convulsions, attended with the most excruciating 
pains, which last thirty hours. 
Wax.—Bees are seen laden with a yellowish sub- 
stance in very considerable quantities, which also is 
stored up in the hive. This is not wax, as is com- 
monly supposed, but either the pollen of flowers, 
which is used for feeding their young, or propolis for 
stopping the crevices of their dwelling. The combs 
are constructed of wax, which owes its origin to 
honey: or it may be formed from sugar, the sacchar- 
ine part of which constitutes one principal ingredient 
of honey. Naturalists have adopted many conjectures 
concerning the mode in which it is elaborated by the 
bees. In general they supposed that the yellowish 
pellets adhering to their limbs were swallowed, and 
afterwards disgorged as wax in a state of purity. 
The process is still obscure, but recent experiments 
seem to afford reason for believing that it may tran- 
sude between the seales of the abdomen; and the 
appearance presented by wax on such places led for- 
mer observers to affirm, that it was collected there 
instead of on the limbs. It is established by satisfac- 
| tory experiments, that, whatever be its issue from 
the body of the bee, it originates from honey. Mu- 
tual relations subsist in their elementary principles, 
and the one is dependent on the other. Those years 
unproductive of honey are also unproductive of wax; 
and we often see swarms which begin their collec- 
tions with the most promising appearance, still make 
but little progress, and terminate with acquiring too 
small a quantity of honey for their future subsistence. 
In these cases, wax is sparingly provided also. 
Repeated observations prove, that the secretion of 
honey in flowers is powerfully promoted by the elec- 
| 
tricity of the atmosphere; and bees never labour 
more actively than during humid sultry weather, and 
when a storm is approaching. Sometimes the secre- 
tion of honey is entirely suspended by the state of 
the weather, which occasions a total interruption of 
the labours of the bees; and if this be too long pro- 
tracted, a populous hive may actually die in the 
midst of summer. The odour exhaled by the hives, 
and the size of the bees, are always certain indica- 
tions whether the flowers contain honey. When 
numbers of bees return from their excursions with 
the belly thick and cylindrical, it shows they are 
gorged with honey; and these are exclusively the 
workers in wax. The belly of those performing the 
other functions, always preserves its ovoidal form, 
and does not sensibly increase in size. Although the 
flowers be destitute of honey, bees still are able to 
store up quantities of farina or pollen necessary for 
feeding their young. 
Use of the Propolis.—The propolis is another sub- 
stance collected trom plants, which is extremely use- 
ful to bees. Besides the purposes of stopping crevices, 
covering the interior surface of the hive, the sticks 
supporting the combs, and gluing the hive to the 
board on which it stands, bees employ it in greater 
portions at once. Stranger animals of small size en- 
tering a hive are immediately stung to death, and 
then dragged by the bees to the outside: there are 
few persons who have not seen that a dead fly, or 
bee laid on their board, is quickly carried away and 
dropped at a distance: it seems the nature of these 
insects not to endure any filth or corruption in their 
habitation. Should a larger animal, such as a snail, 
make its way into the hive, it does not escape; it is 
put to death, but the bees are unable to divest them- 
selves of its body. Maraldi relates, that he saw the 
dead body of a snail totally covered with propolis, 
and thus prevented from spreading infection in the 
hive; and Reaumur tells us, that a shell snail having 
fixed itself on the pane of a glass hive, waiting until 
the moistness of weather should be an inducement 
for it to move, the bees encircled the mouth of the 
shell with so thick a bed of propolis, that the animal, 
1 
unable to moisten it as it moistens its own gluten, 
was arrested on the spot. The original source of 
the propolis is not yet perfectly understood: it is 
much more tenacious, and attains a greater degree of 
hardness than wax: those bees that return laden with 
it, owing to its tenacity, experience considerable 
difficulty, even with the aid of their companio:s, in 
divesting themselves of the load. M. Ducarne ob- 
serves, ‘‘ Several times I have seen bees cccupied in 
collecting, or rather in tearing away with their teeth, 
the propolis of old hives which I had exposed to the 
sun; and this appeared so Jaborious, and the animals 
pulled so forcibly, that I thought their heads would 
have been separated from their bodies.” 
Swarming—Though the hive be amply stored 
with honey and wax, and the young brood grad- 
ually approaching to maturity, seems to leave 
nothing to be desired by the bees, they all of a 
sudden desert their habitation to go in quest of 
another. For this incident, which is called 
swarming, there is no ostensible cause, nor do the 
reasons assigned for it by different observers 
prove satisfactory in our estimation; for its oc- 
currence is irregular, and its frequency is uncer- 
tain. According to common apprehension, swarm- 
ing ensues from a hive being overstocked with 
bees, and especially from a young queen seeking 
a new dwelling. It never takes place, we ac- 
knowledge, unless the bees be numerous; but 
there are so many exceptions, that we cannot 
say it is from wanting room: and instead of the 
young queen, it is always the old one that leads 
out the swarm: nay, should an old queen have 
conducted a swarm of this year, she will also be 
found at the head of the first which next year 
leaves the hive. Each subsequent colony depart- 
ing is led by a young queen. An old queen never 
leaves her hive until she has deposited eggs which | 
will become future queens, nor until her princi- 
pal laying of the eggs producing drones is over ; 
the common bees construct royal cells only, while 
she lays those eggs which will be transformed | 
to drones; and after this laying terminates, her 
belly being more slender, she is better able to fly ; 
whereas it is previously so heavy and surcharged 
with eggs, that she can hardly drag herself along. 
One chief cause or concomitant of swarming ap- 
parently consists in the agitation of the queen. 
She is suddenly affected, hastily traverses the 
combs, abandoning that slow and steady progres- 
sion which she ordinarily exhibits: her agitation 
is communicated to the bees; they crowd to the 
outlets of the hive, and the queen escaping first, 
they hasten to follow her. Commonly the whole 
take but a short flight, and the qucen having 
alighted, the bees cluster around her. This con- 
stitutes the new swarm. With regard to the 
precursors of swarming, there is no infallible 
guide: those on which observers are accustomed 
to rely, the most frequently prove fallacious. 
The general indications given by Reaumur—a 
naturalist of the first eminence, who draws his 
conclusions from facts, and has fallen into few 
errors—are, first, the appearance of drones in a 
hive; for no swarm will proceed from one where 
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