THE BEE. 
5 rr 
with which the bees have been well acquainted from 
time immemorial *. 
The teeth with which thefe infects are provided, ferve 
another purpofe equally important ; they are the inftru- 
ments by which they fafhion and give a proper confiftency 
to the wax. That valuable commodity is not found in a 
perfeft ftate upon the flowers, as many have imagined ; 
it is there fcattered upon the furface in the form of a fine 
powder or duft, and fwept off by the hairy legs of the 
bee, and depoflted in a hollow part of each thigh, pre- 
pared for its reception. After being carried in that form 
into the hive, it is all ate up by the bee ; and by the ac- 
tion of the ftomach is brought into the ftate of genuine 
wax. From the ftomach, the working bee brings it 
back in fmall parcels to the mouth, like a ruminating 
animal ; and, by chewing it there, fafhions it into pieces 
proper for the eonftrudtion of the cell, to which it is ap- 
plied, and afterwards polifhed as the fituation requires. 
That fmall fcaly fpine, commonly termed the fling of 
the bee, is only the cafe of two needles or darts, ex- 
tremely fine, and each dentated towards the point. The 
wounds made by thefe flendet arms would be little to be 
apprehended, were their points not impoifoned by a fmall 
drop of acrid liquor. This liquor, which, when tafted, 
burns the tongue, is conveyed along a fmall canal to the 
cafe of the fting, on the tip of which it appears in fmall 
drops, when the bee intends to make ufe of her offenfive 
weapons. However difagreeable this inftrument may 
fometimes prove to us, it is abfolutely neceiTary to the 
bee, furrnunded as that animal continually is with many 
enemies, 
f The diligence of the bee is often alluded to in ancient poetry. 
Apis mantinte more modoij. grata carpentis thyma. Hon 
