i88 The Honey-Makers 



very white and delicate vvlien first made, tliough sometimes 

 it is yellow and delicate, depending upon the kind of 

 flowers the honey eaten by the bees to produce wax was 

 gathered from. But as time goes on it becomes dark 

 colored, particularly where brood and honey are alter- 

 nately placed in the same cells, and old combs are some- 

 times found which are almost black which is probably the 

 explanation of Pliny's great German comb eight feet long , 

 and black on the convex side. The honey in an old bee- 

 tree is much of it darker and stronger than that in one 

 newly occupied. 



The nectar of some flowers is poisonous to man and 

 particularly in the tropics one should taste wild honey with 

 caution. 



Serious results have sometimes followed the eating of 

 poisonous honey, as in the well-known case of Xenophon's 

 army during the Retreat of the Ten Thousand. 



The young general led his forlorn hope back from Asia 

 to Greece, overcoming all obstacles of difficult travel and 

 hostile people, but just before reaching Trebizond on the 

 Euxine Sea his army met a terrible defeat which came not 

 from the hostile men along his route but in a curious way 

 from the bees. Xenophon's forces had put the inhabitants 

 to flight and had quartered themselves in numerous vil- 

 lages where were obtainable abundant supplies and among 

 them a delicacy that was like to have cost Xenophon dear, 

 but we will listen to the story as he himself tells it in the 

 " Anabasis " : — 



" Here, generally speaking, there was nothing to excite 

 their wonderment, but the numbers of bee-hives were 

 indeed astonishing, and so were certain properties of the 

 honey. 



" The effect upon the soldiers who tasted the combs was, 

 that they all went for the nonce quite off their heads, and 



