They soon attach a royal
cell to the enlarged surface, and the queen bee, enabled now to grow,
protrudes itself by degrees into the royal cell, and comes out perfectly
formed, to the great pleasure of the bees.
The bee seeks only its own gratification in procuring honey and in
regulating its household, and as, according to the old proverb, what is
one man's meat is another's poison, it sometimes carries honey to its
cell, which is prejudicial to us. Dr. Barton in the fifth volume, of the
"American Philosophical Transactions," speaks of several plants that
yield a poisonous syrup, of which the bees partake without injury, but
which has been fatal to man. He has enumerated some of these plants,
which ought to be destroyed wherever they are seen, namely, dwarf-laurel,
great laurel, kalmia latifolia, broad-leaved moorwort, Pennsylvania
mountain-laurel, wild honeysuckle (the bees, cannot get much of this,)
and the stramonium or Jamestown-weed.
A young bee can be readily distinguished from an old one, by the greyish
coloured down that covers it, and which it loses by the wear and tear of
hard labour; and if the bee be not destroyed before the season is over,
this down entirely disappears, and the groundwork of the insect is seen,
white or black.
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