358 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
No position will offer a combination of all advantages^ 
while it is true that scarcely a spot exists in which 
bees may not be made, at the least, to secure their 
own living; for even in overgrown London (except in its 
very densest parts) a modicum of stained surplus may be 
obtained, though, unfortunately, accompanied by a most 
objectionable excess of sooty propolis. Rather than 
one great breadth of an especial blossom, it is more 
desirable to secure a long, and, as far as practicable, 
an uninterrupted, succession of good honey -yielding 
plants. Be it remembered that many timber trees (see 
Vol. I., page 262, et seq.) in early spring most helpfully 
encourage breeding by supplying pollen, and also 
providing honey in quantity not to be despised ; while 
fruit farms, small orchards, or even villa gardens, with 
their peaches, plums, cherries, pears, and apples, followed 
by the small fruits, are of the highest possible value. 
Wild flowers innumerable, and later blossoming trees, 
notably horse-chestnuts, keep up the succession, when, 
should the melilots abound, and the trifoliums and 
sainfoins make broad fields fragrant, the little labourers 
may bear home a harvest to their storehouses, so that 
there be not room to contain it. The lime groves, 
spreading their choice perfume, and merry with the 
hum of ten thousand busy wings glistening in the July 
sun, gladden the heart of the bee-keeper, who is happy 
indeed if still he may look on to late wild flowers, 
bramble, wild thyme, and dwarf thistles, to be succeeded 
by the late-born riches of the heather harvest. 
Almost every locality has some specialty, and a 
distance of a mile or two will often carry us from a 
good to an indifferent district, or the reverse. A rich, 
