CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTORY AND HISTORICAL. 



In the whole range of created objects presented to our 

 contemplation in the study of what we familiarly call 

 Nature, from the inconceivably great systems of 

 inanimate matter rolling in infinite space to the 

 inconceivably small but animated forms revealed by 

 the microscope, there is probably no class more 

 calculated to excite our wonder and admiration than 

 that of Insects ; and of all the different kinds of 

 insects there is none more interesting as an object of 

 study, or that can be made more useful and profitable 

 to man, than the Honey-Bee. Its history is as old as 

 that of the human race; its product, honey, was 

 recognised in the earliest ages as a most desirable, 

 almost an indispensable, addition to the food of man. 



ORIGIN OF THE ART OF BEE-KEEPING. 



Though we may never learn when bees were first 

 domesticated in Eastern countries, we do know that 

 amongst the Western nations the civilised Greeks had 

 unquestionably practised the art of bee-keeping at a 

 very early period. The laws of Solon, 600 years B.C., 

 contain regulations as to the distances apart at which 

 bee-hives may be kept ; and both Greeks and Romans 

 wrote and sang about bees and bee-keeping from the 

 times of Homer down to those of Aristotle, Virgil, 

 Palladius, Pliny, and Columella. 



The true history of the rise and progress of the art 

 of bee-keeping amongst the Greeks and Romans, and 

 its extension over Europe during the middle ages, is as 

 yet unwritten, but there can be no doubt that amongst 



