The pollen of flowers, which is the other principal i article of food, was shown by Swammerdam to con.' sist of an infinite number of small particles, general ly of a globular shape, each of which is found to be a small capsule, enclosing the still finer dust or fe cundating principle, destined to be shed on the pis tils for the purpose of germination. Geoffroy has given a memoir, published in the Collection Acade mique des Sciences, containing a minute description of the shapes of these capsules, taken from different flowers. The working-bees, by means of the pencil ' of hair which grows on the tarsi, first collect a cer tain quantity of pollen, which they knead together into a ball, and place it in the concave space which is situated at the middle joint of the hinder feet, and has been termed the basket. The surrounding rows of hairs keep the ball from falling off. In order to gather larger quantities at once, the bees are some times observed to roll their bodies on the flower, and then brushing off the pollen which adheres to them with their feet, form it into two masses, which they dispose of as before mentioned ; and it is said, that, in moist weather, when the particles of pollen can not be readily shade to cohere together, they return to their hive, dusted all over with pollen, which they then brush off with their feet. They are often obliged to tear open the capsules which contain the pollen in order to procure a supply of this substance, whe; it has not yet been shed by the flowers.
Pollen is yielded by flowers during the spring in such abundance, that the bees of a single hive will often bring back one pound, or even more, in a day. Some agriculturists have accordingly imagined, that the vegetation of some plants might be endangered from this great consumption of the fecundating prin ciple by insects in general ; for other insects, besides bees, seek it with great avidity. But this fear has been proved to be totally without foundation, and the practice of destroying bees in order to prevent this imaginary danger, is therefore as useless as it is barbarous. It would appear, indeed, that so far from obstructing the fecundation of plants, the labours of the bee have often tended materially to promote it, by the agitation which they gave to the flower, and by transporting the pollen from one flower to an*. ther. In this manner may we account for the num• ber of hybrid flowers that are met with near the haunts of bees.
It has been shown very clearly by Huber, in a paper in the Journal de Physique, that pollen is pe culiarly the food of the young bees, and is collected by the working-bees with this intention. Reaumur, however, asserts that he has seen adult bees deirour pollen. Swarinnerdam, who conceived the trunk to be tubular, reje• ts,u the idea that pollen could ever be the food of bees, as the globules of which it con slats are incapable of entering an orifice so minute as that which appears at the extremity of the trunk, and which, as he was unacquainted with the real mouth, he thought was the only passage to the stomach. Latretlle, who does not admit the exist ence of the large mouth described by Reaumur, states that the mandibles lay hold of the pollen, and carry it to the base of the trunk, from whence it finds its way into the oesophagus, by the sides of that organ.
On the nature of HONEY-DEW, and the consump tion of it by bees, a sufficient account has already been given in the Encydopeedia, under that article.
An abundant supply of water is essential to the healthy condition of bees. They consume a large quantity, and often stop to drink at the edge of stagnant pools, and seem even to prefer putrid and urinous waters to purer streams, as if their saline and pungent qualities were grateful to them.
It has been long the opinion that wax was but a slight modification of pollen, which required for this conversion merely the application of a certain pres sure, and a kind of kneading by the feet of the bees. Many naturalists, such as Bernard de Jussieu, had persuaded themselves that the dust of the stamina of flowers contained wax ready formed, as one of its ingredients ; and quoted the following experiment in proof of this opinion : If the minute grains of pol len be put into water, they gradually swell, till they at length burst, at which moment a small jet of an oily liquor will be perceived, which floats on the water without mixing with it. But Reamur had at tempted in vain to extract any thing like wax from dust of the anthem ; and, indeed, an attention to the chemical properties of these two substances would have sufficiently pointed out their essential differences. From the upper surface of the leaves of many kinds of trees, a substance has, indeed, been obtain ed, which possesses all the qualities of bees' wax; but nothing like it can be extracted from pollen. Reaumur was persuaded that the pollen was elabo rated in the second stomach of the bee ; and thrown up into the mouth in the form of a white foam, which, by exposure to the air, hardened, and be came wax ; and that the bee took advantage of its soft state to apply it in the building of the combs. So circumstantial an account, given to us by a scru pulous observer of facts, appeared to be perfectly satisfactory, and was acquiesced in by naturalists in general. But it has since been completely proved by the researches of Duchet, of Hunter, and of Hu ber, but principally by the latter, that wax is a se cretion from the abdomen of the bee ; and that it de pends not at all on the pollen which the insect may consume, but on the quantity of honey or other sac charine substance which it receives into the stomach. The first step in this discovery was made by one of the members of the Lusatian Society, whose name has not been preserved. It was mentioned in a letter of Mr Wilhelmi to Bonnet in August 1768, in which he says that wax, instead of being rejected by the mouth, exudes from the rings which inclose the pos terior part of the body. Of this we may satisfy our selves by drawing out the bee from the cell in which it is working with was, by means of the point of a fine needle ; and we may perceive, in proportion as the body is elongated, that the wax will make its ap pearance under the rings, in the form of small scales. Mr Duchet, in his Culture des Abeilles, gives a full statement of the principal circumstances attending the production of wax, which he very justly ascribes to the conversion of honey into this substance in the body of the bee. These facts appear to have been entirely overlooked till the subject was again brought forward by Mr John Hunter, in his paper in the Philosophical Transactions for 1792. Wildman, how• ever, had cursorily remarked, that portions of wax, in the form of scales, and which he conceived must have been moulded on the body of the bee, are some times found at the bottom of the hive. M. Huber was prosecuting his inquiries on this subject at the same period with Mr Hunter, and discovered, in 1793, the existence of regular receptacles, or pouches, from the coats of which the wax is secreted, and within which it accumulates till its edges raise the scales, and become apparent externally. These plates of wax are withdrawn by the bee itself, or some of its fellow-labourers, and is applied in a manner here after to be described.