NATURAL HISTORY 01? THE HONEY BEE. 63 



with a portion of her intestines, and of necessity, soon per- 

 ishes. 



The loss of their sting being always fatal, they pay dearly 

 for the exercise of their patriotic instincts ; but they always 

 seem ready, (except when gorged with honey they may be 

 said to have taken " a drop too much,") to die in defence of 

 their home and treasures ; or as the poet has expressed it, 

 they 



" Deem life itself to vengeance well resign'd, 

 Die on the wound, and leave their sting behind." 



Hornets, wasps and other stinging insects are able to with- 

 draw their stings from the wound. I have never seen any 

 attempt to account for the exception in the case of the honey 

 bee. But as the Creator intended the bee for the use of man, 

 has He not given it this peculiarity, to make it less formida- 

 ble, and therefore more completely subject to human control ? 

 Without a sting, it would have stood no chance of defending 

 its tempting sweets against a host of greedy depredators ; 

 but if it could sting a number of times, it would be much 

 more difficult to bring it into a state of thorough domestica- 

 tion. A quiver full of arrows in the hand of a skillful 

 marksman, is far more to be dreaded than a single shaft.* 



The defence of the colony against enemies, the construc- 

 tion of the cells, and the storing of them With honey and 

 bee-bread, the rearing of the young, in short, the whole 



* Since the publication of the first edition of this treatise, during a 

 visit to the Mexican Frontier, I had an opportunity of studying the 

 habits of the honey hornet, of that region. Its nest, in shape and 

 material, is considerably like that of our common hornet, and some 

 of them contain many pounds of delicious honey. This insect, which 

 in those regions is so serviceable to man, like the honey bee, is unable 

 to withdraw its sting from the wound ! It has also a Queen, and lives 

 in a colony state during the, whole year. 



