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WILD FLOWERS. 



of the way " district, these very decided tastes of the 

 bees are regarded by those who keep them. And 

 if any reader comes under this category, and wishes 

 to reform his legislative measures for his " honey- 

 bees/' I can suggest no better step with which he 

 should begin than by forthwith sowing, or planting 

 near their hive, a large patch of the beautiful blue 

 borage. Other reforms may happily follow. This will 

 be a first step in the right direction. Their favourite 

 plants bees must have, and if they do not find them 

 close at hand, they will surely wanderaye, miles 

 away to the places where they are to be found ; 

 thus wearily wasting on the wing hours which 

 should be spent in collecting honey near the hive. 

 Besides which, numbers of bees thus forced to gather 

 honey far from home, are doomed, by various acci- 

 dents, never to return, or only to arrive after sun- 

 set in so exhausted a condition, that admittance is 

 refused to them by the watchful workers of this 

 commonwealth. And thus, before morning dawns, 

 the over-worked bees lie dead before the door. This 

 is an occurrence, which may be constantly seen by an 

 observer in the long summer evenings, and it always 

 bespeaks a great amount of negligence on the part 

 of the bee-keeper. 



This borage, the B. ojficindlis, is our only British 

 species, which, though occurring wild on waste and 

 rubbish-covered ground, is best known to us as a 

 garden plant. 



