have hailed a ship at the distance of a mile, and still these insects pursued their various employments undisturbed, and without showing the least sensibility or resentment."*

"Who guides the patient pilgrim to her cell? with a large speaking-trumpet held close to their Who bids her soul with conscious triumph swell?hives, and with such an exertion of voice as would With conscious truth retrace the mazy clew Of varied scents that charmed her as she flew ? Hail, Memory, hail! thy universal reign Guards the least link of Being's glorious chain." Whether this be the true solution or not, her return to her hive, so straight as it is, is very curious. We are convinced of the use of bee-houses as a protection for the hives, though they are disapproved of by many modern writers. They serve moderate the temperature in winter and summer, and screen the neighborhood of the hive in rough weather. says:

to

Dr. Bevan

"Excepting in peculiarly sheltered nooks, an apiary would not be well situated near a great river, nor in the neighborhood of the sea, as in windy weather the bees would be in danger of drowning from being blown in the water........ Yet it should not be far from a rivulet or spring; such streams as glide gently over pebbles are the most desirable, as these afford a variety of resting-places for the bees to alight upon." (This is almost a translation of Virgil's "In medium, seu stabit iners," &c.) "Water is most important to them, particularly in the early part of the season. Let shallow troughs, therefore, never be neglected to be set near the hives, if no natural stream is at

hand."

It seems that bees, like men, require a certain quantity of saline matter for their health. In the Isle of Wight the people have a notion that every bee goes down to sea to drink twice a-day; and they are certainly seen to drink at the farm-yard pool

"the gilded puddle

That beast would cough at "

when clearer water is near. Following the example of our modern graziers, a small lump of rock-salt might be a useful medicine-chest for our winged stock. Foul smells and loud noises have always been thought annoying to bees, and hence it is deemed advisable never to place the hives in the neighborhood of forges, pigsties, and the like. Virgil even fancied that they dislike the neighborhood of an echo: but upon this Gilbert White, of Selborn, remarks:

Next to the situation of the hive is the consideration of the bees' pasturage. When there is plenty of the white Dutch clover, be a good honey year. The red clover is sometimes called honeysuckle, it is sure to too deep for the proboscis of the common bee, and is therefore not so useful to them as is generally thought. Many lists have been made of bee-flowers, and of such as should be planted round the apiary. Mignionette, and borage, and rosemary, and bugloss, and lavender, the crocus for the early spring, and the ivy flowers for the late au tumn, might help to furnish a very pretty bee-garden; and the lime and liquid amber, the horse-chestnut, and the sallow would be the best trees to plant around. Dr. Bevan makes a very good suggestion, that lemonthyme should be used as an edging for garden walks and flower-beds, instead of box, thrift, or daisies. That any material good, however, can be done to a large colony by the few plants that, under the most favora bee-house is of course out of the question. ble circumstances, can be sown around a The bee is too much of a roamer to take

pleasure in trim gardens. It is the wild tracts of heath and furze, the broad acres of bean-fields and buckwheat, the lime avenues, the hedge-row flowers, and the clover meadows, that furnish his haunts and fill his cell. Still it may be useful for the young and weak bees to have food as near as possible to their home, and to those who wish to watch their habits a plot of bee-flowers is indispensable; and we know not the bee that could refuse the following beautiful invitation by Professor Smythe:

"Thou cheerful Bee! come, freely come,
And travel round my woodbine bower!
Delight me with thy wandering hum,

And rouse me from my musing hour:
Oh! try no more those tedious fields,
Come, taste the sweets my garden yields:
The treasures of each blooming mine,
The bud, the blossom,-all are thine."
Pliny bids us plant thyme and apiaster,
violets, roses, and lilies. Columella, who,

"This wild and fanciful assertion will hardly be admitted by the philosophers of these days, especially as they all now seem agreed that insects are not furnished with any organs of hearing at all. But if it should be urged that, though they cannot hear, yet perhaps they may feel the repercussion of Of Gilbert White-who by the way was not sounds, I grant it is possible they may. Yet that parson of the parish," but continued a Fellow of these impressions are distasteful or hurtful I deny, Oriel till his death-all that could be heard at the because bees, in good summers, thrive well in my scene of his researches by a late diligent inquirer outlet, where the echoes are very strong; for this was, that he was a still, quiet body, and that there was not a bit of harm in him." And such is the fame village is another Anathoth, a place of responses or of a man the power of whose writings has immorechoes. Besides, it does not appear from experi-talized an obscure village and a tortoise-for who has ment that bees are in any way capable of being not heard of Timothy ?"-as long as the English affected by sounds; for I have often tried my own language lives!

