82 



A friend, writing iVom the Cape, mentions a honey-bee which is even more pro- 

 ductive than ours ; he describes it as very small, scarcely half the size of Apis 

 mellifica, and very fond of domiciliating in outhouses, and otherwise attaching 

 itself to the homesteads of man. I expect to receive specimens, and shall have 

 much pleasure in handing them to Mr. Smith for examination. Mr. Webster, 

 in his graphic narrative of the ' Voyage of the Chanticleer,' also writes thus on 

 visiting the farm-house of a Dutch boor: — 'The first thing that attracted my 

 attention was a swarm of bees that had attached themselves to the parlour- 

 window, occupying the space between the shutter and the glass. On inquiring about 

 them, I found that they had taken a liking to the situation for several years. * * * 

 After the fear of being stung by them was got over, I contemplated the labours of these 

 little creatures with much pleasure, and they frequently afterwards occupied my atten- 

 tion. They are much smaller than our bees, and appeared to be far less irritable, and 

 I was informed that they work during the whole year. They kept the house well sup- 

 plied with honey, the comb being taken away about eight times during the course of 

 the year, or about every six weeks. The hexagonal form of the cells did not seem to 

 be the result of pressure, and were all of the same form, both at the top and sides. In 

 the course of my observations of them, I frequently saw them removing a portion of 

 wax from one part of the comb to another.' These proofs of the existence of so 

 profitable a honey-bee in the Cape Colony, appear to me very interesting. Mr. 

 Webster's observation about the figure of the cells reminds me of an idea that I 

 carried out three years ago : I obtained a cake of bees' wax and perforated it with cir- 

 cular holes as near as possible together, and afterwards, with a sharp penknife, 

 reduced the walls to the greatest tenuity they would bear without breaking; the result 

 was the formation of closely approximated hexagons, a good deal resembling those 

 made by the bees ; but of course much larger and much less regular: I believe the ex- 

 periment was suggested by a note written years ago by Mr. Waterhouse,* but it 

 seems to imply that the'hexagonal form is almost an inevitable result of two grand 

 objects of Nature, — economy of space, and economy of material, — and does not prove 

 the existence of that reflecting power which some have claimed for the bee." 



A new Enemy to the Honey-bee. 



Under this title Mr. Newman read the following note : — 



" You will probably recollect my mentioning some months back, on the authority 

 of Mr. Lucas, a fact which I thought new, that of a fat toad squatting himself on the 

 alighting-board of a bee-hive, watching for the bees and swallowing them one after 

 another as they returned home at night after the labours of a long summer's day. The 

 statement was received with evident distrust: I particularly remember our friend Mr. 

 Hudson thought it impossible for a toad to climb to such a position, and a learned 

 apiarian, a namesake of my own, wrote a reply showing that such an assertion 

 was totally unworthy of serious consideration, and evidently comforted himself in 

 believing he had totally extinguished this supposed new light in bee history. How- 

 ever, there is another glimmer from the same lamp, and exhibited quite incidentally 

 and ct, propos to another anecdote. My informant is Mr. Charles Muskett, of Norwich. 



* Trans. Ent. Soc. III. Proceed, p. xii.- 



