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 KINDS 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 Plungary 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 one of the 

 same size, inverted so that both open tops shall come togeth- 



M 



