** 2HE FARMER'S MANUAL*,- 



CHAP. IV. 

 On the common Bees* 



The term common Bees, working Bees, or mules, 

 will apply to all the others in the swarm, excepting 

 the queen and the drones, because they form the 

 mass of the community, and do the labour, by laying 

 in stores for the hive, and nourish the brood, and are 

 neutral in their propagation. Much curious hypothe- 

 sis has appeared amongst Apiarians, upon the order 

 and regularity in apportioning the employments and 

 tasks of labour in the community, but this is now ge- 

 rally exploded, and each Bee is left to the govern- 

 ment of his own instinct, in apportioning and per- 

 forming his several duties. 



The whole field of nature abounds with the inex- 

 plicable mysteries of providence ; and the Bee, by her 

 wonderful sagacity, has unlocked one of those myste- 

 ries, by extracting honey from plants, and flowers, and 

 converting it to the support of herself, and the use of 

 man ; but how this honey is produced in the opera- 

 lions of nature, in the growth of the plants, and how 

 the Bee extracts it in exclusion to the other juices of 

 the same plants, is all inexplicable to us, and is one, 

 amongst the millions of nature's works, to show how 

 little of nature man can know. 



I shall continue this chapter with a description of 

 the Bee by Mr. Huish. " In regard to the physical 

 description of the Bee, the most remarkable parts of 

 it are the head, the breast, and the belly. On the 

 former, are observed two wonderful eyes placed in 

 the side, two antenna, two hard teeth, or jaws, which 

 play on opening and shutting, from the left to the 

 right. These teeth enable it to collect the wax, to 

 knead it, to construct the cells, and to remove from 

 the hive every obnoxious thing. Below these teeth 

 we observe a proboscis, which has the appearance 

 of a thick fleshy substance, of a very shining ches- 



