114 THE BUILDINtj OP BEES. 



The following is the first stanza of another poem by one of 

 our later writers: 



"Out of the house, where the slumberer lay, 

 Grandfather came one summer day, 



And under the pleasant orchard trees 



He spake this wise to the murmuring bees: 

 'The clover bloom that kissed her feet 



And the posey bed where she used to play 

 Have honey store, but none so sweet 



As ere our little one went away. 

 O bees, sing soft, and, bees, sing low; 

 Tor she is gone who loved you so.' " 



(Eugene Field.) 



244. Commercial Uses of Pbopolis. — ' ' Dissolved in alcohol 

 and filtered, it is used as a varnish, and gives a polish to wood, 

 and a golden color to tin. A preparation made with finely- 

 ground propolis, gum arable, incense, storax, benzoin, sugar, 

 nitre, and charcoal, in quantities varied at will, is moulded 

 into fumigating cones, for perfuming rooms or halls. ' i — (Dubini, 

 Kiian, 1881.) 



245. The following letter from a noted Russian Apiarist, 

 to Mr. E. Bertrand, then editor of the Revue Internationale 

 d' Apiculture, will be found of interest: 



"During my pleasant stay at your pretty villa, I spoke to 

 you of the utilization of propolis in the varnish of our wooden 

 ware, which resists the dissolving power of hot water so well. 

 I have just found a description of the process, and will com- 

 municate it to you. 



"Propolis is purchased by hucksters, who pay five copecks — a 

 little over two cents — and sometimes even less, for permission 

 to scrape or plane the propolis from the walls of a hive that 

 las lost its bees. The shavings, covered with propolis, are 

 heated, put into a wax-press, and subjected to the treatment 

 nsed in the extraction of beeswax; the propolis is then purified 

 in hot water, to which sulphuric acid is added. About fifty 

 per cent, of propolis is thus obtained, which sells at forty 

 cents per pound. 



