THE AMEBIC AN APICULTURIST. 



201 



body, the head, the breast and the 

 legs, and they come home yellow 

 or green or red as is the nature of 

 the flowers, for they take away 

 their boot}' as much as the}' can 

 themselves ; but mostly by one of 

 the other working bees at home is 

 it plucked off and laid away for 

 store. 



The propolis, or bee glue, which 

 differs from the wax and is, prop- 

 erly speaking, a gummy rosin, but 

 after being worked becomes quite 

 hard, the bees gather in quite a 

 different way. They bite it with 

 the mandibles from the buds or 

 young twigs of the fir, pine, birch, 

 elm and other trees and shrubs and 

 attach it to the legs, but not in 

 flight as with the pollen, but when 

 they are resting. The process is, 

 however, more slow and arduous ; 

 they detach small portions of it 

 with their mandibles, kneading it, 

 and the fore feet help to form it. 

 The}- take it down with the teeth 

 and give it to the middle feet, these 

 bring it to the cavity on the hind 

 feet and tap it with three or four 

 strokes thereon. If the}' are now 

 so fully laden that they can carry 

 it away, they hasten back again. 

 But the bees, upon their return 

 home, cannot unload this propolis 

 themselves, but other bees tear it 

 into little pieces with their teeth, 

 and bring it in the same to a crev- 

 ice which needs stopping. They 

 work upon it directly and crudely, 

 without depositing any in the cells. 

 They make use of it to stop up all 

 holes and openings in their dwell- 

 ings and often to coat the walls 

 of their hives, and especially to 



strengthen their combs. But in the 

 collecting of this propolis, they do 

 not lose any valuable time, when 

 they can gather honey and pollen, 

 but it happens only economically 

 in the springtime when they have 

 settled in quite a new hive and 

 more frequently in the fall, when 

 the honey harvest is over and they 

 are making ready their winter quar- 

 ters. 



Besides, they bring water, con- 

 cerning the quality of which they 

 are not particular. They lick it 

 from the puddles, from places where 

 urine has been discharged, out of 

 the fresh earth, from earth contain- 

 ing saltpetre, etc., or any place 

 wherein salt exists, and bring it in 

 the stomach to their homes. 



Probably they use this alkaline 

 substance for the nourislynent of 

 the young brood to a certain age ; 

 perhaps, also, in the digestion of 

 this with honey mixed with pollen 

 for the preparation of wax in their 

 wax stomachs. For, what the bees 

 carry home is by no means wax, 

 but they prepare it in their bodies 

 by the digestion of honey and pol- 

 len which last they probably make 

 use of. 



There are accurate proofs indeed, 

 that when confined and fed with 

 clean, pure honey, the bees build 

 wax cells ; but, whether without 

 pollen they would not soon become 

 exhausted, and cease to exude in 

 great quantities, I cannot for the 

 present warrant. From the bee- 

 bread they obtain, indeed, only a 

 very small part of the true wax. 

 The greatest part of this matter 

 serves as their food. They eat this 



