152 



PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



propolis is soft, red, will pull out in a thread, is aromatic, and 

 imparts a gold colour to white polished metals. It is em- 

 ployed in the hive not only in finishing the combs, as I related 

 in my letter on Habitations ; but also in stopping every chink 

 or orifice by which cold, wet, or any enemy, can enter. They 

 cover likewise with it the sticks which support the combs, 

 and often spread it over a considerable portion of the interior 

 of the hive. Like the pellets of pollen, it is carried on the 

 posterior tibise, but the masses are lenticular. 1 



Mr. Knight mentions an instance of bees using an artificial 

 kind of propolis. He had caused the decorticated part of 

 some tree to be covered with a cement composed of bees' wax 

 and turpentine ; finding this to their purpose, they attacked 

 it, detaching it from the tree by their mandibles, and then, as 

 usual, passing it from the first leg to the second, and so to the 

 third. When one bee had thus collected its load, another 

 often came behind and despoiled it of all it had collected ; a 

 second and third load were frequently lost in the same 

 manner; and yet the patient animal pursued its labours with- 

 out showing any signs of anger. 2 



Bees in their excursions do not confine themselves to the 

 spot immediately contiguous to their dwelling, but, when 

 led by the scent of honey, will go a mile from it. Huber 

 even assigns to them a radius of half a league round their 

 hive for their ordinary excursions; yet from this distance they 

 will discover honey with as much certainty as if it was within 

 their sight. To prove that it is by their scent that bees find 

 it out, he put some behind a window-shutter, in a place where 

 it could not be seen, leaving the shutter just open enough for 

 insects, if they liked, to get at it. In less than a quarter of 

 an hour four bees, a butterfly, and some house-flies had dis- 

 covered it. At another time he put some into boxes, with 

 little apertures in the lid, into which pieces of card were 

 fitted, which he placed about two hundred paces from his 

 hives. In about half an hour the bees discovered them, and 

 traversing them very industriously, soon found the apertures, 

 when, pushing in the pieces of card, they got to the honey. 



1 Reaum. ubi supra, 437- 



2 Philos. Trans. 1807, 242. 



