i THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



chastest poet and royalest that to the memory of 

 man is known." And yet, if the question were 

 asked, What book should first be placed in the 

 hands of the beginner in apiculture to-day? no 

 wiser choice than this fourth book of the Georgics 

 could be made. 



For Virgil goes direct to the great heart of the 

 matter, which is the same to-day as it was two 

 thousand years ago. The bee-keeper must be 

 first of all a bee-lover, or he will never succeed ; 

 and Virgil's love for his bees shines through his 

 book from beginning to end. Of course, in a 

 writer so deeply under the spell of Grecian influ- 

 ences, it is to be expected that such a work would 

 faithfully reproduce most of the errors immortalised 

 by Aristotle some three hundred years before.^ 

 But these only serve to bring the real value of the 

 book into stronger relief. Through the rich in- 

 crustation of poetic fancy, and the fragrant mytho- 

 logical garniture, we cannot fail to see the true 

 bee-lover writing directly out of his own know- 

 ledge, gathered at first hand among his own bees. 



Virgil knew, and lovingly recorded, all that eyes 

 and ears could tell him about bee-life ; and it is 

 only within the last two hundred years or so that 

 any new fact has been added to Virgil's store. All 

 the writers on apiculture, from the earliest times 

 down to the eighteenth century, have done little 

 else than pass from hand to hand the fantastic 

 errors of the ancient " bee-fathers," adding gener- 



