The bees collect also another substance called propolis, of a resinous nature. This is collected from certain trees, to fasten the combs to the roof of the hives, to varnish and strengthen the cell-work, and to stop up the crannies of the hive. This substance is used as soon as collected, while it is soft, none of it being stored, for its collectors are well aware that in a short time it would become so hard as to lose its ductility. In the generality of seasons the bees obtain their principal stores of honey from the flowers of the fields, but they also, in some seasons, collect it much more abundantly from the leaves of several sorts of trees, on which it is deposited in the form of honey-dew, a very sweet substance which, having been sucked from the aforesaid leaves by an insect called the aphis or tree-louse, passes through its body nearly unchanged, covers those leaves which are beneath, and thus affords a delicious repast to bees, butterflies, and other insects. The bees collect this food by means of the long tongue which I have described to you, and which acts as a sort of brush, so that bees may be said rather to lap their food than to suck it. By the repeated action of this brush-like contrivance, they gradually conduct the sweet juices into their mouths, from whence they pass into their honey-bag, and when this is filled, they carry home the cargo, regurgitate it, and deposit it in those cells which, either by themselves or their companions, have been previously prepared to receive it. They are then quickly in the fields again in quest of a fresh supply. Thus, throughout the spring, summer, and autumn, whenever the weather is favourable, and even in unfavourable weather, if they are much in want of food or other materials, to use the language of the poet, the bees are to be seen, "Gathering honey from every opening flower." The quantity which they collect in this way is often surprising, considering how small a portion is imported on each excursion. I have just stated that, with the exception of those seasons when honey-dews abound, the principal resources of the bees are the flowers of the fields, chiefly those of the white clover,--a plant which is found upon most pasture lands, but none are more luxuriantly clothed with it than the meadows of this county. Hence the excellent pasturage they afford for sheep as well as for bees; thus corroborating a very ancient opinion, that the finest honey is collected in districts which yield the finest wool and the finest wheat; these productions comprehending two of the five w's for which Herefordshire has been long so justly celebrated, viz., wheat, wool, wood, water, and women! How worthy the latter are of this pre-eminence I have abundant evidence around me!