THE HIVE-BEE. 283 



borrow a simile from Messrs. Kirby and Spence, 

 " that a file of labourers transfer a parcel of cheeses 

 from a vessel or cart to a warehouse." To give co- 

 hesion to the mossy dome and render it waterproof^ the 

 Bees usually line its interior with a thin coating of wax. 

 The preceding is a short and necessarily imper- 

 fect account of the habits of the commonest Wild 

 Bees of this country ; — on the interesting ceconomy 

 of the Hive Bee I can hardly venture to enter^ as 

 it would be quite impossible in my limited space 

 to give anything like a satisfactory account of the 

 wonders of the Hive. It may be as well_, how- 

 ever, to state the leading features of the oeconomy of 

 these interesting and valuable insects, if only to 

 enable the reader to compare it with those of the 

 Humble-Bees and Social Wasps. The most im- 

 portant and prominent peculiarity of the societies of 

 the Hive Bee {Apis mellifica) consists in their per- 

 manence, both the females and workers surviving the 

 winter, so that the community commences operations 

 in the spring on a very different footing from the 

 Wasps and Humble-Bees. Moreover the Bee-hive 

 never contains more than one female (commonly 

 known as the Queen), except at the moment when 

 the young males and females emerge from the pupa 

 state, and these, on quitting the hive, take -wTith them 

 a portion of the superabundant working population, 

 and go forth to seek a new home. This phsenomenon 

 is well known as swarming. The combs, instead of 

 being horizontal as in the Wasps^ nest, are suspended 

 perpendicularly from the top of the hive, with the 

 cells opening sideways, and thus the little architects 

 are enabled to place two series of cells in each comb, 

 with their closed ends in contact; and one of the 



