The supposition that bees were obtained from a dead ox lasted right down to the seventeenth century, and there is no doubt that the Egyptians believed in this too, for in some of their records we find that they buried the body of an ox, leaving the horn-tips just above the soil. After it had been left so for about a week, the tips of the horns were sawn off, and a swarm of bees issued, like smoke from a chimney. What a foolish idea this was, just as though the body of an ox could, in any manner imaginable, change into a swarm of bees! It probably originated in the fact that the decaying body of an ox or other animal quickly becomes surrounded by swarms of flies, wasps, and other insects. Up to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the people had no other substance than honey with which to sweeten their food, for the mode of extracting the sweet juice contained in the sugar-cane was not known till later. Sugar-cane was actually discovered somewhere about the first century A.D. and a learned writer, Strabo by name, has told how the chief admiral of the fleet of Alexander the Great found what he called “a wonderful honey-bearing reed,” whilst on a voyage of discovery to India. It was not until the fifteenth century, however, that the Spaniards set up a sugar plantation in Madeira, and extracted the juice from the cane: even then it was only the rich people who could afford the new luxury, and others had still to use honey. From these remarks, then, we can easily understand how necessary bees were to the people, and how much depended on a good honey year. Besides using honey for sweetening purposes, the Anglo-Saxons made from it a drink called Mead. You have no doubt read of this in your history books, but perhaps you did not know that it was made principally from honey. Sometimes the juice of mulberries was added to it, to give the drink a flavour, and it was then called Morat. People who could afford to do so flavoured it with spices, or sometimes even added wine, and in this form it was used in the royal palace. In some country places old-fashioned people still make and drink mead, but it is very rarely heard of nowadays. Bees also provided the ancients with wax, from which a sort of candle was made, for in those times there was no electricity or even gas, and so the people were very glad to be able to use the wax for lighting purposes. Nowadays, beeswax, mixed with a little turpentine, is used for polishing furniture and oilcloth. [Illustration: PLATE XIV The New and the Old] CHAPTER XX THE HIVE A hive may with all truth be called a bee-city, for in it there live thousands upon thousands of little workers. In this chapter I hope to tell you about the actual construction of this wonderful city, so that you may understand more easily the chapters that will follow.