8 Pleafure and Profit of keeping Bees. 
piteous and difconfolatea manner, that they have 
often made fuch an impreffion on my fpirits, 
that I was fitto mourn along withthem. The 
truth is, I have often thought that there was 
fomething of the nature of a bee in myfelf; as 
always when they are happy, and rejoicing, fo 
am I; when they are mourning and difconfo- 
late, my fpirits are alfo low; when fighting | 
/ and plundering from one another, my temper 
~ is fo chagrined, that it is with difficulty I re- 
{train the effeéts of my ill humour ; infomuch, 
that my domeftics, with little knowledge in 
phyfiognomy, can eafily judge from the chear- — | 
fulnefs, depreffion, or chagrin, apparent on my — 
countenance, the ftate and temper of my little 
republics.* | 
* A two-fold reafon may be affigned for this. Fine weather 
enlivens the animal fpirits, whereas a dull fky, and a cloudy atmof~ 
phere, generally produce the contrary effe€&t. In the latter 
cafe, the bees can do nothing but confume a part of that delicious 
- fore, which they had laid up for their own and their mafter’s ufe. _ 
‘Sympathy and intereft are therefore equally excited, by fuch 
weather, to produce this effeét ; and ftill more by the circumftance 
of their killing one another ; for that man mutt be callous, indeed, 
to every feeling of humanity, who can, with indifference, behold 
numbers of fuch ufeful and induftrious animals, lying like fo many 
murdered heroes on the field of battle, mutually slain by each o- 
ther ; not to add, that a perfon of the moft Roical difpofition mutt 
feel fomewhat rufled, at the lofs of fo many ufeful fervants, 
whom he would do evcry thing in his power to preferve, re 
=| ee 
a 
4 It ; 
a a. 
