92 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



Honey, says Bevan, is the nectaries of flowers, 

 which in fine weather is continually forming or 

 secreting from certain vesicles or glands, situated 

 near the base of every petal, from whence it is collect- 

 ed by the busy buzzing honey bee. They consume 

 a portion whilst gathering it, as indeed they are con- 

 tinually doing ; but the greater part gathered during 

 the honey harvest is carried home in their honey sacs, 

 and regurgitated or emptied into the cells, for the 

 use of the communit} 7 during a scarcity of honey 

 in summer and for their winter stores ; and so abun- 

 dant are these collections of honey in favorable sea- 

 sons, as to afford to the careful apiarian a very liberal 

 profit, sufficient to compensate him for his invest- 

 ment. The amount, however, is varied very much 

 by different localities and the mode of management. 

 In some situations twice the amount of honey is pro- 

 duced during the season that there is in others ; in 

 such places there is a fair succession of honey-pro- 

 ducing flowers from early spring till late in the fall, 

 which induces and enables bees to increase in swarms 

 and store more surplus honey, nothing occurring to 

 discourage them to go forward breeding rapidly and 

 constantly accumulating honey. In such localities 

 bees will live and thrive much better, with but indif- 

 ferent or careless attention, than they would where 

 honey is more precarious, or where it is not so evenly 

 distributed through the season. In others there is a 

 short season of honey early in the spring, from fruit 

 trees, maple trees, &c. ; this lasts but a short time; 

 then an interval occurs of from two to four weeks, 



