dreds of males, or drones, and many thousand workers.

The female, or Queen, first demands our attention.

There are two descriptions of males-one not bigger than the workers, supposed to be produced from a male egg laid in a worker's cell. The common males are much larger, and will counterpoise two workers.

There are also two sorts of workers, the wax-makers and the nurses. They may also be further divided into fertile and sterile: for some of them lay male eggs. There is found in some hives, according to Huber, a kind of bees, which, from having less down upon the head and throat, appear blacker than the others, by whom they are always expelled from the hive, and often killed. It is worth inquiry, though Huber gives no hint of this kind, whether these are not in fact superannuated bees, that could no longer take part in the labours of the hive. Thorley remarks, which confirms this idea, that, if you closely observe a hive of bees in July, you may perceive many amongst them of a dark colour, with wings rent and torn; but that in September not one of them is to be seen. In superannuated insects, the hair is often rubbed off their body, which gives them a darker hue than that of more recent individuals of the same species. Should this conjecture turn out true, their banishment and destruction of the seniors of the hive would certainly not show our little creatures in a very amiable point of view. Yet it seems the law of their nature to rid their community of all supernumerary and useless members, as is evident from their destruction of the drones after their work is done.

A most extraordinary circumstance in their history, which is supported by evidence that seems almost incontrovertible, is, that if

the bees are deprived of their queen, and are supplied with comb containing young worker brood only, they will select one or more to be educated as queens. These, by having a royal cell erected for their habitation, and being fed with royal jelly for not more than two days, will, when they emerge from their pupa state, (though, if they had remained in the cells they originally inhabited, they would have turned out workers) come forth complete queens, with their form and instincts entirly different. In order to produce this effect the grub must not be more than three days old; and this is the age at which, according to Schirach, (the first apiarist who called the public attention to this miracle of nature,) the bees usually elect the larvæ to be royally educated; though it appears from Huber's observations, that a larva two days, or even twenty-four hours, old will do.

The mode of proceeding on these extraordinary occasions is thus described:-Having chosen a grub, the brood removes the inhabitants and their food from two of the cells which join that in which the chosen grub resides; they next take down the partitions which separate these three cells; and, leaving the bottoms untouched, raise round the selected worm a cylindrical tube, which follows the horizontal direction of the other cells; but since at the close of the third day of its life its habitation must assume a different form and direction, they gnaw away the cells below it, and sacrifice without pity the grubs they contain, using the wax of which they were formed to construct a new pyramidal tube, which they join at right angles to the horizontal one, the diameter of the former one diminishing insensibly from its base to its mouth. During the two days which the grub inhabits this cell, like the common royal cells now become

vertical, a bee may always be observed with its head plunged into it; and when one quits it another takes its place. These bees keep lengthening the cell as the worm grows older, and duly supply it with food, which they place before its mouth, and round its body. The animal, which can only move in a spiral direction, keeps incessantly turning to take jelly deposited before it; and thus slowly working downwards, arrives insensibly near the orifice of the cell, just at the time that it is ready to assume the pupa; when, as before described, the workers shut up its cradle with an appropriate covering.

Sixteen days is the time assigned to a queen for her existence in her preparatory states, before she is ready to emerge from her cell. Three she remains in the egg; when hatched she continues feeding five more; when covered in she begins to spin her cocoon, which occupies another day: as if exhausted by this labour, she now remains perfectly still for two days and sixteen hours, and then assumes the pupa, in which state she remains exactly four days and eight hours-making, in all, the period I have just named. A longer time, by four days, is required to bring the workers to perfection; their preparatory states occupying twenty days, and those of the male even twenty-four. The former consumes half a day more than the queen in spinning its cocoon, a circumstance most probably occasioned by a singular difference in the structure and dimensions of this envelope, which I shall explain presently. Thus you see that the peculiar circumstances which change the form and functions of the bee, accelerate its appearance as a perfect insect; and that by choosing a grub three days old, when the bees want a queen, they actually gain six days; for in this case she

is ready to come forth in ten days, instead of sixteen, which would be required, were a recently laid egg fixed upon.

The larvae of bees, though without feet, are not altogether without motion. They advance from their first station at the bottom of the cell, as I before hinted, in a spiral direction. This movement, for the first three days, is so slow as to be scarcely perceptible; but after this it is more easily discerned. The animal now makes two entire revolutions in about an hour and three quarters; and when the period of its metamorphosis arrives, it is scarcely more than two lines from the mouth of the cell. Its attitude, which is always the same, is a strong curve. This occasions the inhabitant of a horizontal cell to be always perpendicular to the horizon, and that of a vertical one to be parallel with it.

