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Bee-Culture at Present: Africa

Niebuhr reports having once seen a flotilla of four thousand hives on the Nile between Cairo and Damietta, making their way from Upper Egypt to the Delta. Throughout Africa honey-bees are common. "On the West coast of the river Gambia," we are told, "the natives formerly paid much attention to bees. They had hives made of reeds and sedges, shaped like baskets and hung on the outer boughs of trees." In some places they were hung so thickly that at a short distance they looked like large fruit on the branches.