Honey Cakes.—The French use the word Gateaux. I wish the name "Honey Cakes" were universally adopted by Bee-masters. It would supply a meaning which the word "comb" does not at all. A honey comb may be as dry as dust, whilst the "honey cake" places before the eyes of the imagination a full comb well sealed over, with here and there a drop of clear honey oozing out, as a sample of the store within. Perfectly sealed honey cakes may be kept without deterioration through the winter, by wrapping them up separately in clean writing paper, and then packing them away in a tin, each cake being placed as it stood in the hive. If Bar-Frame Hives are used, the cakes should not be cut away from the frame till wanted; they should be stored away in some close box, fitted to receive them.
"And Cover Him From Top To Toe."—Page 43.—Bee literature contains many instances of persons having been completely enveloped in a swarm of Bees, who by remaining perfectly still did not receive a single sting. Old Thorley, in his Μελισσολογια tells the story of his maid-servant being so covered in a manner very quaint and charming. Perfect quiet under these circumstances is essential to, and will secure, safety; whilst any thing which can enrage 20,000 soldiers, armed with a poisoned dart, may lead to fatal results. Since I wrote the above, a story has appeared in the newspapers, and is, I fear a true one, as names, dates and places are given, of a sting having been fatal to a lady accustomed to the management of bees. Any person who has this idiosyncrasy had better give bees a wide berth.
"I Deskiver."—Page 44.—There was evidently a taste of Milesian blood in this learned doctor. 'Tis fortunate that it was so, for "discover" and "liver" would not rhyme.
"Brekekekex, Coax, Coax,
"Coax, Coax, Brekekekex."—Page 46.
Is the refrain of the well-known chorus in the Frogs of Aristophanes. Any one with an accurate ear, who has been so happy as to assist at a chorus of Bull Frogs in full song in the sweet spring tide, sacred to love and melody, must have felt how accurately the great Comic Poet noted down their song. I do not believe that in the two thousand years which have elapsed since that time there has been a single note altered in their love ditty. I have never been in Greece, and so cannot testify to the musical powers of the Frogs of Bœotia; but I have had that pleasure both in Spain and in the neighbourhood of Constantinople: in both instances under very favourable circumstances, which I will relate. In June, 1855, during the Crimean war, I was at Constantinople, the guest of Lord Napier, then Chief Secretary to the British Embassy in that city. He was residing at that lovely place, Therapia, the summer retreat of our Ambassador and his suite. I had pitched my little tent in a grass meadow, close to Lord Napier's snug house. His hospitality by day was unbounded, but straitened as he was for room by night, he was not sorry to entertain a guest who delighted in camping out, and brought with him the means of doing so. Not fifty yards from my tent was a dark stagnant pool, overshadowed by trees, and every night and all night long the Bull frogs, from their reedy habitations, sang "Brekekekex, Coax, Coax," whilst above the water, and in and out of the dark shadows of the trees, the fire flies flickered about in their ever varying gambols. It was as though Taglioni, resplendent with Jewels, had been dancing her very best to the strains of a Scotch bag-pipe. Again, I was in the noble town of Seville at Easter, 1867, twelve years later, during which time I had been hard at work in England, and "no holiday had seen," so by that time I needed one. Not a hundred yards from the glorious Cathedral, behind the Alcazar, the old Palace of the Moors, is a large orange garden, and in the midst of it a square tank, of Moorish work, used for irrigation. The garden was tenanted by a widow woman who owned a dozen or so magnificent stall-fed milch cows, and thither I resorted early every morning, after visiting the Cathedral, for the sake of a glass of new milk, and a lesson in Spanish from her two little daughters aged respectively nine and ten, Incarnacion (the last c pronounced th) and Salud. Commend me to two chattering little girls, when their shyness has once worn off, as the best teachers of a new language. One glorious morning I was sitting on the edge of the aforesaid tank, inhaling the delicious perfume of the orange blossoms, when a Frog struck up his "Brekekekex, Coax Coax" from the still water, and at the same time the air was resonant with the sweet song of the Nightingale. I pride myself on knowing somewhat of the languages of Birds, Beasts, and (Fishes? No! they are mutum pecus, but let us say) Bull Frogs so I listened attentively, and found the Nightingale and Bull Frog, were each of them serenading his own wife, arboreal, and aquatic. Each wife thought her husband the very best singer in the world: that not a note of his song could be altered for the better; and both Nightingale and Bull Frog thought the other singer a bore. I noted down the whole of this musical contest at the time. It is quite in the way of one of Virgil's Amœbœan Bucolics. Not Corydon and Thyrsis, but Batrachos and Philomela were contending for the prize. It is too long to insert here, but may be had of my publishers, under the title of "Bull Frog and Nightingale;" an Apologue, price 6d. But the sum of the whole matter is this: I do not believe, "pace Darwinii nostri dicatur," that natural selection, and conjugal preference has had the effect of altering or improving the Nightingale's song in the last two thousand years. It could not be louder or better, and I trust may last my time unchanged, whilst on the evidence of Aristophanes' chorus we know that Bull Frogs, then, as now, sang "Brekekekex, Coax, Coax," and that song only.
