which she carries her treasure is entirely distinct from the stomach of the bee. It is surrounded by muscles adapted to the purpose, with which she compresses or contracts it at her pleasure, forcing the rich liquid from the bag through her mouth. If the cell she selects already contains some honey, she pierces a hole in the crust formed on its surface, drops from her mouth the honey she has just brought home, and closes up the opening in the crust, leaving it quite covered. A single cell will hold the contents of many honey-bags. The honey intended for daily use is easy of access, but that which is stored away for a bad season, or laid up for winter and early spring, is placed more out of the way, and each cell is carefully sealed with a waxen cover. The bees do not gather this sweet nectar from every flower. Some of the most lovely of the ornaments of the garden, the roses, pinks, and carnations, afford them little or no supply; while from the more humble, fragrant plants, the borage, sage, and rosemary, they collect the finest and most delicate honey. The bright pink blossom of the oleander yields a poisonous sweet, which destroys thousands of imprudent flies; but the bees, more wise, or more cautious, pass them by untouched. But when the fresh flowers of the linden-tree are blooming, when the apple-trees are loaded with their fragrant blossoms, or when the air is perfumed with the richness of the white clover, then they are active and busy indeed! Of the sweet mignonette and lemon thyme the bees are very fond. But they much prefer to have every thing on a large scale, and whole fields of clover and of buckwheat attract them more than single plants, even of the finest flowers. Their practice is, when collecting honey, to adhere to the same species of flower on which they first alight. They do not fly from the linden to the apple-tree, and then to the clover, and thus mingle the nectar of the different plants; but from each single excursion, they return to the hive with that which they have procured from one description of flowers. Perhaps no other plant can compare with the white clover in value for the use of the bees; it is in bloom almost all the summer, and affords the purest and most C delicious honey. The blossoms of the buckwheat yield a rich supply late in the season, but the honey is darker in colour, and never so finely flavoured. The splendid tulip-tree, one of the most noble of the forest-trees, is much resorted to by the bees. Its large tulip-shaped flowers (from which the tree takes its name) are beautifully variegated, though mostly of a pale yellow colour. About the middle of May they are in full bloom, and the bees are then most actively engaged in gathering from them large stores of honey. But we must not forget the graceful willow-tree; which is most important to the bee in the early spring. It puts forth its tender shoots when almost every other tree has still a barren and wintry-like appearance. Even then, on a mild and sunny day, if standing under the spreading branches of some stately willow, you might fancy yourself by the side of a populous beehive, so loud is the humming sound which falls upon your ear. Look up, then, and you will perceive over your head a vast army of bees, their motions so rapid, that they seem never to rest for a moment, darting to and fro every where among the branches. Though the busy bees are usually so cautious, they have been, but very rarely, known to collect honey of a poisonous nature. Some persons are said to have lost their lives, many years ago, from eating honey which it was ascertained had been collected by the bees from the flowers of the wild laurel, a shrub very common in America. Perhaps it was not easy for them to procure a plentiful supply of food, when they were thus tempted to partake of that which rendered their honey injurious for the use of man. It is not known that this honey was hurtful to the bee itself. "Give thee good-morrow, busy bee! No cloud is in the sky; The ring-dove skims across the lea, And sweet is thine own fragrant bower- "Give thee good-even, busy bee! The summer day is by; Now droning beetles haunt the lea, And shrieking plovers cry; |