26 THE HIVE AND THE HONEY-BEE. 



plants beneficial and grateful to the bees, I have also to observe 

 that there are plants which prove noxious to them or to the con- 

 sumers of their produce ; sometimes to one, sometimes to both. 

 Xenophon mentions, in the Anabasis, that soldiers of his army 

 were poisoned by honeycomb they found near Trebizond ; and 

 M. Tournefort, a traveler through that country, discovered a 

 plant called "chamse rhododendron, mespili folio," a plant closely 

 resembling the honeysuckle in smell, which produced effects iden- 

 tical with those described by Xenophon, namely intoxication, 

 vertigo, stupor ; the men affected recovering from their illness in 

 about three or four days. 



Recollect also that your hives should on no account be so 

 placed as to be exposed to the noonday sun — this will injure the 

 honey and melt it, and will raise the temperature of the hive so 

 as to produce unwished-for swarming, besides otherwise annoy- 

 ing and injuring the bees. A few shrubs, therefore, should be 

 so placed as to cast their shadow across your stand during the 

 heat of the day ; you may also let these shrubs be of such a de- 

 scription as the bees are fond of — you will thus effect a double 

 object ; and you may also dispose them tastefully, so as to give 

 your apiary a pleasing and picturesque appearance. 



Finally, I object to bee-houses, whose chief recommendation is 

 set forward as consisting of their capacity for containing a great 

 number of hives — these are only fit for keeping the bee-boxes in 

 during winter — one, two, or three sets of collateral boxes are as 

 many as any moderate bee-keeper will desire, or be able conveni- 

 ently to attend, and these can be kept, each in a little shed by 

 itself. Beehives should never be placed close to each other, as 

 they must necessarily be in these houses, for bees are naturally 

 very irritable and pugnacious insects, and if two colonies be kept 

 too near each other, battles will ensue, and the weaker hive be 

 destroyed. If you persist, therefore, in using hives, at all events 

 let them be at least three feet apart — but I shall show you in 

 the next chapter, how you can make for yourselves collateral 

 boxes, sufficient for success, and for so little money, if indeed you 

 are called upon for any outlay, that I think I shall be able to 

 wean you altogether from the old and unprofitable straw basket. 