contrary to all other authority, says that [him a villa there, must have tended to abol. limes are hurtful, advises cytisus, rosemary, ish the episcopal monopoly. and the evergreen pine. That the prevalent It has been often discussed whether a flower of a district will flavor the honey is country can be overstocked with bees; we certain. The delicious honey of the Isle of believe this is quite as certain as that it may Bourbon will taste for years of the orange- be over-peopled and over-manufactured. But blossoms, from which, we believe, it is gath- that this is not yet the case with regard to ered, and on opening a bottle of it the room Britain, as far at least as bees are concernwill be filled with the perfume. The same ed, we feel equally sure. Of course it is imis the case with the honey of Malta. Corsi- possible to ascertain what number of acres can honey is said to be flavored by the box- is sufficient for the support of a single hive, tree, and we have heard of honey being ren- so much depending on the season and the dered useless which was gathered in the nature of the herbage; but, nevertheless, in neighborhood of onion-fields. No one who Bavaria only a certain number of hives is has kept bees in the neighborhood of a wild allowed to be kept, and these must be common can fail to have remarked its supe- brought to an establishment under the charge rior flavor and bouquet. The wild rosemary of a skilful apiarian, each station being four that abounds in the neighborhood of Nar-niles apart, and containing 150 hives. This bonne gives the high flavor for which the is centralization and red-tapery with a venhoney of that district is so renowned. But geance! A story is told that in a village in the plant the most celebrated for this quality is the classic and far-famed thyme of Mount Hymettus, the Satureia capitata of botanists. This, we are assured by Pliny, was transplanted from the neighborhood of Athens into the gardens of the Roman beekeepers, but they failed to import with it the flavor of the Hymettic honey; for the exiled plant, which, according to this author, never flourished but in the neighborhood of the ocean, languished for the barren rocks of Attica and the native breezes of its "own blue sea." And the honey of the Hymettus has not departed with the other glories of old Greece, though its flavor and aroma are said to be surpassed by that of neighboring localities once famous from other causes. While the silver mines of Laurium are closed, and no workman's steel rings in the marble-quarries of the Pentelicus, the hum of five thousand bee-hives is still heard among the thyme, the cistus, and the lavender which yet clothe these hills. "The Cecropian bees," says C. Wordsworth, "have survived all the revolutions which have changed the features and uprooted the population of Attica: though the defile of Thermopyla has become a swampy plain, and the bed of the Cephisus is laid dry, this one feature of the country has remained unaltered :

"And still his honey'd store Hymettus yields,

Germany where the number of hives kept was regulated by law, a bad season had nevertheless proved that the place was overstocked from the great weakness of all the stalls in the neighborhood. There was but one exception. This was the hive of an old man, who was generally set down as being no wiser than his neighbors, and this perhaps all the more because he was very observant of the habits of his little friends, as well as careful in harvesting as much honey as he could. But how came his hive to prosper when all the rest were falling off? His cottage was no nearer the pasture. He certainly must have bewitched his neighbors' hives, or made "no canny" bargain for his own. Many were the whisperings and great the suspicions that no good would come of gaffer's honey thus mysteriously obtained. The old man bore all these surmises patiently; the honey-harvest came round, and when he had stored away just double what any of the rest had saved, he called his friends and neighbors together, took them into his garden and said "If you had been more charitable in your opinions, I would have told you my secret before

This is the only witchcraft I have used:"and he pointed to the inclination of his hives -one degree more to the east than was generally adopted. The conjuration was There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds, soon cleared up; the sun came upon his The free-born wanderer of thy mountain-air." hives an hour or two sooner by this moveThe honey here collected used to be re- ment, and his bees were up and stirring, and served for the especial eating of the arch- had secured a large share of the morning's bishop of the district, and few travellers honey, before his neighbors' bees had rouscould even get a taste of it. Such was the | ed themselves for the day. Mr. Cotton, who case a few years ago: we presume the purchase of the Hymettus by a countryman of ours, Mr. Bracebridge, who has also built

gives the outline of the story which we have ventured to fill up, quotes the proverb that "early birds pick up most worms," and draws

the practical moral, in which we heartily to question not only the advantage, but the concur, that your bedroom-window should practicability of the transportation of hives always, if possible, face the east.

