390 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



account Keaumur has given from Maillet of the transportation of hives in 

 Egypt from one place to another, before alluded to l , to enable them to 

 make in greater abundance their collections of honey, &c. Towards the 

 end of October, when the inundations of the Nile have ceased, and the 

 husbandmen can sow their land, sainfoin is one of the first things that is 

 sown ; and as Upper Egypt is warmer than the Lower, the sainfoin gets 

 there first into blossom. At this time, bee-hives are transported in boats 

 from all parts of Egypt into the upper district, and are there heaped in 

 pyramids upon the boats prepared to receive them ; each being numbered 

 by the individual to whom it belongs. In this station they remain some 

 days ; and when they are judged to have got in the harvest of honey and 

 pollen that is to be collected there, they are removed two or three leagues 

 lower down, where they remain the same time ; and so they proceed till 

 towards the middle of February, when, having traversed Egypt, they 

 arrive at the sea, from whence they are dispersed to their several owners. 



A transportation of bee-hives, in some respects similar, prevails, as we 

 learn from Mr. Willock, at the present day throughout Persia, Asia Minor, 

 arid he believes Greece ; in which countries an inhabitant even of a town 

 will sometimes possess fifty or sixty hives, from the honey and wax of 

 which a considerable profit is derived. These hives are wicker-work 

 cylinders, two feet eight inches long by nine inches in diameter, plastered 

 inside and outside with cow-dung ; having one end filled up with a cir- 

 cular earthenware plate, and the other with a circular wooden door, in 

 the middle of which is a small hole for the entrance of the bees. In 

 spring, when the herbage of the low country has become parched, the 

 proprietor of the hives, after closing them, conveys them (six or seven 

 being an ass load) to some village in the neighbouring mountains where 

 fragrant shrubs abound ; and having sealed the doors, leaves them in 

 charge of a villager, whom he pays for watching them, when he removes 

 them in October back to his home. Near villages in the mountains of 

 Sahund, in the vicinity of Tabreez, Mr. Willock has seen ranges of these 

 hives thus put out to board to the number of 500 or 600. 8 



John Hunter observes, that when the season for laying is over, that 

 for collecting honey comes on (he means, probably, for making the prin- 

 cipal-collection of it) ; and that when the last pupa is disclosed, the cell 

 it deserts, after being cleaned, is immediately filled with it, and as soon 

 as full is covered with pure wax : but this only holds with respect to the 

 cells containing honey for winter use, those destined to receive that which 

 forms their food when bad weather prevents them from going out being 

 left open. 8 Sometimes, when the year is remarkably favourable for 

 collecting honey, the bees will destroy many of the larvae to make room 

 for it ; but they never meddle with the pupae. When no more honey is 

 to be collected, they remain quiet in the hive for the winter. Mr. Hunter 

 found that a hive grew lighter in a cold than in a warm week ; he found 

 also that in three months (from November 10th to February 9th) a single 

 hive lost 72 oz. \\ dram. 4 



Water is a thing of the first necessity to these insects ; but they are 

 not very delicate as to its quality, but rather the reverse ; often preferring 



l Reaum. v. 698. 2 Gardener's Chronicle, 1841, p. 84. 



3 Philos. Trans. 1792, 160. Comp. Reaum. v. 450. 

 * Reaum. ibid. 591. Hunter, ibid. 161. 



