TRANSPORTATION OF HIVES IN EGYPT. 411 



seldom to be found in highly cultivated places. We have 

 experienced the greatest benefit from a month's residence of 

 our hives in the vicinity of furze and broom, especially in 

 regard to the earliness of the swarms, and that is certainly 

 an advantage obtained of no secondary character. 



In many countries, the removal of the hives from one 

 pasturage to another is considered as a very important 

 branch in the practical management of the apiary. Savary, 

 in his Letters on Egypt, enters into a long detail of the 

 manner in which the inhabitants of that country transport 

 their hives along the banks of the Nile. "The Egyptians," 

 he says, " exhibit great skill in their manner of cultivating 

 the bee, as the flowers and the harvest are much earlier in 

 Upper Egypt than in Lower, and the inhabitants profit by 

 this circumstance in regard to their bees. They collect the 

 hives of different villages on large barks, and every pro- 

 prietor attaches a particular mark to his hives : when the 

 boat is loaded, the conductors descend the river slowly, 

 stopping at all the places where they can find pasturage for 

 the bees. After having thus spent three months on the Nile, 

 the hives are returned to the proprietor, and after deducting 

 a small sum due to the boatmen for having conducted his 

 hives from one end of Egypt to the other, he finds himself 

 on a sudden enriched with a quantity of honey and wax, 

 which is immediately sent to the market. This species of 

 industry procures for the Egyptians an abundance of wax 

 and honey, and enables them to export a considerable 

 quantity to foreign countries." 



M. Maillet, in his History of Egypt, also makes mention 

 of this custom relative to the pasturage of the bees. 



It is the custom of the modern Greeks, who inhabit the 

 coast of Asia Minor, towards the islands of the Archipelago, 

 to transport their hives by sea in order to procure an abund- 

 ance of food for their bees. A similar practice is also adopted 

 in China; but " the celestials," of all the people in the world, 



