OF MANAGING BEES. 96' 



be taken upon the human stomach unless administered by a 

 person well skilled in the medical qualities it possesses, and 

 for appropriate remedies. The effect of honey on the human 

 constitution is unlike most kinds of food, inasmuch as that 

 but a small proportion of it, if any, digests and passes off by 

 evacuations of the bowels. In man, it mingles with the 

 blood, and passes off in urine ; but in the bee, it is princi- 

 pally thrown off by respiration and perspiration, and forms 

 a vapor : otherwise, from the great quantity of honey con- 

 sumed by the bees during their long confinement in the 

 winter, they would present in the spring, instead of a clean, 

 healthy tenement of bees, comb, and honey, a spectacle too 

 loathsome to need description. 



It has been said in a former chapter that bees carry in 

 their stomachs in sacs a good supply of honey when they 

 swarm. It is proper, then, here to remark that wax is made 

 by design ; and yet it is of natural growth, forced into exist- 

 ence by circumstances. In this instance, the instinct of the 

 bee excites our admiration as much as in any part of their 

 economy, inasmuch as the bees are compelled to exclude a 

 portion of the atmosphere from their bodies, in order to 

 raise a certain degree of heat absolutely necessary to facili- 

 tate that kind of secretion in the stomachs of the working 

 bees which converts a portion of the honey with which they 

 are laden into wax, and by its exudation appears upon the 

 surface of the bee's body. In short, the whole system of 

 natural instincts of the bee lAagnifies the wisdom of their 

 Creator. If human reason could be made to exhibit this 

 perfection, we should have no more quarrels between rich 

 and poor, or struggles between the subject and patronage 

 and power. But all must be free to choose between right 

 and wrong ; and this has become corrupted and imperfect by 

 moral depravity. May the time soon come when order shall' V- 



