PROPOLIS. 205 



gummed as well as beladen with this sticky resin, our little 

 gatherer has to knead and render it less adhesive, before she 

 transfers it from her fore feet to the convenient corbeilles 

 appended to her hinder limbs. 



With this vegetable gum the honey-combs, heretofore pure 

 white, are varnished, and their edges strengthened and secured. 

 It is with propolis also that all accidental holes and interstices 

 are filled up ; and the same substance is made, moreover, 

 highly contributary to that scrupulous cleanliness for which 

 bees are conspicuous. The mode wherein they carry out, in 

 their waxen cities, the practice of this self-respecting and self- 

 preserving virtue, is worthy of imitation by those who draw 

 up sanitary regulations for the health of brick-built towns. 



The removal of all things that offend infectiously, or, where 

 this is impossible, the disarming them of their offensive qualities, 

 stands, of course, foremost in the sanitary economy of 'the hive. 

 In pursuance thereof, the dead bodies of intruding insects, 

 stung to death for their temerity, are instantly cast out, when- 

 ever their size admits ; but when too bulky for ejection, as in 

 the case of a snail, the body, when deprived of life and with- 

 drawn into its shell, is glued round the margin, thus fixed im- 

 moveable and innoxious, by help of propolis ; but, should 

 the slimy intruder happen to be shell-less, the same useful 

 substance is employed more extensively to completely cover 

 and embalm its body ; thus preventing entirely the escape 

 therefrom of all unwholesome effluvia. 



