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CHAPTEE V. 



ARCHITECTURE OF THE BEE-HIVE. 



^9 



m't^H 



|f ill- ffm i„ ".fA? 





Part of a Honeycomb, and Bees at work. 



Although the liive-bee {Apis mellifica) has engaged the 

 attention of the curious from the earliest ages, recent dis- 

 coveries prove that we are yet only beginning to arrive at 

 a correct knowledge of its wonderful proceedings. Pliny 

 informs us that Astromachus, of Soles, in Cilicia, devoted 

 fifty-eight years to the study ; and that Philiscus the 

 Thracian spent his whole life in forests for the purpose of 

 observ'ing them. But in consequence (as we may naturally 

 infer) of the imperfect methods of research, assuming that 

 what they did discover was known to Aristotle, Columella, 

 and Pliny, we are justified in pronouncing the statements 

 of these philosophers, as well as the embellished poetical 

 pictures of Virgil, to be nothing more than conjecture, 

 almost in every particular erroneous. It was not indeed 



