45 



food Imth to old and yomig ; and thfi resinous snbstanct called jiropolh, which we have 

 described in speaking of tlie preparation of the hive in the fiist place. The nectar is a 

 fluid secreted by the flowers, and is extracted by the bees by means of their long tongues 

 they do not take.up this fluid by suction but by a lapping motion ; the juice is then con- 

 veyed into the first stomach or honey bag, which is small when empty, but when filled 

 becomes swelled to a considerable size. In the honey-bag the fluid is changed into honey, 

 and from tliis bag the bee ejects it into one of the cells on her return to the hive. Honey 

 is never found in the second stomach, which is reserved for the bee-bread. In collecting 

 honey, bees do not confine themselves solely to flowers ; they will sometimes very greedily 

 absorb the sweet juices of fruits, they are also fond of sugar ; though the great mass of 

 the food of bees is collected from flowers, they do not wholly confine themseh'es to a 

 vegetable diet ; for, besides the honeyed secretion of the aphides, the possession of which 

 they will sometimes dispute with the ants, upon jjarticnlar occasions they will eat the 

 eggs of the qneen ; they are also very fond of the fluid that oozes from the cells of the 

 pupsp, and will suck eagerly all that is fluid in their own abdomens after they are wounded 

 by their rivals. Although bees in some instances appear to know and do avoid many 

 flowers yielding poisonous honey, yet they have been known to collect poisonous honey 

 in large quantities. In the antumn and winter of the year 1 790, an extensive mortality 

 was produced amongst those who had partaken of the honey collected in the neighliour- 

 hood of Philadelphia. The attention of the American Government was excited by the 

 general distress, a minute inquiry into the cause of the mortality ensued, and it was 

 satisfactorily ascertained that the honey had been chiefly extracted from the flowers of 

 Kalmia latifolia — Icnown by the common names of Mountain Laurel or Calico Bush — a 

 plant possessing strong narcotic properties. History informs us that honey found at 

 Trebizond, on the Black Sea, threatened fatal effects to such of the Greek army, as par- 

 took of it, in the celebrated retreat after the death of the younger Cyrus ; those soldiers 

 who ate it in small quantities appeared as if intoxicated, while such as partook of it freely 

 appeared as if mad or about to die, numbers lying on the ground as if after a defeat. 

 Pliny observes that this honey was collected from a species of Bhododendron. 



When the stomach of the bee is filled with nectar, it next, by means of the featliered 

 hairs with which its body is covered, pilfers from the flowers the fertilizing dust of the 

 anthers — the pollen, which is equally necessary with the honey to the society, and may 

 be named the ambrosia of the hive, since from it the bee-bread is made. Sometimes the 

 bee is so discoloured with this powder as to look like a different insect, becoming white, 

 yellow or orange, according to the flowers in which it has been busy. Reamur was urged 

 to visit the hives of a gentleman who, on this account, thought his bees were difl^erent 

 from the common kind. He suspected, and examination proved, that the circumstance 

 just mentioned occasioned the mistaken idea. When the body of the bee is covered with 

 farina, with the brushes of its legs, especially its hind ones, it wipes it off; not as we do 

 with our dusty clothes ; to dissipate and disperse it in the air, but to collect every particle 

 of it, and then to knead it and form it into two little masses, which she places, one in 

 each, in the baskets formed by hairs on her hind legs. 



Reamur seems to think that l)ees fly indiscrimately from one species of flower to 

 another, but the testimony of many other naturalists is, that they collect only from the 

 same species on each trip, as they have been observed to pass over numerous others in 

 search of flow-ers similar to that with which they began. It seems not improbable that 

 the reason why the bee visits the same species of plant during one excursion may be this : 

 her instinct teaches her that the grains of pollen which enter into the same mass should be 

 homogeneous, in order perhaps for their more effectual cohesion ; and thus Providence 

 also secures two important ends — the impregnation of those flowers that require such aid, 

 by the bees passing from one to another ; and the avoiding of the production of iiybird 

 plants, from the application of the pollen of one kind of plant to the stigma of another. 



When a bee has completed her lading she returns to the hive to dispose of it. The 

 honey is disgorged into the pots or cells destined to receive it, being discharged from the 

 honey-bag by its alternate contraction and dilation. A cell will contain tiie contents of 

 many honey-bags. Bees, when tliey bring home the honey do not always disgorge it : they 

 sometimes give it to such of their companions as have been at work within the hive. Some 

 of the cells are filled with honey for daily use, and some with wliat is intended as a re- 



