| 1. | Body of a bee divested of antennæ, legs, and wings, showing
the anatomy of the thorax and natural position of the
stomach. 5*. The eyes. a. The stemmata. bbb. The muscles that move the wings. c. The external covering of the thorax. ee. The bases of the wings. d. The honey-bag, or first stomach. f. The ventricle, or true stomach, distended with food. g. The rectum. h. The biliary vessels. i. Portion of the membranous tissue lining the inner surface of the segments, and enclosing the stomach and intestines. |
| 5*. | The eyes. |
| a. | The stemmata. |
| bbb. | The muscles that move the wings. |
| c. | The external covering of the thorax. |
| ee. | The bases of the wings. |
| d. | The honey-bag, or first stomach. |
| f. | The ventricle, or true stomach, distended with food. |
| g. | The rectum. |
| h. | The biliary vessels. |
| i. | Portion of the membranous tissue lining the inner surface of the segments, and enclosing the stomach and intestines. |
| 2. | The stomach emptied of its contents, to show the muscular
contraction of the ventricle. d. The honey-bag. f. The ventricle. g. The rectum. h. The biliary vessels. |
| d. | The honey-bag. |
| f. | The ventricle. |
| g. | The rectum. |
| h. | The biliary vessels. |
| 3. | The ligula, or tongue, and its appendages. l. The base of the ligula. m. The paraglossæ. n. The maxillæ. o. The labial palpi. p. The tongue. |
| l. | The base of the ligula. |
| m. | The paraglossæ. |
| n. | The maxillæ. |
| o. | The labial palpi. |
| p. | The tongue. |
| 4. | The sting and its muscles. s. Curved base of the outer sheath enclosing the sting. r. Muscles that move the sting. q. The attachment of the muscles to the outer covering of the abdomen. t. Poison-bag. u. Glands connected with the poison-bag. V. Honey-plates covering the muscles r, and to which the sheaths of the sting are attached at s. ** Base of sting connecting with the poison-bag t. * Tip of the same. |
| s. | Curved base of the outer sheath enclosing the sting. |
| r. | Muscles that move the sting. |
| q. | The attachment of the muscles to the outer covering of the abdomen. |
| t. | Poison-bag. |
| u. | Glands connected with the poison-bag. |
| V. | Honey-plates covering the muscles r, and to which the sheaths of the sting are attached at s. |
| ** | Base of sting connecting with the poison-bag t. |
| * | Tip of the same. |
| 4* | Magnified view of point of sting, showing the serrations on each side. |
| 5. | Three hexagonal prisms of a bee's eye (Swammerdam). |
| 6. | Abdominal plates of the bee, detached to show the wax cells. |
| 7. | Eggs of bee, natural size, and magnified (from Réaumur). |
| 8. | Helminthomorphous or apodal larva of a bee (Réaumur). |
ILLUSTRATIONS.
| [Frontispiece].—Coloured view of Geo. Neighbour and Sons' Apiary. | |
| [Plate I.]—Italian Alp Queen, Drone and Worker Bees, with Anatomical Drawings Facing page | [34] |
| [Plate II.]—Dissected Bee, with Illustrations of various Members Facing page | [86] |
| Common Cottager's Hive | [108] |
| Neighbours' Crystal Palace Skep | [109] |
| The Cottager's Hive | [110] |
| Improved Cottager's Hive | [112] |
| Improved Cottage Hive (No. 5) | [113] |
| Improved Cottage Hive (No. 6), no windows | [119] |
| The Ladies' Observatory Hive | [120] |
| Nutt's Collateral Hive | [123] |
| Woodbury's Bar-frame Hive (wood) | [135] |
| Woodbury's Single Bar Frame as taken from hive | [135] |
| Woodbury's Bar-frame Hive (straw) | [136] |
| Woodbury's Bar-frame Hive (glass) | [138] |
| Neighbours' New Frame Hive (wood) | [139] |
| Neighbours' New Frame Hive (straw), with Frame Super | [142] |
| Neighbours' Cottager's Frame Hive (wood) | [143] |
| Neighbours' Philadelphia Frame Hive | [144] |
| Stewarton or Ayrshire Hive | [147] |
| Neighbours' Outdoor Unicomb Hive | [158] |
| Neighbours' Indoor Unicomb Hive | [162] |
| Bee House for two Hives—Front view | [166] |
| Bee House for two Hives—Back view | [167] |
| Bee House for twelve Hives—Front view | [169] |
| Bee House for twelve Hives—Back view | [170] |
| Ornamented Zinc Cover | [171] |
| Zinc Cover for Cottager's Hive | [172] |
| Wooden Cover for Frame Hive | [174] |
| Neighbours' New Frame Hive, with Cover, Stand, and Pair of Divisional Supers—Back view | 175 |
| Neighbours' New Frame Hive, ditto—Closed front view | [176] |
| Neighbours' New Frame Hive and Frame Super (glass), with large Cover and on Stand—Front view | 178 |
| Neighbours' New Frame Hive—Front view, closed | [178] |
| Neighbours' New Frame Hive (No. 81). Wood with Straw Crown, and Large Window in close-fitting Cover and Stand | 179 |
| Bell and Flat-shaped Glasses (5 varieties) | [181] |
| Payne's Glasses | [182] |
| Flap-topped Glass, with Cover for Table | [182] |
| Woodbury Glass-sided Bar Super | [183] |
| Bar-frame Super—Glass Sides and Top, with Shutters | [184] |
| Neighbours' New Divisional Super | [184] |
| Neighbours' New Sectional Super | [185] |
| Neighbours' New Bar-frame Holder | [192] |
| Honey Cutters | [193] |
| Honey Extractor | [194] |
| Neighbours' Queen and Drone Preventer | [200] |
| Neighbours' Bottle Feeder | [203] |
| Neighbours' New Can Feeders | [204] |
| Neighbours' Round Feeders | [205] |
| New Wood Feeder | [206] |
| Fumigators (2 illustrations) | [207] |
| Bee Dress or Protector | [209] |
| Bee Veil | [210] |
| Contrivance for protecting Queen Cell | [244] |
| Guide Comb Glasses | [263] |
| Weighing Hives | [277] |
| Bees at Exhibition of 1862 | [348] |
| Exterior of an Apiary | [352] |
| Interior of an Apiary | [353] |
INTRODUCTION.
