THIS subject is an ancient and honorable one. The most ancient historical records make frequent reference to the honey-bee. A poem written 741 B. C., by Eremetus was devoted to bees. In Scripture we read of them and learn that Palestine was “a land flowing with milk and honey” and we know that wild bees are very numerous there even to the present time. In the year 50 B. C., Varro recommended that hives be made out of basket-work, wool, bark, hollow-trees, pottery, reeds, or transparent stone to enable persons to observe the bees at work. The name “Deborah” is from the Hebrew and means bee; “Melissa,” from the Greek, has the same meaning. Honey-bees were introduced into the United States from Europe, in the seventeenth century, and our wild honey-bees are offspring of escaped swarms. Like all enterprising Yankees they first settled in the eastern states and rapidly spread over the West, where they were regarded with wonder by the Indians and called the “white man’s fly.” They traveled, or spread, with such regularity that some observers claimed to mark the exact number of miles which they traveled westward during each year. A great many species are almost, or entirely, worthless for domestic purposes, while those that are especially valuable are very few. The favorite at this time seems to be the Italian species, which was introduced into the United States in 1860. At the opening of the season each colony of honey-bees contains one laying queen, several drones, and from 3,000 to 40,000 workers. The workers begin by cleaning up the hive, and the queen starts in to rear other bees at once; new comb is started, honey is brought in from the earlier varieties of flowers and the busy bee is launched into another season of sweetness and good works. The United States Department of Agriculture, in one of its “Farmer’s Bulletins,” under the heading, “How to Avoid Stings,” says, “First, by having gentle bees.” At the time I first read this I thought they should have completed the advice by adding “and extract their stings;” but I find on investigation that the subject of gentle bees, is no light matter to the bee-keeper, and that my idea that “a bee is a bee and hence entitled to all the room he requires” does not hold good; that a bee-keeper when purchasing a colony of bees of any species not well known to him will ask if they are gentle in the same tone he would use if he were inquiring about a horse.

Bees seem to do well wherever there are flowers enough to furnish them with food, and are kept for pleasure and profit in all parts of our country. A small plot of ground is devoted to bees by the farmer, a village lot is often filled with hives, and even in our larger cities, especially in New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati, if not in the gardens or on the lawns, they may be found well-established on the house-tops, as many as thirty or forty colonies being found on a single roof. They can usually find enough food in and around a city to keep themselves busy without making long excursions; in fact, it sometimes happens that they find more abundant pasturage in a city than they would in the open country, especially where there are large parks and gardens or where the linden (basswood) trees have been set out in any considerable quantities. Sweet clover also sometimes overruns a neglected garden or vacant lot and furnishes a rich field for the city-bred honey-bee. In Egypt bees are transported on hive-boats from place to place along the Nile according to the succession of flowers. The custom also prevails in Persia, Asia Minor and Greece. In Scotland the same method is used while the heather is in bloom and in Poland bees are transferred back and forth between summer pastures and winter quarters. A few years ago a floating bee house was constructed on the Mississippi river large enough to carry two thousand colonies. It was designed to be towed up the river from Louisiana to Minnesota, keeping pace with the blossoming of the flowers and then drop back down the river to the sunny South before cold weather should set in the fall. Honey-bee ships have also been talked of which could carry bees to the West Indies to cruise for honey during the winter. The bee is not fastidious, but will live in any kind of clean box or barrel that may be provided for its use, hence it sometimes lives in queer places. A swarm escaping will generally make its home in a hollow tree or in a fissure of some large rock. The ancient English hives were generally made of baskets of unpeeled willow. Cork hives are in use in some parts of Europe, and earthenware hives are in use in Greece and Turkey. Glass hives are mentioned as far back as the year 1665. In 1792 movable-comb hives were invented and in the century following more than eight hundred patents were granted on hives in the United States.