358 THE INSECT WOBLD. 



their hind legs and agitate their wings, you can do with them 

 almost anything you like cut away the honeycomb, abstract the 

 eggs, or take out the honey without their troubling themselves 



Fig. 331. Bellows used to stupify Bees. 



about it. But this state of things must not last too long, or you 

 may suffocate your bees. It is a sort of anaesthesis into which 

 the bees have been thrown ; and as with men this must not be 

 prolonged. 



Some bee-keepers, in order to collect the honey harvest, stupify 

 their bees by burning sulphur matches. This is a bad practice. 

 "Those authors who recommend us to suffocate the bees," says 

 M. Hamet, "under the pretext that their colonies will become 

 too numerous, and who add, ' You cannot eat beef without killing 

 the ox/ are more stupid than the animal they have chosen for 

 their comparison." A hive often produces from twelve to twenty 

 pounds of honey each year, and an almost equal quantity of wax. 

 It may, then, furnish to the bee-keeper an important revenue, 

 especially as the rearing of bees gives scarcely any trouble, and 

 involves scarcely any labour, as it is only necessary to select a 

 spot with a proper exposure and well-supplied with flowers. 



We possess in Europe two species or races of bees the 

 Common bee (Apis mellifica) , and the Ligurian bee (Apis ligus- 

 tica), whose abdomen is tawny, with the rings bordered with 

 black. It is this species of which Virgil sang, and which is found 

 in Italy and Greece. It has been remarked that the Ligurian bee 

 pierces the calices, at their bases, of those flowers which are too 

 long for it to penetrate into easily, and thus gets possession of 

 the honey, whilst the common bees pass these flowers over. This 

 observation proves that the former is the more intelligent of the 

 two races. In Egypt a bee is reared called the Banded bee (Apis 

 fasciata). 



Ten or twelve other species of honey-bees exist in Senegal, the 

 Cape of Good Hope, Madagascar, East Indies, at Timor (Apis 

 Peronii), &c. The European bee has been acclimatised in 



