62 LIFE OF 



when they have nothing to fight for, as when they have first 

 swarmed ; but they appear to become acquainted, and to place 

 confidence in persons who are much with them, and from whom 

 they have never received injury. A labourer who looked after 

 my bees at the time I was making experiments upon them, 

 would put his fingers into the mouth of the hive, and push 

 away the bees to show me the newly-formed comb, without 

 apparently giving any offence." 



" Downton, July 1829. 



" I believe that I have been to an unjust extent sceptical 

 respecting the accuracy of M. Hubert's statements. I have 

 found so much inaccuracy in the writings of vegetable physiolo- 

 gists, that I am often probably somewhat unreasonably difficult 

 to convince ; and I recollect one of my friends having told me 

 that when he had said to Sir Joseph Banks that I believed some 

 statement, Sir Joseph jestingly remarked, 'he (meaning me) is 

 an excellent person to believe after.' The evidence of bee's-wax 

 being an animal secretion is so strong, that I cannot question 

 it, and I think you have satisfactorily explained why it may be 

 made into thinner combs in the autumn than in the spring*. I 

 think you will also find it more brittle and white than the spring 

 combs are ; though possibly the spring combs may have received 

 some colouring matter after their first formation. Whatever 

 may be the cause of the difference of colour, I believe you will 

 find such difference to exist ; and a Polish friend of mine, 

 whose acquaintance with the management of bees in that 

 country, where the wax forms an article of considerable value 

 comparatively with the price of other articles, was extensive and 

 accurate, informed me that the autumnal combs are always 



* Dr. Bevan had, in answer to some arguments of Mr. Knight's in favour of 

 wax being a vegetable production, detailed experiments to prove that it was 

 secreted by the membrane which lines the sacklets of the working bee ; and he 

 accounted for the more liberal use of it in spring by the supposition that the 

 comb was made thicker in that season for the purpose of resisting the struggles 

 of the nymphs, and that its tenuity in autumn might be attributable to the cells 

 being at this season chiefly intended for repositories for honey. 



