CHAP. 41. (12.)—PLANTS WHICH SHOULD BE SOWN AMONG FLOWERS FOR BEES. THE CERINTHA.
Bees and beehives, too, are a subject extremely well suited to a description of gardens and garland plants, while, at the same time, where they are successfully managed, they are a source, without any great outlay, of very considerable profit. For bees, then, the following plants should be grown—thyme, apiastrum, the rose, the various violets, the lily, the cytisus, the bean, the fitch, cunila, the poppy, conyza,2102 cassia, the melilote, melissophyllum,2103 and the cerintha.2104 This last is a plant with a white leaf, bent inwards, the stem of it being a cubit in height, with a flower at the top presenting a concavity full of a juice like honey. Bees are remarkably fond of the flowers of these plants, as also the blossoms of mustard, a thing that is somewhat surprising, seeing that it is a well-known fact that they will not so much as touch the blossoms of the olive: for which reason, it will be as well to keep that tree at a distance from them.2105
There are other trees, again, which should be planted as near the hives as possible, as they attract the swarm when it first wings its flight, and so prevent the bees from wandering to any considerable distance.