34^ THE INSECT WORLD, 



the bee gets a reinforcement, and returns to the combat with a deter- 

 mined battaUon (Fig. 323). All this is, it seems to us, intelligence. 



We have just said that there are sentinels at the entrance of every 

 hive. They touch with their antennae each individual that wishes to 

 penetrate into the house. Hornets, the Death's-head Sphinx, slugs, 

 &c., often try to introduce themselves into the hive. In that case, on 

 the appeal of the watchful porters, all the bees combine their efforts 

 to defend the entrance to their habitation. It would be impossible 

 for them, in fact, to stop the ravages of their enemies when oncei 

 entered into the interior. When a sphinx has succeeded in intro- 

 ducing itself into a hive, it sits down and drinks the honey in great 

 bumpers, devouring all the provisions : and the unfortunate proprie- 

 tors of the house are obliged to emigrate. To stop the entrance of 

 moths which fly by night, the bees contract, and sometimes barricade, 

 their door with a mixture of wax and propolis. When a slug or any 

 other large animal has managed to introduce itself into the interior, 

 they kill it and wrap it up in a shroud of propolis, as we have already 

 related. 



However, they are quite helpless against certain microscopic para- 

 sites which sometimes attack them. The bee-louse, which has been 

 described and drawn by Reaumur in one of his Memoirs,* and the 

 parasite which was described in 1866 by M. Duchemin, the Sugar 

 Acartis, which is found in the liquid honey of those hives which are 

 attacked by the disease called the rot (pourriture), are the most 

 serious enemies of the bee. The Gallerias are also terrible enemies 

 to them. Every hive thus attacked is ruined. These destructive 

 insects attack also the wild bees, drive them from their nests, and 

 destroy the wax of the cakes forming the comb. The Galleria 

 impudently makes his home in the houses of bees, wild as well as 

 domesticated. 



The habits of bees in their wild state, which make their nests in 

 the trunks of trees and other cavities, do not differ from those of 

 domesticated bees. Only the latter become tame with man, getting 

 used to those who look after them, and becoming less aggressive 

 towards strangers. 



Apiculture, or bee-keeping, is still at the present day an important 

 business, although honey has lost a great deal of its utility since the 

 introduction of sugar into Europe. Without enteiing into many 



ihat large animals, such as horses or oxen, tied up in the neighbourhood of a bee- 

 hive, and which have disturbed the bees, die in consequence of stings received from 

 Ihem. 



* Tome v., planche .>6. 



