390 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
account Reaumur has given from Maillet of the transportation of hives in 
Egypt from one place to another, before alluded to’, to enable them to 
make in greater abundance their collections of honey, &c. Towards the 
end of October, when the inundations of the Nile have ceased, and the 
husbandmen can sow their land, sainfoin is one of the first things that is 
sown; and as Upper Egypt is warmer than the Lower, the sainfoin gets 
there first into blossom, At this time, bee-hives are transported in boats 
from all parts of Egypt into the upper district, and are there heaped in 
pyramids upon the boats prepared to receive them; each being numbered 
by the individual to whom it belongs. In this station they remain some 
days ; and when they are judged to haye got in the harvest of honey and 
pollen that is to be collected there, they are removed two or three leagues 
lower down, where they remain the same time ; and so they proceed till 
towards the middle of February, when, having traversed Egypt, they 
arrive at the sea, from whence they are dispersed to their several owners, 
A transportation of bee-hives, in some respects similar, prevails, as we 
learn from Mr. Willock, at the present day throughout Persia, Asia Minor, 
and he believes Greece ; in which countries an inhabitant even of a town 
will sometimes possess fifty or sixty hives, from the honey and wax of 
which a considerable profit is derived. Thése hives are wicker-work 
cylinders, two feet eight inches long by nine inches in diameter, plastered 
inside and outside with cow-dung; having one end filled up with a cir- 
cular earthenware plate, and the other with a circular wooden door, in 
the middle of which is a small hole for the entrance of the bees. In 
spring, when the herbage of the low country has become parched, the 
proprietor of the hives, after closing them, conveys them (six or seven 
being an ass load) to some village in the neighbouring mountains where 
fragrant shrubs abound; and having sealed the doors, leaves them in 
charge of a villager, whom he pays for watching them, when he removes 
them in October back to his home. Near villages in the mountains of 
Sahund, in the vicinity of Tabreez, Mr. Willock has seen ranges of these 
hives thus put out to board to. the number of 500 or 600.? 
John Hunter observes, that when the season for laying is over, that 
for collecting honey comes on (he means, probably, for making the prin- 
cipal collection of it); and that when the last pupa is disclosed, the cell 
it deserts, after being cleaned, is immediately filled with it, and as soon 
as full is covered with pure wax: but this only holds with respect to the 
cells containing honey for winter use, those destined to receive that which 
forms their food when bad weather prevents them from going out being 
left open.§ Sometimes, when the year is remarkably favourable for 
collecting honey, the bees will destroy many of the larvae to make room 
for it; but they never meddle with the pupz. When no more honey 3s 
to be collected, they remain quiet in the hive for the winter, Mr, Hunter 
found that a hive grew lighter in a cold than in a warm week ; he found 
also that in three months (from November 10th to February 9th) a single 
hive lost 72 oz. 14 dram. * 
Water is a thing of the first necessity to these insects ; but they are 
not very delicate as to its quality, but rather the reverse; often preferring 
1 Reaum. v. 698. 2 Gardener's Chronicle, 1841, p. 84. 
3 Philos. Trans. 1792, 160. Comp. Reaum. vy. 450. 
4 Reaum, tbid, 591. Hunter, ibid. 161. 
