FEEDING FOR PROFIT. 337 



can be as readily distinguished, after they have sealed them 

 up, as before. 



The Golden Age of bee-keeping, m which bees are to trans- 

 mute inferior sweets into such balmy spoils as were gathered 

 on Hybla or Hymettus, is as far from prosaic reality as the 

 visions of the poet, who saw — 



*'A golden hive, on a golden bank, 

 Where golden bees, by alchemical prank, 

 Gather gold instead of honey. ' ' 



Even if cheap sugar could be ''made over" by the bees so 

 as to taste like honey, it would cost the producer, taking 

 into account the amount consumed (223) in elaborating 

 wax, as much as the market price of white clover honey. 



617. The experienced Apiarist will fully appreciate the 

 necessity of preventing his bees getting a taste of forbidden 

 sweets, and the inexperienced, if incautious, will soon learn 

 a salutary lesson. Bees were intended to gather their sup- 

 plies from the nectaries of flowers, and, while following their 

 natural instincts, have little disposition to meddle with prop- 

 erty that does not belong to them; but, if their incautious 

 owner tempts them with liquid food, at times when they can 

 obtam nothing from the blossoms, they become so infatuated 

 with such easy gatherings as to lose all discretion, and will 

 perish by thousands if the vessels which contain the food are 

 not furnished w4th floats^ on which they can safely stand to 

 help themselves. 



As the ^y Avas not intended to banquet on blossoms, but 

 on substances in which it might easily be drowned, it 

 cautiously alights on the edge of any vessel containing liquid 

 food, and warily helps itself; while the poor bee, plunging 

 in headlong, speedily perishes. The sad fate of their unfor- 

 tunate companions does not in the least deter others who 

 approach the temptmg lure, from madly alighting on the 

 bodies of the dying and the dead, to share the same miserable 

 end! No one can understand the extent of their infatuation. 



