Part 14

There is the wasp social. He is impersonated in the burglar. Were you to see the wasps this autumn rushing into my hives, sometimes by a sudden dash, at other times by stealth, you would instantly acknowledge in them the type of the thief and the burglar. But my bees are better prepared for the wasp's reception than London house-holders for thieves. He runs the gauntlet every time he enters. Through my glass observatory windows I watch the conflict. One bee, half his size, seizes him by the throat, another gives him a taste of his sting, and two or three watchers seize him by the legs and drag him out. I have hit on an admirable plan of keeping him off, well worth disclosing to every bee-master. I place at the entrance of the hive a stick of barley-sugar a couple of inches long. This brings to the entrance a dozen of bees, who thankfully feed on it. There is thus secured an additional guard at the gates. The moment the wasp alights, the whole posse fly at him and drive him away. Another plan is to fill half-full a wine-bottle with beer and sugar. Incidentally a bee may look in, but the wasps, whose scent is perfect, rush in and are drowned. It is a sacred duty devolving on every bee-master to exterminate these Arabs, Bedouins, and corsairs. They lay up no stores for themselves--they do nothing for the support or enjoyment of man. They use their stings, not like bees, in self-defence, but in sheer wickedness. They are professional thieves. Like the bees of a correspondent of yours, they have no respect for tuum, and having no meum, they care nothing. Living at the expense of others, without consulting the convenience or goodwill of anybody, they richly deserve what their extermination will pay for--sulphur, gunpowder, and boiling water. Let every bee-master give sixpence to every boy who destroys a wasps'-nest.

The wasp builds its nest generally underground. Their cells are hexagonal. The house is built of paper, fabricated by this insect long before its manufacture was discovered by man. With their powerful jaws they tear off decayed wood, which they moisten with a sort of gum or glue secreted from themselves. They form this into a kind of pulp and spread it out into thin sheets, with which they roof in and surround their cells. So far they are good paper manufacturers; but I have not heard of their paper being used in the service of man. They seem also to understand the laws of heat. Everybody knows that double windows are warmer than single ones, the atmospheric air being a good non-conductor. The wasps surround themselves with several walls of paper, leaving spaces between, and thus not only keep out the cold, but render the entrance of damp all but impossible. The combs of the wasp are built in horizontal tiers, supported by pillars. In this respect they are builders as well as papermakers. They are also admirable sappers and miners. They tunnel a covered way from their nest to the open air, and very often, instead of using a deserted mole or mouse hole, they excavate a round chamber of really fine proportions. It is truly matter of regret that so much capable talent should be prostituted to so much dishonesty. Unhappily, thieves and pick-pockets are generally very clever. Yet reformatories do operate real transformations of thieves; but no plan that philanthropy has yet devised has turned a wasp into a kind, honest, and respectable member of society. He is incapable of transmutation. He is worthy of the special study of Darwin. The death penalty, I unhesitatingly affirm, is due to every wasp that enters a bee-garden. The razing of his house, the desolation of its furniture, and the dislodgment and destruction of the whole clan, have become a sacred duty. Even the Quaker, who objects to the sentence of death on murderers, would consent to the doom of the wasp. I cannot believe there were wasps in Paradise of old. Though no prophet, nor prophet's son, I confidently predict there will be no wasps in Paradise that is to be, nor will there be waspish tempers, or passions, or propensities. Of all ugly things on earth, next to the serpent, a hornet is the ugliest, the most thievish, and the most dishonest You can neither tame nor turn the wicked imp. He is a thief from his birth--a bee-cide by habit; feeding on corruption, and full of wickedness. If, instead of killing sparrows and blackbirds and thrushes, because they take a few currants, while they destroy slugs and vermin, and many of them regale springtide with song, the farmers would set about destroying wasps, they would find as much amusement, and do vastly more good. I have a lurking suspicion that some of those apiarians who speak against bees, and call them thieves and regicides, must have wasps, not bees, in their hives. Let me beg of these irritable gentlemen, who never cease buzzing, to examine their hives. Let me remind them that wasps are bigger and longer than bees; are surrounded with concentric yellow circles, emit a subterranean sort of hum, neither treble, tenor, nor bass, and, after a little study on their part, may be easily distinguished from bees. Above all, let me intreat them to give up feeding on wasps' food, and, if they have no honey of their own, let me offer them half a bar, in order to elevate their taste or improve their temper.

Let me also beg all that value their lives to examine well every apple, pear, and peach they eat; for these venomous insects may be seen this year ensconced under the skin, and if admitted within the mouth they will sting the throat, and, as in several recent cases, the sufferers will die. Do not conclude I am uncharitable; I am not so. It is no charity to connive at theft and murder. I am satisfied that killing wasps is no murder. Had Peter the Hermit or Walter the Penniless lived in my garden, and witnessed these wicked vagabonds trying every hive, worrying my bees and stealing my honey, they would have preached a crusade against wasps. In one respect they are unfortunate; they have no queen, no subordination or reverence for law and order. They are genuine Red Republicans--Marats and Robespierres, and richly deserve the worst they get.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

A Bee-Master.

Tunbridge Wells.

The Bee-master's Sermon.

To the Editor of "The Times."

Sir,--The object of my letters has been to open up to the cottager a means of revenue very agreeable, but very much neglected or mismanaged. I have directed your attention to bee-keeping, not as a fancy pursuit, or as an interesting entomological investigation, but as a practical and real work. Hence I have not discussed a variety of toys used as bee-hives, very pretty and very tasteful to the eye of a sentimental aparian, but so bothering to the bees that they wish such houses were at the bottom of the sea. Simplicity of structure, directness of use, and availableness for deprivation of honey, and yet preservation of the honey-makers, ought to be the guiding law. Bees don't like to be paid too many, too obsequious, or too patronising attentions. I want, however, in this closing letter to turn my largest hive into a pulpit, and to preach a short apiarian homily to English cottagers, which I know they will read, and hope they will "mark, learn, and inwardly digest."

