BEE. 



411 



Nature of 

 the work- 

 ers. 



Bee. dent. It is not enough to say, that it is from the 

 drones being no .onger of any use in propagating the 

 species ; or that their numbers would be a burden 

 on the rest, seeing they are altogether inefficient. 

 Conclusions deduced from either of these reasons, are 

 not to be admitted in our present state of knowledge 

 respecting the natural history of bees. Probably, 

 however, our attention should be directed to the con- 

 sequences of the drones having fulfilled the purposes 

 of generation ; for they are never destroyed in hives 

 wanting queens, nor in hives where queens lay eggs 

 producing males only. In both situations they are 

 tolerated and fed, and may be seen living in perfect 

 security throughout the winter. The massacre hap- 

 pens in those hives alone possessing queens complete- 

 ly fertile ; but never until the season of swarming has 

 elapsed. 



In considering the nature of the individual species 

 of bees inhabiting a hive, an acquaintance with which, 

 we repeat, is indispensable before converting their la- 

 bours to use, we have to notice some of the peculiarities 

 exhibited by workers. It is to this great class that 

 the welfare of a hive properly belongs : without their 

 incessant aid, the males, females, and even the brood 

 itself would quickly perish ; and if the presence of a 

 queen be essential to their safety, they are no less re- 

 quisite for her preservation. 



Certain facts, we have already remarked, tend to 

 establish, that all workers are originally females ; and 

 in most, perhaps in every hive, some are found laying 

 eggs, which will be future drones. But here view- 

 ing them as a large class of the community, consisting 

 of twenty, thirty, nay forty thousand individuals, we 

 behold them employed in various purposes extremely 

 diversified for the general good. They are charged 

 with cleaning and preparing the cells appropriated for 

 the embryos of their own kind, of the queens, and the 

 males : they collect the honey, obtain wax, and build 

 the combs : likewise, they gather a particular sub- 

 stance, (resinous, as is supposed,) with which all the 

 crevices of the hive are closed, and its inside co- 

 vered. After the queen has deposited her eggs, the 

 workers supply the food adapted for the worms of 

 each species, and regulate the proportions, so as to 

 serve until the last metamorphosis is undergone : and 

 they seal every cell with a covering different, accord- 

 ing to the different worm included, at the proper and 

 appointed time. Nor are these the limits of their 

 occupations ; while some guard the queen, construct 

 the combs, and watch over the necessities of the 

 young, others keep constant watch, day and night, at 

 the entrance of the hive : if a stranger bee, a wasp, 

 or noxious insect appears, it is instantly repelled or 

 destroyed : even should a queen, which, on usual oc- 

 casions, is treated with such unequivocal marks of re- 

 gard, be introduced to the hive of any swarm but her 

 own, the workers immediately seize and restrain her, 

 and, without being wounded with their stings, the 

 confinement she suffers is such, that she sometimes 

 dies of absolute suffocation. 

 Honey. All the operative parts of the ceconomy of the hive 



are entrusted to the workers ; and as the collection 

 of honey and c >mbs which they construct are the 

 substances converted to our use, and indeed is tiie 

 main purpose of our cultivating them in numbers, it 



is proper that we should elucidate the manner in which Bee. 

 this is effected. Honey is a vegetable secretion, which """ """' 

 appears at different seasons of the year, especially 

 when flowers in general blow. We can readily un- 

 derstand how it is stored up by the bees : they lick 

 it with the proboscis from the flowers ; it is swallow- 

 ed ; and on their return to the hive, it is disgorged, 

 not from the trunk, but the mouth, into the cells. 

 Only a small portion is collected by each, but the 

 united labours of thousands produce an abundant 

 harvest. Reaumur has calculated, that within an 

 hour 3000 bees have returned from their collections 

 to a hive, whose population did not exceed 18,000; 

 and in six days, Swammerdam, if we rightly under- 

 stand his expressions, found nearly 4-000 cells con- 

 structed by a new swarm, consisting of less than 

 6000 bees. Some of the cells filled with honey are 

 destined for the daily consumption of the bees, and 

 others are sealed up and reserved for times of neces- 

 sity. Many of the labourers free themselves of their 

 collections before reaching the cells, by bestowing 

 them on their neighbours ; the trunks of the latter 

 are seen extended, and they receive the honey with 

 them as it is disgorged. 



Honey being a vegetable product, its properties j t is son , e . 

 depend entirely on the nature of the plants from times 

 which it is collected : one kind is of the finest flavour, poisonous, 

 delicious to the taste, pure and transparent; another 

 is entirely of a different consistence, dark, greenish, 

 tenacious or bitter ; and a third kind has been known 

 to produce deleterious effects, which were almost, if 

 not completely, fatal to human life. Dioscorides, 

 Pliny, and various ancient authors, speak of honey in 

 the East being dangerous in certain years ; and Xe- 

 nophon relates, that when the army of ten thousand 

 approached Trebisond, the soldiers having partaken 

 copiously of honey found in the neighbourhood, were 

 affected like persons inebriated ; several, on whom it 

 had more violent consequences, became furious, and 

 seemed as if in the agonies of death. Though none 

 of them died, all were extremely weak for three days. 

 In recent times, we are told of the pernicious effects 

 of a particular kind of honey collected in America ; 

 and plants grow in the Archipelago, the honey of 

 which is said to occasion vomiting. Thus Don Felix 

 Azara informs us, that there is a particular kind of 

 honey collected in Paraguay, called cabatalu, which 

 occasions a severe headach, and produces as perfect 

 intoxication as ensues from brandy ; while another 

 kind brings on convulsions, attended with the most 

 excruciating pains, which last thirty hours. 



Bees are seen laden with a yellowish substance in Wax 

 very considerable quantities, which also is stored up produced 

 in the hive. This is not wax, as is commonly sup- from 

 posed, but either the pollen of flowers, which is used honey, 

 for feeding their young, or propolis for stopping 

 the crevices of their dwelling. The combs are con- 

 structed of wax, which owes its origin to honey : 

 or it may be formed from sugar, the saccharine part 

 of which constitutes one principal ingredient of honey. 

 Naturalists have adopted many conjectures concern- 

 ing the mode in which it is elaborated by the bees. 

 In general they supposed that the yellowish pellets 

 adhering to their limbs were swallowed, and after- 

 wards disgorged as wax in a state of purity. The 



