384 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
servoirs, even where the armed sight of science cannot discover it, is in q 
moment detected by the microscopic eye of this animal. 
She has to attend to a double task — to collect materials for bee-bread 
as well as for honey and wax. Observe a bee that has alighted upon an 
open flower. The hum produced by the motion of her wings ceases, and 
her employment begins. In an instant she unfolds her tongue, which 
before was rolled up under her head. With what rapidity does she dart 
this organ between the petals and the stamina! At one time she extends 
it to its full length, then she contracts it: she moves it about in all direc. 
tions, so that it may be applied both to the concave and convex surface of 
a petal, and wipe them both; and thus by a virtuous theft robs it of all 
its nectar. All the while this is going on, she keeps herself in a constant 
vibratory motion. The object of the industrious animal is not, like the 
more selfish butterfly, to appropriate this treasure to herself. It goes into 
the honey-bag as into a laboratory, where it is transformed into pure 
honey ; and when she returns to the hive, she regurgitates it in this form 
into one of the cells appropriated to that purpose; in order that, after 
tribute is paid from it to the queen, it may constitute a supply of food for 
the rest of the community. 
In collecting honey, bees do not solely confine themselves to flowers; 
they will sometimes very greedily absorb the sweet juices of fruits : this I 
have frequently observed with respect to the raspberries in my garden, and 
have noticed it, as you may recollect, in a former letter. They will also 
eat sugar, and produce wax from it ; but, from Huber’s observations, it 
appears not calculated to supply the place of honey in the jelly with which 
the larva are fed." Though the great mass of the food of bees is collected 
from flowers, they do not wholly confine themselves to a vegetable dict; 
for, besides the honeyed secretion of the Aphides, the possession of which 
they will sometimes dispute with the ants®, upon particular occasions they 
will eat the eggs of the queen, They are very fond also of the fluid that 
oozes from the cells of the pupa, and will suck eagerly all that is fluid in 
their abdomen after they are destroyed by their rivals.’ Several flowers 
that produce much honey they pass by; in some instances, from inability 
to get at it. Thus, for this reason probably, they do not attempt those of 
the trumpet-honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens), which, if separated from 
the germen after they are open, will yield two or three drops of the purest 
nectar. So that were this shrub cultivated with that view, much honey 
in its original state might be obtained from a small number of plants. In 
other cases, it appears to be the poisonous quality of their honey that in- 
duces bees to neglect certain flowers. You have doubtless observed the 
conspicuous white nectaries of the crown imperial (Fritillaria imperialis), 
and that they secrete abundance of this fluid. It tempts in vain the 
pee bee, probably aware of some noxious quality that it poe 
he oleander (Nerium Oleander) yields a honey that proves fatal to thou- 
sands of imprudent flies ; but our bees, more wise and cautious, avoid it. 
Occasionally, perhaps, in particular seasons, when flowers are less numerous 
than common, this instinct of the bees appears to fail them, or to be overs 
powered by their desire to collect a sufficient: store of honey for their pur 
1 Hober, ii. 82, 
2 Abbé Boisier, quoted in Mills On Bees, 24, 
5 Schirach, 45. Huber, i, 479, 
