tribe of the willows grow near,
there will be no necessity for cultivating the flowers above-mentioned,
as they yield an abundant harvest of farina, or pollen.

A rich corn country is well known to be a barren desert to the bees
during a greater portion of the year. Hence the judicious practice of
shifting the bees from place to place according to the circumstances of
the season, and the custom of other nations in this particular well
deserves our imitation.

Few places are so happily situated as to afford bees proper pasturage
both in the beginning of the season and also the autumn; it was the
advice of Celsus that, after the vernal pastures are consumed, they
should be transported to places abounding with autumnal flowers; as was
practised by conveying the bees from Achaia to Attica, from Euboea and
the Cyclad Islands to Syrus, and also in Sicily, where they were brought
to Hybla from other parts of the island.

Pliny states that the custom of removing bees from place to place for
fresh pasturage was frequent in the Roman territories, and such is still
the practice of the Italians who live near the banks of the Po, (the
river which Pliny particularly instances,) mentioned by Alexander de
Montfort, who says that the Italians treat their bees in nearly the same
manner as the Egyptians did and still do; that they load boats with
hives and convey them to the neighbourhood of the mountains of Piedmont;
that in proportion as the bees gather in their harvest, the boats, by
growing heavier, sink deeper into the water; and that the watermen
determine from this, when their hives are loaded sufficiently, and it is
time to carry them back to their places from which they came. The same
author relates that the people of the country of Juliers used the same
practice; for that, at a certain season of the year, they carried their
bees to the foot of mountains that were covered with wild thyme.

M. Maillet, who was the French Consul in Egypt in 1692, says in his
curious description of Egypt; "that in spite of the ignorance and
rusticity which have got possession of that country, there yet remain in
it several traces of the industry and skill of the ancient Egyptians."
One of their most admirable contrivances is, the sending their bees
annually into different districts to collect food, at a time when they
could not find any at home.

About the end October, all such inhabitants of Lower Egypt, as have
hives of bees, embark them on t