ABSTRACT
THERE is a superabundance of honey in the countries of the North, as I have often mentioned when writing about bees somewhat earlier, in particular in Bk XVIII, Chs 28 and 29. 1 Pliny declares in Ch. 14 of his Bk XI that honeycombs in the North surpass all others in size, and he cites an instance of one that had been seen eight feet long. 2 As a matter of fact, still larger ones are found in Podolia, among the territories administered by the Polish king. There the luxuriance of the meadows and the masses of flowers with their delightful perfume and sweet savour allow the bees to fill deep pits in the dry earth with packed honeycombs. Huge bears will tumble into these holes and glut themselves so excessively on the honey that they choke to death. This profusion is the reason why so many large cargo-vessels from the eastern nations, laden with wax, disperse themselves throughout Europe, yet while they dispatch this commodity to the neighbouring coasts, they retain the vast store of honey for themselves, since it serves an exceptional number of purposes, especially the production of drinks of all kinds when their wine runs short, as I have described more than adequately in several chapters of Bk XIII above. 3
