80 - PHILOSOPHIC A.L TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1750. 



may have different physical qualities : so that, by making collections of the same 

 kind in each cell, they may have proper remedies for themselves against ailments 

 we have no knowledge of, which otherwise they would not have, if they were 

 filled at random from all kinds of flowers. These further advantages, directed 

 to them by Providence, seem to add weight to my observations, and are a pre- 

 sumptive proof that they are true. 



The only thing, besides the former, in which my observations differ from 

 M. Reaumur, is in the manner the wax is made and emitted by the bee. I 

 absolutely concur with him, that the wax is formed by digestion in the bodies of 

 the bees, and is emitted by them, and then becomes wax ; and that it is almost 

 impracticable to form wax any other way, unless the wax extracted from the 

 myrtle-berries in America by boiling be an exception from it. By M. Reaumur's 

 observations, he forms his opinion, that after the bee has fed upon the farina, 

 or bee-bread, and it has passed through the first stomach (which is the reservoir 

 where the honey is lodged, from whence it is discharged upward by its mouth 

 into the cells) it is conveyed into the second stomach ; and yet, when there, 

 great part of it continues in its spherical or oval form, still undigested, as 

 viewed by him with his glasses ; and consequently must be conveyed further, 

 before it be thoroughly digested, and the particles broken ; yet this he supposes 

 is reconveyed upwards through both the stomachs, and is emitted by its mouth ; 

 and he forms his judgment from his observation, that the bee, when working, 

 and finishing the cells, nips with its teeth the wax, where it is too thick, or 

 wrong laid ; and has observed a motion of its tongue as it were smoothing or 

 laying on more materials, which he thinks must be then discharged fi-om the 

 stomach by its mouth. 



What makes me disagree from him in his opinion and observations, is from 

 the remarks I have made, that the faeces of the bee discharged by the anus, 

 after the farina is digested, is the true wax. We may with truth believe, that 

 the farina, which is the male seed of all vegetables, consists of a spirit or moving 

 principle, floating in a sweet oil, surrounded by an exterior coat or shell, in 

 which is that monade that impregnates the grain or fruit, and makes it prolific ; 

 that on separation or digestion, this spirit and sweet oil becomes the nourish- 

 ment of the bee ; which spirit is of the same nature with the animalcules in se- 

 mine masculino of animals, and becomes the animal spirits in the bee and other 

 animals ; and perhaps the true honey is the sweet oil included in the farina : and 

 as all vegetables abound with these vegetable vivifying atoms, since from many 

 every bud is capable of increasing each species, so the true honey breaking 

 through its shell by great heat, occasions those honey-dews observed in hot 

 weather on the leaves and flowers of most vegetables ; which is no more than an 

 exudation from the leaves and blossoms of these vessels that break with the heat; 



