422 



HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



have something adhesive, and they melt less readily ; whence 

 it is evident that the finished combs contain something not 

 present in the unfinished ones. In examining the orifice of 

 the yellow cells, their contour appeared to the younger Huber 

 to be besmeared with a reddish varnish, unctuous, strong- 

 scented, and similar to, if not the same as, propolis. Some- 

 times there were red threads in the interior, which were also 

 applied round the sides, rhombs, or trapeziums. This solder, 

 as it may be called, placed at the point of contact of the dif- 

 ferent parts, and at the summit of the angles formed by their 

 meeting, seemed to give solidity to the cells, round the axis 

 of the longest of which there were sometimes one or two red 

 zones. From subsequent experiments, M. Huber ascertained 

 that this substance was actually propolis, collected from the 

 buds of the poplar. He saw them with their mandibles 

 draw a thread from the mass of propolis that was most con- 

 veniently situated, and breaking it by a sudden jerk of the 

 head, take it with the claws of their fore-legs, and then, en- 

 tering the cell, place it at the angles and sides, &c., which they 

 had previously planished. The yellow colour, however, is 

 not given by the propolis, and it is not certain to what it is 

 owing. The bees sometimes mix wax and propolis and 

 make an amalgam, known to the ancients and called by them 

 mitys and pissoceros, which they use in rebuilding cells that 

 have been destroyed, in order to strengthen and support the 

 edifice. ^ 



We know but little of the proceedings of the species of 

 bees not indigenous to Europe, which live in societies and 

 construct combs like that cultivated by us. A traveller in 

 Brazil mentions one there which builds a kind of na- 

 tural hive: "On an excursion towards upper Tapagippe," 

 says he, " and skirting the dreary woods which extend to the 

 interior, I observed the trees more loaded with bees' nests 

 than even in the neighbourhood of Porto Seguro. They con- 

 sist of a ponderous shell of clay, cemented similarly to martins' 

 nests, swelling from high trees about a foot thick, and forming 



1 Nouvelles Observations sur les Aheilles, par Francois Huber, ii. 101 — 288. 

 I have observed the bees collecting propolis in the spring from the buds of 

 Populus balsamifera. 



