96 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



from which anything could be gathered. Whilst in 

 California, last summer. I discovered the bees work- 

 ing on a species of wild wormwood, which grows 

 very abundant along the Sacramento river, attaining 

 the height of five or six feet. About the foot stalks 

 of the young leaves, and even on the expanding 

 leaves and near the joints of the stem or stalk, there 

 is a covering of an adhesive quality, very much re- 

 sembling the propolis found about hives elsewhere, 

 but of a very crude, rough appearance, and just as 

 bitter as the wormwood itself — in fact, it seems to be 

 the very essence of it; this substance I have seen the 

 bees gathering. It is used very abundantly in and 

 about the hive during summer, and is about the only 

 kind of propolis that I observed the bees using in our 

 apiary. It retains its green color just as when first 

 gathered, that of a year old was not changed in this 

 particular; it also retained the peculiar smell of the 

 wormwood, and its bitter taste ; there is no mistak- 

 ing its origin. 



From these and other observations I have made, I 

 conclude that propolis is a vegetable substance, col- 

 lected but not generated by the bees ; and that it 

 partakes very much of the nature of the tree, shrub 

 or weed from which it is gathered. I have failed to 

 discover a trace of beeswax in it, as Bevan and some 

 others intimate. I apprehend they have been misled 

 by particles of wax or combs being covered or sur- 

 rounded by propolis, and consequently in analyzing 

 it, it was supposed to have been a part of the original 

 composition. 



