THE MORAL BEE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20286, 20 December 1927, Page 6

THE MORAL BEE.

One of the judges at the National Bee Society’s Show »t the Crystal Palace (says the London Daily Telegraph) has explained to us at last why it is that some are made victims and others go scot free in the presence of the bee. Apparently it beplores our levity, and is so shocked at the sight of our dances that it is driven to express its protest in the most forcible manner known to it. Performers of the Charleston are liable to be stung. Sober cocoa drinkers are not. On the other hand, the unco’ guid do not have matters all their own way. There is virtue even in the bee’s sting. It is a cure for rheumatism. It is difficult to know how rheumatic patients are to make known to the bee the fact that they wish to be stung, for it is one of the penalties of the disease that it precludes in its sufferers any chance of dancing vigorously enough to delude the bee into the belief that he or she is behaving unseemly. To be stung many times not only rejuvenates one’s limbs, but can be relied upon to remove all longing for liquor. Many experiments have been tried by men who wish to reduce their annua! consumption of alcohol, but w e are now assured that a simple visit to a hive, an unmuslined attempt to take the swarm, will prove efficacious when all other methods have failed. Nearly all beekeepers are teetotallers. It is very obvious that those of us who wish to stand in well with our more correct neighbours, or submit a testimonial of our virtues to our constituents that cannot be gainsaid, will immediately acquire many hives, paint them in brilliant hues, and place them in such a prominent position that all passers-by can see for themselves what manner of men we are. Dogs and cats are no criterion of our worth. They attach themselves with a too charitable impartiality like the rain, to the just and the unjust. Bees alone keep a severe standard for their owner. If he is merely a victim of rheumatism they sting him gently into robust health, if they discover in him a taste for beer or a longing for whisky they either boycott him altogether or' sting him to death. What with the ants who are continually urging him to work harder, and the bees prodding him into drinking less, man has simplv no excuse left for not behaving himself properly. The whole insect creation seems to 'have appointed itself his moral tutor. What a relief it would be to see an ant resting like an honest British workman, taking its well-earned siesta under a noonday sun. Flow jolly it would bo to find a hoe, tired after its life-work of keeping its owner sober, getting just a little tipsy. Few things are so fatiguing as perfection, especially in an inferior creation. It is terrible to think that bees should have hccs in their bonnets about the drink question.