1. They may carry from the hive to the cottage-hearth a lesson of industry. During work the bees are so intensely absorbed in their duty, that they ignore every distracting and diverging object and interest. They have learnt well a text their masters would do well to copy: "Not slothful in business." There is no getting on in this world of ours without hard work. It is not work and plenty of it that kills people, but worry.

2. Bees teach a lesson of loyalty. They are monarchical by conviction and in practice. They love a queen, whose sovereignty is motherhood, and whose service is perfect freedom. They detest your republics, and democracies, and radicalism in all its phases.

3. Bees are immensely attached to their homes. They are "keepers at home." No mother of a family gets on by gadding about and gossiping from house to house.

4. Bees are models of cleanliness. The care with which they remove filth of all kinds is something remarkable. They plainly believe what many Christians say, "cleanliness is nearest to godliness." The cottager cannot in this matter do better than follow the example of these admirable sanitary philosophers.

5. Bees set a beautiful example of Christian sympathy. I have seen a wounded bee, accidentally hurt, carried out from the hive and laid tenderly on the bee-board in the warm sunshine. One bee would lick the sufferer with his tongue from head to foot; another would roll him over and over in the sunshine; and at sunset they would carry him in to his sick bed. I do not complain of want of such sympathy among the poor. I have seen much of it in the homes of the most destitute, and witnessed personal attentions and sacrifices and services in a district surrounding Brewer's-court ragged schools, which have never been exceeded, if equalled, in the houses of the great.

6. Bees are very fond of fresh air. A hive is one of the best ventilated homes; and I have some doubt about the wisdom or success of the various arrangements made by some bee-masters for increasing the ventilation of their hives. In a hot and sultry day I have seen successive lines of bees take up their position at the mouth of the hive, and, joining the tips of their wings, work these fanners for ten minutes, and then retire and let the second parallel line come to the front and continue the same process. This example is not efficiently followed in city or cottage. People who are most careful about what they eat and drink and put into their stomachs, are utterly careless what they allow to enter their lungs. Now, the truth is, it is easier to poison a man through his lungs than through his stomach. My bees would die in a London bed-room in twelve hours.

7. Bees are very early risers. The first ray of sunshine is their matin bell, and by seven o'clock P.M. they are most of them at home. People that live long and are healthy differ in many of their habits, but generally agree in being early risers. Early light has sanitary as well as photographic influences, which post-meridian light is a stranger to. "Early to bed and early up" is an admirable maxim--an axiom among bees, and it should be a habit among rational men.

8. Bees are peaceful and peacemakers. This will appear a hasty statement to all who remember that bees have stings. But a little thought will justify what I say. Bees never give way to aggressive warfare. They never attack those who do not attack their queen or their homestead. Their stings are purely defensive. This is a very curious fact, and very suggestive also. If they had no stings at all, they would be an argument for the Peace Society. But as it is, they prove that the best defence of home is a good preparation to repel the aggressor. When, therefore, Mr. Bright preaches the duty of breaking up the navy and disbanding the army, it would be the conduct of a great hornet impressing on bees the duty of extracting their stings. Were the bees such simpletons as to listen to his plausible logic, and give up their stings, they would be surrounded by swarms of wasps, who would very soon make them give up their honey. As if to teach the bees that their weapons are to be used only in the last extremity, every bee knows that the use of his sting is followed by its inevitable loss and his destruction. It sticks where it strikes, and the violence done to the bee ends always in death. While admiring Mr. Bright's love of peace, I hope every bee-keeper in England will prefer the bees' way of maintaining it. So sweet and short is a bee-master's sermon.

I think I have shown in these letters that morals, money, country, and enjoyment may all be helped a little by keeping bees; and, therefore, that I have done some good by directing attention to these "great and marvellous works" of One who still gives his care to a bee-hive and to Buckingham Palace.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

A Bee-Master.

Tunbridge Wells.

IX.--BEE-THINGS IN GENERAL.

As this work does not profess to be an entomological essay but a practical bee-master's directory, I have omitted those erudite questions about which apiarians wrangle, and unfortunately lose their temper and employ their stings.

But there are some interesting bits of instruction scattered over bee-books which it may interest the reader to lay before him. If they contribute nothing to the amount of the honey harvest, they may increase the pleasure of the bee-master in the long winter evenings.

THE INSTINCT OR INTELLIGENCE OF BEES.

Huber relates:--

"He put under a bell-glass about a dozen humble-bees, without any store of wax, along with a comb of about ten silken cocoons, so unequal in height that it was impossible the mass should stand firmly. Its unsteadiness disquieted the humble-bees extremely. Their affection for their young led them to mount upon the cocoons for the sake of imparting warmth to the inclosed little ones, but in attempting this the comb tottered so violently that the scheme was almost impracticable. To remedy this inconvenience, and to make the comb steady, they had recourse to a most ingenious expedient. Two or three bees got upon the comb, stretched themselves over its edge, and with their heads downwards fixed their fore-feet on the table upon which it stood, whilst with their hind-feet they kept it from falling. In this constrained and painful posture, fresh bees relieving their comrades when weary, did these affectionate little insects support the comb for nearly three days. At the end of this period they had prepared a sufficiency of wax, with which they built pillars that kept it in a firm position; but, by some accident afterwards, these got displaced, when they had again recourse to their former manœuvre for supplying their place; and this operation they perseveringly continued, until M. Huber, pitying their hard task, relieved them by fixing the object of their attention firmly on the table."

Lardner quotes from Kirby the following curious illustration of the habits of the clothier-bee:--