THE BEE-MAN OF ORN
This story can be made a starting-point for interesting science lessons. Children can easily observe the habits of bees. In ancient times, when honey was a staple article of food, much was thought and written about the care of bees. Read with the children John Burroughs’ “Birds and Bees,” also bits from Virgil’s “Georgics,” Book IV.
Lead the children to discuss the following points:
Why did the bees not sting the Bee-Man?
What is it that leads animals to like a person?
Did his ugly appearance hinder the bees from liking the Bee-Man? Would it hinder you from liking him?
Do you think the Bee-Man had flowers growing in the little garden outside his hut?
What kind of flowers? Why?
Do all flowers with perfume yield honey?
Which would derive more pleasure from watching the life and habits of bees, a busy person or a lazy one?
Do bees make weather observations? Virgil says that bees do not go far from the hive when an east wind is blowing.
What do you think was the Junior Sorcerer’s reason for thinking the Bee-Man had been transformed?
Do you agree with the Junior Sorcerer in his opinion of the Bee-Man: that he was a “miserable old man”?
When the Bee-Man first felt himself drawn toward the Lord of the Domain, what was it that influenced him? Are appearances to be trusted?
Do you ever meet people who, like the Languid Youth, dislike to face duty alone, and would always rather have someone go with them?
The Bee-Man shrunk from entering the cavern, yet within it he found that phase of life toward which he was most drawn; so the unpleasant duties of life from which we so often shrink contain the best things that life has in store for us.
Suppose the Languid Youth had found the baby in the cavern, what would he have done?
If you had a chance to go back to your babyhood again, do you think you would grow up to be the same person that you are now?
Which character in this story do you like best? Why?