Musingly he lit a cigarette. Through the open window a bee droned in on the blue air of evening. Closing his eyes he fell to considering whether the bee of one country would understand the remarks of that of another. The effect of the soil of a nation, had it consequences upon its flora? Were plants influenced at their roots? People sometimes spoke (and especially ladies) of the language of flowers . . . the pollen therefore of an English rose would probably vary, not inconsiderably, from that of a French, and a bee born and bred at home . . .would be at a loss to understand (it clearly followed) the conversation of one born and bred, here, abroad. A bee’s idiom varied then, as did man’s! And he wondered, this being proved the case, where the best bees’ accents were generally acquired.

Ronald Firbank, The Flower Beneath The Foot (1923)

In those dark times, astrologer, mathematician and conjuror were accounted the same things, and the vulgar did verily believe [Thomas Allen] to be a conjuror. He had a great many mathematical instruments and glasses in his chamber, which did also confirm the ignorant in their opinion, and his servitor (to impose on freshmen and simple people) would tell them that sometimes he should meet the spirits, coming up his stairs like bees.

from John Aubrey, Brief Lives (1972 edition edited by Oliver Lawson Dick)

Luna Park, the Linnanmäki [in Helsinki] … is high above the city on a granite outcrop with a water-tower that looks like a stone gasometer with trees growing on top, and which is circled with lights… One side-show, to judge by the pictures outside, was a house in which people are attacked by bees.

Oswell Blakeston, Sun At Midnight (1958)

On this day, three years ago, I noted a startling insight from the Today programme on Radio Four:

There are differences in the ways serial killers and bees behave, obviously.

Thus spake serial-killer-and-bee expert Dr Nigel Rayne. Obviously.

“Some years since, observes a correspondent of the Athenaeum, a gentleman at a dinner table happened to mention that he was surprised, on the death of a relative, by his servant inquiring ‘whether his master would inform the bees of the event, or whether he should do so’. On asking the meaning of so strange a question, the servant assured him that bees ought always to be informed of a death in the family, or they would resent the neglect by deserting the hive. One of the party present took the opportunity of testing the prevalence of this strange notion, by inquiring of a cottager who had lately lost a relative, and happened to complain of the loss of her bees, ‘whether she had told them all she ought to do?’ She immediately replied, ‘Oh yes : when my aunt died I told every skep [hive] myself, and put them into mourning’.”

John Brand, Observations On The Popular Antiquities Of Great Britain: Including The Whole Of Mr. Bourne’s Antiquitates Vulgares (1777)

A letter arrives from Miss Kimika Ying, with important bee information:

Dear Mr. Key : I have been reading a biography of one of the early pioneers of flight  (Wings of Madness: Alberto Santos-Dumont and the Invention of Flight by Paul Hoffman) and today I came upon a delightful passage which made me feel as though I had wandered into Hooting Yard. From page 226:

“The Wrights’ historic first flights, and subsequent ones in Ohio over the next two years, received little publicity. Indeed, the first journalist to watch them pilot the Flyer biplane in Ohio wrote up what he saw in a magazine for apiarists, Gleanings in Bee Culture, and the account did not appear until more than two years after Kitty Hawk. No other invention of monumental importance was ushered into the world so quietly.”

Miss Ying adds that in pursuing her researches, she found a link to a volume of Gleanings in Bee Culture, from which she has extracted a couple of quotations readers will no doubt find instructive:

“W. F. Clark says in Annals, ‘Happy is the bee keeper, who can get possession of an old fashioned, black lace veil.’ I think I understand him. With a veil made as follows, no gloves, and a pair of fine tweezers to draw out the little beard that sometimes breaks off in the flesh, as you take away the sting, you may work with very little fear. [some details of veil-making omitted ]  N. B. – If you have any very prominent features, don’t draw the veil too closely.”

And, in response to a gentleman’s question in which he mentioned his wife’s health:

“If more of our American women were bee-keepers they would know better what health and happiness is possible for them in this world of ours.”

This is surely nothing but the truth, unalloyed. Many thanks to Kimika Ying for drawing it to our attention.

I didn’t know this. In Koba The Dread, Martin Amis tells us: “Hitler’s father (somehow very appropriately) was more and more obsessed, as he grew older, by bee-keeping.”

“Among the animals who expend industry on hygiene and the protection of their dwellings, we must place Bees in the first line. It may happen that mice, snakes, and moths may find their way into a hive. Assaulted by the swarm, and riddled with stings, they die without being able to escape. These great corpses cannot be dragged out by the Hymenoptera, and their putrefaction threatens to cause disease. To remedy this scourge the insects immediately cover them with propolis – that is to say, the paste which they manufacture from the resin of poplars, birches, and pines. The corpse thus sheltered from contact with the air does not putrefy. In other respects Bees are very careful about the cleanliness of their dwellings; they remove with care and throw outside dust, mud, and sawdust which may be found there. Bees are careful also not to defile their hives with excrement, as Kirby noted; they go aside to expel their excretions, and in winter, when prevented by extreme cold or the closing of the hive from going out for this purpose, their bodies become so swollen from retention of fæces that when at last able to go out they fall to the ground and perish.”

From The Industries Of Animals by Frédéric Houssay (1893)

Is that not inexpressibly sad?

The Islamic chaplain at Yale University says there is “great wisdom” in the idea of putting to death those who leave his religion. I suspect he may need to have his brain tampered with, or at least be given a dictionary so that he can learn the meaning of “wisdom”. Here, for example, is a proper example of great wisdom from Mick Hartley:

“In these dark days it’s somehow comforting to think that someone, somewhere, has been spending their time fitting eye-patches on bees.”

It is indeed.