BEE. 
429 
out the whole of their apparatus for stinging, and 
also part of the bowels ; so that the bee most fre- 
quently falls a sacrifice immediately upon having 
effected its purpose.” 
Removing bees from one place to another, in 
search of better pasturage for them, has been the 
custom in some countries for several ages. Pliny 
alludes to the practice, and says, that when the 
spring flood for bees has failed in the valleys, it is 
customary to put the hives into boats and convey 
them up the river in the night, in search of food. 
This method, it seems, was practised with success in 
his time, and is still continued by the Italians who 
inhabit the banks of the Po. M. Maillet, in his 
Description of Egypt, observes that the inhabitants 
of that country send their bees annually to a con- 
siderable distance, in order to procure them that 
sustenance which they cannot obtain at home ; and 
he further tells us that they afterwards bring them 
back, like shepherds who travel with their flocks, 
and feed them as they go. The antient inhabi- 
tants of Lower Egypt observed that all plants blos- 
somed, and the fruits of the earth ripened, above 
six weeks earlier in Upper Egypt than with them. 
This remark was not lost upon them ; they applied 
it to their bees; and the means then made use of, 
to enable these industrious insects to take advan- 
tage of the forward state of nature in those parts, 
were exactly the same, according to M. Maillet, as 
are now practised for the same purpose in that 
