X 
Introduction. 
Although all the different districts of our 
country are not equally favourable for producing 
honey, still we may affirm that, by paying great 
attention to the bees, a return three or four 
times as large as that generally obtained might 
be insured. 
The country contains a large amount of 
meadow-land, natural and artificial, and all 
kinds of fruit-trees ; in addition to which, the 
forests and the undulating nature of the land, 
not to mention the mountains, furnish great 
resources for our winged insects. 
It is true that, in the plains or in the low- 
lying ground away from the mountains, the 
supply of honey might be considerably increased 
by moving the bees to the hills after haymaking, 
as by this means the bee-master would secure 
two gatherings of honey ; but at the foot of 
the Jura, and the first slope of the Alps, this 
removal is not of the same importance, for the 
bees in these localities profit by the flora of the 
plain as well as of the mountains. 
Our country, far from supplying enough 
honey for its wants, is forced to procure it from 
elsewhere ; and there is, perhaps, no country 
where there is a larger consumption of honey 
than in our own cantons. 
