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Read Ebook: British Bees An Introduction into the Studies of the Natural History and Economy of the Bees Indigenous to the British Isles by Shuckard William Edward
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Ebook has 791 lines and 138677 words, and 16 pages
PAGE
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS, 1 COMPRISING GENERAL REMARKS UPON THE USES OF BEES IN THE ECONOMY OF NATURE, THEIR DIVISION INTO SOCIAL AND SOLITARY, AND A NOTICE OF THEIR FAVOURITE PLANTS
GENERAL HISTORY OF BEES 17 THE EGG 18 THE LARVA 19 THE PUPA 22 THE IMAGO 23
SKETCH OF THE GEOGRAPHY OF THE 61 GENERA OF BRITISH BEES
NOTICE OF THE MORE CONSPICUOUS 101 FOREIGN GENERA
PARASITES OF BEES AND THEIR 109 ENEMIES
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF 118 SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT
BRIEF NOTICE OF THE SCIENTIFIC 142 CULTIVATION OF BRITISH BEES
A NEW ARRANGEMENT OF BRITISH 153 BEES, WITH ITS RATIONALE, AND AN INTRODUCTION TO THE FAMILY, SUBFAMILIES, SECTIONS, AND SUBSECTIONS
A TABLE, EXHIBITING A METHOD 170 OF DETERMINING THE GENERA OF BRITISH BEES WITH FACILITY
EASY DISTRIBUTION OF THE BEES 176
THE SCIENTIFIC ARRANGEMENT AND 184 DESCRIPTION OF THE GENERA, WITH LISTS OF OUR NATIVE SPECIES, AND AN ACCOUNT OF THE HABITS AND ECONOMY OF THE INSECTS, WITH INCIDENTAL OBSERVATIONS SUGGESTED BY THE SUBJECT
GEN. 1. COLLETES 185
GEN. 2. PROSOPIS 191
GEN. 3. SPHECODES 196
GEN. 4. ANDRENA 200
GEN. 5. CILISSA 211
GEN. 6. HALICTUS 214
GEN. 7. MACROPIS 220
GEN. 8. DASYPODA 224
SCOPULIPEDES
GEN. 9. PANURGUS 227
GEN. 10. EUCERA 231
GEN. 11. ANTHOPHORA 236
GEN. 12. SAROPODA 242
GEN. 13. CERATINA 245
GEN. 14. NOMADA 249
GEN. 15. MELECTA 255
GEN. 16. EPEOLUS 258
GEN 17. STELIS 262
GEN. 18. COELIOXYS 265
GEN. 19. MEGACHILE 269
GEN. 20. ANTHIDIUM 279
GEN. 21. CHELOSTOMA 283
GEN. 22. HERIADES 288
GEN. 23. ANTHOCOPA 290
GEN. 24. OSMIA 294
GEN. 25. APATHUS 302
GEN. 26. BOMBUS 307
GEN. 27. APIS 318
LIST OF PLATES.
NOTE.--? signifies male; ?, female; ?, neuter.
BRITISH BEES.
PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS,
COMPRISING GENERAL REMARKS UPON THE USES OF BEES IN THE ECONOMY OF NATURE; THEIR DIVISION INTO SOCIAL AND SOLITARY; AND A NOTICE OF THEIR FAVOURITE PLANTS.
IT is very natural that the "Bee" should interest the majority of us, so many agreeable and attractive associations being connected with the name. It is immediately suggestive of spring, sunshine, and flowers,--meadows gaily enamelled, green lanes, thymy downs, and fragrant heaths. It speaks of industry, forethought, and competence,--of well-ordered government, and of due but not degrading subordination. The economy of the hive has been compared by our great poet to the polity of a populous kingdom under monarchical government. He says:--
Nothing escaped the wonderful vision of this "myriad-minded" man, and its pertinent application.
This description, although certainly not technically accurate, is a superb broad sketch, and shows how well he was acquainted with the natural history and habits of the domestic bee.
The curiosity bees have attracted from time immemorial, and the wonders of their economy elicited by the observation and study of modern investigators, is but a grateful return for the benefits derived to man from their persevering assiduity and skill. It is the just homage of reason to perfect instinct running closely parallel to its own wonderful attributes. Indeed, so complex are many of the operations of this instinct, as to have induced the surmise of a positive affinity to reason, instead of its being a mere analogy, working blindly and without reflection. The felicity of the adaptation of the hexagonal waxen cells, and the skill of the construction of the comb to their purposes, has occupied the abstruse calculations of profound mathematicians; and since human ingenuity has devised modes of investigating, unobserved, the various proceedings of the interior of the hive, wonder has grown still greater, and admiration has reached its climax.
The intimate connection of "Bees" with nature's elegancies, the Flowers, is an association which links them agreeably to our regard, for each suggests the other; their vivacity and music giving animation and variety to what might otherwise pall by beautiful but inanimate attractions. When we combine with this the services bees perform in their eager pursuits, our admiration extends beyond them to their Great Originator, who, by such apparently small means, accomplishes so simply yet completely, a most important object of creation.
That bees were cultivated by man in the earliest conditions of his existence, possibly whilst his yet limited family was still occupying the primitive cradle of the race at Hindoo Koosh, or on the fertile slopes of the Himalayas, or upon the more distant table-land or plateau of Thibet, or in the delicious vales of Cashmere, or wherever it might have been, somewhere widely away to the east of the Caspian Sea,--is a very probable supposition. Accident, furthered by curiosity, would have early led to the discovery of the stores of honey which the assiduity of bees had hoarded;--its agreeable savour would have induced further search, which would have strengthened the possession by keener observation, and have led in due course to the fixing them in his immediate vicinity.
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