[1228]. Hist. Anim. v. 22. Orion rises on the 9th of July, Gœttling ad Hesiod. Opp. et Dies, 598. Arcturus, 18th September. Id. 610.
[1229]. A similar opinion has been sometimes maintained also by the moderns:—“I have heard,” observes Lord Bacon, “from one that was industrious in husbandry, that the labour of the bee is about the wax, and that he hath known in the beginning of May, honey combs empty of honey, and within a fortnight when the sweet dews fall filled like a cellar.”—Sylva Sylvarum, 612.
[1230]. Arist. Hist. Anim. v. 22. In the Crimea wild bees are found in great abundance in the clefts and caverns of the mountains.—Pallas, Travels in Southern Russia, iii. 324. Among the numerous species of wild bees found in America there is one which pre-eminently deserves to be introduced into Europe and brought under the dominion of man. This bee does not, like the ordinary kind, deposit its honey in combs but in separate waxen cells about the size and shape of a pigeon’s egg. As the honey of this bee is of an excellent quality, many persons in South America have been at the pains to tame its maker, whose labours have proved extremely profitable.—Schneider, Observ. sur Ulloa, ii. 200.
[1231]. Arist. Hist. Anim. ix. 27. 24. In Attica, the honey was taken about the summer solstice; at Rome about the festival of Vulcan, in the month of August.—Winkelmann. Hist. de l’Art, i. 65. But commentators are not at all agreed respecting the meaning of Pliny, whom this writer relies upon. xi. 15. Cf. Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 797.
[1232]. Arist. Hist. Anim. ix. 27. 19. Sch. Aristoph. Eq. 752. Cf. Meurs. Græc. Ludib. p. 13.
[1233]. Varro, de Re Rust. iii. 16.
[1234]. A gentleman in Surrey desirous of knowing his own bees, when he should chance to meet them in the fields, touched their wings with vermilion as they were issuing from the hive. Being one fine day in summer on a visit at Hampstead, he found them thickly scattered among the wild flowers on the heath.
[1235]. De Re Rust. iii. 16.
[1236]. Preserved by Photius. Biblioth. cod. 278. p. 529. b.
[1237]. Herod. vii. 31. Cf. iv. 194.