Hints on the History and Management of the Honey Bee

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!