Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/300

296 to a pulp or paste before being used, and is of a conical shape. The insect produces no wax. We shall conclude this imperfect notice of Foreign Bees with some account of those of Mexico, concerning which more is known than of any others out of Europe. Great attention is paid to them by the Mexicans, not so much on account of their honey, although remarkably rich and delicate, as for the sake of the wax, of which great quantities are consumed in the ceremonies of the Roman Catholic worship. In the peninsula of Yucatan, there are colonies of them domesticated, consisting of five or six hundred hives. Many interesting particulars of their natural history have been furnished by Hernandez in his account of New Spain; and subsequently by our countrymen Captains Beechey and Hall, particularly by the first named officer, who has gone into a minuteness of detail, which would have done credit to one who had made the subject of bees his exclusive study. Hernandez describes several kinds of the insect in Mexico:—one resembling the European, and which produces a honey like our own. It is domesticated by the Indians, who lodge the swarms, he says, in the hollows of trees. A second species is noticed by the same Author, as smaller than ours—so much smaller as to resemble "winged ants,"—and as without stings. They build their nests, which are composed of several layers, probably resembling those of wasps, in the rocks, and also suspend them on trees, particularly the oak. Their honey is dark coloured and high