WILD-BEES AND BEE-HUNTING.
There are, it is said, no fewer than twenty-seven genera, and one hundred and seventy-seven species of bees, natives of Great Britain. But one only of all these, the Apis millifica, or common honey-bee, has been domesticated. Attempts have been made with others, especially with the bombus, or humble-bee, but without any adequate success.
The frequent mention of honey in the Old Testament from the patriarchal ages downward, and the description of Palestine as ‘a land flowing with milk and honey,’ may well have raised the question whether the honey was obtained from bees in a wild condition or in a state of domestication. The weight of evidence is in favour of the former. In the somewhat wandering life, as ‘strangers and pilgrims,’ which many of the patriarchs led, bee-culture would have been very inconvenient, if not impossible; and as honey was to be had in rich abundance simply for the seeking, there would be little inducement to undertake unnecessary cares and labours in the domestication of the native variety. There is no question, however, as to the possibility of inducing wild bees to accept domestication. In Cashmere and the north of India, the natives have a simple and ready method of doing this: in building their houses, they leave cavities in one of the walls having a sunny aspect, with a small hole like that of a modern hive opening outwards. The inner side of the wall is fitted with a frame of wood with a door attached. A swarm of bees in search of a new home—or perhaps the pioneers who are sent, a day or two before the actual swarming, to seek out a dwelling-place—would be attracted by such an ‘open door,’ and the family, or army, ten, twenty, or thirty thousand strong, would at once take possession. The vacant space would soon be filled by the busy workers; and the inmates of the house, having access to the store by means of the open door, could move a comb or two at pleasure, without distressing the bees, simply using the precaution of blowing in as much smoke at the back as would cause the bees to fly out at the front. English travellers report having seen the operation performed, and the bees quietly return when the work was done. The plan has been recommended for use in this country. It is at least practicable, if not necessary. In dwelling-houses there might be risks, which would not apply to farm-buildings and erections around a country house. But if man has not utilised this plan, the bees themselves have acted upon it. An instance of two within the writer’s own knowledge may not be uninteresting.
I was the tenant of Rose Cottage, Brenchley, Kent, from 1853 to 1862. The house—which has been considerably altered since—was well adapted for such a purpose. The upper parts of the walls were formed, as is common in that part of the county, externally of tiles on a framework of wood, and internally of lath and plaster. In the cavities there would be ample space for large stores of comb and honey. A swarm of bees took possession of a portion of the front wall, having a south-south-eastern aspect, entering their abode through a crevice between the tiles just over one of the chamber windows. They held possession for several years, and still held their own when I left the cottage. As they never swarmed, it is almost certain there must have been a large collection of honey; but for some reason or other, chiefly, no doubt, on account of the difficulty of taking the honey without injuring the house and exposing the whole family to the attacks of the bees, I profited in no way by their busy labours.
Less than ten years ago, when making a call at the old farmhouse, Penrhos, Lyonshall, Herefordshire, my attention was directed to a colony of bees which had made a settlement in the upper part of one of the walls of the house. I suggested the removal of a portion of the inner wall, and predicted a large ‘find.’ After some time, this advice was acted on; but the farmer adopted a plan which I should have strongly deprecated—the plan of destroying with brimstone the entire bee community. The store of honey was so great that every available keeler and pan in the house was filled to the extent of nearly two hundredweight.
Two other instances may be cited, as reported in the West Surrey Times. One is that of an extraordinary ‘take’ of honey from the walls of the Hautboy and Fiddle Inn, Ockham, Surrey. The outer walls of the house are about three feet in thickness, and at the very top of the third story a colony of bees had established themselves, holding undisturbed possession for a number of years. At length the innkeeper determined to find out their whereabouts. After a diligent search under the roof, a piece of comb was found. Descending to one of the upper bedrooms, chisel and hammer went to work, and a square of about two feet was opened in the front wall; here a large mass of comb was discovered; and after fumigating the bees, about one hundred and twenty pounds of honey were secured. Another and still more extraordinary ‘take’ of honey was secured at Winter’s Hall, Bramley, Surrey, the seat of Mr George Barrett. Some bees had long held possession of a space between the ceiling of the coachhouse and the granary: on effecting an entrance, about three hundredweight of honey was secured.
