190 HABITATIONS OF ANIMALS. 



wax is the result of an animal process. When bees are 

 removed into a new hive, and closely confined from the 

 morning to the evening, if the hive chances to please them, 

 in the course of this day several waxen cells will be formed, 

 without the possibility of a single bee's having had access to 

 the fields. Besides, the rude materials, or the farina of plants 

 carried into the hive, are of various colors. The farina of 

 some plants employed by the bees is whitish ; in others, it is 

 of a fine yellow color ; in others, it is almost entirely red ; 

 and in others, it is green. The combs constructed with these 

 differently colored materials, are, however, uniformly of the 

 same color. Every comb, especially when it is newly made, 

 is of a pure white color, which is more or less tarnished by 

 age, the operation of the air, or by other accidental circum- 

 stances. To bleach wax, therefore, requires only the art of 

 extracting such foreign bodies as may have insinuated them- 

 selves into its substance, and changed its original color. 



Bees, from the nature of their constitution, require a warm 

 habitation. They are likewise extremely solicitous to pre- 

 vent insects of any kind from getting admittance into their 

 hives. To accomplish both these purposes, when they take 

 possession of a new hive, they carefully examine every part 

 of it ; and if they discover any small holes or chinks, they 

 immediately paste them firmly up with a resinous substance, 

 which differs considerably from wax. This substance was 

 not unknown to the ancients. Pliny mentions it under the 

 name of propolis, or bee-glue. Bees use the propolis for ren- 

 dering their hives more close and perfect, in preference to 

 wax, because the former is more durable, and more powerful- 

 ly resists the vicissitudes of weather, than the latter. This 

 glue is not, like wax, procured by an animal process. The 

 bees collect it from different trees, as the poplars, the birches, 

 and the willows. It is a complete production of nature, and 

 requires no addition or manufacture from the animals by 

 which it is employed. After a bee has procured a quantity 

 sufficient to fill the cavities in its two hind thighs, it repairs to 

 the hive. Two of its companions instantly draw out the pro- 

 polis, and apply it to fill up such chinks, holes, or other defi- 

 ciencies, as they find in their habitation. But this is riot the 

 only use to which bees apply the propolis. They are extremely 

 solicitous to remove such insects or foreign bodies as happen 

 to get admission into the hive. When so light as not to ex- 

 ceed their powers, they first kill the insect with their stings, 

 and then drag it out with their teeth. But it sometimes hap- 



