BEDSTEAD, the frame employed to sup port a bed. Bedsteads of iron and brass, of very light and simple construction, occupying little space, easily taken to pieces and put to gether, and affording the best security against the harbouring of vermin, have been much used of late years, and may be highly recom mended as favourable to health and cleanli ness. Mr. Winfield, the eminent brass manu facturer of Birmingham, patented many valu able improvements in metallic bedsteads, in 1848. In the next following year Messrs. Sturges and Harlow, also of Birmingham, patented other improvements in bedsteads, calculated to impart elasticity to various parts. The metallic, bedsteads of Birmingham manu facture, and probably others from the conti nent, will occupy a place in the Industrial Exhibition of 1851.
Invalid bedsteads have been contrived, in which, besides offering facilities for performing surgical operations, dressing wounds, &c., in genious mechanism has been applied to enable the patient to vary his position with very little labour or trouble ; but all contrivances of this character fall short of Dr. Arnott's hydrostatic bed, or water-bed, in which a very soft feather bed or mattress is laid upon a waterproof sheet floating upon the surface of a tank or vessel partly filled with water. The support offered by such a bed is so perfectly equable as to afford comfortable rest under circum stances where the unequal pressure of the body upon the softest ordinary bed would be painful and injurious ; while its yielding cha racter will in many cases allow the application of poultices, or the performance of other offices of the sick-chamber, without any alte ration of the patient's position.
BEE. We can only notice this small but important insect, in so far as regards the honey and wax of the honey-bee. A colony of bees is termed a swarm, or a hive, and con sists of three sorts, viz. males or drones, neu ters or workers, and the queen or reigning female. A hive of bees, besides males, workers, and queen, consists also of eggs and larva:, destined to form a future brood. The number of workers in a well-stocked hive varies from 15,000 to 20,000. The number of males, or drones is irregular; sometimes they amount to 1000, sometimes only to 600 or 700.
To the labours of the workers are clue various products, as honey, bee-bread, wax, and propolis.
Honey.—Honey is the nectar of flowers, lapped out of the nectary by the tongue, and conveyed to the crop or honey-bag. Here it undergoes but little alteration (for honey ex tracted from some plants is poisonous), and is disgorged into the cells destined to receive it. Of these some are store-cells, others are
filled for daily use. A single cell will contain the contents of many honey bags ; and though the cell is horizontal the honeywill not escape, for a thick cream arises, and forms a glutin ous film obliquely placed, keeping in the treasure. The store cells, when filled, are covered with a waxed lid.
Bee-Bread.—While the bee is extracting the sweets of the flowers, it becomes covered with the pollen of the anthers ; this pollen it wipes off from its body with the brushes of its legs, collects every particle together, and kneads it into two little masses, which are each placed in a sort of basket on the broad surface of the tibia or middle joint of the leg, where a fringe of elastic hair over-arches a concavity, and acts as a sort of lid or covering. Thus bur dened, off the insect flies to the hive ; first the honey is safclylodged, then the bee-bread, or kneaded pollen, is disposed of as circum stances may require. Sometimes it is eaten by several bees, called by a peculiar sort of hum to their repast, and if more is collected than required for present use it is deposited in 'some of the empty cells as a future provision.
Wax.—Wax is a peculiar secretion in little pouches or cells, beneath the scales of the ab domen. Of these pouches there are gene rally four on each side, at the base of each in termediate segment on the under surface, concealed by the overlapping of the preceding segment. It would appear that by some in ternal process wax is elaborated from honey, as the wax workers retain the honey when wax is required, which they would otherwise dis gorge into the cells. The wax oozes out between the abdominal rings in the form of little laminar ; it is then worked with the mouth, and kneaded with saliva, that it may acquire the requisite degree of ductility for the construction of the comb.
Priipo/is.—This is a glutinous or gummy matter, employed for smearing or varnishing the waxen cells. It is procured from the buds of various trees, as the birch, &c. The bees procure this gum by means of their mouth, prepare it, load each hind leg with it, and so carry it to the hive. It is employed, not only in varnishing the cells, but in stopping up crevices, for coating the sticks which support the combs, and for mixing with wax, and patching up weak parts. Often it is spread interiorly over the dome of the hive, and it is mixed up with the wax forming the cells.
The marvellous instinct which impels the bee to construct its beautiful honey-comb, we do not touch upon here.