Rensselaer Republican, Volume 23, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1891 — ABOUT BEES. [ARTICLE]

ABOUT BEES.

Rlato was called the “Athenian Bee” on account of the sweetness ar.d purity of his style. “A bee in your bonnet” is a phrase meant to imply that your head is swarming with dreamy theories. This connection between bees and the head is derived from the belief of the ancients, who called the moon a bee, and the word lunatic or moonstruck still means one who has bees in his head. Mahomet admitted bees to Paradise on account of the belief that they were wandering souls. Bee raisers have numerous proverbs regarding bees which they regard with veneration, such as this: “A swarm of bees in May Is worths load of hay; But a swarm in July Is not worth a fly. •' An allusion to the custom of telling the bees if found in histories, and is one of the traditions of the past which is so remote that its origin can not be traced. On the death of a member of the family it was customary to drape the hives with mourning. If this was neglected it was be lieved that the bees would leave the hives and seek new homes. The cus tom is observed in rural New England and many other parts of America, and is quite general in the old world. Our own Whittier has embodied the quaint superstition in a beautiful poem: Before them under the garden wall, Forward and hook. Went drearily tinging the ohore-girl email, Draping each hive with a shred of black. Trembling, I listen: the summer sun Had the ohUl of snow, For I knew the was telling the bees of one done on the journey we all must go. And the song she was singing, ever since In my ear sounds on:— ■'Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence 1 Mistress Mary is dead and gone!”