406 PROPOLIS NOT A. NATURAL SUBSTANCE. 



tion of the existence of a substance differing from wax. We, 

 however, discredit the statement altogether of the bees carry- 

 ing any substance into the hive which is made use of in its 

 natural state, with the exception of honey, as an article of 

 food ; in fact, the application of propolis in its crude state, as 

 it is gathered by the bee, to any particular use in the hive, 

 carries with it its own refutation ; for it is a problem not 

 easily solved, in what manner a direct vegetable substance 

 can, by its simple transportation from one place to another, 

 acquire certain qualities and virtues, which it did not possess 

 in its natural state. It would be consistent with experience 

 to suppose that the transportation of a glutinous substance, 

 from a colder to a warmer temperature, would render its 

 tenuity still greater; but in the present instance, that prin- 

 ciple of action appears to be reversed, for on being brought 

 into a warmer temperature, such as the interior of a hive, 

 the substance assumes a hardness and consistency which 

 belonged not to it in its natural state, but which could not 

 be produced by the simple agency of heat ; on the contrary, 

 it would become more thin and ductile. 



The result of the following experiment will, it is presumed, 

 invalidate the hypothesis of the existence of propolis as a dis- 

 tinct and natural substance. 



We placed a small hive on the top of one of our most 

 populous stocks, and we took the opportunity of examin- 

 ing minutely the bodies of the bees employed in the con- 

 struction of the new combs, for the express purpose of 

 ascertaining the existence of any scales of wax, which, as 

 the formation of the combs was then going on, ought, ac- 

 cording to the theory of Huber, to be secreted between the 

 rings of the abdomen. Having convinced ourselves that the 

 bees had commenced the combs at the top of the hive, we 

 closed all access to it from the lower hive, and taking the 

 upper hive away, we had then about three hundred workers 

 on whom to perform the experiment. The bees, at the mo- 



