FOREIGN BEES. 
287 
are of opinion, that he picks out only the drones, 
and never injures the working-bees. Be that as it 
may, lie certainly gives a preference to one bee, and 
one species of insect over another.” 
Advancing southwards, we fall in with the bees 
of Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, &c. If Latreille be 
correct — and we are disposed to think he is — these 
are still of the European species ; for he tells us, that 
they extend from the northern States as far south as 
the Antilles. In the rich provinces above named, 
bees are reported to increase with such rapidity, that 
nothing but the most satisfactory proofs can entitle 
the report to credit. A striking instance of this 
rapid increase is given in Feburier’s Treatise on 
Bees. M. Bozc, the French Consul in Carolina, 
walking one morning in the woods adjoining his 
house, found a swarm of bees which the negroes had 
just deprived of its honey and wax. He succeeded 
in getting it to enter his hat, brought it home, and 
put it into a hive. By the end of autumn, it had 
yielded eleven swarms, and these had, one with an- 
other, produced as many more ; so that at the end 
of the year he had twenty-two ! besides losing several 
for want of hives to lodge them. 
In the island of Cuba, their multiplication is said 
to be still more extraordinary ; so much so, that 
though they have not existed there above seventy 
years, thousands of swarms perish yearly from not 
finding suitable places to settle in. They were intro- 
duced into this island in 1763, by some emigrants 
from Florida ; and such was the rapidity with which 
