MATERIALS USED IN THE HIVE. «P] 
quantity of honey which they contain. Next they resort to the cherry- 
tree, the pear-tree, and the apple-tree blossoms: subsequently to the 
white clover. This usually furnishes the greatest supply of honey, 
more, I am inclined to think, taking one season with another, than all 
other things in the climate of New England. They rarely, if ever, 
work upon red clover, from the fact that their proboscis is not of 
sufficient length to reach the honey which is contained in it. Later in 
the season they resort to fields of buckwheat. This furnishes honey 
in considerable quantities, but it is inferior in quality and flavor to that 
which is gathered from the white clover. It however answers well for 
their winter stores. It helps many late swarms to survive the winter- 
Buckwheat should always be sown in the vicinity where Bees are kept. 
The idea is extensively prevalent that Bees have the power in some 
way to manufacture honey. Thisisan error. ‘They have no labora- 
tory for this purpose, and no peculiar process by which the work is 
done. If it were so they would bring all the materials which they 
employ to a given standard; but such is not the fact. Apple-tree 
blossom honey is one thing, white clover honey is another, buckwheat 
honey is another, Southern or Cuba honey, which is gathered from the 
sugar plantations, is quite another, and sugar syrup, which is sometimes 
fed to Bees and is transferred by them, the liquid part of which at 
length evaporates and leaves the sugar in a candied state in the cell 
(thus spoiling the cells) is still another. Bees are merely gatherers of 
honey, which various blossoms spontaneously produce. The honey is 
their food and they gather it. ‘They will transfer to their cells any 
kind of sweet which you choose to give them, and large quantities of it, 
but no chemical change takes place in the article while the Bees have 
it in their possession, or during the act of transportation. In one 
minute, and frequently in less time than this, the material which is 
gathered is deposited in the cell, and it is substantially the same thing 
after the transportation as before. But more of this in another place. 
BEE-BREAD OR POLLEN. 
This is conveyed to the hive from various flowers upon the thighs of 
the Bees, and is often stored up in considerable quantities beyond what 
is needful for present use. There has been much diversity of opinion 
as to the particular use which is made of this article. Itis at length . 
settled by satisfactory experiments that the only use which is made of 