The Honey Pot.—Page 47-52.—This Fytte, comical as it is in itself, is particularly valuable as instructing the untravelled Britisher in the peculiarities of a German bedstead; far too short for all who have not by some Procrustœan process been reduced to the normal height of five feet, no inches! the upper sheet sown to the coverlid, with no possibility of tucking it in, and liable to fall off the sleeper altogether. No blankets, but a mountain of feather-bed piled above, which either stifles you in summer, or rolling off, leaves you to freeze in the winter. Yet in such a bed as this what wonderful positions Mr. Dull managed to assume under the influence of fear. Imitate him, my gentle reader, if you are still young and active, and then you will appreciate his contortions.
"A Honey Thief, ill may he thrive."—Page 55.—Every Bee keeper will echo this wish. I know no sight more piteous than an apiary the night after it has been plundered. Light Hives upset, and lying, with the combs all broken, on the ground. The Bees crawling about in wild confusion around their violated homes, lately so neat, and now the very picture of desolation. In vain they attempt to repair the damage which the spoiler's hand has created; whilst the stands where the heavy stocks stood the evening before, are one and all tenantless. Many devices to protect Hives from robbers have been tried. Wooden boxes are tightly screwed to the bottom board from below, whilst the bottom board itself is strongly bolted to the stand. This will indeed protect a hive from anything but a powerful crow bar. But the remedy is worse than the disease, as it prevents your ever changing or cleaning the bottom board, and is, in many ways, inconvenient. The best preservative I can think of is to have a savage dog, savage to all but his master, with a strong chain, not fastened to his kennel, but ending in an iron ring, which can slide along a small pole placed horizontally about a foot from the ground in front of the Hives. I have seen this mode of defence adopted in Germany for the protection of the valuable Leech ponds, which are there fattened for the market. It answers for the defence of Leeches, and if so, why not for Bees.
"Many a nose, upturned, was Snoring in Repose."—Page 66.—My readers will doubtless remember, as I confess to have done when penning the above line, the opening of Southey's Thalaba, and the inimitable parody thereof in the Rejected Addresses. When a thing has been done excellently well, it is folly to again attempt the same with a certainty of failure before our eyes. We verse makers do not steal from each other; we are all one brotherhood, and Corbies nae pike out corbies e'en. But we convey—conveys the word, says glorious Will.
"And between them bore,
"The felon to the prison door."—Page 66.
This mode of removing a captive would have suited that extinct species of our protective force, that of the Dogberry and Verges order, and may be recommended to our new police as more merciful, and less grating to the feelings of a prisoner than the present mode of "running a man in;" especially as they generally get hold of the wrong person. A police sedan would enable the innocent captive to conceal his features from the tail of little boys and idle quidnuncs, specially if he were carried like our honey thief head downwards.
The last Chapter is like the first, written in the style of the Butterfly's Ball and the Grasshopper's feast, and is, it seems to me, no less admirable. If I pride myself on anything in this translation it is on the concluding lines:
"The evening star went flicker—flick—
Over the bedroom candlestick;
And round its silver radiance shed
To light the sleepy moon to bed."