APIS MELLIFICA. 465 



lower bee laying hold of the wing of the one above with its pincers. 

 They hold so fast as hardly to be separated. 



Bees drink water. Whether this is for their own economy, or to 

 soften the honey, is not easily determined: but if it be true, as is 

 asserted, that the honey near the sea is saltish, and that the bees are 

 seen on the sea-side drinking sea-water, we must suppose they drink it 

 to dilute their houey. 



That bees do not make comb, or collect either honey or bee-bread, 

 when they lose their queen, appeared to be the case with a hive I had 

 in the year 1792. It was a fine swarm of the same summer, and was 

 put into a hive with comb belonging to a hive of the year before, [the 

 bees of] which had died in the spring from the want of honey. Some 

 time after being settled in this hive, I observed they made no progress 

 in making comb, nor did I see any honey or fresh bee-bread, or eggs, 

 or bees in any of their stages in any of the cells, and they began to 

 grow fewer in number. Prom all these circumstances I began to 

 suspect they had lost their queen, and the only way to ascertain this 

 was to kill the swarm, which I did ; and, on examining every bee, I 

 saw no queen, only labourers and a few males. In this hive, whose 

 comb had been made the year before, there were no royal cells. 



If befes are let loose in a room where there are a number of hives, 

 they very soon fix upon the outside of a hive, and endeavour as much 

 as possible to get in, and will not leave it. It does not appear that 

 they are able in such situations to distinguish their own hive from the 

 others. 



About the latter end of August 1792, I observed strangers flying 

 about the mouth of my hives, wanting to get in ; and I could observe 

 that the bees belonging to the hive were upon the watch ; and, when 

 the strangers ventured too far, they were often laid hold of and dragged 

 over the shelf at the mouth of the hive. I did conceive that these 

 strangers might belong to some hive that had lost its queen. But this 

 continued through the month of September, at a time when four of my 

 hives died ; viz. two young swarms of the same year, and a last year's 

 one which had swarmed twice this summer. They had been collecting 

 honey, and storing it up about the beginning of August : but about the 

 latter end of that month it was all gone ; and, about the second week 

 in September, two young swarms died in twenty-four hours. After they 

 began to die off, the other young swarm, and that of the old hive, 

 gradually became fewer and fewer until the whole were dead. 



In wet seasons hives appear to lose many of their stock ; for in the 

 summer, or rather in the autumn of 1792, my hives were very empty 

 of bees, although there was honey in the combs. 



vol. n. 2 H 