In an arable country, with little waste land and good farming, very few stocks can be supported; and this has led some enthusiastic bee-masters to regret the advancement of agriculture, and the consequent decrease of wild flowers-or weeds, according to the eye that views them-and the enclosure of wastes and commons. Even a very short distance will make a great difference in the amount of honey collected. We know of an instance where a bee-keeper at Carshalton in Surrey, suspecting, from the fighting of his bees and other signs, that there was not pasturage enough in the immediate neighborhood, conveyed away one of his lightest and most worthless hives, and hid it in the Woodmansterne furzes, a distance of about a mile and a half. Fortunately it lay there undiscovered, and on removing it home he found that it had become one of his heaviest hives. We mention this as a case coming under our own knowledge, because a late writer, who has shown rather a waspish disposition in his attacks on Mr. Cotton's system, seems

altogether. But the fact is, that in the north of England and in Scotland, where there are large tracts of heather-land apart from any habitation, nothing is more common than for the bee-masters of the towns and villages to submit their hives during the honey season to the care of the shepherd of the district. "About six miles from Edinburgh," says Dr. Bevan, "at the foot of one of the Pentland Hills, stands Logan House, supposed to be the residence of the Sir William Worthy celebrated by Allan Ramsay in his 'Gentle Shepherd.' The house is at present occupied by a shepherd, who about the beginning of August receives about a hundred bee-hives from his neighbors resident beyond the hills, that the bees may gather honey from the luxuriant blossoms of the mountain-heather." Mr. Cotton saw a man in Germany who had two hundred stocks, which he managed to keep all rich by changing their places as soon as the honey-season varied. "Sometimes he sends them to the moors, sometimes to the meadows, sometimes to the forest, and sometimes to the hills." He also speaks of it being no very uncommon sight in Switzerland to see a man journeying with a beehive at his back.

We can hardly ask, much less expect, that hedge-side swards should be made broader, and corn-fields be left unweeded, and the ploughshare be stayed, for the sake of the bee; but we do boldly There is something very interesting and enter our protest against the enclosure and planting Arcadian in this leading of the bees out to pasof her best pasturage-our wild heath-grounds. And not for her sake only, but lest the taste, health, ture, and it deserves more attention than it or pleasure of the proprietor himself should suffer has yet met with in this country. The any detriment. More strenuous advocates for plant- transportation we have hitherto spoken of ing than ourselves exist not. The dictum of the is only to a short distance and on a small great Master of the North, "Be aye sticking in a scale; but in Germany travelling caravans tree, Jock, it will be growing while ye are sleeping -put forth in the Heart of Mid Lothian," and of these little wild-beasts may be met with, repeated by him in our Journal-has been the parent which sometimes make a journey of thirty of many a fair plantation, and may it produce many miles, taking four days to perform it. There more! But there are rnsh-bearing commons, and ragged banks of gravel, and untractable clay-lands, is nothing new in this transmigration, for and hassocky nooks, enough and to spare, the fit Columella tells us that the inhabitants of subjects for new plantations, without encroaching upon our "thymy downs" and heather hills The

Achaia sent their hives into Attica to benefit by the later-blowing flowers. The most pleasing picture, however, of all, is that of the floating bee-houses of the Nile, mentioned by old and modern writers, and thus described by Dr. Bevan :

land of the mountain and the flood may indeed afford from her very riches in this respect to spare some of her characteristic acres of "bonny blooming heather;" and there are parts of the northern and midland counties of England that can equally endure the sacrifice;-but spare-oh, spare-to spread the damp sickly atmosphere of a crowded plantation over the few free, bracing, breecy heath-grounds "In Lower Egypt, where the flower harvest is which the south can boast of-Such a little range not so early by several weeks as in the upper disof hills we know in Surrey, lying between Adding-tricts of that country, this practice of transportaton and Coombe, now sadly encroached upon by belts and palings since our boyhood days. Only let a man once know what a summer's evening stroll over such a hill, as it "sleeps in moonlight luxury," is-let him but once have tasted the dry, fresh, and balmy air of such a pebbly bank of heath, without a tree, save perhaps a few pines, for a mile around, when all the valley and the woodland below are wet with dew and dank with foliage,-and then say whether such an expanse can be well exchanged for any conceivable advantage of thicket or grove.

tion is carried on to a considerable extent. About the end of October the hives, after being collected together from the different villages, and conveyed up the Nile, marked and numbered by the individuals to whom they belong, are heaped pyramidally upon the boats prepared to receive them, which, floating gradually down the river, and stopping at certain stages of their passage, remain there a longer or a shorter time, according to the produce which is afforded by the surrounding country. Af

ter travelling three months in this manner, the and practical book, because short and simbees, having culled the perfumes of the orange- ple-is in the middle of a large town. flowers of the Said, the essence of roses of the Faicum, the treasures of the Arabian jessamine, and a variety of flowers, are brought back about the beginning of February to the places from which they have been carried. The productiveness of the flowers at each respective stage is ascertained by the gradual descent of the boats in the water, and which is probably noted by a scale of meas-neys from and to the hive in a day; and urement. This industry procures for the Egyptians delicious honey and abundance of bees'-wax. The proprietors, in return, pay the boatmen a recompense proportioned to the number of hives which have thus been carried about from one extremity of Egypt to the other."—p. 233.