In some countries the honey-bee still roams at will and uncontrolled; this is notably the case in the western parts of the United States and Canada. The discovery of their natural hives for the purpose of securing the honey is the calling of a class of persons known as bee-hunters. A writer of considerable repute thus speaks on this subject: ‘The beautiful forests in which we were encamped abounded in bee-trees; that is to say, trees in the decayed trunks of which wild-bees had established their hives. It is surprising in what countless swarms the bees have overspread the Far West within but a moderate number of years. The Indians consider them the harbinger of the white man, as the buffalo is of the red man, and say that in proportion as the bee advances, the Indian and the buffalo retire. We are always accustomed to associate the hum of the beehive with the farmhouse and the flower-garden, and to consider those industrious little animals as connected with the busy haunts of men; and I am told that the wild-bee is seldom to be met with at any great distance from the frontier. They have been the heralds of civilisation, steadily preceding it, as it advanced from the Atlantic borders; and some of the ancient (early) settlers of the West pretend to give the very year when the honey-bee first crossed the Mississippi. The Indians, with surprise, found the mouldering trees of their forests suddenly teeming with ambrosial sweets; and nothing, I am told, can exceed the greedy relish with which they banquet for the first time upon the unbought luxury of the wilderness. At present, the honey-bee swarms in myriads in the noble groves and forests that skirt and intersect the prairies and extend along the alluvial bottoms of the rivers. It seems to me as if these beautiful regions answer literally to the description of the land of promise, “a land flowing with milk and honey;” for the rich pasturage of the prairies is calculated to sustain herds of cattle as countless as the sands upon the seashore; while the flowers with which they are enamelled render them a very paradise for the nectar-seeking bee.’
A bee-hunt must be a very exciting adventure, and, as most people would think, attended with considerable risk; but the ingenuity of the settlers, and especially of the bee-hunters, who make a living of the business, is equal to the occasion. Let us, for the sake of greater brevity, suppose a case, which is, however, little other than a narrative of simple facts. A party sets out in quest of a bee-tree—a tree in the cavity of which a colony of bees have established themselves. The party is headed by a veteran bee-hunter, a tall lank fellow, with his homespun dress hanging loosely about him, and a hat which might be taken for a beeskep. A man similarly attired attends him, with a long rifle on his shoulder. The rest of the party, six in number, are armed with axes and rifles. Thus accoutred, they are ready for any sport, or even more serious business. Reaching an open glade on the skirts of the forest, the party halts, and the leader advances to a low bush, on which he places a piece of honeycomb. This is a lure for the bees. In a very short time several are humming about it and diving into the cells. Laden with honey, they rise into the air and dart off in a straight line with almost the velocity of a bullet. The hunters watch attentively the course they take, and set off in the same direction, still watching the course of the bees. In this way the tree where the bees have made their home is reached. But it will often happen, as may be suspected, that the bees will elude the sight of the most vigilant hunter, and the party may wander about without succeeding in finding any treasure. Another method is then adopted: a few bees are caught and placed in a small box with a glass top, having at the bottom a small piece of honeycomb. When they have satisfied themselves with honey, two or three are allowed to escape, the hunters taking care to observe the direction of their flight and to follow them as rapidly as possible. When these bees are lost sight of, two or three others are set free and their course followed, and so on until the identical tree has been reached. It sometimes happens that one set of bees take an opposite course to their predecessors. The hunter knows by this that he has passed the tree, or otherwise missed his mark, and he retraces his steps and follows the lead of the unerring bees. The sight of the bee is so strong and keen that it can descry its home at an immense distance. It is a well-ascertained fact that if a bee be caught on a flower at any given distance south of its home, and then be taken in a close box an equal distance north of it, the little creature, when set free, after flying in a circle for a moment, will take a straight course to its identical tree. Therefore, the hunter who has intelligence, patience, and perseverance on his side is sure to be successful in the end.
It not unfrequently happens that when in the immediate neighbourhood of the tree, the hunter may not be able to distinguish the particular one he is searching for from the rest, as the entrance to the bee-castle is commonly many feet above the ground. He is not then at the end of his resources. A small fire is kindled, and upon a piece of stone or other suitable material made hot, some honeycomb is placed; the smell will at once induce the whole colony of bees to come down from their citadel, when the hunters proceed with their axes to bring down the tree. A vigorous writer thus describes the proceedings, when the party of hunters had traced the honey-laden bees to their hive in the hollow trunk of a blasted oak, into which, after buzzing about for a time, they entered at a hole about sixty feet from the ground: ‘Two of the bee-hunters now plied their axes vigorously at the foot of the tree, to level it with the ground. The mere spectators and amateurs in the meantime drew off to a cautious distance, to be out of the way of the falling of the tree and the vengeance of its inmates. The jarring blows of the axe seemed to have no effect in alarming or agitating this most industrious community; they continued to ply at their usual occupations; some arriving full-freighted into port, others sallying forth on new expeditions, like so many merchantmen in a money-making metropolis, little suspicious of impending bankruptcy and downfall. Even a loud crack, which announced the disrupture of the trunk, failed to divert their attention from the intense pursuit of gain. At length, down came the tree with a tremendous crash, bursting open from end to end, and displaying all the hoarded treasures of the commonwealth. One of the hunters immediately ran up with a wisp of lighted hay, as a defence against the bees. The latter, however, made no attack, and sought no revenge; they seemed stupefied by the catastrophe and unsuspicious of its cause, remaining crawling and buzzing about the ruins, without offering us any molestation.’
