hat an instrument, as blunt as this seemed to be, would not serve even
to cleave wood. An exceedingly small needle being also examined, it
resembled a rough iron bar out of a smith's forge. The sting of a bee
viewed through the same instrument, showed everywhere a polish amazingly
beautiful, without the least flaw, blemish, or inequality, and ended in
a point too fine to be discerned."

The extremity of the sting being barbed like an arrow, the bee can
seldom withdraw it, if the substance into which she darts it is at all
tenacious. In losing her sting she parts with a portion of her
intestines, and of necessity, soon perishes.

As the loss of the sting is always fatal to the bees, they pay a dear
penalty for the exercise of their patriotic instincts; but they always
seem ready, (except when they have taken "a drop too much," and are
gorged with honey,) to die in defence of their home and treasures; or as
the poet has expressed it, they

"Deem life itself to vengeance well resign'd,
Die on the wound, and leave their sting behind."

Hornets, wasps and other stinging insects are able to withdraw their
stings from the wound. I have never seen any attempt to account for the
exception in the case of the honey bee. But if the Creator intended the
bee for the use of man, as He most certainly did, has He not given it
this peculiarity, to make it less formidable, and therefore more
completely subject to human control? Without a sting, it would have
stood no chance of defending its tempting sweets against a host of
greedy depredators; but if it could sting a number of times, it would be
much more difficult to bring it into a state of thorough domestication.
A quiver full of arrows in the hand of a skilful marksman, is far more
to be dreaded than a single shaft.

The defence of the colony against enemies, the construction of the
cells, the storing of them with honey and bee-bread, the rearing of the
young, in short, the whole work of the hive, the laying of eggs
excepted, is carried on by the industrious little workers.

There may be _gentlemen_ of leisure in the commonwealth of bees, but
most assuredly there are no such _ladies_, whether of high or low
degree. The queen herself, has her full share of duties, for it must be
admitted that the royal office is no sinecure, when the mother who fills
it, must superintend daily the proper deposition of several thousand
eggs!

AGE OF BEES.

The queen bee, (as has been