The Honey-Makers

Half natural history, half literature: how the honey-bee actually works — tongue, wings, sting, swarm — and then three thousand years of what people have believed about her, from the Vedas to mead.

The Swarm

32 pages in this part of The Honey-Makers.

The Swarm

In early summer when the season is favorable for the storing of honey, the bees prosper and their hive is soon "boiling over" with…

The Swarm: Thorley

As a rule bees do not sting when swarming, and Thorley The Swarm tells in a very melodramatic manner how a swarm of bees once settled upon…

The Swarm: Burroughs

Burroughs gives us a fascinating description of the swarming of bees: - "I always feel that I have missed some good fortune if I am away…

The Swarm: California

Muir pays his tribute to California Bruin's fondness for honey, thus: - "Bears, too, roam the sweet wilderness, their blunt, shaggy forms…

The Swarm: Aristotle

The woodpecker is said to insert its tongue into any seductive crack in the hive and draw forth the honey, though it is not accused of…

The Swarm: Bees

Bees, like other creatures, are subject to disease, a fact thus commented upon by Pliny: - "Bees are also by nature liable to certain…

The Swarm: Plant

There is a very beautiful plant, Cleome Integrifolia, growing wild in the west, and known as the Rocky Mountain Bee Plant, which yields an…

The Swarm: Narbonne

In France the rosemary of Narbonne has made the honey of that region famous; but we learn that this, like the honey of Hymettus, is living…

The Swarm: Wildman

In the old-fashioned box-hive, where the bees were smoked to death, thirty or forty pounds of mixed honey- Honey comb, brood-comb…

The Swarm: Hruschka

Langstroth thus explains the origin of the honeyextractor, - "In 1865 the late Major de Hruschka, of Dolo, near Venice, Italy, invented 'Il…

The Swarm: Pliny

Doubtless extracted honey is sometimes adulterated by dealers with cheap syrups and it is interesting to know that the adulteration of…

The Swarm: Isle

Menzel tells us that in Russia, whose steppes afford the bees rich nourishment, is found honey of all colors, white, yellow, brown, yes…

The Swarm: Xenophon

Serious results have sometimes followed the eating of poisonous honey, as in the well-known case of Xenophon's army during the Retreat of…

The Swarm: Heptacometæ

Strabo tells a still more harrowing tale of the honey of Pontus. After describing the mountains and speaking of the savage Heptacometæ who…

The Swarm: Kalmia

Again we are told : - "A party of young men, induced by the prospect of gain, having removed their hives from Pennsylvania to the Jerseys…

The Swarm: Heath

It is interesting to note that all of the above-mentioned poisonous plants belong to the Heath Family that gives us our blueberries…

The Swarm: Sometimes

Sometimes honey from poisonous flowers proves injurious to the young bees, and sometimes bees gather honey from other sources than flowers…

The Swarm: Honey

The source of honey was as puzzling to the ancients as Honey was the source of the offspring of the bees; and while they believed them to…

The Swarm: Honey-gems

Honey To-day confectionery is made principally of sugar, and fruits are generally preserved in it instead of in honey, the "quaint and…

The Swarm: Mead

MEAD MEAD, made from honey and water fermented, was the wine of the Northern peoples, being to them what the Blessed Soma juice was to the…

The Swarm: Rune

In the Rune calendar two drinking horns crossed signify January first, the time of the New Year's feast; and another of the signs of the…

The Swarm: Cattraeth

Later we read, - "The heroes marched to Cattraeth with the dawn; Their peace was disturbed by those who feared them; A hundred thousand…

The Swarm: Beowulf

In that old Anglo-Saxon pagan poem "Beowulf" of the seventh or eighth century, mead flows freely.

The Swarm: Valhalla

In Scandinavia mead was a national drink, and none who know the delights of Valhalla itself can doubt that mead flowed in those high halls…

The Swarm: Gudrun

The fatal potency of mead was not ignored even in song, for in the "Elder Edda," where Lok picks a quarrel with Elder, we read: - "For Asi…

The Swarm: Gallon

This is simplicity itself, and Thorley gives us another simple recipe for mead, which, he affirms, is "not inferior to the Best of foreign…

The Swarm: Wales

Bevan says, "In some parts of Wales the refuse combs are brewed with malt, spices, etc., and the produce is called Braggot, a name derived…

The Swarm: Take

Moffett declares the following recipes for hydromel to be those recommended by the famous physician Galen : - "Take sweet pure clean…

The Swarm: English

The English had a malted hydromel of their own which Moffett highly commends. "Lately," he says, "the English found out a new composition…

The Swarm: Honied

Galen, however, did not despise honeyed vinegar, but gives a simple recipe for making it, unflavored by severe remarks: - "Let the best…

The Swarm: Moffett

Honeyed wine is also called Œnomeli and mulsum, and Moffett says:- "Aristæus was the first that brought this into Thrace, being taken with…

The Swarm: Butler

One should suppose the following classical drink, called thalassiomeli, might merit similar criticism. It is made of "equal parts of…

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