The Life of the Bee 



problems besides, whose enumeration 

 would take too long. 



Now, the form of the hiv^e that man 

 offers to the bee knows infinite variety, 

 from the hollow tree or earthenware vessel 

 still obtaining in Asia and Africa, and the 

 familiar bell-shaped constructions of straw 

 which we find in our farmers* kitchen- 

 gardens or beneath their windows, lost 

 beneath masses of sunflowers, phlox, and 

 hollyhock, to what may really be termed 

 the factory of the model apiarist of to- 

 day. An edifice, this, that can contain 

 more than three hundred pounds of 

 honey, in three or four stories of super- 

 posed combs enclosed in a frame which 

 permits of their being removed and 

 handled, of the harvest being extracted 

 *'hrough centrifugal force by means of 

 a turbine, and of their being then re- 

 stored to their place like a book in a 

 well-ordered library. 

 138 



