Bee-Culture at Present 375 



sufficient for the bees, which are still making their honey 

 as of old. This honey of Hymettus, which was our daily 

 food at Athens, is now not very remarkable either for 

 color or flavor. It is very dark, and not by any means 

 so good as the honey produced in other parts of Greece, — 

 not to say on the heather hills of Scotland and Ireland^ I 

 tasted honey at Thebes and at Corinth, which was much 

 better, especially that of Corinth, made in the hills towards 

 Cleonas, where the whole country is scented with thyme, 

 and where thousands of bees are buzzing eagerly through 

 the summer air." 



The poet's favored palate, however, is still able to detect 

 the flavor of antiquity in the Attic honey, and we are grate- 

 ful to Byron for singing thus of famed Hymettus, in "Childe 

 Harold " : — 



"Still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields; 

 There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds ; 

 The free-born wanderer of the mountain air." 



The Abbe Barthelemy, too, does not share Mahaffy's 

 dark view of the subject, for he tells us, speaking of bees : 



*' These insects are extremely partial to Mount Hymettus, 

 which they have filled with their colonies, and which is 

 covered almost everywhere with wild thyme and other 

 odoriferous plants ; but it is chiefly from the excellent thyme 

 which the Mount produces that they extract those precious 

 sweets, with which they compose a honey in high estimation 

 throughout Greece." 



The New World, covered with bloom, its wild flowers 

 untouched by the plough, and free from the depredations 

 of the insects that are a concomitant of civilization, afforded 

 an ideal home for the bees, and it is a pleasure to turn from 

 time-devastated Hymettus to the fresh bee-pastures of our 

 own Cahfornia, and listen to the delightful bee-talk of John 



