There is a difference between the progeny of bees that
inhabit cultivated land and of those from the mountains: the
forest-bees are more shaggy, smaller, more industrious and more
fierce. Working-bees make their combs all even, with the superficial
covering quite smooth. Each comb is of one kind only: that is, it
contains either bees only, or grubs only, or drones only; if it
happen, however, that they make in one and the same comb all these
kinds of cells, each separate kind will be built in a continuous row
right through. The long bees build uneven combs, with the lids of
the cells protuberant, like those of the anthrene; grubs and
everything else have no fixed places, but are put anywhere; from these
bees come inferior kings, a large quantity of drones, and the
so-called robber-bee; they produce either no honey at all, or honey in
very small quantities. Bees brood over the combs and so mature them;
if they fail to do so, the combs are said to go bad and to get covered
with a sort of spider's web. If they can keep brooding over the part
undamaged, the damaged part simply eats itself away; if they cannot so
brood, the entire comb perishes; in the damaged combs small worms
are engendered, which take on wings and fly away.
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