HONEY BEE IN CHINA. 285 



eighteen or twenty years, my attention was never 

 very specially drawn to this matter. I have seen the 

 bees there at work, and have been acquainted with 

 natives who owned them, and I have often there 

 purchased honey for family use. 



The honey bee has long attracted the attention of 

 the Chinese people, and Chinese authors have written 

 of its nature and habits, while the most of these 

 writers have evidently never closely studied the pecu- 

 liarities of this wonderful little insect. 



In the southern part of the empire is a splendid 

 range of mountains, called by the natives Meiling, the 

 Flowery Mountains, because of the exuberance of 

 wild flowers every where to be found. Here the 

 honey bee finds delicious pasturage and flourishes in 

 abundance. The people along the southern base of 

 the Meiling are in the habit of collecting the young 

 bees in the cells before their heads and legs are per- 

 fect, and frying them with oil, enjoy them as a great 

 luxury of the table. The young silk worm they 

 prepare and eat in like manner. 



The Chinese writers say there are three kinds of 

 bees, but I have no doubt they draw more largely 

 on their imagination than on facts for the differences 

 which they detail. They say the first kind is the 

 wild bee, which builds and works in forest trees and 

 in underground caverns ; the second kind is the 

 house bee, which is domesticated in hives, making 

 delicious honey, and is small and yellowish; the 

 third kind makes its nest among high crags and 

 rocky places — it makes what is called the rock 



