Home › Bee-Culture at Present › Bee-Culture at Present: Hawes

Bee-Culture at Present: Hawes

For several years a swarm of bees lived in the steeple of a church in a New Hampshire village. Finally, a large Bee-Culture at Present quantity of honey was removed, and since it belonged to the church, it was given to the poor and the sick of the village, and a honey festival was held to which all were invited to come and eat. In a contemporary newspaper we learn that the "old Hawes house," at Yarmouth, Mass., which had sheltered many generations of Cape Cod people, was finally to go the way of houses and be torn down. The workmen found, however, that the old walls were not tenantless, but evidently had sheltered many generations of Cape Cod bees, which bitterly resented the destructive intentions of the invaders, pouring forth in such immense numbers and betraying such a passion for fighting as compelled the workmen to retreat. It is said one whole side of the building between the walls was solidly packed with honey, and the work of demolition came to a standstill until cold weather should conquer the valiant defenders of the Hawes' lares and penates, when it was believed hundreds of pounds of honey would be taken out.

This story is doubly discounted by one found in the Swiss Alpine folk tales. There were in the golden age brooks and seas filled with milk, and once a shepherd capsized in his boat and was drowned in one of them; his long-sought body, when finally discovered and moved, brought to light the foaming cream as though it were being churned, and he was buried in a cavern which the bees had built full of honey-combs as large as city gates.

These are the largest honey-combs yet recorded, as far as the present writer knows, though Pliny describes some seen in Germany that had attained the creditable length of eight feet, and which on the convex side were black. Hollow trees are the favorite hiving places of Apis Mellifica; and notwithstanding the long domestication of the bees, they still retain their wild instincts to such an extent that they usually prefer to take to the woods instead of proceeding to the comfortable hives provided for them, unless man interferes and compels them to stay where he wants them. Occasionally a swarm is very obstinate, however, and as often as it is hived will swarm out until it succeeds in making good its escape. "Bells' ding-dong And choral song Deter the bee From industry; But hoot of owl And 'wolf's long howl' Incite to moil And steady toil," runs an old German rhyme, which is not devoid of truth. The inhabitants of the southern United States originally made their hives of sections of hollow trees, the sweet gum being the tree preferred, and for this reason the hives were called "bee gums," - a name that still lingers, although the hollow tree is less frequently used than formerly. In the mountains of the Carolinas, however, veritable "gums" may still be seen, and even manufactured hives are called "gums." It is only fair to add that one may find the latest styles of hives, with "all the modern improvements," including an Italian queen, in unexpected corners of these mountains, where there is abundant bee-pasture eight or nine months in the year, and where of course there are innumerable "bee-trees" in the forests, the bees still preferring a hollow tree of their own choosing to the "gums" of the mountaineers.