Ill] OF BEES AND APIARIES 337 



and food ; two likewise are obtained from the apple 

 tree and wild pear tree, namely food and honey, 

 and a different two — wax and honey — from the 

 poppy. Some plants also supply the material for 

 three; the almond tree, for example, and lapsamtvi^ 

 (cole-wort?), which furnish food, honey, wax. And 

 so it is with what they extract from other flowers, 

 for they choose some things to make one product, 

 26 others to make several, and also adopt yet another 

 distinction— or rather it adopts ' them — which is 

 shown in the case of honey, when from one plant 

 — say the blossom of sisera^ — they make liquid 

 honey, from another, such as rosemary, honey that 

 is thick. And the same may be said of other things, 

 thus the honey made from the fig is insipid, that 

 from the cytisus good, that from thyme' the best 

 of all. 



* Lapsanum. Columella (ix, 4, 5) calls this lapsana: lam 

 vero notae vilioris innumerabiles nascuntur herhae cultis atque 

 pascuis regionibus quae favorum ceras exuberant ; ut vulgares 

 lapsanae. Pliny (xx, 9) gives a description of it and places it 

 inter silvestres brassicas. 



'* Aut eas sequatur. This quip of Varro's, as Keil points out, 

 means merely that the bees cannot themselves determine the 

 kind of honey which they will make from a given plant. 



' Sisera, generally written stser, was, to judge from Pliny's 

 (xiv, 5) description, the parsnip. Pontedera adopts the reading 

 he found in Crescentius, ciceris (chick-pea), reasoning a-jr' 



lIKOTiMtV. 



* /C thymo optimum. Columella (ix, 4, 6) after giving a long 

 list of plants which are visited by bees, mentions the following 

 in order of merit: (i) thyme, which produces honey of the 

 finest flavour; (2) almost as good: savory, wild thyme, and 



