HELD UP BY WILD BEES

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8855, 4 July 1907, Page 4

HELD UP BY WILD BEES

~ ■■ '■■■ ■■ T— *T, v■' , ’"V ’ 1 A remarkable story of the * wrath ■if flic ire” <omes tsom Sedgebrook Emm,. near Plumptcn. Sussex, Ino Farm is the East Sussex Smallpox Hospital, the caretaker cf_ ■which, ami, in: a lesser degree, his wife, have been terrorised by hees for nearly five years. -The bees arc not hive bees, though it is possible that thicr progenitors at some remote date were domesticated. They are a swarm of countless thousands (some local gossips say millions), which for jive years at least have had their abode under the tiles of the * farmhouse aud have lived the wildest of wild lives. When the present caretaker came into residence, four Decembers ago, he little dreamed or the unpleasant tenants already in ■nossessiou. But in the follow mg spring he had a painful revelation. He. attempted a little innocent gardenin", and was badly stung tor Jus pains. During the last four seasons . ]m has been stung all over his _body 1 and chased about the farm tunewithout number. Once last year lie was laid low with a sting m the nostril which almost deprived him of his eyesight. The bees themselves are pirates, outlaws, vicious ne’or-do-weels of the worst’type that hees can descend to. It is their pleasure that tins poor caretaker shall be one with them in their depravity. Let Mm try to do a little gardening,?and forth from their hiding place they sally with as tierce martial music as ever tired Maeterlinck to write a bee epic. Straight at the would-b 3 worker they dash, aud in a moment liia tools are, dropped and lie is flying for refuge. “Look at my garden,” he said to a press 'representative, waving his hand over a beautifully situated plot of ground which, under ordinary circumstances, would bo made highly profitable. “It never looks respectable aud orderly. It never gives me what it ought to give. The truth is, I am afraid to touch it except when the bees are indoors. All my gardening lias to be done either before, the bees come out or after they have gone in. They never waste time buzzing around mo wbeu they come out. Without any warning they dash straight at my head, aud they will often follow me a long way down the lane. I seem to be a marked man ’ ’ • Here the caretaker’s wife joined in the conversation, aud added a touch of superstition to the story: “I believe it’s a judgment on him for something lie did when lie was a boy,” she said. Pressed to explain, her husband told how, when ho was verv young, he once put a cat on a boo"hive. “But,” he laughingly added, “the bees didn’t sting the cat, though it clung on to the hive like death. They came straight for me and made mo yell with pain.” All sorts of tales are rife about these bees. [ One alarming-statement by au ancient rustic of the neighbourhood, who po-.es as au expert, is that “ they are a pertickler wicious kind o’ bee, aud' it takes three on ’em to kill a ’orse.” Mauv attempts have boon made to desti oy them, aud several kindly dispored persons who have assisted the caretaker in this way havo been badly stung,. On one occasion the caretaker did think ho had rid himself of the insects. They “swarmed” one morning, and thousands on thousands of them made for the grating of :an air-brick, which led into a hollow ventilation pillar inside a second-floor room. As the caretaker saw the black, clustering mass slowly melt through the grating he bethought him of a cunning device. He watched them all safely, inside the ventilator, aud then closed it securely and plied his hospital fumigator for all ho was worth. Not a single boe|camo out alive; hut their dead bodies' rolled out of the grating in scores of thousands, and thickly strewed the ground below. _TI oce was much jubilant baud shaking between himself aud his wife that evening for his wife had just before had several big stiugiug insects settle jn her hair as she was hanging out washing. . But the joy was shortlived, for next morning out from the same hole under the tiles came, seemingly, as many hoes as over, aud set the man running, hoe in hand, from his potato patch as fast as his logs could carry him. It is thought by local people that the hees were “originally abandoned by a former tenant of the farm, aud consequently sought refuge iu the roomy gables of the house, where by now they have probably stored hundreds of pounds of honey.