PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



147 



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 induces 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 passing bee, probably aware of some noxious quality 

 that it possesses. The oleander {Nerium Oleander) yields a 

 honey that proves fatal to thousands 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 overpowered by their desire to collect a sufficient store 

 of honey for their purposes, and they suffer for their want of 

 self-denial. Sometimes whole swarms have been destroyed 

 by merely alighting upon poisonous trees. This happened to 

 one in the county of West Chester in the province of New 

 York, which settled upon the branches of the poison-ash 

 {Rhus vernix). In the following morning the imprudent 

 animals were all found dead, and swelled to more than double 

 their usual size. 1 Whether the honey extracted from the 

 species of the genus Kalmia, Andromeda, Rhododendron, &c. 

 be hurtful to the bees themselves, is not ascertained ; but, as 

 has been before observed, it is often poisonous to man ; and 

 that found at Trebisond on the Euxine coast, as I have 

 formerly noticed, threatened fatal effects to such of the 

 Greek army, in the celebrated retreat after the death of the 

 younger Cyrus, as partook of it. Pliny, who mentions this 

 honey, calls it Mcenomenon, and observes that it is said to be 

 collected from a kind of Rhododendron, of which Tournefort 

 noticed two species there. 2 



When the stomach of a bee is filled with nectar, it next, 

 by means of the feathered hairs 3 with which its body is 

 covered, pilfers from the flowers the fertilising dust of the 

 anthers, the pollen ; which is equally necessary to the society 



1 Nicholson's Journal, xxiii. 287. 



2 Xenoph. Annabas. 1. iv. Plin. Hist-. Nat. 1. xxi. c. IS. 



3 Reaum. v. t. xxvi. f. 1. 



L 2 



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