THE HONEY BEE IN AMERICA. 155 



trunk, and disclosing the hidden treasures of sweetly 

 scented honey enclosed within; the unfortunate bees, 

 stunned by the sudden catastrophe, are said seldom 

 to make any serious resistance to the removal of their 

 stores, if this is done immediately before they have 

 time to recover from the shock though to speak 

 frankly, we should much prefer to take this fact upon 

 the authority of others than to try the experiment in 

 our own person. Attacks of bees sometimes result in 

 very dangerous consequences to the person assailed; 

 though of course with proper veils, thick gauntlets, and 

 other precautions, a man ought to be able to efficiently 

 protect himself. 



The honey bee, we may remind the reader, does not 

 appear to have been indigenous to America, but was 

 originally brought over from Europe by the white 

 colonists, at an early period in the history of the 

 " Plantation. " Like many other living creatures and 

 plants then introduced, they took kindly to their new 

 home, and multiplied exceedingly in a wild state, and 

 now, so far as we can learn, appear to have established 

 themselves almost all over the regions where climate 

 and circumstances admit of their doing so; they have 

 in consequence as we have before remarked come to be 

 regarded by the red man, whose acute observation nothing 

 can escape, as " The White Man's Fly ; " and though the 

 Indians will eat its honey whenever they can get it, the 

 honey bee is nevertheless regarded by them with a certain 

 amount of superstitious dread, as " bad medicine, " or a 

 thing of evil omen. With wonder and alarm they saw the 

 white man's fly quickly spread itself all over the land, 

 and occupy it in such numbers as to render all idea 

 of its ever becoming extinct hopeless, even were it 



