazonian dames begin to wax weary of their mates, and to like their room better than their company. When there is no use of them, there will be no room for them. For albeit, generally among all creatures, the males as most worthy do master the females, yet in these the females have the pre-eminence, and by the grammarians' leave, the feminine gender is more worthy than the masculine.' There is something unavoidably ludicrous in the distresses of these poor Jerry Sneaks. Having lived in a land of milk and honey all the summer long, partaken of the best of everything, without even stirring a foot towards it, coddled and coaxed, and so completely spoilt,' that they are fit for nothing, who can see them taken by the hind legs and thrown down-stairs' with a heap of workers on the top of them-their vain struggles

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* So called, says Butler, by the founder in its statutes: Corpus Christi College is meant. There is a letter of Erasmus to John Claymond, the first President, addressed J. C., Collegi Apum Præsidi. We dare not ask whether the colony is yet extant.

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to return their sly attempts to creep in stealthily-their disconsolate resignation at the last-without thinking it a just retribution for the past years of a pampered and unprofitable life? And yet there is mingled with this feeling a degree of pity for these melancholy Jaqueses' thrown aside (we mix our characters as in a masquerade) by the imperious and unrelenting Catherine of the hive. At first, not quite forgetting their old familiarity, they gently give them Tom Drum's entertainment: they that will not take that for a warning, but presume to force in again among them, are more shrewdly handled. You may sometimes see a handful or two before a hive which they had killed within; but the greatest part fly away and die abroad.' We need not name the author we are quoting, who, fearful lest womankind should take this Danaïd character for their example, proceeds: 'But let not nimble-tongued sophisters gather a false conclusion from these true premises, that they, by the example of these, may arrogate to themselves the like superiority: for ex particulari non est syllogizare; and He that made these to command their males, commanded them to be commanded. But if they would fain have it so, let them first imitate their singular virtues, their continual industry in gathering, their diligent watchfulness in keeping, their temperance, chastity, cleanliness, and discreet economy, &c.:' and so he sums up all womanly virtues from this little type as if he believed in the transmigration of souls described by Simonidesnot him of Cos-in his Iambics. We give the translation as we find it in No. 209 of the Spectator:'

'The tenth and last species of women were made out of a bee; and happy is the man who gets such an one for his wife. She is altogether faultless and unblameable. Her family flourishes and improves by her good management. She loves her husband and is beloved by him. She brings him a race of beautiful and virtuous children. She distinguishes herself among her sex. She is surrounded with graces. She never sits among the loose tribe of women, nor passes away her time with them in wanton discourses. She is full of virtue and prudence, and is the best wife that Jupiter can bestow on man.'

What can we do better than wish that all good bee-masters may meet with a bee-wife!

We very much question the utility of the common 'moralities' drawn from the industry and prudence of the bee. Storing and hoarding are rather the curse than the requirement of our ordinary nature; and few, except the very young and the very poor, require to have this sermon impressed upon them. We are rather inclined to believe that, had Almighty Wisdom intended this to be the lesson drawn from the consideration of the works of His creatures, we should have been referred in His revealed word

VOL. LXXI. NO. CXLI.

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word to the housewifery of this insect fowl of the air,' rather than to the ravens which have neither storehouse nor barn.'

Yet the thrifty bee is never once set before us as a pattern in the Bible. The Wise King indeed, who spake of beasts, and of fowls, and of creeping things, and of fishes,' has referred the sluggard and the distrustful to the early hours, and the 'working while it is yet day,' and the guideless security of the Ant, but we see nothing in his words which necessarily imply approbation of that anxious carefulness for the morrow, which we are elsewhere expressly told to shun, and which is but too often the mask of real covetousness of heart. And we believe this the more, because the Ant, though it wisely provides for its daily bread, does not lay up the winter store wherewith to fare sumptuously every day.

We know that, in saying this, we are flying into the uplifted eyes of careful mothers and bachelor uncles, who time out of mind have quoted, as it has been quoted to them, the busy bee as the sure exemplar of worldly prudence and prosperity; but we think that we can show them a more excellent way even for earthly honour, if they, as Christ's servants, will content themselves with those types in the natural world which He himself has given them, and learn that quiet security, and trustful contentedness, and ready obedience, and active labour for the present hour, which He has severally pointed out to us in the lilies, the ravens, the sheep, and the emmets, rather than seek elsewhere for an emblem of that over-curious forecasting for the future, which, whether in things spiritual or temporal, is plainly discouraged in the word of God-those laws and judgments of the Lord which are sweeter than the honey and the honeycomb, and in the keeping of which 'there is great reward.'

'Take that; and He that doth the ravens feed,

Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,

Be comfort to my age!'

