3S0 



Carhon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Kitrogen. 



Vol. VI. 



is so easily disting^uished from the otlier bees 

 by any one at all conversant with them, thaj, 

 it' the queen absented herself from the hive in 

 the way that Huber describes her as dointr, it 

 seems next to impossible that she should not 

 have been perceived, either on her departure 

 from, or her return to the hive. 



The vision of bees seems very imperfect ; 

 I have frequently turned a hive, so as to 

 make the entrance about two or three inches 

 from its former position, and have then always 

 found the bees at a loss to gain admittance ; 

 indeed, they seem rather to feel their way 

 than to see it, after they have once landed 

 themselves on the platform of their hives. 

 Their progress through the air is always 

 made in a direct line to the hive, and the in- 

 stinct which enables them to find it amongst 

 forty or fifty others placed in a row, and so 

 nearly similar to each other, is very striking. 

 Mr. Rogers, in his " Pleasures of JMemory," 

 has a pretty idea on this subject — 



' The varied scents that charmed her as she flew,' 



he thinks might point out the way of her re- 

 turn to the hive. 



The summer of 1818 was unusually dry 

 and hot, and in July, flowers of almost every 

 description had entirely disappeared ; I ob- 

 served that the bees, in consequence of this, 

 seldom left their hives in search of honey, al- 

 though the weather, one would have thought, 

 would have tempted them out ; they seemed, 

 indeed, to be perfectly aware that their la- 

 bours would be useless. I recollect meeting 

 with an account of a hive of bees being trans- 

 ported from a distant place to a spot by the 

 side of a mountain in Italy, where they could 

 procure honey all the year round ; and finding 

 this to be the case, they soon gave up stock- 

 ing their hive, and only went out to collect 

 honey as they wanted it; and the same ob- 

 servation has been made on bees taken from i 

 Europe to the West Indies, who, the first j 

 year, stored their hives as usual, but never I 

 afterwards; merely supplying themselves with [ 

 food from day to day. j 



The lower orders of people in some places ' 

 have curious superstitions respecting bees ; ' 

 a poor widow told me she had lost all her 

 hives, and on enquiring the cause, she in- 

 formed me, that on the death of her husband, 

 she had neglected to inform the bees of it by i 

 tapping three times at each of the hives with i 

 the key of the house door ! this being thought ; 

 necessary to their preservation. It is also [ 

 deemed necessary to put the bees in mourn- [ 

 ing on such occasions, by attachingf a piece 

 of black cloth to each hive; and the person 

 who made the remark, mentioned a case in 

 point, when, from the neglect of the custom, 

 every bee in the apiary had perished ! Mr. 

 Loudon mentions, that he was informed of an 



old man who sang a psalm in front of some 

 hives that were not doing well, but which, he 

 said, would thrive, in consequence of that ce- 

 remony. I observe, that when a hive is fixed 

 over a swarm, the bees will generally go into 

 it of their own accord, uttering, at the same 

 time, their satisfied hum, and seeming to be 

 aware of the purpose for which it had been 

 placed ; but how the queen-bee is made ac- 

 quainted that so convenient a place for her to 

 retreat to is near at hand 1 know not, but so 

 it is; for surrounded by thousands of her sub- 

 jects who press around her, she makes her 

 way through them all, and enters the hive, 

 followed by the whole swarm ; and here the 

 work of preparing future cells is instantly 

 commenced ; and I have found that, although 

 a swarm has not been able for two or three 

 days to quit the hive after they had taken 

 possession, a considerable number of cells had 

 been nearly completed ; and that, even as 

 soon as the foundation of a cell has been 

 finished, the queen-bee will sometimes deposit 

 an egg upon it, the sides being afterwards 

 built up. As the cells increase in number, 

 honey and the farina of flowers are stored in 

 them. 



Nothing can be more melancholy than the 

 appearance of bees in wet weather, some of 

 them will come to the mouth of the hive, as 

 if to take a view of the passing clouds, and 

 others who quit the hive, return to it with the 

 greatest difficulty. A sunny day in May is 

 their delight, and it is then that the bees 

 seem most active and most joyous, as well as 

 every other living creature !" 



"Blest power of sunshine ' genial day. 

 What balm, what life is in thy ray ! 

 To feel thee, is such real bliss. 

 That, had the world no joy hut this. 

 To sit in sunshine, calm and sweet — 

 It were a world too exquisite !" 



T. S. 



Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, and 

 JNitrogen. 



Of the .55 simple substances into which 

 the solids, fluids, and gases of the inorganic 

 world may be separated, vegetables are prin- 

 cipally made up of four; and of these, only 

 three exist in any large proportion ; these 

 three are carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Of 

 these, carbon is by far the most abundant; il 

 is nearly identical with charcoal, which con- 

 sists of the carbon of the wood mixed up with 

 a small quantity of earthy matter. If this 

 charcoal be burned, it passes oiF in the forra 

 of carbonic acid gas, leaving a minute por- 

 tion of white ash, which is principally of a 

 mineral nature. It is chiefly to the carbon 

 which it contains, that the hardness and solid- 

 ity of wood are due ; and in so large a portion 

 does it exist in that tissue, that when the 

 other elementary bodies — the oxygen and 



