526 



THE HIVE BEE. 



TflK QUEEN BEE. 



After collecting a few small drops of honey with this, the animal 

 carries them to its mouth, ami swallows them. From the gullet they 

 pass into the first stomach. This when filled with honey, assumes the 

 figure of an oblong bladder, the membrane of which is so thin and 

 transparent, that it allows the color of the liquid it contains to be dis 

 tinctly seen. As soon as their stomach is full, the Bees return directly 

 to the hive, and disgorge into a cell the whole of the honey they havo 

 collected. It, however, not unfrequently happens, that on its way to 

 the hive the Bee is accosted by a hungry companion. How the one 

 manages to communicate its wants to the other, is not known. But 

 the fact is certain, that when two Bees meet in this situation, they 

 mutually stop, and the one whose stomach is full of honey, extends 

 its trunk, opens its month, and like a ruminating animal, forces up 

 the honey. The hungry Bee, with the point of its trunk, sucks the 

 honey from the other's mouth. When not 

 stopped on the road, the Bee, as before stated, 

 proceeds to the hive, and in the same mariner 

 offers its honey to those who are at work, as if 

 it meant to prevent the necessity of their quit- 

 ting their lalx>r in order to go in quest of food. 

 In bad weather, the Bees feed on the honey laid 

 up in open cells; but they never touch their 

 reservoirs, while their companions are enabled to supply them with 

 fresh honey from the fields. The mouths of those cells, which are 

 destined for preserving honey during the winter, they always cover 

 with a lid or thin plate of wax. 



How numerous soever the Bees in one swarm may appear to be 

 they all originate 

 from a single pa- 

 rent. It is indeed 

 surprising, that one 

 small insect should, 

 in a few months, 

 give birth to so 

 many young-ones; 

 but, on opening 

 her body at a cer- 

 tain season of the 

 year, eggs to the 

 number of many 

 thousands may be 

 found contained in it. 



The queen is easilv distinguished from the rest by the size an' 

 shape of her bodv. On her depends the welfare of the whole com- 

 munity: and, by the attention that is paid to all her movements, it ia 

 evident how much they depend on her security. At times, attended 

 by a numerous retinue she is seen in the act of marching from cell 

 to cell, plunging the extremity of her body into each of them, and 

 saving in each an egg. 



A day or two after this egg is deposited, the grub is excluded from 



TIIK QCEEN BEE AND PREGNANT QVEKN BBX. 