the truth. That the aphides do secrete a saccharine fluid has been long known, and the bees are not their only fellow-insects who are fond of it. Their presence produces a land of milk and honey to the ants, who follow them wherever they appear, and actually herd them like cows and milk them!*

tricts, or indeed that the common bee is
ever seen to settle on its flowers. If the
Kalmia latifolia be a native of Pontis, the
danger is more likely to have arisen from
that source, the honey derived from which
has been known to prove fatal in several in-
stances in America.
+

One remarkable circumstance about bees is the number of commodities of which they are either the collectors or confectioners. Besides honey and wax, there are two other distinct substances which they gather, bee-bread and propolis.

Much has been written upon the poisonous effects of certain plants, sometimes upon the honey, sometimes upon the bees themselves. Every schoolboy must remember the account given by Xenophon of the effect produced upon the Ten Thousand by Before we knew better, we thought, probthe honey in the neighborhood of Trebizond. ably with most of our readers, when we saw The soldiers suffered in proportion to the a bee "tolling from every flower the virtuquantity they had eaten; some seemed ous sweets," with his legs full of the dust drunken, some mad, and some even died of the stamens, that he was hurrying home the same day. (Anab. iv. 8.) This quality with the wax to build his cell, or at least in the honey has been referred by Pliny and with the material wherewith to make that others to the poisonous nature of the rho- wax. We thought of Titania and her fairdodendron, which abounds in those parts; ies, who "for night tapers crop their waxen but from inquiries which we have made at thighs," and many other pretty things that Dropmore, and other spots abounding with poets have said and sung about them; or if this shrub, we cannot learn that any differ-in a more prosaic mood, we at least conence is perceived in the honey of those dis- ceived that, if not furnishing fairy candles, * What follows is from the delightful "Introduc- they were laying the foundation for what tion to Entomology" by Kirby and Spence. The Sir F. Trench calls "the gentleman's light." loves of the ants and the aphides have been long No such thing. Their hollow legs were celebrated; and that there is a connection between filled with the pollen or farina of flowers, them you may at any time, in the proper season, which has nothing whatever to do with the convince yousself: for you will always find the former very busy on those trees and plants on which composition of wax, but constitutes the amthe latter abound; and, if you examine more closely, brosia of the hive-as honey does its nectar you will discover that their object in thus attending their bee-bread, or rather, we should say, upon them is to obtain the saccharine fluid--which may well be denominated their milk-that they secrete..... This, however, is the least of their talents, for they absolutely possess the art of making them yield it at their pleasure; or, in other words, of milking them. On this occasion their antennæ are their fingers; with these they pat the abdomen of the aphis. on each side alternately, moving them very briskly; a little drop of fluid immediately ap pears, which the ant takes in its mouth. When it has milked one it proceeds to another, and so on till, being satiated, it returns to the nest. But you are not arrived at the most singular part of this history, that the ants make a property of these cows, for the possession of which they contend with great earnestness, and use every means to keep them to themselves. Sometimes they seem to claim a right to the aphides that inhabit the branches of a tree or the stalks of a plant; and if stranger-ants attempt to share their treasure with them, they endeavor to drive them away, and may be seen running about in a great bustle, and exhibiting every symptom of inquietude and anger. Sometimes, to rescue them from their rivals, they take their aphides in their mouth they generally keep guard round them, and when the branch is conveniently situated they have recourse to an expedient still more effectual to keep off interlopers-they enclose it in a tube of earth or other materials, and thus confine them in a kind of paddock near their nest, and often communicating with it." How much of this is fanciful we must leave our readers to determine by their own obser

:

vations; but let no man think he knows how to enjoy the country who has not studied the volumes of Kirby and Spence.

bee-pap, for it is entirely reserved for the use of their little ones. Old Butler had so long ago remarked that "when they gather abundance of this stuff (pollen) they have never the more wax; when they make most wax, they gather none of this." In fact they store it up as food for the embryo bees, collecting from thirty to sixty pounds of it in a season, and in this matter alone they seem to be "unthrift of their sweets," and to want that shrewdness which never fails them, for they often, like certain over-careful housewives with their preserves, store away more than they can use, which, in its decomposition, becomes to them a sore trouble and annoyance. They are said always to keep to one kind of flower in collecting it, and the light red color of it will often detect them as the riflers of the mignionette-bed; but we have seen them late in the season with layers of different colors, and sometimes their whole body sprinkled with it, for they will at times roll and revel in a flower like a donkey on a dusty road.

Whence, then, comes the wax? It is elaborated by the bee itself from the honey by a chemistry beyond the ken of either