BEES 



FOE PLEASUEE AND PEOFIT. 



CHAPTER I. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE nONTSY BEE. 



The Honey Bee belongs to the great family of Hymenoptera, 

 which includes Bumble Bees, Wasps and Ants. 



The common bee {Apis mellifica), indigenous to this country, 

 is known variously as the German Bee, the Black Bee and the 

 Brown Bee. Of these names the second is, to my mind, wholly 

 inapplicable, as the colour of the bee is distinctly bi ownish ; 

 and I am glad to notice that the third and more correct term 

 is now obtaining pretty general usage. 



I conclude that most of my readers will have seen the old- 

 fashioned skep or straw hive, with its picturesque hackle, so 

 often to be met with among the gay old floweis of the cottage 

 gardens in our rural districts. Most of us have repeated in 

 our childhood the well-known verses of Dr. Watts, beginning — ■ 



" How doth the little busy bee 

 Improve each shining hour I " 



and perhaps some of us have proceeded as we grew older to put 

 the lines in the form of a question rather than an exclamation : 

 whether we have succeeded in answering that question to our 

 satisfaction is another matter; and in the following pages I 

 shall assume that my readers have not as yet acquired much 

 knowledge of the natural history of the honey bee. 



The Internal Economy of the Beehive. 



A hive of bees in its normal state consists of a queen, 

 workers, and — in the swarming season — drones also. 



B 



