The Life of the Bee 



problems besides, whose enumeration 

 would take too long. 



Now, the form of the hive 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 

 through 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 