A most remarkable difference, as I lately observed, takes place in spinning their cocoons,-the grubs of workers and drones spinning complete cocoons, while those that are spun by the females are incomplete, or open at the lower end, and covering only the head and trunk, and the first segment of the abdomen. This variation is probably occasioned by the different forms of the cells; for, if a female larva be placed in a worker's cell, it will spin a complete cocoon; and if a worker larva be placed in a royal cell, its cocoon will be incomplete. No provision of the Great Author of nature is in vain. In the present instance, the fact which we are considering is of great importance to the bees; for, were the females wholly covered by the thick texture of a cocoon, their destruction by their rival competitors for the throne could not so readily be accomplished; they either would not be able to reach them with their stings, or the

stings might be detained by their barbs, in the meshes of the cocoon, so that they would not be able to disengage them. On the use of this instinctive and murderous hatred of their rivals I shall soon enlarge.

When our young prisoners are ready to emerge, they do not, like the ants, require the assistance of the workers, but themselves eat through the cocoon and the cell that encloses it. By a wise provision, which prevents the injury or destruction of a cell, they generally make their way through the cover or lid with which the workers had shut it up, though sometimes, but not often, a female will break through the side of her prison."-B.

THE COMMON BEE.

THE COMMON BEE, or HONEYFLY, is an insect of the species of the fly with four wings. This fly is of the number of those who live in association. Man has subjected them to his dominion, in order to profit by their labour; and he has assembled them in kinds of baskets, or boxes, called hives, which vary in form and size in different countries.

The Bees live in a state of society; the individuals of a hive are perfectly known to each other, and they never admit a stranger into their community, excepting accidentally at swarming-time, when circumstances can so combine, that several swarns may unite and form a social brotherhood. Every society is a monarchy governed by a queen, subordinate to whom are several hundred drones, and a multitude of labourers, according to the size of the colony. It is of the latter that we are giving an account.

These insects are called common, because they, in fact, compose the community of the hive, of which the drones only form a part during

a short period of time. They are also called Working Bees, because they alone bring provision into the hive, construct the combs, nourish the brood, defend the monarchy; in one word, because they perform all the labour useful to the community.

Some authors maintain that, in the monarchy of the Bees, a regularity and an admirable subordination are to be observed; that a wellregulated distribution of employment is remarked, as well as perfect order and concert, which must result from minds conspiring to the execution of the same plan; but that which in men would be the effect of reason, correspondence, or co-operation, is in the Bees but the effect of that instinet which is implanted in them by the great Creator.

We are acquainted in England but with one sort of Bees, although the foreign naturalists mention three, and some even four; but this latter kind is very rare, and has not yet been naturalized.

It is to this small, but wonderful insect, that we are indebted for all the honey and wax which form a part of our domestic and commercial relations. When we consider that the former is amassed from those small, and to us almost imperceptible, globules which are found either in the chalice of the flowers, or exude from the trees, we cannot be sufficiently impressed with admiration at the perseverance and labour of the Bee. It appears to labour less for the preservation of its own existence, than for that of its species, and the prosperity of its populous state! The days on which the honey abounds in the flowers, and on the leaves of certain trees, the Bee is observed to be uncommonly industrious, entering and leaving the hive with wonderful rapidity. The office of collecting the farina from the plants is not, however, neglected; and it is very

easy to discriminate between the Bee which has been collecting honey, and that which has been collecting only farina. The shape of the former is cylindrical, that of the latter oval.

In regard to the physical description of the Bee, the most remarkable parts of it are the head, the breast, and the belly. On the former are observed two rete mirabile eyes placed in the side, two antennæ, two hard teeth or jaws, which play, on opening or shutting, from the left to the right. These teeth enable it to collect the wax, to knead it, to construct the cells, and to remove from the hive every obnoxious thing.

