TRANSPORT OF BEES. 



bourhood are numerous, the pasturage surrounding their hives 

 often becomes exhausted. In such cases the agriculturists trans- 

 port the bees from localities which they have exhausted, to others 

 in a state of comparative abundance, just as the shepherd drives 

 his sheep from field to field, according as the pasturage is eaten 

 down. In Egypt, towards the end of October, when the inunda- 

 tions of the !Nile have ceased, and the husbandmen can sow the 

 land, saintfoin is one of the first things sown ; and as Upper is 

 warmer than Lower Egypt, the saintfoin gets there first into 

 flower. 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 

 marked with a number which indicates its owner. In this station 

 they remain for some days, and when it is considered that they 

 have pretty well exhausted the surrounding fields of their sweets, 

 they are removed a few leagues lower down, where they are 

 retained for a like interval ; and so they descend the river, until 

 towards the middle of February they arrive at its mouth, where 

 they are distributed among their respective proprietors.* 



A similar practice prevails in various parts of the East and 

 in Greece. The inhabitants of the towns are often the proprietors 

 of fifty or sixty hives, the product of which forms an article of 

 their trade. The hives are sent in the season when the herbage 

 is in flower to the various rural districts, being sealed up by the 

 owner, the small bee-door only being open, and are given in 

 charge to the villagers, who at the close of the season are paid for 

 their care of them. Ranges, consisting of five or six hundred 

 hives, are often seen thus put out to grass. t 



161. Bees are remarkable for neatness and cleanliness, both as to 

 their habitations and their persons. They remove all dirt and 

 nuisances from their hive, with the regularity of the neatest 

 housewives, When their strength is insufficient for this, they 

 contrive various ingenious expedients to abate the nuisance. If 

 snails find their way into the hive, as they sometimes do, they 

 kill them with their stings ; and in order to prevent noisome and 

 unwholesome effluvia from their decomposing remains, they 

 embalm them with propolis. If the snail is protected from their 

 stings by its shell, they bury it alive in a mass of propolis. 



When pressed by natural wants, they do not defile their habita- 

 tion by relieving themselves in it, but go abroad for the purpose. 



When a .young bee issues from the cell, a worker immediately 

 approaches, and, taking out its envelope, carries it out of the 

 hive ; another removes the exuvia? of the larva, and a third any 



* Reaumur, v. 698. 

 f Willock, in " Gardeners' Chronicle, 1841, p. 84. 



o 2 83 