LITERATURE OF BEE-KEEPING.
JUST a few words at starting on the history of the bee in ancient and modern literature. Our work is not a critical survey, and still less an exhaustive treatise; but even that popular outline which it is our aim to produce seems defective without some mention of the great bee-students of the past. We find the first definitive description of the insect in Aristotle's "History of Animals," written about the middle of the fourth century before Christ, and combining much sound scientific information on our subject with other statements which better information has had to reject. A little before him lived Aristomachus, of Cilicia, who wrote works on agriculture and domestic economy which are lost to us except in a few quotations, but of whom we are told that he devoted some fifty-eight years to a continual observance of the habits of bees. One Philiscus, of Thasos, is mentioned as another of their votaries, who betook himself to a forest life in order uninterruptedly to pursue their study. Then just after the Christian era came Pliny the Elder, from whom we learn these few particulars of the two just named, and whose celebrated "Natural History," which is the work rather of a student than of a master, honours the bee with an elaborate and interesting description. Shortly after him Columella, in his work "On Rustic Matters," gave copious instructions on bee-keeping, which, though reproducing some older errors, are greatly in advance of any that had appeared, and place him, for the accuracy that they display, at the head of the apiarians of antiquity. Theophrastus, Celsus, and Varro must also be ranked among the ancient writers whose attention was drawn to this industrious insect. But perhaps the most renowned of classic works upon the subject is the fourth book of the "Georgics" of Virgil, in which we are presented with a minute treatise upon bees and their culture, with all the sense as well as nonsense that then passed current thereupon, together with that most beautiful passage in the poet's writings, the story of the visit of Orpheus to the shades, which is appended by one of those incidental connecting-links of which ancient poets were wont to avail themselves.
In more modern times the principal writers have been Swammerdam. The Dutch naturalist; Maraldi, an Italian mathematician; Schirach, a Saxon clergyman; Réaumur, well known for his thermometer; Bonnet, a Swiss entomologist and jurist; the famous Dr. John Hunter; and above all Francis Huber, of Geneva. The last of these, though totally blind, contrived, principally by the aid of his very intelligent and painstaking assistant, Burnens to accumulate a long series of minute observations which have brought about an entire revolution in the science. In connection with Huber must be mentioned Mlle. Jurine, who, by her delicate microscopic examinations, rendered him the most important services, and gave more than one valuable discovery to the world. At the same period lived Dr. John Evans, who may be fitly styled the poet-laureate of the bee. His poem, "The Bees," from which we shall make numerous quotations, is written with great taste, and combines, with rare felicity, scientific accuracy of detail with a poetic spirit which never flags.[3] A little later than these, though in part their contemporary, came Dr. Bevan, whose name is still cited as among the highest authorities on the subject, and whose work, "The Honey Bee," was regarded as its great text-book in our language, till superseded, with the progress of discoveries, by one under the same title from the pen of the Rev. L. L. Langstroth. This last gentleman, who is a Presbyterian minister in Ohio, stands undoubtedly at the present day as the foremost apiarian of the English-speaking race. But we are forced to admit that the Germans bear the palm above us, for all the great advances in our knowledge of the bee which have been made for a generation have come from them. To Dr. Dzierzon,[4] therefore, a Roman Catholic priest of Carlsmarkt in Silesia, to whose acute investigations the great mass of these are to be ascribed, must be conceded a rank scarcely second to that of Huber; while Baron von Berlepsch, of Coburg, who is ever ready to follow up and improve upon the researches of the "great, master," has beyond question earned for himself a position inferior to that of the master alone. Of famous Scotch writers we should allude to Bonner, of Glasgow, who lived in the latter part of the last century, and the Rev. Dr. Dunbar, who dates at the beginning of this.