APID.E — BEES. 197 



On a Continental forty-five dollar bill, issued on the 14tli 

 of January, 1779, is represented an Apiary in which two 

 Beehives are visible, and Bees are seen swarming about. 

 The motto is " Sic floret Respublica — Thus flourishes the 

 Republic." It conveys the simple lesson that by industry 

 and frugality the Republic would prosper.^ 



Bees in the heroic ao^es it appears were not confined in 

 hives ; for, whenever Homer describes them, it is either 

 where they are streaming forth from a rock,^ or settling in 

 bands and clusters on the spring flowers. Hesiod, however, 

 soon after makes mention of a hive where he is uncourte- 

 ously comparing women to drones : 



As when within their well-roof d hives the Bees 

 Maintain the mischief-working drones at ease, 

 Their task pursuing till the golden sun 

 Down to the western wave his course hath run, 

 Filling their shining combs, while snug within 

 Their fragrant cells, the drones, with idle din 

 As princes revel o'er their unpaid bowls, 

 On others' labors cheer their worthless souls. ^ 



It may be surprising to many to know that Bees were not 

 originally natives of this country. But such is the case; 

 the first planters never saw any. The English first intro- 

 duced them into Boston, and in 1670, they were carried over 

 the Alleghany Mountains by a hurricane.* Since that time, 

 it has been remarked they betray an invariable tendency for 

 migrating souihward.^ 



Bees for a long time were known to our Indians by the 

 name of "English Flies ;"^ and they consider them, says 

 Irving, as the harbinger of the white man, as the buffalo is 

 of the red man, and say that in proportion as the Bee ad- 

 vances, the Indian and the bufi'alo retire." 



Longfellow, in his Song of Hiawatha, in describing the 

 advent of the European to the New World, makes his 

 Indian warrior say of the Bee and the wliite clover : 



1 Harper's New Monthly Mag., xxvi. 441. 



2 //. C. 87; (A. 67; Odl/ss , v. 106. 



3 Hesiod, Theog., 594, seq. 

 * Bucke on Nature, ii. 75. 



5 Cf. Kalm, ii. 427 ; Schneider, Observ. sur Ulloa, ii. 198. 



6 Ihid. 



' Tour in the Prairies, ch. ix. 



18 



