With regard to the right of a bee-keeper to follow his swarm into a neighbour’s land, it is interesting to have the assurance of one of these ancient writers that “if they will not be stayed, but, hasting on still, goe beyond your bounds; the ancient Law of Christendome permitteth you to pursue them whithersoever, for the recovery of your owne.” But, the writer adds, if your swarm goes so fast and so far that you lose sight and hearing of them, you also lose all right and property in them. In this case you have no legal alternative but to leave the bees to whomsoever may first find them. In view of recent disputes on this matter, wherein the law laid down appears to have been both vague and arbitrary, it is useful to be able to point to so ancient an authority in vindication of the bee-keeper’s rights. There is hardly any detail in bee-government which had not its curious observance or superstition in mediæval times. One and all seemed to believe in the old Virgilian notion that bees carried about little stones to balance their flight during windy weather, and some even thought that flowers were carried about in the same way. Red-coloured clothing was supposed to be particularly offensive to bees, and one is warned not to venture near the apiary thus attired. In the hives the old bees and the young were believed to occupy separate quarters. In regard to this, it is a well-attested fact that, during the height of the honey season, the bees found in the upper stories of a hive are principally young ones who have not yet flown. [Picture: Rev. John Thorley writing his “Melissologia”] We are told that if any of the bees have not returned to the hive at the end of the day, the queen goes out to find them and show them the way back. No one need be in any fear of overlooking the ruler of the hive, because she can be known by her “lofty pace and countenance expressing Majesty, and she hath a white spot in her forehead glistering like a Diadem.” An old writer advises that all the hives should have holes bored right through them to prevent spider-webs. He was also of opinion that the bees swarmed because of the queen’s tyranny, and if she followed them, they put her to death. He informs us that the drones were honey-bees which had lost their stings and grown fat. This was a very old idea, with which the sceptical Butler dealt in the following fashion: “The general opinion anent the Drone is that he is made of a honey-bee, that hath lost hir sting; which is even as likelie as that a dwarfe, having his guts pulled out, should become a gyant.” But the bee-masters of the Middle Ages were ever intolerant of other people’s mistaken ideas, while supporting with the gravest argument and show of learning equally benighted superstitions of their own.