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useless and irregular fragments as may have been left in the work. Of these fragments the bee forms a ball about the size of a pin's head, comes out of the cell, and carries this wax to another part of the work where it is needed. It no sooner leaves the cell than it is succeeded by another bee, which performs the same office, and in this manner the work is successively carried on till the cell is completely polished.

The cells of bees are designed for different purposes. Some of them are employed for the accumulation and preservation of honey. In others, the female deposits her eggs. and from these eggs worms are hatched, which remain in the cells till their final transformation into flies. The drones or males are larger than the common or working bees: and the queen, or mother of the hive, is much larger than either. A cell destined for the lodgement of a male or female worm must, therefore, be considerably larger than the cell of the smaller working bees. The number of cells destined for the reception of the working bees far exceed those in which the males are lodged. The honey-cells are always made deeper and more capacious than the others. When the honey collected is so abundant that the vessels cannot contain it, the bees lengthen, and of course deepen the honey-cells.

Their mode of working, and the disposition and division of their labour, when put into an empty hive, do much honour to the sagacity of bees. They immediately begin to lay the foundations of their combs, which they execute with surprising quickness and alacrity. Soon after they begin to construct one comb, they divide it into two or three companies, each of which, in different parts of the hive, is occupied with the same operations. By this division of labour, a great number of bees have an opportunity of being employed at the same time,

and, consequently, the common work is sooner finished. The combs are generally arranged in a direction parallel to each other. An interval, or street, between the combs, is always left, that the bees may have a free passage, and an easy communication with the different combs in the hive. These streets are wide enough to allow two bees to pass one another. Beside these parallel streets, to shorten their journey when working, they leave several round cross passages, which are always covered.

With respect to the materials employed by bees, it is known that they carry into their hives, by means of their hind thighs, great quantities of the farina or dust of flowers. After many experiments made by Reaumur, with a view to discover whether this dust contained real wax, he was obliged to acknowledge, that he could never find the wax formed any part of its composition. He at length found, by attentive observation, that the bees actually eat the farina which they so industriously collect; and that this farina, by an animal process, is converted into wax. This digestive process, which is necessary to the formation of wax, is carried on in the second stomach, and perhaps in the intestines of bees. Reaumur likewise discovered, that all the cells in a hive were not destined for the reception of honey, and for depositing the eggs of the female, but that

Among the trees and other vegetables most frequently visited by these industrious insects, may be mentioned the apple, almond, balm, bugloss, blackberry, bell-flower, bindweed, spanish broom, sweet-briar, alder, buckthorn, buckwheat, buttercup, borage, box, cherry, white and red clover, chesnut, and horse-chesnut, currant, elm, elder, furze, gooseberry, hawthorn, laurel, lavender, lily, lucerne, lupine, melilot, mignionette, rosemary, lemon thyme, golden rod and heath. Indeed, it is remarkable that in the vicinity of large heaths more honey is produced than in other parts.

some of them were employed as receptacles for the farina of flowers, which is the great basis and raw material of all their curious operations. When a bee comes to the hive with its thighs filled with farina, it is often met near the entrance by some of its companions, who first take off the load, and then devour the provisions so kindly brought to them. But, when none of the bees employed in the hive are hungry for this species of food, the carriers of the farina deposit their loads in cells prepared for that purpose. To these cells the bees resort, when the weather is so bad that they cannot venture to go to the fields in quest of fresh provisions. As a further evidence that the bees actually eat the farina of flowers, when the stomach and intestines are laid open, they are often found to be filled with this dust, the grains of which, when examined by the microscope, have the exact figure, colour, and consistence of farina, taken from the antheræ of particular flowers. After the farina is digested, and converted into wax, the bees possess the power of bringing it from their stomachs to their mouths. The instru ment they employ in furnishing materials for constructing their waxen cells is their tongue, which is situate below the two teeth or fangs. When at work, the tongue is in perpetual motion, and its motions are extremely rapid: sometimes it is more or less concave, and partly covered with a moist paste or wax. By the different movements of its tongue the bee continues to supply fresh wax to the teeth, which are employed in raising and fashioning the walls of its cell, till they have acquired a sufficient height. As soon as the moist paste or wax dries, which it does almost instantaneously, it then assumes all the appearances and qualities of common wax. There is a still stronger proof that wax is the result of an animal process When bees are removed into a new hive, and

closely confined from the morning to the evening, if the hive chance to please them, in the course of the day, several waxen cells will be formed, without the possibility of a single bee having had access to the fields. Besides, the rude materials, or farina, carried into the hive, are of various colours. The farina of some plants employed by the bees is whitish in others it is of a fine yellow colour; in others it is almost entirely red; and in others it is green. The combs constructed with these differently coloured materials are, however, when newly made, of a pure white colour, which becomes more or less tarnished by age, the operation of the air, or by other accidental circumstances. To

bleach wax, therefore, requires only the art of extracting such foreign bodies as may have insinuated themselves into its substance and changed its original colour.

Bees, from the nature of their construction, require a warm habitation. They are likewise extremely solicitous to prevent insects of any kind from getting admittance into their hives. To accomplish both these purposes, when they take possession of a new hive, they carefully examine every part of it, and, if they discover any small holes or chinks, they immediately paste them firmly up with a resinous substance which differs considerably from wax. This substance was unknown to the ancients: Pliny mentions it under the name of propolis, or bee-glue. Bees use this glue to render their hives more close and perfect, in preference to wax, because the former is more durable, and more powerfully resists the vicissitudes of weather than the latter. This glue is not, like wax, procured by an animal process: the bees collect it from different trees, as poplars, birches, and willows. It is a complete production of Nature, and requires no addition or manufacture from the animals by which

it is employed. After a bee has procured a quantity sufficient to fill the cavities in its two hind thighs, it repairs to the hive. Two of its companions instantly draw out the glue, and apply it to fill up such chinks, holes, or other deficiencies, as they find in their habitation. But this is not the only use to which bees apply the glue. They are extremely solicitous to remove such insects, or foreign bodies, as happen to get admission into the hive. When so light as not to exceed their powers, they first kill the insect with their stings, and then drag it out with their teeth. But it sometimes happens that a snail creeps into the hive. It is no sooner perceived than it is attacked on all sides and stung to death. The bees cannot carry out a a burden of such weight; and to prevent so large a body from diffusing a disagreeable odour through the hive, they immediately cover every part of it with glue, through which no effluvia can escape. When a snail with a shell gets entrance, to dispose of it gives much less trouble to the bees. As soon as this kind of snail receives the first wound from a sting, it naturally retires within its shell. In this case, the bees, instead of pasting it all over, are contented to glue all round the margin of the shell, which is sufficient to render the animal immoveably fixed.

But glue, and the materials for making wax, are not the only substances these industrious animals have to collect. Beside the whole winter, there are many days in summer in which the bees are prevented by the weather from going abroad in quest of provisions. They are, therefore, under the necessity of collecting, and amassing in cells destined for that purpose, large quantities of honey. This sweet and balsamic liquor they extract, by means of their proboscis or trunk, from the nectariferous glands of flowers. After collecting a few small

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