BOOK XI. XII. :!i XIV. 



34 



having been collected into the stomachs of bees — 

 for they throw it up out of their mouths, ancl in 

 addition being tainted by the juice of flowers, and 

 soaked in the curruptions of the belly, and so often 

 transformed, nevertheless it brings with it the great 

 pleasure of its heavenly nature. 



XIII. It is always of the best quahty where it is VaHetieso/ 

 stored in the calyces of the best flowers. This takes '"^^^- 

 place at Hymettus and Hybla in the region of 

 Attica and of Sicily, which are sunny localities 



and also on the island of Calydna. But at the 

 start it is honey diluted as it were with water, and 

 in the first days it ferments like must and purifies 

 itself, while on the twentieth day it thickens and 

 then is covered with a thin skin which forms from 

 the foam of the actual boiling. The best kind and 

 that least stained with the foliage is sucked from the 

 leaves of the oak and lime and of reeds. 



XIV. Indeed it is constituted on a supreme Locai 

 principle of excellence, as we have said," in a variety '""'^ '**' 

 of ways. In some places honeycombs distinguished 



for their wax are formed, as in Sicily and the Abruzzi, 

 in other places for quantity of honey, as in Crete, 

 Cyprus, Africa, in others for size, as in the northern 

 countries, a comb having before now been seen in 

 Germany that was 8 ft. long, and black in its hollow 

 part. Yet in any region there are three kinds of Seasonai 

 honey. There is spring honey with the comb made '^""^ '**' 

 from flowers, which is consequently called flowei*- 

 honey. Some people say this ought not to be 

 touched, so that a progeny made strong by plentiful 

 nourishment may be produced; but others leave 

 less of this honey than of any other kind for the bees, 

 on the ground that a great profusion follows at the 



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