HONEY PRODUCTION. 407 



CHAPTER XVII. 



HoNET Production. 



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 Phny, 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: 



HERi: B£STS, 



CUT OFF FROM USEFUL LABOR, 



A COLONY OF 



INDUSTRIOUS BEES 



BASSLT MURDB-HED 



BY ITS 



UNQRATBFUL AND IGNOEiNT 



OW2TBR. 



