18 
chapman’s iiandy-book. 
but you may have the complaint we often hear, you may 
have no garden, or your garden is too small, or you may 
be a settler in the country where flowers are few and lar 
between, and as you look around not a vestage of cultiva¬ 
tion visible, nothing but fern, flax, and ti-tree, a popular 
writer says never fear for your bees, for in the very heart 
of a town, without a flower in sight, the bees will thrive 
as well as in the richest garden, for one or two miles 
round on all sides is yours for the use of your bees, never 
mind though the pasture be entered on other peoples’ title 
deeds. If you have space for a bit of flower garden near 
your beehives the food they provide will save a few 
journeys to the bees and pay you well in the increase of 
honey—first then, have no double flowers in your garden, 
as the bees never touch them. The “ Times Bee Master” 
says, “ On that magnificient standard rose, so rich in 
delicious perfume and so very lovely, a bee never alights, 
but the sweet briar and hedge rose are favourites and 
much frequented.” Sow, then, near your hives lemon 
thyme in abundance, and cultivate rosemary, lavender, 
laurustinas, primrose, violet, sweetbriar, honeysuckle, wall¬ 
flower, (single) sage, borage, mignonette, mallow, lime, 
hyssop, Spanish broom, hawthorn, heath, sunflower, St. 
John’s wort, and melilotus leucantha, as they are all rich 
in honey and farina. 
Observe a bee, says Kirby, that has alighted on a 
flower. The hum produced by the motions of her wings 
ceases, and her work begins. In an instant she unfolds 
her tongue, which was previously rolled up under her 
head. With what rapidity does she dart this organ 
between the petals and the stamina ! At one time she 
extends it to its full length, than she contracts it; she 
moves it about in all directions, so that it may be applied 
to the concave and convex surface of the petal, and 
sweep them both, and thus by a virtuous theft, she 
robs it of all its nectar. All the while this is going 
on, she keeps herself in a state of constant vibratory 
motion. 
Blowers, though the chief, are not the only sources 
from which the bee derives the material of honey and 
wax. She will also eat sugar in every form, treacle, the 
