148 
THE farmer’s manual. 
their legs, back and wings, and flit away to the 
store house of common deposit; and in their nvitual 
aid in assisting each other to unload their burthens; 
iogcibcr with their nice economy in feeding out the 
common stock. The community of the Bee is not a 
republic; but a brotherhood, a monarchy with a com- 
munity of goods, and governed by a queen. The 
queen is not the tyrant of the swarm, but the mother 
ol the swarm. She is not the dispenser of laws to 
the swarm, but the subject of the same fixed and 
immutable laws of nature, which govern every Bee 
in the swarm. 
J he Bees know each other, and are armed with a 
sting for common defence. They know their keep- 
ers, and gejiernlly respect them. They possess a 
natural disgust, which has not yet been fully ac- 
equiited for, and attack, and sting the objects of this 
disgust wherever they meet them ; invariably. The 
Bee is very sagacious in judging of the weather, and 
avoids the storm by retiring to her hive, or shelter- 
'ug herself under the foliage of plants and trees. 
1 he whole swarm manifest an afTectionate attention 
lo the queen mother, unexampled in nature, and are 
constantly employed for her support and preserva- 
tion. The natural period of the life of the Bee is not 
yet known ; but they are more generally the victims 
ol the casualties of nature, than of old age. The 
dysentery is their most common and fatal malady ; 
and they destroy by violence all the lame and infirm, 
together with the drones, by banishing them from the 
hive; thus illustrating the sacred maxim, “ He that 
will not work, neither shall he cat;” with the addi- 
tion of their own natural law, “ He that cannot work, 
neither shall he eat.” The first is perfectly confor- 
mable to the principles of humanity, and common 
sense ; the latter is repugnant to both. A general, 
as well as particular system of cleanliness pervades 
the community, and no dead Bee is suffered to remain 
in the hive. 
