PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



155 



And what a lesson do they read to the members of societies 

 that have both reason and religion to guide their exertions 

 for the common good ! Adorable is that Great Being who 

 has gifted them with instincts which render them as instruc- 

 tive to us, if we will condescend to listen to them, as they are 

 profitable. 



While I am upon this part of the story of bees, I cannot 

 pass over the account Reaumur has given from Maillet of the 

 transportation of hives in Egypt from one place to another, 

 before alluded to 1 , to enable them to make in greater abun- 

 dance 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, saintfoin is one of the 

 first things that is sown ; and as Upper Egypt is warmer than 

 the Lower, the saintfoin 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 pyra- 

 mids upon the boats prepared to receive them; each being num- 

 bered by the individual to whom it belongs. In this station 

 they remain some days ; and when they are judged to have 

 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. These hives are wicker-work 

 cylinders, two feet eight inches long by nine inches in diame- 

 ter, plastered inside and outside with cow-dung ; having one 

 end filled up with a circular 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 her- 



1 Reaum. v. 698. 



