CHAPTEE XVI. 



HONEY. PASTURAGE. OVERSTOCKING. 



In the chapter on Feeding, it has already been stated tha.8 

 honey is not a natural secretion of the bee, but a substance 

 obtained from the nectaries of the blossoms ; it is not there- 

 fore, made, but merely gathered by the bees. The truth is- 

 ' well expressed in the lines so familiar to most of us from, 

 eur childhood,. 



" How doth the little busy bee 

 Improve each shining hour, 

 And gather honey all the day 

 From every opening flower." 



Bees not only gather honey from* the blossoms, but often 

 obtain it in large quantities from what have been called hon- 

 ey dews ; " a term applied to those sweet, clammy drops that 

 glitter on the foliage of many trees in hot weather." Two 

 different opinions have bpen zealously advocated as to the 

 origin of honey-dews. By some, they are considered a 

 natural exudation from the leaves of trees, a perspiration as 

 it were, occasioned often by ill health, though sometimes a 

 provision to enable the plants to resist the fervent heats to 

 which they are exposed. Others insist that this sweet sub- 

 stance is discharged from the bodies of those aphides or 

 small lice which infest the leaves of so many plants. Un- 

 questionably they are produced in both ways. 



