210 APID^ — BEES. 



Mingle Hybloean honey with the gall 



Of Goats, 'tis good to make one see withall."i 



We are told in the German Ephemerides, that a young 

 country girl, having eaten a great deal of honey, became so 

 inebriated with it, that she slept the whole day, and talked 

 foolishly the day following.^ 



Bevan, in his work on the Honey-Bee, mentions the fol- 

 lowing instances of a curious use to which propolis is some- 

 times put by the Bees : A snail, says he, having crept into 

 one of Mr. Beaumur's hives early in the morning, after 

 crawling about for some time, adhered, by means of its own 

 slime, to one of the glass panes. The Bees, having dis- 

 covered the snail, surrounded it, and formed a border of 

 propolis round the verge of its shell, and fastened it so 

 securely to the glass that it became immovable. 



Forever closed the impenetrable door; 



It naught avails that in its torpid veins 



Year after year, life's loitering spark remains. 



Evans. 



Maraldi, another eminent Apiarian, states that a snail 

 without a shell having entered one of his hives, the Bees, as 

 soon as they observed it, stung it to death ; after which, 

 being unable to dislodge it, they covered it all over with an 

 impervious coat of propolis. 



For soon in fearless ire, their wonder lost, 

 Spring fiercely from the comb the indignant host, 

 Lay tlie pierced monster breathless on the ground, 

 And chip in joy their victor pinions round: 

 While all in vain concurrent numbers strive 

 To heave tlie slime-girt giant from the hive — 

 Sure not alone by force instinctive swayed, 

 But blest witli reason's soul-directing aid, 

 Alike in man or bee, they haste to pour, 

 Thick, hard'ning as it falls, the flaky shower; 

 Embalmed in shroud of glue the mummy lies, 

 No worms invade, no foul miasmas rise. 



Evans.' 



Xenophon tells us that all the soldiers, who ate of the 

 honey-combs, found in the villages on the mountains of the 



1 Moufet, Theatr. Ins., p. 29. Topsel's Trans., p. 911. 



2 Brooke's Nat. Hist, of Ins., p. 108. 



2 Quot. by Laugstroth on the IIoney-Bce, p. 78-9. 



