Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/119

Rh the works of the Bee demonstrate an intelligence, or, if we please, an instinct superior to that of most animals; and what is this instinct but the teaching of the Almighty—a manifestation, even in the organization of a creature so unimportant as a tiny fly—of his eternal wisdom, which can render an insect of the earth an object of wonder to man himself, with all his boasted endowments; and which, while it guides the planets in their courses, and sustains and upholds innumerable myriads of rational and immortal beings, directs the minutest animalcule to do those things that are necessary to the preservation and comfort of its existence. On the different substances found in a hive—Honey, Wax, Farina or Pollen, and Propolis.—Honey is well known to be a vegetable product, secreted in the nectaries at the base of the corollæ of flowers. It has been supposed by some writers to be the elemental principle of all vegetables, without exception, and indispensable to their existence; although there is, perhaps, no sufficient evidence of the saccharine matter of plants being in all cases convertible into honey. As one of its secondary uses, it seems destined by nature for the food of bees; and these industrious collectors fail not to appropriate the rich liquid. Sweeping the hollow of the honey-cup with their little probosces, the little skilful chemists eagerly imbibe the saccharine juices as they exude from the nectarium, receive them into the globular honey-bag, which forms their anterior stomach, and hurrying homewards with their precious load,