8 THE HIVE AND THE HONEY-BEE. 



wish I could add, exploded systems of management, but to show 

 what can be done, if done correctly. I shall say nothing, there- 

 fore, as to what may be done with the common old hives, as I 

 regard keeping bees in them, when more fitting ones may so 

 easily be procured, as evincing something very like a self-willed 

 determination not to make profit. Bee-keeping, when conducted 

 on a proper principle, will form no mean item in the domestic 

 economy of the extensive agriculturist ; while to the humble 

 cottier it will prove a little fortune, and furnish the means of 

 effectually and permanently bettering his condition. I would 

 say that a single set of collateral boxes, so simple in its con- 

 struction, and composed of such inexpensive materials that any 

 one could, make them, ought to yield a profit at least sufficient to 

 pay the rent of from five to ten acres of land, by no means a 

 despicable holding, and one which, in its turn, will become a 

 source of comfort, of independence, of social, and consequently, 

 of course, of national amelioration. 



The importance of honey both as an article of food and a 

 valuable medicament, would appear to have been known to the 

 ancients from the very earliest times. " The land of promise," 

 to reach which the Israelites journeyed in protracted pilgrimage 

 across an arid desert for a period of forty years, was described 

 as " a land flowing with milk and honey ;" while numerous pas- 

 sages throughout the sacred volume furnish evidence of the 

 attention devoted by the ancient fathers of the Jewish people to 

 the habits of the Bee itself, and the degree of acquaintance with 

 that insect at which they had arrived. We are also told that 

 several of the enlightened sages of ancient Greece deemed this 

 subject worthy years of diligent investigation. Pliny informs us 

 that Aristomachus made bees his whole study for a period of 

 fifty-eight years. 



Philiscus retired into desert places for the purpose of keeping 

 and contemplating them. 



Aristotle, also, wrote much concerning bees, proving himself 

 intimately acquainted with the subject, and his observations were 

 subsequently confirmed and enlarged upon by Pliny. Aristotle's 

 observations furnished the Mantuan bard, Virgil, with the ground- 

 work of his very beautiful, and in many respects faithful descrip- 

 tions of these insects, and their management. We have since 

 them Columella and others, and in more modern times an actual 

 host of writers, amongst whom I may mention Prince Frederick 



