Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a bug.

1867

Cornhill Mag. Apr. 450: That little busy b which invariably improves the darkness at the expense of every offering traveller [F&H].

2. a kiss [SE buss].

1891

A. Day Mysterious Beggar 331: ‘Give us a bouncin’ “B” on it.’ (The ‘B’ in Jip’s nomenclature standing for ‘Buss’.).

3. (also bee) a bastard.

1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 16 June 4/8: And they called on Heaven and all its hosts / To stiffen each blanky b.
1935		G. Blake Shipbuilders (1954) 87: ‘Hullo,’ he cried. ‘Havin’ a drop of tea for your dirty mouth, you drunken old b?’.
1936		K. Mackenzie Living Rough 163: Every sentence was well sprinkled with F. C. and B.
1954		(con. 1940s) T.A.G. Hungerford Sowers of the Wind 203: He’s in a heck of a mood today, a fair b.
1955		D. Niland Shiralee 122: He’d come the smoodge to the women for a bit of a love-up. Mad bee.
1970		C. Brown Down All the Days 85: That oul bee would rob his own mother.
1981		P. Barton Bastards I Have Known 98: She wasn’t altogether impressed with the ‘B’s’ of this world.
2007		B. Reed ‘The Meat Axe by the Kitchen Door’ in Passing Strange (2015) 8: ‘The dirty b’.

4. nonsense, rubbish [abbr. ballocks n. (4)].

1966

T. Keyes All Night Stand 45: I live in a great fabulous world of rush rush rush and all that B.