342 IRASCIBILITY OF THE BEES. 



forefeet, and seems delighted with the attention that is paid 

 to it. This action of the bees arises from a greediness to 

 partake of the saccharine matter which adheres to the body 

 of the young bee on its emerging from the cell, but the 

 origin of which has baffled the naturalists to discover. 



The greater or less quantity of brood in a hive may in a 

 great degree be calculated upon by the proportionate irasci- 

 bility of the bees. A fertile queen will always be supported 

 by an extraordinary degree of activity and industry on the 

 part of her subjects ; whereas they seem to think a weak 

 and impotent queen scarcely worth defending or working 

 for. The bees which show no tokens of anger on any 

 annoyance being offered them, have some internal cause to 

 dispirit them, and, in general, it arises from the weakness 

 or barrenness of the queen. When the internal economy 

 of the hive is in a good and regular state, when the ovi- 

 positing of the queen proceeds in a prolific manner, and the 

 population of the hive is on the increase, then the least 

 encroachment upon their territory rouses the anger of the 

 bees, and they display all their native virulence and spirit. 



It has been a matter of great dispute amongst naturalists 

 as to the nature of the food, with which the larvae of the bees 

 are fed. Some have considered it to be pure honey, others 

 a mixture of honey and farina, and Huber determines it to 

 be a compound of some sort, but the materials of which he 

 confesses that he knows nothing about, nor can he tell 

 whence the bees procure it. At one time, it is a concoction 

 of their own making; at another, it is a something that they 

 collect amongst the flowers, the whole nature of which is as 

 miraculous and inexplicable, as the royal jelly itself. We 

 confess that we were originally inclined to the opinion that 

 food of some kind was administered to the larva? of the 

 bees, and we expressed ourselves to that intent in the first 

 edition of our treatise on the management of bees; but 

 subsequent researches, supported by the experience of 



