In Tusser’s Five Hundred Points of Husbandry, under the month of May, are these lines:
Take heed to thy Bees, that are ready to swarme,
The losse thereof now is a crown’s worth of harme.
On which is the following observation in Tusser Redivivus, 1744, p. 62: “The tinkling after them with a warming-pan, frying-pan, kettle, is of good use to let the neighbors know you have a swarm in the air, which you claim wherever it lights; but I believe of very little purpose to the reclaiming of the Bees, who are thought to delight in no noise but their own.”
Ill fortune attends the killing of Bees,—a common saying. This, doubtless, arose from the thrift and usefulness of these insects.
That swarms of Bees, or fields, houses, stalls of cattle, or workshops, may not be affected by enchantment, Leontinus says: “Dig in the hoof of the right side of a sable ass under the threshold of the door, and pour on some liquid pitchy resin, salt, Heracleotic origanum, cardamonium, cumin, some fine bread, squills, a chaplet of white or of crimson wool, the chaste tree, vervain, sulphur, pitchy torches; and lay on some amaranthus every month, and lay on the mould; and, having scattered seeds of different kinds, let them remain.”[660]
To cure the stings of Bees, we have the following remedies: “Rue,” says Pliny, “is an hearbe as medicinable as the best … and is available against the stings of Bees, Hornets, and Wasps, and against the poison of the Cantharides and Salamanders.[661]
“Yea, and it is an excellent thing for them that be stung, to take the very Bees in drinke; for it is an approved cure.[662]
“Baulme is a most present remedy not only against their stings, but also of Wespes, Spiders, and Scorpions.[663]
“The Laurell, both leafe, barke, and berrie, is by nature hot; and applied as a liniment, be singular good for the pricke or sting of Wasps, Hornets, and Bees.[664]