94 Instincts and Habits of Bees. 



If any of my readers should desire to repeat these expe- 

 riments on coloured vision, it is essential that the Santonine 

 employed should be obtained from reliable sources, for I see in 

 the papers that an apothecary has recently met with a sample 

 of Santonine containing strychnine (!) — the result, doubtless, of 

 an accidental mixture of the two substances, by a careless 

 assistant or otherwise, and, we hope, not likely to occur 

 again; nevertheless, I think, the fact should be recorded 

 here. Pure Santonine has no taste when a crystal is placed 

 upon the tongue. 



INSTINCTS AND HABITS OF BEES. 



BY SHIRLEY HIBBBED. 



Among the many out-door pursuits that attract enthusiasts and 

 furnish subjects for meditation to the thoughtful, there is 

 nothing to be compared with bee-keeping. If a man has but one 

 stock of bees and is of the right temper to make pets of them, 

 his attachment to them will grow so surely that it will be 

 strange if he does not, in a very short time, renounce many a 

 commonplace pleasure in order to make room in his heart for 

 a strong affection for these happy confectioners, and perhaps 

 appropriate a portion of his head to an investigation of their 

 instincts and habits, so as to prove for himself all the written 

 records of bee history, and live in hope of adding to them the 

 results of personal observation. Spite of the immense extent 

 of bee lore, if we only go so far back as the fourth Georgic of 

 Virgil and close with Huber, there are quite as many problems 

 yet remaining unsolved as have been solved already, and those 

 who lament that the fields of discovery are exhausted, only need 

 set up a bee-hive and put Huber to the proof throughout, and 

 it will be found that though we know much about bees we do 

 not yet know all. I often sit beside my hives and speculate 

 on the mysteries of instinct and its curious blendings with 

 intelligence, and during the glorious weather of April and May 

 of the present year, the bees have given new life to all the old 

 facts, and made me feel that one fact gained by observation is 

 worth a thousand drawn from books ; and in the matter of bees 

 seeing is believing, and it is scarcely possible to believe by any 

 other method of proof or persuasion. The nightingales have been 

 singing at Stoke Newington this season as gaily as ever, and 

 the bees are thriving amazingly, yet all around us the builders 

 are drawing a close cordon of bricks, and it is fast becoming a 

 problem how bees are to find food here, for the hedgerows are 