When the tree had been brought down, the whole party fell to with spoon and hunting-knife to scoop out the combs with which the hollow trunk was stored. A single tree has been known to yield from one hundredweight to one and a half hundredweight.
‘Some of the combs were old and of a deep brown colour; others were beautifully white, and the honey in their cells was almost limpid. Such of the combs as were entire were placed in camp kettles, to be conveyed to the encampment; those which had been broken by the fall were devoured on the spot. Every stark bee-hunter was to be seen with a rich morsel in his hand, dripping about his fingers, and disappearing as rapidly as a cream tart before the holiday appetite of a schoolboy.’
Not in America alone, but in Africa also, the wild-bee is an object of pursuit by the natives. Even the Hottentots show considerable shrewdness in obtaining the wild-honey. The author of an Expedition into the Interior of Africa thus describes an operation of this kind: ‘One of the Hottentots observed a number of bees entering a hole in the ground which had formerly belonged to some animal of the weasel kind. As he made signs for us to come to him, we turned that way, fearing he had met with some accident.’ It was the home of a recent swarm. ‘When the people began to unearth the bees, I did not expect that we should escape being severely stung; but they knew so well how to manage an affair of this kind, that they robbed the poor bees with the greatest ease and safety. Before they commenced digging, a fire was made near the hole, and constantly supplied with damp fuel, to produce a cloud of smoke. In this the workmen were completely enveloped, so that the bees returning from the field were prevented approaching, and those which flew out of the nest were driven by it to a distance.’
The same writer mentions another incident, even more interesting. ‘Whilst I was engaged in the chase one day on foot with a Namaqua attendant, he picked up a small stone; he looked at it earnestly, then over the plain, and threw it down again. I asked what it was. He said there was the mark of a bee on it. Taking it up, I also saw on it a small pointed drop of wax, which had fallen from the bee in its flight. The Namaqua noticed the direction the point of the drop indicated, and walking on, he picked up another stone, also with a drop of wax on it, and so on at considerable intervals, till, getting behind a crag, he looked up, and bees were seen flying across the sky and in and out of a cleft in the face of the rock. Here, of course, was the honey he was in pursuit of. A dry bush was selected, a fire was made, the cliff ascended, and the nest robbed in the smoke.’
An amusing anecdote is related in Feminine Monarchy, an old book printed in 1609, and given by a Russian ambassador to Rome as ‘written out of experience by Charles Butler.’ A man was out in the woods searching for honey. Climbing a large hollow tree, he discovered an immense ‘find’ of the luscious produce. By some means however, he missed his footing, and slipped into the hollow, sinking up to his breast in honey. He struggled to get out, but without avail. He called and shouted, but alike in vain. He was far from human habitation, and help there was none, for no one heard his cries. At length, when he had begun to despair of deliverance, he was extricated in a most remarkable and unexpected way. Strange to say, another honey-hunter came to the same tree in the person of a large bear, which, smelling the honey, the scent of which had been diffused by the efforts of the imprisoned man, mounted the tree and began to lower himself, hind-part first, into the hollow. The hunter, rightly concluding that the worst could be but death, which he was certain of if he remained where he was, clasped the bear around the loins with both hands, at the same time shouting with all his strength. The bear, what with the handling and the shouting, was very seriously frightened, and made speed to get out of his fix. The man held fast, and the bear pulled until, with his immense strength, he drew the man fairly out of his strange prison. The bear being released, made the best of his way off, more frightened than hurt, leaving the man, as the story quaintly says, ‘in joyful fear.’
We conclude this paper with a story of another kind, a version of which was given some years ago in a contemporary; but the French bishop was turned into an English prelate, and the bee-keeping curé into an Anglican clergyman, the story being otherwise greatly changed. The said French bishop, while paying a visit to his clergy, was much distressed by the extreme poverty which met him everywhere. Reaching the house of a certain curate who lived in the midst of very poor parishioners, where he expected to witness even greater destitution, he was astonished to find that everything about the house wore an appearance of comfort and plenty. Greatly surprised by what he saw, the bishop asked: ‘How is this, my friend? You are the first pastor I have seen having a cheerful face and a plentiful board. Have you any income independent of your cure?’
‘Yes,’ said the curé, ‘I have. My household would otherwise starve on the pittance I receive from my poor people. If you will walk into the garden, I will show you the stock which yields me such excellent interest.’
On going into the garden, the bishop saw a long range of beehives.
‘There,’ said the curé—‘there is the bank from which I draw an annual dividend; and it is one that never stops payment.’
The fact was that his honey supplied the place of sugar, leaving him a considerable quantity for sale, in addition to other household uses. Then, of the washings of the comb and refuse honey he manufactured a very palatable wine; while the wax went far to pay his shoemaker’s bill.
Ever afterwards, it is said, when any of the clergy complained to the bishop of poverty, he would tell the story of the bee-keeping curé, following up his anecdote with the advice: ‘Keep bees—keep bees!’