CHAPTER XVII. 

 Honey Production. 



716. History does not mention the first discovery of honey, 

 by human beings. Whether it became known to primitive 

 man by accident, from the splitting of a bee-tree by lightning, 

 or by his observation of the fondness of some animals for it,— 

 certain it is that when he first tasted the thick and transparent 

 liquid, the fear of stings was overcome, and the bee-hunter 

 was born. Since that time, the manner of securing honey has 

 undergone a great many changes, improving and retrograding, 

 as we can judge from writings now extant. 



Killing bees for their honey was, unquestionably, an in- 

 vention of the dark ages, when the human family had lost— 

 in apiarian pursuits, as well as in other things— the skill of 

 former ages. In the times of Aristotle, Varro, Columella, 

 and Pliny, such a barbarous practice did not exist. The old 

 cultivators took only what their bees could spare, killing no 

 colonies, except such as were feeble or diseased. 



The Modern methods have again done away with these 

 customs among enlightened men, and the time has come when 

 the following epitaph, taken from a German work, might 

 properly be placed over evei-^^ pit of brimstrned bees: 



HERE RESTS^ 



CUT OFF FROM USEFUL LABOR, 



A COLONY OF 



INDUSTRIOUS BEES 



BASELY MURDERED 



BY ITS 



UNGRATEFUL AND IGNORANT 



OWNER. 



428 



