208 The Book of Bugs. 



no pollen he gives them pea-flour. They roll and tumble 

 in it, and have a good time. If he isn't careful, they will 

 get too lazy to hunt for flower-pollen. Syrup he sup- 

 plies them in a feeding-bottle. Bees are fond of milk 

 boiled with sugar, and do well on it. The worst of it is 

 they store it in their combs. It sours there, and they 

 won't take it out. They thrive on eggs beaten up with 

 sugar, too. 



Before cane sugar became common it was just com- 

 ing in when Shakspere wrote honey was about all the 

 sweet our ancestors had. Nowadays honey is a table 

 delicacy, a food of the first order of merit. Cane sugar 

 introduced directly into the blood is a poison. It must 

 be changed into grape sugar by the fluids of our mouths. 

 The cane sugar of flower nectar is already transformed 

 by the bee, and, as honey, is easy of digestion. But not 

 the wax. There is gold in sea water, but as far as our 

 getting it is concerned it might as well not be there. 

 The treasure of 63,894,186 pounds of honey produced 

 annually in the United States alone were equally inac- 

 cessible to us, but for the labors of countless thousands 

 of hive-bees that gathered it ' from every opening 

 flower." For each i-2o,oooth of a pound a separate jour- 

 ney two or three miles in length had to be made by the 

 winged worker. 



If we admire the honey bee above all other insects, it 

 is because our interests have prompted us to know more 

 of it than the rest. To look only a little way into the 

 mystery of any living thing is to stand upon the brink of 

 an infinity, inwardly as deep as that which looms above 

 us outwardly, circling the farthest marches of the shining 

 stars. The soul sinks upon her knees at thought of it. 

 Not the bee alone, but every flying midge yes, every 

 cell of protoplasm is embodied Mind working before us 



