Lesser tells us that in 1525, during the confusion occasioned by a time of war, a mob assembling in Hohnstein (in Thuringia) attempted to plunder the house of the minister of Elende; who having spoken to them with no effect, as a last resort ordered his domestics to bring his Beehives, and throw them in the midst of the furious mob. The desired effect was instantaneous, for the mob dispersed immediately.[707]
Bees have also been employed as an article of food. Knox tells us that the natives of Ceylon, when they meet with a swarm of Bees hanging on a tree, hold burning torches under them to make them drop; and so catch and carry them home, where they boil and eat them, in their estimation, as excellent food.[708]
Peter Martyr, speaking of the Caribbean Islands, says:
“The Inhabitantes willingly eate the young Bees, rawe, roasted, and sometimes sodden.”[709]
Bancroft tells us that when the negroes of Guiana are stung by Bees, they in revenge eat as many as they can catch.[710]
The following account of the Bee-eater of Selborne, England, is by the Reverend, and very accurate naturalist, Gilbert White: “We had in this village,” says he, “more than twenty years ago (about 1765), an idiot boy, whom I well remember, who, from a child, showed a strong propensity to Bees: they were his food, his amusement, his sole object; and as people of this cast have seldom more than one point in view, so this lad exerted all his few faculties on this one pursuit. In the winter he dozed away his time, within his father’s house, by the fireside, in a kind of torpid state, seldom departing from the chimney corner; but in the summer he was all alert, and in quest of his game in the fields and on sunny banks. Honey-bees, Humble-bees, and Wasps were his prey, wherever he found them: he had no apprehensions from their stings, but would seize nudis manibus, and at once disarm them of their weapons, and search their bodies for the sake of their honey-bags. Sometimes he would fill his bosom between his shirt and his skin with a number of these captives; and sometimes would confine them in bottles. He was a very Merops apiaster, or Bee-bird, and very injurious to men that kept Bees; for he would slide into their Bee-gardens, and, sitting down before the stools, would rap with his finger on the hives, and so take the Bees as they came out. He has been known to overturn hives for the sake of honey, of which he was passionately fond. Where metheglin was making, he would linger round the tubs and vessels, begging a draught of what he called Bee-wine. As he ran about he used to make a humming noise with his lips, resembling the buzzing of Bees. This lad was lean and sallow, and of a cadaverous complexion; and, except in his favorite pursuit, in which he was wonderfully adroit, discovered no manner of understanding.”[711]
There is a peculiar substance formed by a species of Bee
in the Orinoco country, which, says Captain Stedman, the roosting tribes burn incessantly in their habitations, and which effectually protects them from all winged insects. They call it Comejou; Gumilla says it is neither earth nor wax.[712]
Concerning the medicinal virtues of Bees, Dr. James says: “Their salts are very volatile, and highly exalted; for this reason, when dry’d, powder’d, and taken internally, they are diuretic and diaphoretic. If this powder is mixed in unguents, with which the head is anointed, it is said to cure the Alopecia, and to contribute to the growth of hair upon bald places.”[713]
Another, an old writer, says: “If Bees, when dead, are dried to powder, and given to either man or beast, this medicine will often give immediate ease in the most excruciating pain, and remove a stoppage in the body when all other means have failed.” A tea made by pouring boiling water upon Bees has recently been prescribed, by high medical authority, for violent strangury; while the poison of the Bee, under the name of apis, is a great homœopathic remedy.[714]