Mr. Hunter's Observations on Bees. 135 
they are jealous of it, and seem to defend it ; but when not near 
it, they are quiet, and must be hurt before they will sting ; 
with all this disposition for defence, which is only to secure 
their property, or themselves, when more closely attacked, yet 
they have no covetousness, nor a disposition to obstruct others. 
Thus two bees or more will be sucking at the same flower, 
without the first possessor claiming it as his right : a hundred 
may be about the same drop of honey, if it is beyond the 
boundaries of their own right ; but what they have collected 
they defend. It is easily known when they mean to sting ; 
they fly about the object of their anger very quickly, and by 
the quickness of their motion evade being struck or attacked ; 
which is discovered by the sound of their wings, as if going 
to give a stroke as they fly, a very different noise from that of 
the wings when coming home of a fine evening loaded with 
farina, or honey ; it is then a soft contented noise. When a 
single bee is attacked by several others, it seems the most pas- 
sive animal possible, making no resistance, and even hardly 
seeming to wish to get away ; and in this manner they allow 
themselves to be killed. They are perhaps the only insect 
that feeds in the winter, and therefore the only one that lays up 
external store ; and as all animals, whether insects or not, that 
keep quiet in the winter, without either eating at all, or eating 
very little in proportion to what they do in the summer, 
grow fat and muscular in the summer, (which I term internal 
store,) we see why the common bee need not be fatter at one 
time than another ; and accordingly we find them nearly of the 
;same fatness the year round. 
There are accidents befalling hives of bees, that are not easily 
accounted for. I had a hive which in the month of November 
