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.

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In Christian and Mediæval Times

THE bee of the Middle Ages is a sombre bee. It does not fly joyously through light-hearted love-songs, but rather lends itself to purposes of moralizing, enters into magic and symbolism, and becomes a part of all kinds of superstition. The myths of the pagan times have given place to the legends of the new religion. In these Christian times it is the wax which has become important, as in Greek and Latin classical ages it was the honey, and in India it was the bee itself; for the wax is necessary to supply the tapers burned in the churches.

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