Below these two teeth we observe a proboscis, which has the appearance of a thick fleshy substance, of a very shining and chesnut colour. This substance is divided into two parts, very supple at the end, and it is only seen at its full length when the Bee is employed in collecting honey, or sipping water. This proboscis is a most wonderful machine. To the simple view, it appears enveloped with four kinds of scales, which form together a channel by which the honey is conveyed. The proboscis which is in this channel, is a muscular body, which, by means of its muscular motions, makes the honey ascend into the gullet. If the teeth be separated, we observe, at the orifice of the proboscis, an opening which is the mouth, and above is a fleshy substance, which is the tongue. The breast is attached to the head by a very short neck; it carries four wings on it, the two last of which are longer than the other. It has six feet, on the two hinder of which are two triangular cavities, in which the Bee, by degrees, collects the particles of farina from the plants. At the extremity of the six feet are two sorts of fangs, with which the Bees attach themselves to the

sides of the hive, and to each other. From the middle of these fangs, on the four hinder legs, project four bushy substances, the use of which is to collect the dust of the flowers attached to the hair of their body. These brushes have the same use as hands.

The body, properly so called, or the belly, is united to the breast by a species of thread, and is composed of six scaly rings. The whole body of the Bee appears, even to the naked eye, to be well clothed. Age makes a little difference in them, in point of colour; those of the present year are brown, and have greyish hair; those of the preceding year have reddish hair, and the scales less brown, rather inclining to black; their wings are also often torn and fringed at the ends, by their former flights. On the breast, and on the wings of the body, are observed small orifices or pores, in the shape of a mouth, by which the Bee respires; these are the lungs, and they are technically called stygmates; this part, which is of a wonderful construction, is common to them, as to all other insects.

The interior of the belly consists of four parts,-the intestines, the honey-bag, the venom-vessel, and the sting. The intestines serve for the digestion of their food. The honey-bag, when it is filled, is as large as a small pea, transparent as crystal, and contains the honey which the Bees have collected from the flowers, and which is disgorged into the cells to nourish the hive during the winter. That which is destined for their own nourishment never enters into it, but passes through the viscera destined to the purpose of digestion. The vessel which contains the venom is at the root of the sting, along which the Bee ejects some globules, as along a tube, in order to spread into the wound. The sting is situated at the extremity of the belly of the

Bee; it is about two lines in length, and enters with great rapidity, by means of certain muscles which are placed very near the sting, and which are very perceptible on squeezing the hinder part of the Bee; its extremity is barbed, the teeth of which are turned in the direction of an arrow, which enter with facility, and cannot be extracted without causing a laceration. The wound which the Bee makes is almost always fatal to it; when it wishes to withdraw its sting, it remains in the wound, and with it the Bee loses the vessel of venom, which is at the root of the sting, and the ligaments to which it is attached. The Bee thus wounded cannot live a long time; it perishes, after having made war, in the manner of the savages, with poisoned arrows.

These details can only produce, in every rational man, a more distinct and extensive knowledge of that infinite intelligence, which has arranged the creatures of this earth, presided at their organization, and regulated their existence and configuration. There is nothing in nature which can so forcibly demonstrate to us an equally wise and powerful Author. The insects the most vile are, perhaps, more admirable in their construction than the sun and the most brilliant stars. What proportion! what harmony! what correspondence, in every part of the Bee! How many combinations, arrangements, causes, effects, and principles, which tend to the same end, and concur in the same design! What exactness, what symmetry in its little body, apparently contemptible, and so little admired by ignorant and inattentive persons! As in the greater number of animals, so we observe in the Bee, vessels without number, liquids, motions often united in an imperceptible point,-all the organs of life, the instruments of labour,

the means of escaping from their enemies, weapons to command victory, and a thousand beauties which adorn its exterior form!

Every thing in these insects announces that supreme wisdom which presided at the formation of a work, so perfect, so industrious, so superior to every thing which art could ever produce. Every thing here is for our use and benefit. The Bees, in fact, make use of their wondrous qualities only for our good. It is for us that they work; and it is towards Him, therefore, who has given to them these inclinations, that we ought to express our love and gratitude.HUISH.

BEES.

WHEN the queen-bee is forcibly taken away from the hive, the bees which are near her at the time, do not soon appear sensible of her absence, and the labours of the hive are carried on as usual. It is seldom before the lapse of an hour, that the working-bees begin to manifest any symptoms of uneasiness: they are then observed to quit the larvae which they had been feeding, and to run about in great agitation, to and fro, near the cell which the queen had occupied before her abduction. They then move over a wider circle, and on meeting with such of their companions as are not aware of the disaster, communicate the intelligence by crossing their antennæ, and striking lightly with them. The bees which receive the news, become in their turn agitated, and conveying this feeling wherever they go, the alarm is soon participated by all the inhabitants of the hive. All rush forwards, eagerly seeking their lost queen; but after continuing their search for some hours, and finding it to be fruitless, they appear resigned to their mis