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Not but that the Bee affords us a moral, though it be not that which worldly wisdom commonly assigns to it. We have in the first place a direct cause for thankfulness in the delicate food with which it supplies us. The Bee is little among such as fly; but her fruit is the chief of sweet things' (Eccles. xi. 3); and the Almighty has, in many senses, and in no common cases, supplied the houseless and the wanderer with wild honey' and a piece of honeycomb,' and 'honey out of the stony rock;' and a land flowing with milk and honey' has been from the first the type of another and a better country. And the little honey-maker is itself indeed one of the most wonderful proofs of the goodness and power of God. That within so small a body should be contained apparatus for converting the virtuous sweets' which it collects

into one kind of nourishment for itself-another for the common brood, a third for the royal-glue for its carpentry-wax for its cells-poison for its enemies-honey for its master-with a proboscis almost as long as the body itself, microscopic in its several parts, telescopic in its mode of action-with a sting so infinitely sharp, that, were it magnified by the same glass which makes a needle's point seem a quarter of an inch, it would yet itself be invisible, and this too a hollow tube-that all these varied operations and contrivances should be enclosed within half an inch of length and two grains of matter, while in the same small room' the 'large heart' of at least thirty* distinct instincts is contained-is surely enough to crush all thoughts of atheism and materialism, without calling in the aid of twelve heavy volumes of Bridgewater Treatises.

But we must hasten to end this too long paper. Its readers generally will be above that class to whom profit, immediate or remote, from bee-keeping can be of any serious moment-though indeed the profit lies in saving the bees, not in killing them. But many prejudices have to be done away, and greater care bestowed, and a better knowledge of their habits acquired, before the murdering system can be eradicated from the poor. It is for the higher classes to set the example by presents of cheap and simple but better-constructed hives-by personal interest taken in their bee-management-by supplying them with the best-written bookst on the subject-above all, by adopting the merciful system in their own gardens, and intrusting their hives to the especial care of one of the under-gardeners, whose office it should be, not only to diligently tend and watch his master's stock, but also to instruct the neighbouring cottagers in the most improved management. It would be an excellent plan to attach a stall of bees to the south wall of a gardener's cottage or lodge, with a glass side towards the interior, so that the operations of the bees might be watched from within. The custom of placing them within an arched recess in the wall of the house was one of old Rome, and is still observed in some countries. We look upon this as a very pretty suggestion for a fancy cottage in any style of architecture. Perhaps the directors of our normal schools would find no better way of teaching their pupilschoolmasters how to benefit and gain an influence among the parents of the children they will have to instruct, than to put them in the proper way of making and managing the new kinds of cottage-hives, of taking honey, joining stocks, and hybernating the bees. We spoke in a late article of Gardening being a common *Kirby and Spence. Introd. to Ent., ii. 504.

+ Let no one be misled by the title of Mr. Smith's book, which advocates all the atrocities of the old system.

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ground for the rich and poor. We would mark this difference with regard to Bees, that we consider them especially the Poor man's stock.' No wealthy man should keep large colonies of them for profit, in a neighbourhood where there are cottagers ready to avail themselves of the advantage. A hive or two in the garden-good old-fashioned straw-hives-for the sake of their pleasing appearance and kindly associations, and for the good of the flowers-is only what every gentleman would delight to have; or, if he has time to devote to their history, an observatory-hive for study and experiment; but beyond this we think he should not go,-else he is certainly robbing his poorer neighbours. The gentleman-bee-master, like the gentleman-farmer, should only keep stock enough for encouragement and experiment, and leave the practical and the profitable to the cottager and the tenant. But the squire's hive and implements should be of the best construction, for example's sake; and, keep he bees or beasts, he should be a merciful man' to them. And surely the feeling mind will pause a little at the destruction of a whole nation-the demolition of a whole city, with all its buildings, streets and thoroughfares, its palaces, its Queen, and all! What an earthquake to them must be the moving of the hive! What a tempest of fire and brimstone must the deadly fumes appear! All their instincts, their senses, their habits plead for them to our humanity; and, even if we allege their sting against them, they may reply with scarcely an alteration in the Jew's words-Hath not a Bee eyes? hath not a Bee organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.'*

*The subjects of hybernating bees and of joining swarms are so very important in good bee-keeping, that, being connected with one another, we must say a word, though a short one, upon them. Though the opposite opinion has been stoutly maintained, it is now generally admitted that a united stock does not consume so much honey in the winter as the two swarms separately would have done. But in order to save the consumption of honey at this time, the bees must be kept as torpid as possible, and this is best done by placing them in a cold, dark, but dry room. If you have not this convenience, move the doors from the north of your bee-house to the south, so that the winter sun, being prevented from shining on the entrance side, will not enliven and draw out the bees when the snow is on the ground. This most fatal circumstance it is most essential to guard against. However, the most general and the shortest rule is, send your bees off to sleep in good condition in the autumn (i. e. supply them with plenty of food then), for all hybernating animals are fat at the beginning of their torpidity, and it is fat people who fall fastest to sleep after dinner-keep them torpid, by even coolness and dryness, as long as you can. No bee-master will ever be successful who does not take pains of some sort to effect these objects.

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