ORDER VI.——VEIN-WINGED INSECTS. 265 
while neither their coward peers nor the proletarians will 
interfere, they being indifferent who is at the head of their 
government, except that, according to the law of their na- 
ture, they must have a female sovereign. It is, therefore, a 
fixed fact that in their female monarchy the bees have love 
for nothing else except for their progeny, and that they work 
not only for their own subsistence, but more even for that 
of their successors and descendants. 
2. THE DIFFERENT Kinps oF BEE-HIvES.—As wild bees, 
in the forests of all countries, make use of hollow trees for 
their dwellings, it was natural that the persons who first 
domesticated the bees should imitate them in the construc- 
tion of their habitations. Accordingly, the first bee-hives 
were made by hollowing out the trunk of a tree; and such 
rustic bee-hives were still in use thirty years ago, when we 
traveled through Hungary and Poland. We found them 
also in the Ukraine and Russia, where a single proprietor 
had from three to four hundred such hives fenced in, and 
under shelter in some open space in the forests. A hand- 
some income was there derived from these animals, their 
food costing not a single farthing. 
Another kind of hive, in shape like a bell, and construct- 
ed of willow boughs, or more.commonly of straw, is frequent- 
ly seen in Germany, France, and Great Britain; but they 
are very inconvenient on account of the difficulty of taking 
out the honey without destroying the bees. It is true, how- 
ever, that straw-hives will best protect these insects from the 
intense heat of summer, as well as from the great cold of 
winter. 
Bee-hives in the shape of an oblong box, composed of 
four boards with a movable top, are very common in this 
country, and are more convenient than the straw-hives, for 
taking out the honey and wax, which is done by removing 
the cover and placing over the box an empty ohe of the 
same size, inverted so that both open tops shall come togeth- 
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