Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/824

804 to utility. But the more advanced scientific bee-keeping of today may, without assuming much license or latitude, be called "one of the fine arts." To the cultured and esthetic devotee of art proper in the recesses of his studio, who has never practically studied the nature and habits of the wonderful little honey-bee, and manipulated it from day to day, this claim for our beloved art may excite a smile. Nevertheless, the apiarian devotee who has studied, observed, and handled the marvelous denizens of his hives for twenty years will affirm his art, no less than the flavor of the nectar it produces, to be indeed fine. Ladies of high culture and refined tastes are engaged (and successfully too) in bee-culture with all the enthusiasm which is naturally inspired by a congenial and ennobling pursuit; and this is the best proof of our contention as to its aesthetic status. Being withal a healthful occupation, bee-culture invitingly offers itself to those in delicate health and not strong enough for hard physical labor. In numerous instances such persons, by engaging in this pursuit, have not only procured liberal means of subsistence, but have also recovered lost health and strength. The capital required is comparatively small, while the average return for skilled exertion is large. Hardly any other legitimate business yields so large a return in dollars and cents for the amount invested and the work bestowed. True, bee-keeping has its formidable obstacles and serious drawbacks; but these, while sometimes troublesome to the scientific apiarist, are disastrous mostly to the unskillful or negligent, or the mere neophyte. And even though the cargo of industry sink, not much treasure in money or labor is carried to the bottom, while a very little capital added to the valuable lesson of failure soon sets the redoubtable amateur on his legs again.

The honey-bee—which belongs to the general branch of the animal kingdom called Articulates, and to the class Insecta, and to the subclass Hexapoda, and to the order Hymenoptera, and the family Apidæ and genus Apis, and species Apis mellifica—is one of the most intensely interesting studies in the whole domain of natural history. When the immortal Darwin had the scientific zeal and patience to study the apparently insignificant earth-worm for forty long years, leaving a field untouched for thirty years for the purpose of studying and observing the habits of these despised creatures, how comparatively easy and pleasant to study the honey-bee, which is so much more useful and beautiful! The fact that the honey-bee is so much more serviceable to man than many others of the lower creatures whose nature and habits are equally wonderful, as the ant, for instance, invests it with a double interest to us. Insects which are pests, no matter how marvelous in structure and habit, we can not study with that intense pleasure and interest we can those that yield so much to our physical as well as mental gratification.

Of the species Apis mellifica there are many varieties—the principal of which are the Ligurian or Italian bee; the German or black