The grounds of a melitturgos or bee-keeper were chosen and laid out with peculiar care.[1199] In a sheltered spot, generally on the thymy slope of a hill, the hives were arranged in the midst of flowers and odoriferous shrubs. And if the necessary kinds had not by nature been scattered there, they were planted by the gardener. Experience soon taught them what blossoms and flowers yielded the best honey,[1200] and were most agreeable to the bees. These, in Attica, were supposed to be the wild pear-tree, the bean, clover, a pale-coloured vetch, the syria, myrtle, wild poppy, wild thyme, and the almond-tree.[1201] To which may be added the rose, balm gentle, the galingale or odoriferous rush, basil royal, and above all the cytisus,[1202] which begins to flower about the vernal equinox, and continues in bloom to the end of September.[1203] Of all the plants, however, affected by the bee, none is so grateful to it as the thyme, which so extensively abounds in Attica and Messenia[1204] as to perfume the whole atmosphere. In Sicily too, all the slopes and crests of its beautiful hills, from Palermo to Syracuse, are invested with a mantle of thyme,[1205] and other odoriferous shrubs, which, according to Varro, gives the superior flavour to the Sicilian honey. Box-wood abounded on mount Cytoros, in Galatia, and in the island of Corsica, on which account the honey of the latter country was bitter.[1206] ----- Footnote 1199: On the management of bees in Circassia and other countries on the Black Sea, see Pallas, Travels in Southern Russia, ii. p. 204. Footnote 1200: On the coast of the Black Sea bees sucked honey from the grape. Geop. v. 2. Footnote 1201: Arist. Hist. Anim. ix. 26, 27. Footnote 1202: Geop. xv. 2. 6. Footnote 1203: Varro, De Re Rust. iii. 16. Footnote 1204: Sibthorpe in Walpole’s Memoirs, t. ii. p. 62. Geop. xv. 2. 5. Speaking of Hymettos, Chandler observes, that it produces a succession of aromatic plants, herbs, and flowers, calculated to supply the bee with nourishment both in winter and summer, ii. p. 143. “Les montagnes (des îles) sont couvertes de thym et de lavande. Les abeilles, qui y volent par nuées, en tirent un miel qui est aussi transparent que notre gelée.” Della Rocca, Traité sur les Abeilles, t. i. 6. Footnote 1205: This plant in Greece flowers about midsummer, and those who kept bees conjectured whether honey would be plentiful or not, according as it was more or less luxuriant. Theoph. Hist. Plant. vi. 2, 3. The wild thyme of Greece was a creeping plant which was sometimes trained on poles or hedges, or even in pits, the sides of which it speedily covered. Id. vi. 7. 5. Footnote 1206: Theoph. Hist. Plant. iii. 15. 5. The honey of modern Crete is esteemed of a good quality. Pashley, Travels, vol. i. p. 56. -----