240 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



cocoon wherever it may be, and then the adults build around it a wall of 

 wax. This fact accounts for the irregularity in the comb. The first 

 broods are composed solely of workers, and the males and females do not 

 appear until late in the season. 



The hive or honey bee is, without doubt, by far the most valuable of 

 all the insects, and is now distributed over the whole world through the 

 agency of man. It was introduced into America by the early settlers in 

 the seventeenth century, and now the bee industry has a great importance 

 with us, it being estimated that there are a hundred thousand bee-keepers 

 in the United States. 



The importance of the honey-bee has made it the subject of careful 

 study by numbers of investigators, and to-day we know more of its habits 

 and history than of any other insect. One of the most careful observers 

 was Huber, who, strange to say, was blind, and conducted his studies 

 by means of intelligent servants, who followed his directions ; while in 

 America, Langstroth, a native of Philadelphia, and Quinby, have greatly 

 advanced our knowledge of the* economic side of the life of the bee, and 

 of keeping them for pecuniary profit. 



Still, much as we know about the bee, certain points are as yet involved 

 in obscurity. The two economic products, wax and honey, are formed 

 no one knows how. The bee feeds upon the nectar of flowers, and this 

 is acted upon by the saliva of the insect, changing its chemical nature and 

 converting it into honey, after which it is regurgitated and placed in the 

 honey-cells. The wax is the product of certain glands on the under 

 surface of the abdomen, but farther than this we know almost nothing. 



The wax is used by the bees for building the cells, some of which are 

 stored with honey, while others are utilized for rearing the young. It was 

 formerly thought that the cells of the honey-comb were perfect hexagonal 

 prisms, and this idea, though overthrown twenty years ago, still survives. 

 Page after page has been written to show what a wonderful instinct it 

 is that leads the bees to construct cells which are of such a shape as to 

 afford the greatest economy of material, and whose sides and angles are 

 fixed and invariable. 



In fact, this is all nonsense. The hexagonal shape results not from 

 any intention on the part of the bee, but from the fact that a number of 

 cylinders, placed *side by side and pressed together, will take a hexagonal 

 shape, and the economy of material results not from a desire on the part 

 of the bee, but as a mathematical necessity. The bee, in building the cell, 

 places herself in the proper position and then raises the walls around her ; 

 and so when two bees work side by side, the intervening wall will be flat 

 and not rounded as it is when it is free. 



