HONEY AND WAX. 



nearly all of that article employed in Europe is of bee manu- 

 facture. 



Although honey has lost much of its importance as an article of 

 food, since the discovery and improvement of the fabrication of 

 sugar, it is still regarded as a luxury, and of considerable value 

 in this country, as the material out of which a wholesome vinous 

 beverage is produced. In many inland parts of the continent 

 where sugar is costly, few articles of rural economy could be less 

 spared. In the Ukraine some of the peasants possess from 400 to 

 500 hives, and are said to make more profit of their bees than 

 even of their corn. In Spain the nurture of bees is carried to a 

 still greater extent ; according to Mills, a single parish priest was 

 known to possess the almost incredible number of 5000 hives. 



The common hive-bee is the same, according to Latreille, in 

 every part of Europe, except in some districts of Italy, where a 

 species called the Apis ligustica of Spinola is kept. This species 

 is also said to be cultivated in the Morea and the Ionian Isles. 

 Honey, however, is also obtained from many other species of bees, 

 as well wild as domesticated. 



203. The rock honey of some parts of America, which is very 

 thin and as clear as water, is the produce of wild bees, which sus- 

 pend their clusters of thirty or forty waxen cells, resembling a 

 bunch of grapes, from a rock. In South America large quantities 

 of honey are collected from nests built in trees by the Trigona 

 Amalthea and other species of this genus, under which, according 

 to Kirby, should be included the Bamburos, to gather the honey 

 of which the whole population in Ceylon make excursions into 

 the woods. 



According to Agara, one of the chief articles of food of the 

 Paraguay Indians is wild honey. 



Captain Green observes, that in the Island of Bourbon, where 

 he was stationed for some time, there is a bee which produces 

 honey much esteemed there, of a green colour, having the con- 

 sistency of oil, and which, besides the usual sweetness of honey, 

 has a remarkable fragrance. This green honey is exported to 

 India in considerable quantities, where it bears a high price. 



A species of bee called the Apis fasciata was probably culti- 

 vated ages before the present hive-bee was attended to. This 

 species is still so extensively cultivated in Egypt that Niebuhr 

 met on the hill between Cairo and Damietta a convoy of 

 4000 hives, which the apiarists of that country were transporting 

 from/ a region where the season had passed, to one where the 

 spring was later. 



204. This periodical migration of bees is by no means of modern 

 date. According to Columella, the Greeks used to send their 



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