3IO The Honey-Makers 



the precepts of philosophy in verse, and therefore uses 

 this famihar comparison : — 



'Physician-like, who'when a bitter draught 

 Of wormwood is disgusted by a cliild, 

 To cheat his taste, he brims the nauseous cup 

 With the sweet lure of honey.' 



And, indeed, I am apprehensive that this Book may 

 seem to have httle honey in it, and a great deal of worm- 

 wood, that is, may be more salubrious than sweet to 

 studies." 



That bees were extensively cultivated in Greece before 

 600 B. c. we know from the fact that one of Solon's laws re- 

 lated to them, for Plutarch tells us, in his " Life of Solon " : 

 " If any one would raise stocks of bees, he was to place 

 them three hundred feet from those already raised by 

 another." 



The bees receive their chief attention in Greek and Latin 

 literature, however, from the writers upon practical agricul- 

 ture or natural history. Aristotle has devoted more space 

 to the bees in his " History of Animals," than to any other 

 insect, and he has gathered together what was known of 

 bees and bee-keeping in his time, and has so well done his 

 work that succeeding writers almost to the present day 

 have copied him. 



Bee-keeping in the time of Aristotle did not differ essen- 

 tially from bee-keeping fifty years ago, in some respects 

 being superior, as evidently it was the habit of the Greeks 

 to remove the combs from the hives without killing the 

 bees, — a cruel and wasteful practice followed by succeed- 

 ing generations even to the present time. 



The Greeks generally used smoke to quiet the bees, as is 

 done by the more advanced bee-keepers to-day, and the 

 industrious insects were not as a rule smoked to death with 

 fumes of sulphur, though it is not improbable this was some- 



