66 BEES. 



So bees bear gravel stones, -whose poising- weight 

 Steers through the whistling winds their steady flight; " 



or that when two colonies made war upon each other 

 they issued forth from their hives led by their kings 

 and fought in the air, strewing the ground with the 

 dead and dying : — 



" Hard hailstones lie not thicker on the plain, 

 Nor shaken oaks such show'rs of acorns rain." 



It is quite certain he had never been bee-hunting. 

 If he had, we should have had a fifth Georgic. Yet 

 he seems to have known that bees sometimes escaped 

 to the woods : — 



" Nor bees are lodged in hives alone, but found 

 In chambers of their own beneath the ground : 

 Their vaulted roofs are hung in pumices, 

 And in the rotten trunks of hollow trees." 



Wild honey is as near like tame as wild bees are 

 like their brothers in the hive. The only difference is 

 that wild honey is flavored with your adventure, which 

 makes it a little more delectable than the domestic 

 article. 



THE PASTORAL BEES. 



The honey-bee goes forth from the hive in spring 

 like the dove from Noah's ark, and it is not till aftel 

 many days that she brings back the olive leaf, which 

 in this case is a pellet of golden pollen upon each hip, 

 usually obtained from the alder or the swamp willow. 

 In a country where maple sugar is made, the bees get 

 their first taste of sweet from the sap as it flows from 

 the spiles, or as it dries and is condensed upon the 



