466 INSECTA, 



The flower of the pine-apple secretes a considerable quantity of 

 honey, and bees are very fond of it. It has the flavour of the pine- 

 apple, although the fruit has then no flavour, being green. 



The leaves and stems of many trees form upon their surface a honey. 

 When this happens, we may then observe the bees licking these leaves, 

 and collecting it. I have seen the leaves of the morel cherry all 

 moistened with honey, and the bees very busy collecting it. 



In the months of May and June little honey is gathered, whether in 

 old hives or new ones, it being the breeding season; therefore we 

 should not attempt to rob them in either of these months. About the 

 beginning of July they are filling their combs as fast as possible, and 

 the males are going forth very fast. 



As bees are in two very different states in this climate, one fitted for 

 the summer, the other for the winter, two very different modes of 

 management are required. 



Bees work upward as well as downward : they work up from one 

 hive into another ; but their most natural way is to work down when 

 in an entirely empty hive, where there is no direction for them. Bees 

 model their cells with their two teeth [mandibles]. I have seen bees 

 with a piece of wax -J^-th of an inch long, one end of it between their 

 teeth, the other lying on the head and back, and they have been 

 kneading or fixing that end between the teeth to the cell in different 

 places, while at the same time they took wax from the cell ; for this 

 piece of wax would be sometimes longer and sometimes shorter, till at 

 last they disposed of the whole. This operation can only be seen when 

 they are at work upon their backs. 



It is probable that bees require to live in a greater degree of heat 

 than any of the same order [do]. The warmth of the atmosphere in 

 which bees live is generally that of their own bodies ; for if we thrust a 

 thermometer into a hive of bees, it is raised to about 80° [Fahr.], the 

 heat of the atmosphere in which the innermost bees live. 



[Order Lepidoptera.] 

 The Silk-Moth [Bombyx Mori\ . 



The silk-moth, like all of this class of insects, is first an egg, then a 

 caterpillar, chrysalis, and moth. The caterpillar 1 is a long body, con- 

 sisting of a head, body, and tail with appendages. The head consists 

 of two lateral superior horny substances, convex externally, to the under 



» [Hunt. Preps. Nos. 2979—2987.] 



