THE BEE. 



525 



animal's preservation as the honey itself. 

 With this they make their lodgings, with this 

 they cover the cells of their young, and in 

 this they lay up their magazines of honey. 

 This is made, as has been already observed, 

 from the dust of flowers, which is carefully 

 kneaded by the little insect, then swallowed, 

 and having undergone a kind of digestion, is 

 formed into the cells, which answer such a 

 variety of purposes. To collect this, the ani- 

 mal rolls itself in the flower it would rob, and 

 thus takes up the vegetable dust with the hair 

 of its body. Then carefully brushing it into 

 a lump, with its fore- paws it thrusts the com- 

 position into two cavities behind the thighs, 

 which are made like spoons to receive the 

 wax, and the hair that lines them serves to 

 keep it from falling. 



As of wax, there are also two kinds of ho- 

 ney ; the white and the yellow. The white 

 is taken without fire from the honey-combs. 

 The yellow is extracted by heat, and squeezed 

 through bags, in a press. The best honey is 

 new, thick, and granulated, of a clear trans- 

 parent white colour, of a soft and aromatic 

 smell, and of a sweet lively taste. Honey 

 made in mountainous countries is preferable 

 to that of the valley. The honey made in the 

 spring is more highly esteemed than that of 

 autumn, when the flowers begin to fade, and 

 lose their fragrance. 



The bees are nearly alike in all parts of 

 (he world ; yet there are differences worthy 

 our notice. In Guadaloupe, the bee is less 

 by one half than the European, and more 

 black and round. They have no sting, and 

 make their cells in hollow trees ; where, if the 

 hole they meet with is too large, they form a 

 sort of waxen house of the shape of a pear, 

 and in this they lodge and store their honey, 

 and lay their eggs. They lay up their honey 

 in waxen vessels, of the size of a pigeon's egg, 

 of a black or deep violet colour ; and these are 

 so joined together, that there is no space left 



Mr Knight, President of the Horticultural Society, 

 discovered by accident an artificial substance, more at- 

 tractive than any of the resins experimentally tried by 

 Reaumur. Having caused the decorticated part of a 

 tree to be covered with a cement, composed of bees'-wax 

 and turpentine, he observed that this was frequented by 

 hive-bees, who, finding it to be a very good propolis 

 ready made, detached it from the tree by their mandi- 

 ble?, and then, as usual, passed it from the first leg to 

 the second, and so on. When one bee had thus collect- 

 ed its load, another often came behind and despoiled it 

 of all it had collected; a second and a third load were 

 frequently lost in the same manner; and yet the patient 

 insect pursued its operations without manifesting any 

 signs of anger. Probably the latter circumstance, at 

 which Mr Knight seems to have been surprised, was no- 

 thing more than an instance of the division of labour so 

 strikingly exemplified in every part of the economy of 

 bees. 



between them. The honey never congeals, 

 but is fluid, of the consistence of oil, and the 

 colour of amber. Resembling these, there are 

 found little black bees, without a sting, in all 

 the tropical climates ; and though these coun- 

 tries are replete with bees like our own, yet 

 those form the most useful and laborious tribe 

 in that part of the world. The honey they 

 produce is neither so unpalatable nor so sur- 

 ieiting as ours ; and the wax is so soft that it 

 is only used for medicinal purposes, it being 

 never found hard enough to form into candles, 

 as in Europe. 



Of insects that receive the name of bees 

 among us, there are several ; which, however, 

 differ very widely from that industrious social 

 race we have been just describing. The 

 Humble-bee is the largest of all this tribe, 

 being as large as the first joint of one's middle 

 finger. 1 These are seen in every field, and 



1 The humble-bees of this country are now divided 

 into two generic groups, Bombus and Apathus. They 

 may be distinguished from the hive-bee, and other races 

 bearing affinity to them, by having the simple eyes ar- 

 ranged in a curve, instead of forming a triangle; by 

 having an impression in the shape of a cross on the 

 forehead ; the labrum transverse, and two distinct spines 

 at the apex of the posterior tibise. More obvious char- 

 acters are afforded by their large, comparatively rounded, 

 hirsute bodies, generally adorned with bands of light- 

 yellow or red. Upwards of forty different species are 

 described as inhabitants of Britain ; but as the three 

 distinct races of females, males, and workers, belonging 

 to the same species, often bear little resemblance to one 

 another, and as the hair or down covering their bodies, 

 often of the gayest colours, changes with age, like the 

 plumage of birds, it is by no means unlikely that indi- 

 viduals of the same family, and differing only in sex or 

 age, have in some instances, been described as of a dif- 

 ferent species. 



The common humble-bee abounds in our fields and 

 gardens, and is almost equally common throughout all 



Europe. It is distinguished above its congeners for 

 strength and activity. It is one of the earliest insects 

 that appear in the spring, and one of the latest to leave 

 us in autumn. It forms its nest, as is well known, in 

 holes in the ground, sometimes excavated laboriously 

 by its own efforts, sometimes previously formed by other 

 animals and taken possession of by the foundress of the 

 colony. The females of this, as of all the other species, 

 are largest in size, the males next, and the workers 

 smallest. Early in spring, when the willows begin to 

 bloom, the female may be seen traversing the gardens 

 by sun-rise with her usual sonorous booming, and busied 

 in collecting honey and pollen from the catkins. The 

 workers do not appear till a somewhat later period, and 

 the males not till autumn, when the thistles are in blos- 

 som, upon the flowers of which they are found in great 

 numbers, and in still greater, if possible, upon seeding 



