412 



BEE. 



Bee. process is still obscure, but recent experiments seem 

 ""*V-" to afford reason for believing that it may transude 

 between the scales of the abdomen; and the appear- 

 ance presented by wax on sucli places led former ob- 

 servers to affirm, that it was collected there instead 

 of on the limbs. It is established by satisfactory 

 experiments, that, whatever be its issue from the 

 body of the bee, it originates from honey. Mutual 

 relations subsist in their elementary principles, and 

 the one is dependent on the other. Those years un- 

 productive of honey are also unproductive of wax ; 

 and we often see swarms which begin their collec- 

 tions with the most promising appearance, still make 

 but little progress, and terminate with acquiring too 

 small a quantity of honey for their future subsistence. 

 In these cases, wax is sparingly provided also. What 

 led to a narrow investigation or the preparation of 

 honey from wax, was a naturalist observing that bees 

 continued carrying quantities of the yellow pellets or 

 pollen into hives quite full of comb, and where there 

 was no room to construct more ; and on the other 

 hand, that they enlarged the combs of hives contain- 

 ing only a small portion, and did so without carrying 

 in the pellets at all. Succeeding experiments proved 

 that the pollen which they collect from the anthers; 

 of flowers, is used solely for feeding their young, be- 

 ing the same which, in ordinary description, we call 

 farina, or bee bread ; and that they will take it grain 

 by grain in their teeth, to transmit it into the mouths 

 or the larva; : a remarkable trait of patient industry. 

 In ascertaining the mode by which wax was produced 

 from honey, M. Huber confined a swarm of bees in a 

 straw hive to an apartment, along with a quantity 

 of honey and water necessary for their subsistence. 

 The honey was exhausted in five days, and five combs 

 of the finest snow-white wax were then found sus- 

 pended from the arch of the hive. Lest this might 

 have been the produce of the farina carried in by the 

 bees when their confinement commenced, all the combs 

 were removed, and the imprisonment of the bees re- 

 peated. But the result was the same; they formed 

 other five combs of the finest and whitest wax. It is 

 the saccharine part of the honey which produces 

 wax; and bees supplied with equal portions of honey, 

 and of sugar reduced to a syrup, produce a greater 

 quantity of wax from the latter. From a pound of 

 refined sugar reduced to a syrup, and clarified with 

 eggs, a swarm of bees produced ten drams and fifty- 

 two grains of wax, darker in colour than what they 

 extract from honey : From a pound of dark brown 

 sugar, they prepared twenty-two drams of very white 

 wax, and the like from the same weight of sugar of 

 the maple. Wax is produced sooner, as well as in 

 "reater proportion, fivm sugar than from honey ; and 

 the darker the sugar, the finer is the wax. Repeated 

 observations prove, that the secretion of honey in 

 flowers is powerfully promoted by the electricity of 

 the atmosphere ; and bees never labour more actively 

 than during humid sultry weather, and when a storm 

 is approaching. Sometimes the secretion of honey is 

 entirely suspended by the state of the weather, which 

 occasions a total interruption of the labours of the 

 bees ; and if this be too long protracted, a populous 

 hive may actually die in the midst of summer. The 

 odour exhaled by the hives, and the size of the bees, 



are always certain indications whether the flowers Bee. 

 contain honey. When numbers of bees return from 



their excursions with the belly thick and cylindri- 

 cal, it bhews they are gorged with honey; and th) 

 are exclusively the workers in wax. The bell) of 

 those performing the other functions, always pre- 

 serves its ovoidal form, and does not sensibly increase 

 in size. Although the flowers be destitute of horn y, 

 bees still are able to store up quantities of farina or 

 pollen necessary for feeding their young. Part of it 

 is immediately given to them, and, as is affirmed, 

 what is superfluous is reserved in cells. Sixty-live 

 hives, the whole of which exhibited workers in wax, 

 were examined on the lSth of June, when the coun- 

 try was covered with flowers, and while the bees ac- 

 tively pursued their collections. Those returning to 

 old hives, having no cells to construct, deposited their 

 honey in the combs, or gave to their companions ; 

 but those of new swarms converted their honey into 

 wax, and hastened to build combs for the reception 

 of their young. Chill and showery weather inter- 

 rupted their labours, and the combs received no ad- 

 dition by the construction of new cells. The weather 

 however altered, the chesnut and elm were in flourish, 

 and the thermometer on the first of July rose to 77 : 

 the bees resumed their labours with the utmost acti- 

 vity from that day until the 16th, both in honey and 

 wax. But thenceforward no honey being produced, 

 they collected quantities of pollen only ; and the odour 

 of the flowers shewed there was nothing excepting an 

 inconsiderable secretion of honey at intervals, barely 

 sufficient for subsisting the bees. It was found, on 

 examining the sixty-five hives in the end of August, 

 that, after the middle of July, the bees had ceased to 

 work in wax ; that they had stored up a great quan- 

 tity of pollen ; that the honey of the old hives was 

 very much diminished, and in the new ones scarce 

 any remained ; as what was at first collected had been 

 consumed in the preparation of wax. Thus it ap- v 

 pears, that, in the natural state, honey is the source of 

 wax, and the food of bees ; that its secretion from 

 flowers is affected by adventitious circumstances; and 

 that its qualities are different in different countries. 

 No elementary principles of wax reside in pollen ; this 

 substance is collected solely to feed the young con- 

 tained in hives, and the perfect bees themselves never 

 live upon it. 



The propolis is another substance collected from Use of the 

 plants, which is extremely useful to bees. Besides propolis, 

 the purposes of stopping crevices, covering the inte- 

 rior surface of the hive, the sticks supporting the 

 combs, and gluing the hive to the board on which it 

 stands, bees employ it in greater portions at once. 

 Stranger animals of small size entering a hive are im- 

 mediately stung to death, and then dragged by the 

 bees to the outside : there are few persons who have 

 not seen that a dead fly, or bee laid on their board, is 

 quickly carried away and dropped at a distance : it 

 seems the nature of these insects not to endure any 

 tilth or corruption in their habitation. Should a 

 larger animal, such as a snail, make its way into the 

 hive, it does not escape; it is put to death, but the 

 bees are unable to dived themselves of its body. 

 Maraldi relates, that he saw the dead body of a snail 

 totally covered with propolis, and thus prevented 



