HONEY PRODUCTION. 407 
CHAPTER XVII. 
Honey Propuction. 
716. History does not mention the first discovery of 
honey, by human beings. Whether it became known to 
primitive man by accident, from the splitting of a bee-tree 
by lightning, or by his observation of the fondness of some 
animals for it,—certain it is that when he first tasted the 
thick and transparent liquid, the fear of stings was over- 
come, and the bee-hunter was born. Since that time, the 
manner of securing honey has undergone a great many 
changes, improving and retrograding, as we can judge from 
writings now extant. 
Killing bees (276) for their honey was, unquestionably, 
an invention of the dark ages, when the human family had 
lost—in Apiarian pursuits, as well as in other things —the 
skill of former ages. In the times of Aristotle, Varro, 
Columella, and Pliny, such a barbarous practice did not 
exist. The old cultivators took only what their bees could 
spare, killing no colonies, except such as were feeble or 
diseased. 
The Modern methods have again done away with these 
customs among enlightened men, and the time has come 
when the following epitaph, taken from a German work, 
might properly be placed over every pit of brimstoned 
bees: 
HERE RESTS, 
CUT OFF FROM USEFUL LABOR, 
A COLONY OF 
INDUSTRIOUS BEES 
BASELY MURDERED 
BY IT3 
UNGRATEFUL AND IGNORANT 
OWNER. 
