BEDSTRAW, Galium, a genus of about 200 annual or perennial herbs with four-angled stems, natives mostly of the colder climates, whether of latitude or altitude, in the northern hemisphere. The species, which are mostly harsh-feeling weeds, are often attractive for their regular whorls of leaves and their pani cles of profuse minute, white, yellow, green or i purple blossoms, which in some species are used by florists to add "misty delicacy and airy grace° to bouquets, especially of sweet peas, and to cover rock-work in and out-of-doors. The two species most cultivated for this purpose are G. mollugo (European) sometimes called baby's breath (see GYPSOPHILA), and G. boreale (American). Yellow bedstraw or cheese ren net (G. vernum), a species with yellow flowers, is used for curdling milk. Its flower sprays yield a yellow dye when boiled in alum solu tions and its roots a red one, said to rival mad der as a wool dye. For this use attempts at cultivation have been made in England. This species, together with G. trifidum and G. boreale, redden the bones and milk of animals that eat them in quantity. Goose grass or cleavers (G. Aporine), a troublesome weed common to Europe, Asia and America, yields a seed some times used as a substitute for coffee. It is noted for the hooked prickles of its stems, fruits and leaves. In China B. tuberosum cultivated for its farinaceous tubers. Some species, for instance, G. mollugo and G. rigidum, have been tried in cases of epilepsy and others in cutaneous disorders.
BEE, Bernard E., American Confederate general: b. South Carolina 1824; d. 21 July 1861. Graduating from West Point in 1845, he served in the Mexican War, after which he was assigned to frontier duty in Minnesota and Dalcota. On the outbrealc of the Civil War he joined the Confederacy arid was lcilled while leading his brigade at the battle of Bull Run.
BEE, Hamilton Priolean, American Con federate general: b. Charleston, S. C., 1822; d. 1897. In 1839 he acted as representative of Texas on the commission which defined the boundary line between Texas and the United States, from the Red River to the mouth of the Sabine. In March 1843 he was sent by President Houston of Texas to negotiate with the Comanche Indians, which was finally suc cessful. Later he became secretary of the Sen ate of Texas, but on the outbrealc of the Mexi can War he joined General McCulloch's com mand. On the rupture of hostilities between the
Confederate States and the United States, he was made a brigadier-general of the provisional army of Texas, joining the Confederate army the year following.
BEE, any hymenopterous insect belonging to the Apoidea group, the °genus Apis* of Lin nmus. It was formerly, until quite recently, regarded as the single family of Apidm, or by soine naturalists as two fantilies, the Apidm and the Andrenidm. The name now is applied to all those Hymenoptera whose tongues are capable of sipping the nectar from flowers, whose head and thorax are covered with a feathery hair and whose hind legs or feet are dilated. They again are subdivided into some 1,.500 variations, ranging from the honey bee of hyghly developed intelligence to the lesser para sitic bee. In the complexity of their social life and the subdivision of their community func tions the honey bees show even a higher order of intelligence than the ants, standing at the head of the whole insect world in this regard. Their habitat comprises the whole world, though they are most numerous in the warm and temperate climates.
to the researches of a group of modern naturalists, at the head of which was W. H. Ashmead of the United States National Museum, bees are now classified as a superfamily of Apoidm, of the heterophagous Hymenoptera, and are divided into 14 sub divisions, ranking as families. Of these the chief are the true bees (Apidce) and the bum blebees (Bombidtr) which alone live in highly organized communities. The rest are of non social habits, each one nesting by itself. These families are the hairy digger bees; the cuckoo bees, which invade the hives of the social bees; the small and the large carpenter bees; the mason bees; the leaf cutter bets; the potter bees; the parasitic bees; the burrowing bees and others, including the Prosopidce, the sim plest and the lowest variety, considered the primitive type from which all the other va rieties have evolved. Of the solitary varieties the Anthophorids, or hairy digger bees, are the highest forms. They build their nests in the grounds, at the bottom of horizontal bur rows with lateral chambers. In all these forms the individuals are divided sharply into the two sexes, male and female, in which they differ markedly from the social bees.