PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. suet 
tilizing dust of the anthers, of which they make what 
is called bee-bread, serving as food both to old and 
‘young; and the resinous substance called by the an- 
cients Propolis, Pissoceros, &c. used in various ways in 
rendering the hive secure and giving the finish to the 
combs. ‘The first of these substances is the pure fluid 
secreted in the nectaries of flowers, which the length of 
their tongue enables them to reach in most blossoms. 
The tongue of a bee, you are to observe, though so long 
and sometimes so inflated?, is not a tube through which 
the honey passes, nor a pump acting by suction, but a 
real tongue which laps or licks the honey, and passes it 
down on its upper surface, as we do, to the mouth, which 
is at its base concealed by the mandibles*. It is con- 
veyed by this orifice through the oesophagus into the 
first stomach, which we call the honey-bag, and which, 
from being very small, is swelled when full of it to a 
considerable size. Honey is never found in the second 
stomach, (which is surrounded with muscular rings, and 
resembles a cask covered with hoops from one end to 
the other,) but only in the first: in the latter and the in- 
testines the bee-bread only is discovered. How the wax 
is secreted, or what vessels are appropriated to that pur- 
pose, is not yet ascertained. Huber suspects that a cel- 
“ O Nature kind! O labourer wise ! 
That roam’st along the summer’s ray, 
Glean’st every bliss thy life supplies, 
And meet’st prepared thy wintry day ! 
Go, envied go—with crowded gates 
The hive thy rich return awaits ; 
Bear home thy store, in triumph gay, 
And shame each idler of the day.” 
@ Reaum. v. ¢, xxviii. f. 1. 2. Betis fs 72a. 
VOI. slike N 
