388 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



orifice by which cold, wet, or any enemy, can enter. They cover likewise 

 with it the sticks which support the combs, and often spread it over a 

 considerable portion of the interior of the hive. Like the pellets of pollen, 

 it is carried on the posterior tibiae, but the masses are lenticular. 1 



Mr. Knight mentions an instance of Bees using an artificial kind of pro- 

 polis. He had caused the decorticated part of some tree to be covered 

 with a cement composed of bees' wax and turpentine; finding this to theii 

 purpose, they attacked it, detaching it from the tree by their mandibles, and 

 then, as usual, passing it from the first leg to the second, and so to the 

 third. When one bee had thus collected its load, another often came be- 

 hind and despoiled it of all it had collected; a second and third load were 

 frequently lost in the same manner ; and yet the patient animal pursued 

 its labours without showing any signs of anger. 2 



Bees in their excursions do not confine themselves to the spot immedi- 

 ately contiguous to their dwelling, but, when led by the scent of honey, will 

 go a mile from it. Huber even assigns to them a radius of half a league round 

 their hive for their ordinary excursions ; yet from this distance they will 

 discover honey with as much certainty as if it was within their sight. To 

 prove that it is by their scent that bees find it out, he put some behind a 

 window-shutter, in a place where it could not be seen, leaving the shutter 

 just open enough for insects, if they liked, to get at it. In less than a 

 quarter of an hour, four bees, a butterfly, and some house-flies had dis- 

 covered it. At another time he put some into boxes, with little apertures 

 in the lid, into which pieces of card were fitted, which he placed about two 

 hundred paces from his hives. In about half an hour the bees discovered 

 them, and traversing them very industriously, soon found the apertures, 

 when, pushing in the pieces of card, they got to the honey. That contained 

 in the blossom of many plants is quite as much concealed ; yet the acute- 

 ness of their scent enables them to detect it. 



These insects, especially when laden and returning to their nest, fly in a 

 direct line, which saves both time and labour. How they are enabled to 

 do this with such certainty as to make for their own abode without devia- 

 tion, I must leave to others to explain. Connected with this circumstance, 

 and the acuteness of their smell, is the following curious account, given in 

 the Philosophical Transactions for 1721, of the method practised in New 

 England for discovering where the wild hive-bees live in the woods, in 

 order to get their honey. The honey-hunters set a plate containing honey 

 or sugar upon the ground in a clear day. The bees soon discover and 

 attack it : having secured two or three that have filled themselves, the 

 hunter lets one go, which, rising into the air, flies straight to the nest : he 

 then strikes off at right angles with its course a few hundred yards, and 

 letting a second fly, observes its course by his pocket compass ; and the 

 point where the two courses intersect is that where the nest is situated. 3 



The natural station of bees is in the cavities of decayed trees; such 

 trees Mr. Knight tells us they will discover in the closest recesses, and at 

 an extraordinary distance from the hive ; in one instance it was a mile : 

 and at swarming, they sometimes are inclined to settle in such cavities. 

 After the discovery of one, from twenty to fifty, who are a kind of scouts, 

 may be found examining and keeping possession of it. They seem to ex- 



1 Reaum. ubi supra. 437. 2 Philos. Trans. 1807, 242. 



3 xxxi. 148. 



