perceive their danger; for they are never, at this time, seen resting in one place, but darting in or out of the hive, with the utmost precipitation, as if in fear of being seized. Their destruction has been generally supposed to be effected by the workers harassing them till they quit the hive: this was the opinion of Mr. Hunter, who says the workers pinch them to and fro, without stinging them, and he considers their death as a natural rather than an untimely one. In this Bonnet seems to agree with Mr. Hunter. But Huber has observed that their destruction is effected by the stings of the workers: he ascertained this by placing his hives upon a glass table, as will be stated under the anatomy of the bee, article "Sting." Reaumur seems to have been aware of this, for he has remarked that "notwithstanding the superiority which the drones seem to have from their bulk, they cannot hold out against the workers, who are armed with a poniard which conveys poison into the wounds it makes." The moment this formidable weapon has entered their bodies, they expand their wings and expire. This sacrifice is not the consequence of a blind indiscriminating instinct, for if a hive be deprived of its queen, no massacre takes place, though the hottest persecution rage in all the surrounding hives. This fact was observed by Bonner, who supposed the drones to be

preserved for the sake of the additional heat which they would generate in the hive during winter; but according to Huber's theory, they are preserved for the purpose of impregnating a new queen. The lives of the drones are also spared in hives which possess fertile workers only, but no proper queen, and likewise in hives governed by a queen whose impregnation has been retarded; but under any other circumstances the drones all disappear before winter. Not only all that have undergone their full transformations, but every embryo, in whatever period of its existence, shares the same fate. The workers drag them forth from the cells, and after sucking the fluid from their bodies, cast them out of the hive. In all these respects the hive-bees resemble wasps, but with this difference; among the latter, not only are the males and the male larvæ destroyed, but all the workers and their larvæ, (and the very combs themselves,) are involved in one indiscriminate ruin, none remaining alive during the winter but the queens, which lie dormant in various holes and corners till the ensuing spring, of course without food, for they store none. The importance of destroying these mother wasps in the spring will be noticed in another place.

Morier in his second journey through Persia (page 100) has recorded a fact, which, though it

did not come under his own immediate observation, was related to him by a person on whose authority he could place full reliance, and which is directly the reverse of what I have stated respecting bees. It is, that among the locusts, when the female has done laying, she is surrounded and killed by the males.

CHAPTER II.

THE APIARY.

THE first object of consideration, in the establishment of an apiary, is situation.

The aspect has, in general, been regarded as of prime importance, but I think there are other points of still greater importance.

An apiary would not be well situated near a great river, nor in the neighbourhood of the sea, as windy weather might whirl the bees into the water and destroy them.

It was the opinion of the ancients that bees, in windy weather, carried weights, to prevent them from being whiffled about, in their progress through the air: Virgil has observed that

"They with light pebbles, like a balanc'd boat, Pois'd, through the air on even pinions float.” SOTHEBY'S GEORGICS.

This assertion, which was probably borrowed by the poet from his predecessor Aristotle, and which has since been repeated by Pliny, is now ascertained to be erroneous. The error has been noticed by both Swammerdam and Reaumur, and ascribed by them to preceding observers having mistaken the mason bee for a hive bee. The former builds its nest against a wall, with a composi

tion of gravel, sand and its own saliva, and when freighted with the former article, may easily have led a careless observer into the erroneous opinion above alluded to.

From a similar inaccuracy of observation, it is probable that flies were confounded with bees by ancient naturalists, and that from thence arose the absurd notion, of the latter being generated in putrid carcases, as we know the former to be; and this error was most likely confirmed by their having found both honey and bees in the carcases of dead animals, as recorded in the case of Samson.

Though, for the reasons above stated, an apiary would not be well situated near a large river, yet it should not be far from a rivulet or spring: small ones, that glide gently over pebbles, are the most desirable, as affording a variety of resting places for the bees to alight upon. If neither spring nor streamlet be near, a broad dish of water should be placed for the bees, the bottom being covered with small stones or duckweed, to facilitate their drinking and prevent drowning.

This, in a hot dry season, is of considerable importance, as it will save that time, which must otherwise be spent, in fetching water from a distance; for without water, as will be noticed hereafter, no wax can be formed.

It is of course of the greatest importance that