PEHl'lH'T SOCIETIES OK INSECTS. 177 



sion of which they will sometimes dispute with the ants*, 

 upon particular occasions they will eat the eggs of the 

 queen. They are very fond also of the fluid that oozes 

 from the cells of the pupee, and will suck eagerly all that 

 is fluid in their abdomen after they are destroyed by their 

 rivals \ — Several flowers that produce much honey they 

 pass by; in some instances, from inability to get at it. 

 Thus, for this reason probably, they do not attempt 

 those of the trumpet-honey-suckle, [Louicera semper- 

 virens,) which, if separated from the germen after they 

 are open, will yield two or three drops of the purest 

 nectar. So that were this shrub cultivated with that 

 view, much honey in its original state might be obtained 

 from a small number of plants. In other cases, it ap- 

 pears to be the poisonous quality of their honey that in- 

 duces bees to neglect certain flowers. You have doubt- 

 less observed the conspicuous white nectaries of the 

 crown imperial, {Fritillaria imperialism) and that they 

 secrete abundance of this fluid. It tempts in vain the 

 passing bee, probably aware of some noxious quality 

 that it possesses. The oleander [Nerium Oleander,) 

 yields a honey that proves fatal to thousands of impru- 

 dent flies ; but our bees, more wise and cautious, avoid 

 it. Occasionally, perhaps, in particular seasons, when 

 flowers are less numerous than common, this instinct of 

 the bees appears to fail them, or to be overpowered by 

 their desire to collect a sufficient store of honey for their 

 purposes, and they suffer for their want of self-denial. 

 Sometimes whole swarms have been destroyed by merely 

 alighting upon poisonous trees. This happened to one 



* Abbe Boisicr, quoted in Mills On Bees, 24. 

 '' Schirach, 45. Huber, i. 179. 

 VOL. II. N 



