entirely destroyed, that their owner might get possession of all the contents of their hive. Truly, it could then be said to the poor bee:

Ah! what to thee is summer's golden smile?
And what to thee the flower-enamelled plain?
Will gratitude reward thy daily toil?

No, no; thou workest for reward in vain.

Not long the hive of treasure will be thine;
Rapacity will force thy little door;

Those treasures, with thy life, thou must resign,
A breathless victim on thy fragrant store!

The inside of a bee-hive contains many wonders; it is a city on a small scale, with its regular streets and dwellings, built on the most perfect plan that could possibly have been contrived for the use of the inhabitants. Some of these buildings are store-houses for food; in some, the citizens live; and a few, more spacious than the rest, are the cradles of the sovereigns, or mothers of the hive. What could you have more? But the material of which this city is built is one which man, with all his skill and his knowledge, knows not how

to produce; and the city itself, the wisest builder among us could not have planned with more wisdom! Yet, this is the work of a society of curious insects; and all the wonders which they perform we cannot fully understand, with all the powers of reason which we enjoy. He who careth for the raven, and heareth its cry for food, careth also for the little bee. From Him came all its gifts, as we have received from the

every thing we call our own.

same kind hand

Here, we are on a level with the inferior creatures of his power; but, oh, how raised above them in the possession of a soul, in the gift of immortality!

You have many times seen a piece of honeycomb. It is a flattish cake, composed of two ranges of cells, backed against each other, with a partition between, which is the floor of each range. The cells stand side by side, the two ranges in the same piece of comb, thus opening exactly opposite to each other into the streets running between the combs. A well-filled hive contains many of these ranges or combs.

1

The combs are about half an inch apart; leaving the passage between wide enough to allow two bees to work on cells opposite to each other at the same time, if necessary, and to pass each other freely, without disturbance. There are, also, openings left through different parts of the combs, forming short streets, or cross-cuts, for the bees to save their time in going round.

The shape of each cell in the comb is that of a hexagon, as it is called, having six equal sides. No other shape would do nearly so well to save room, to give the greatest strength, to

save the wax used in building the cells. Their sides fit into each other as no other shape would..

If the cells had been quite round, which seems best suited to the shape of the insect, there would have been room wasted in joining them together, as you will see by comparing this figure with that at the head of the page,

which is the real shape of the cells. If they were made square, or in a triangle having three sides, they would fit as closely together as they do in the hexagon or six-sided figure; but then there would be waste at the corners, more wax would be needed to build them, and at last they would not be so convenient for the use of an insect with a round body, like that of the bee. But in taking the shape with the six sides, every difficulty is removed.

Another important saving of wax, as well as room, is gained by making one common partition serve as the floor for two ranges of cells. Had they been formed in single ranges only, opening but on one side, and streets between, more room would have been required, and more material for building.

Each cell would be weaker, too, had it stood alone, and separate from other cells; while all are strengthened by their close union with each other. Both the sides and bottoms of the cells are thin as a sheet of fine writing paper; and as walls so thin would be always crumbling and breaking at the edge, from the