Hive-Bees. 129 



could not seize the moment when they were varnished, though 

 it may be easily conceived how it is done." * 



This is not the only use to which bees apply the propolis. 

 They are extremely solicitous to remove such insects or 

 foreign bodies as happen to get admission into the hive. 

 When so light as not to exceed their powers, they first kill 

 the insect with their stings, and then drag it out with their 

 teeth. But it sometimes happens, as was first observed by 

 Maraldi, and since by Eeaumur and others, that an ill-fated 

 slug creeps into the hive : this is no sooner perceived than 

 it is attacked on all sides, and stung to death. But how are 

 the bees to carry out so heavy a burthen ? Such a labour 

 would be in vain. To prevent the noxious smell which 

 would arise from its putrefaction, they immediately embalm 

 it, by covering every part of its body with propolis, through 

 which no effluvia can escape. When a snail with a shell gets 

 entrance, to dispose of it gives much less trouble and expense 

 to the bees. As soon as it receives the first wound from a 

 sting, it naturally retires within its shell. In this case, the 

 bees, instead of pasting it all over with propolis, content them- 

 selves with gluing all round the margin of the shell, which is 

 sufficient to render the animal for ever immovably fixed. 



Mr. Knight, the learned and ingenious President of the 

 Horticultural Society, discovered by accident an artificial 

 substance, more attractive than any of the resins experi- 

 mentally tried by Eeaumur. Having caused the decorti- 

 cated 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 with their 

 mandibles, and then, as usual, passed it from the first leg 

 to the second, and so on. When one bee had thus collected 

 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.j 



* Huber on Bees, p. 408. 



f Philosophical Tians. for 1807, p. 242. 



K 



