Note S — Front matter (continued 2)

Amongst well-informed apiculturists an apology might seem to be necessary in referring to so bigoted an author as Huish; but Huber’s observations on some of the habits of bees have frequently been the subject of his ignorant ridicule; and particularly where he says that they occasionally erect barricades, for greater security. Mr. Golding has given a confirmation of Huber’s assertion. He says, “At the end of summer, a kind of curtain, apparently a compound of wax and propolis, and about a sixteenth of an inch thick, was erected before the entrance of one of my hives; about two inches and a half in length, and half an inch in height, with the exception of a small aperture at each end.” Dr. Bevan, in the ‘Honey-Bee,’ exhibits a drawing of this piece of fortification. My own experience is perfectly conclusive, as the following extract from my journal will show:—“July 31, 1842. Weather fine. Removed a box of honey from a collateral hive. The wasps had been troublesome for some days, and as the entrance to the centre box was left fully open, the bees had contracted it for better defence. A thin wall of what appeared to be propolis was attached from the upper edge of the doorway, extending along its centre, and closing all up but a space of about three quarters of an inch at each end. I never witnessed a more convincing proof of the sagacity of the bees than this beautiful proceeding.” So runs my journal; to which I may add, that the entrance to the box, so contracted, was five inches in length, and three eighths of an inch high; or double that of Mr. Golding’s. From the hint thus derived from the bees themselves, I constructed the moveable blocks or mouth-pieces described and shown at page 44.