PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 131 



the honey extracted from the species of the genus Kal- 

 iiiia, Andromeda, Rhododendrum, &c. be hurtful to the 

 bees themselves, is not ascertained ; but, as has been 

 before observed, it is often poisonous to man^. The 

 Greeks, as you probably recollect, in their celebrated 

 retreat after the deatli of the younger Cyrus, found a 

 kind of honey at Tiebisond on the Euxine coast, which, 

 though it produced no fatal effects upon them, rendered 

 those who ate but little like men very drunk, and those 

 who ate much like mad men or dying persons : and 

 numbers lay upon the ground as if there had been a 

 defeat. Pliny, who mentions this honey, calls it mce- 

 jiomenon, and observes that it is said to be collected 

 from a kind of JRhododendrum, of which Tournefort 

 noticed two species there''. 



When the stomach of a bee is filled with nectar, it 

 next, by means of the feathered hairs'^ with which its 

 body is covered, pilfers from the flowers the fertilizing 

 dust of the anthers, the pollen ; which is equally ne- 

 cessary to the society with the honey, and may be named 

 the ambrosia of the hive, since from it the bee-bread is 

 made. Sometimes a bee is so discoloured with this 

 powder as to look like a different insect, becoming 

 white, yellow, or orange, according to the flowers in 

 Avhich it has been busy. Reaumur was urged to visit 

 the hives of a gentleman, Avho on this account thought 

 his bees were different from the common kind''. He 

 suspected, and it proved, that the circumstance just 

 mentioned occasioned the mistaken notion. When the 



^ Vol. I. 2d Ed, US. 



" Xcnoph. Jtiabas. 1. iv. Plin. Hist. Nat. 1, xxi. c. 13. 



'■ Rcaurn, v. t, xxvi. /. 1. ** Ibid. 295, 



