PROPOLIS NOT CARRIED INTO THE HIVE. 405 



being entirely a vegetable substance, without the admixture 

 of any foreign matter, becomes naturally separated from the 

 wax, and constitutes the residuum at the bottom of the 

 vessel. Propolis is, however, according to Huber, a distinct 

 vegetable substance ; on the other hand, wax is decidedly an 

 animal substance : the former is collected by the bees, the 

 latter is an exudation ; and yet these two heterogeneous sub- 

 stances shall, by the simple effect of ebullition, be converted 

 into one and the same substance. 



Simple and easy, however, is the method of arriving at the 

 truth of the real nature of the propolis. Let a person at any 

 time take a given quantity from a hive, and submit it to 

 ebullition, and the result will be a piece of wax nearly of the 

 same weight, although of rather a darker hue than that which 

 is produced from the combs alone ; in fact, the notion ought 

 to be wholly exploded of the existence of two distinct sub- 

 stances in the hive, one of which has hitherto been distin- 

 guished by the name of propolis. 



There is another circumstance by no means undeserving 

 of attention, and which will of itself go a great way to in- 

 validate the hypothesis of Huber respecting propolis, which 

 is, that no person ever yet witnessed a bee carrying this 

 substance into the hive. Huber, however, declares, that he 

 observed the bees attaching the viscous exudation of the 

 birch, poplar, and other trees to the cavities of their legs, 

 which exudation, he determines to be propolis ; and further, 

 that he was an eye-witness of the use, which they made of it. 

 During the whole of our experience, however, in the results 

 of which we are confirmed by others, who have made the 

 physiology of the bee their particular study, we never wit- 

 nessed the bee carrying any other substance in the cavities 

 of its legs, than the pollen of the flower. This, indeed, varies 

 in colour from the dingy white to the deep brown ; and it 

 was the latter circumstance, perhaps, which instilled into the 

 minds of the earlier apiarians, as well as of Huber, the no- 



