The Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1837-1867, 1843-06-13


her some of those stately attributes which we always
cannect with human sovereignty. Bevan remarks
that she is dstnguishabe from the rest of the socie-
ty by more measured movements her body is
more taper than that of the working bee; her wings
shorter for she has little occasion for flights her legs
what would Queen Elizabeth, who would not even
hear of royal stockings, think Of our prolanenes p
her legs unfurrshed with grooves for she gathers no
pollen; her proboscs short, for the honey comes to
her, not she to the honey; her sting short and curved
for sting she has, though she seldom it.
In addition to these, Huber and others have thought
that they discerned certain black bees in many hives
but it is now generally allowed that these, if they ex-
list at ALL not different Species but superannua-
ted workers.
Having "caught our hare,' got our stock of bees,
the next question is, where shall place them p
and there is little to be added to Vrgl's suggestion
on this head. The bee-house should face the south,
with IA turn perhaps TO the cast, be protected from
the north and prevailing wnds not too far from the
dwelling lest they be shy ofman, nor too near lest
they be interrupted by him. No paths should cross
its entrance, no hightrees bushes intercept his
hOmeward Hight. Yet if placed in the centre of
treeess lawn, they would be apt in swarming to fly
away altogether, that Virgil recommends the palm
or some evergreen tree TO overhang the hive. Anoth
er of his njunctions, which modern writer seems
to notice sprinkle negRborng branch where
you wish them to hang, with honey and sweet herbs
bruised. Those who have been SO often troubled by
the inconvenent places on which swarms have set
tied might do well to try the recommendation of the
old Mantuan bee master. quiet nook in low
grounds is better than an elevated situation; they
II. hoI;o
unburdened, and an inclined plane to skim down
when they come home loaded with their hard Learned
treasure. Rogers, a: whose
scot beside the hill
A bee-hive's hum should soohe the ear,''
has supposed the bee to be guided back to its hive
by the recollection of the sweets it passed in its
outward fight-a beautiful instance of'the pleasures
Of Memory
One remarkable circumstance about bees is the
number of commodities of which they either the
collectors or conectoners. Besides honey and wax,
there are two other distinct substances which they
gather, bee bread and propolis.
Before we knew better. thought, probably
with most of our readers, when bee tolling
from every flower the virtuous sweets,'' with his
legs full ofthe dust of the that he hurry
ing home with the to build his cell, or at least
with the material wherewith to make that wax. We
thought of Ttauia and her fairies who ''for night
tapers crop their waxen thighs and many other
pretty things that poets have said and sung about
them; or if in prosaic mood, we at least con-
cevcd that, if not furnishing fairy candles, they were
laying the foundation for what Sir f. Trench calls
ssthe gentleman's Light No such thing. Their
hollow legs were filled with the pollen or farna of
flowers, which has nothing whatever to do with the
composition of wax, but constitutes the ambrosia Of
the hive-as honey does its nectar-their bee-bread,
or rather, should say, beepap, for it is entirely
reserved for the use Of her little ones Old Butler
had so long ago remarked that ''when they gather a
bundance of this stuf(poen) they have never the
more wax; when they make most wax, they gather
none of this.' In fact they store it up for food for
the embryo bees collecting from thirty to sixty pounds
of il in a season. and in this matter alone they seem
to be uun,hr,ft of their swees,' and to want that
shrewdness which never fails them, for they often,
like some over careful housewives with their pre-
serves, store away more than they can use, whch'n
its decomposition, becomes to them sore trouble
and annoyance. They are said always to keep to
one king of flower in collecting it, and the light red
color Of it will often detect them the rers of the
mgnionette- bed; but have seen them late in the
season with layers of different coors, and sometimes
the whole body sprnkled with it, for they will at
times roll and revel in flower like donkey on
dusty road
Whence, then, comes the wax? 1t IS elaborated
by the bee itselfrom the honey by chemistry be-
yond the ken of either Faraday or Llebig, beng ex
uded in small scales from betweenhe armor like iods
of their body This was noticed almost cotemFora-
| neously by John Hunter and Huber, and confirmed
by the most conclusive experiments of the latter A
| legal friend, to whom indebted for much OF
| our bee law, thus records his observaton:-I
have often watched these fellows, hanging apparent
" torpid, after, think, plentiful NEAL Sudden
" they make their whole persons vibrate like the
prong of tuning fork: you cannot see their out
line This is signal for one of the wax collectors TO
run up quickly and tumble the lately gen.
teman with the instruments with which they hoid
the wax and after collecting the scales they hasten