re seen to collect large quantities of farina during the season
in which the cells are being made, no particle of crude farina is
meanwhile to be found in a single cell, the whole of it being used in
their composition. All this, however, will long remain in uncertainty;
for, till some one is born with eyes of his own, ready to devote his
lifelong labor to such observations, and perhaps in the end be stung to
death for his pains,--since there are rebellions even in heaven, we
learn,--there will be general willingness to accept the most piquant
little statements regarding this most peculiar little people.

Wax itself is a substance that has no similitude to any other known. It
is now thought, that, as there are three orders of bee, so there are
three substances merely in the hive,--honey, farina, and wax. Pliny
enumerates three others,--commosis, pissoceros, and propolis. Of these
many moderns still retain the last, calling it a resinous matter
collected from alders and willows, and used for the more secure
foundation of the comb. But upon subjecting a lump of propolis to the
boiling process by which wax is purified, it turns out simple wax of
nearly its former weight; and it is accordingly presumed to be only wax
in a much more crude stage of elaboration. Dr. Bevan, in experimenting
with his hives, says that he melted wax and spread it upon a certain
place, and, while fluid, attached a slight guide-comb to it, which the
bees immediately adopted, suspending their whole comb thereby; from
which it is evident, that, wax being strong enough itself for a
foundation, propolis is unnecessary, and Nature is not apt to afford
superfluities in her economy of construction.

The beautiful geometry of the cells is, after all, the marvel of the
whole. Koenig demonstrated, that, in the problem of space and material,
the bee had at once arrived at the solution which he himself reached
only after infinitesimal calculations; and it furnishes fresh proof of
the great mathematical relations of the universe, when even instinct is
found to take on the accuracy and method of crystals. This honey-comb,
by the way, is a favorite figure in Nature. If one examines
microscopically the beautiful and brilliant petal of a gladiolus, it
will offer this cellular structure in loose and irregular outlines; but
under the same lens, the eye of a dragon-fly, which displays by daylight
a jewel-like transparency, will be seen a strict crowd of glittering
hexa