"
It is quite certain he had never been bee-hunting. If he had, we
should have had a fifth Georgic. Yet he seems to have known that bees
sometimes escaped to the woods:--
"Nor bees are lodged in hives alone, but found
In chambers of their own beneath the ground:
Their vaulted roofs are hung in pumices,
And in the rotten trunks of hollow trees."
Wild honey is as near like tame as wild bees are like their brothers in
hive. The only difference is that wild honey is flavored with your
adventure, which makes it a little more delectable than the domestic
article.
THE PASTORAL BEES
The honey-bee goes forth from the hive in spring like the dove from
Noah's ark, and it is not till after many days that she brings back the
olive leaf, which in this case is a pellet of golden pollen upon each
hip, usually obtained from the alder or the swamp willow. In a country
where maple sugar is made, the bees get their first taste of sweet from
the sap as it flows from the spiles, or as it dries and is condensed
upon the sides of the buckets.
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