22 LOOtJSTS AND WILD HONEY 



spent and drop hopelessly into the grass in front of 

 their very doors. Before they can rest the cold has 

 stiffened them. I go out in April and May and pick 

 them up by the handfuls, their baskets loaded with 

 pollen, and warm them in the sun or in the house, 

 or by the simple warmth of my hand, until they can 

 crawl into the hive. Heat is their life, and an ap- 

 parently lifeless bee may be revived by warming him. 

 I have also picked them up while rowing on the 

 river and seen them safely to shore. It is amusing 

 to see them come hurrying home when there is a 

 thunder-storm approaching. They come piling in 

 till the rain is upon them. Those that are overtaken 

 by the storm doubtless weather it as best they can in 

 the sheltering trees or grass. It is not probable that 

 a bee ever gets lost by wandering into strange and 

 unknown parts. With their myriad eyes they see 

 everything; and then their sense of locality is very 

 acute, is, indeed, one of their ruling traits. When 

 a bee marks the place of his hive, or of a bit of good 

 pasturage in the fields or swamps, or of the bee- 

 hunter's box of honey on the hills or in the woods, 

 he returns to it as unerringly as fate. 



Honey was a much more important article of food 

 with the ancients than it is with us. As they ap- 

 pear to have been unacquainted with sugar, honey, 

 no doubt, stood them instead. It is too rank and 

 pungent for the modern taste; it soon cloys upon 

 the palate. It demands the appetite of youth, and 

 the strong, robust digestion of people who live much 

 in the open air. It is a more wholesome food than 



