10 
adding new and curious facts, have rendered the history 
bees more interesting. ORG : 
Bees are the most active and industrious of all insects 
In countries where perpetual spring reigns, they labou 
from the dawn of morning till the twilight of evening. | 
temperate climates, they are occupied nine months in th 
year; and even in winter, there are only a few days in 
which they seem to repose. It is only in high latitudes, 
where the bees cease to forage in the autumn and winter. — 
Even during winter, if the bees be not paralyzed by the. 
cold, and some mild days permit them to consume a part 
of their provision, always industrious and provident, they 
are also employed in building new magazines, in which 
they can lay up new stores in summer, after first using” 
them as deposits for the eggs of the queen, which have in= 
variably the preference; for it belongs to the regular and 
immutable instinct of these insects, to use the cells asa 
deposit for the larve or eggs of the queen, at least once, 
before they are employed as stores for honey. “ae 
It is to these insects alone, which the Europeans are 
indebted for honey and wax, which form one of the most 
important branches of their rural economy. ‘They collect. 
the substances of which honey is composed, from all plants” 
without exception; from the loftiest trees, to the most 
humble and simple shrubs—the forests and bramble brakes” 
are equally their resort. Ee 
During the rising of the sap, all vegetables are very full 
of juice. ‘These are all put in requisition by the bees: 
their only embarrassment is in the choice. Besides the 
juice of plants and the nectar of flowers, which they pump 
out of their calices without tarnishing their beauty, we 
frequently observe them busied on the bark and mosses of 
trees, where their piercing eyes and acute smell enable 
them to discover substances, which are doubtless neces- 
sary to season their honey. Sometimes they are observed 
on rocks, and on the sides of walls, where nothing is per- 
ceivable but the naked stone. ‘There they seem to be col- 
lecting salts which are imperceptible to us. Water is 
indispensable for their subsistence, and instinct enables — 
them to discover sources unknown to us. re 
The bee delights to skip, as it were, from flower to. 
flower, and revel on their sweets. He sometimes rolls him- 
self up in their folds, and always inserts his little probose 8 
into the calix of every flower on which he alights. He en« 
