Here is the article Apis Mellificia, or Honey bee,
now stored in text version as well as the pdf
of the original publication in the archives at:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/HistoricalHoneybeeArticles/

I only was able to locate a single copy, so I was unable to fill in
areas having unreadable text.  I have inquiries at the Delaware 
Historical Society which I understand has a newspaper collection
of  Delaware Weekly Advertiser and Farmers Journals.  Also
Delaware University is said to have a collection, checking there 
also.  If I find the missing parts, I will update the file located
at the database in the historical honeybee articles site.

Here is  'APIS MELLIFICA, OR HONEY BEE'
Hope you enjoy! 

The Delaware Weekly Advertiser and Farmers Journal
Thursday, May 22 1828 Wilmington, Delaware

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Communicated for the Delaware Advertiser.

APIS MELLIFICA, OR HONEY BEE.

[Read before the Delaware Academy of Natural
Science, by Isaac Peirce, and ordered to be
printed.]

Few subjects within the scope of that branch
of natural science called Entomology, presents a
greater field for interesting inquiry, than the one
which we propose to make the subject of the
present essay. Accordingly we find the history
and economy of this wonderful insect engrossing
an uncommon share of attention in all countries,
and in every age. Their minuteness,
numbers, habits and the luxuries we derive from
their united industry, have, from periods of the
most remote antiquity, been the fertile source
of admiration. Hence have resulted innumerable
enquiries: as well for the elucidation of science,
as for personal gratification and pecuniary
advantage. But, unlike those subjects on
which long and patient investigation are bestowed,
the obscurities attending their nature, seemed
to increase in proportion to the observer's
anxiety to unveil them, and, at the end of many
years, few indisputable facts have been ascertained
by individuals. Errors have thence accumulated
on errors; imagination has magnified
deceitful appearances into certainties, by which
even experienced naturalists have been deluded;
and most of the treatises published, under pretence
of instructing, serve only to lead the unskillful
into the belief of absurd and fallacious
doctrines. Nevertheless, there are some
authors who have studied with attention and
relate without exaggeration. Amongst these may
be ranked Reaumer, Bonnet, Thorlow, and
J. L. Christ, member of the Royal Husbandic
Society, at Zelle. The last mentioned writer, has
by laborious investigation and numerous
experiments which he made, added considerably to
our stock of knowledge, at well as furnished
many useful hints to the rural economist in the
culture and management of bees. It may not
therefore, be an unprofitable service to select
from them, and the facts which have fallen under
our own observation, what we might with
safety consider as fixed by experiment.

The apis mellefica or honey bee, is included
in a genus belonging to the order insecta
hymenoptera. The mouth is furnished with two
jaws, and a proboscis infolded in a double
sheath. The wings are four in number—the two
foremost covering those behind when at rest. It
has six legs. In the third pair, which are much
longer, are two small cavities resembling a
spoon, in which the animal sticks his pellets.
The abdomen consists of several scaly circular
rings connected by membranes. The body is
totally covered with hair, which appears, when
viewed with a microscope, to be composed of
plants in miniature, with stems and branches.
Its mode of existence, is in large communities,
limited in the number of individuals, only by the
size of their habitations. Each community contains
three distinct orders or kinds; the queen,
the drones, and the labouring bees. The queen
is the only female in the hive and may be
considered the mother of the kingdom, (if it may
be so called) over which she presides. Her
wings, and the forepart of her body, are nearly
similar to those of a labouring bee, but the hind
part is nearly twice as long and somewhat more
pointed towards its extremity; her back is a
dark brown, the under part of her body and her
hind legs inclining to yellow: her motion is more
slow and deliberate than that of a labouring bee:
she is also furnished with a sting, but is with
difficulty provoked to use it in her defence, and
may therefore be handled with the greatest safety.
This weapon, possessed by the queen and
laboring bees, and of which the drones are
destitute, deserves a particular description. It is
not a simple sharp pointed instrument, as apparent
to the eye of a superficial observer, but consists
of two separate portions, applied longitudinally.
The external side of each is supplied
with several barbs, like those of a dart, which
prevents the retraction of the sting from the
wound it has inflicted, until the purpose of its
penetration (the discharge of poison) be fulfilled.
These barbs, it is thought, may be elevated
and depressed at the will of the animal; for
if it be allowed time to satisfy its vengeance,
the sting is withdrawn, whereas if it be suddenly
forced away, the sting is often retained in
the wound; the extraordinary pain attending so
small a puncture, arises from a liquid which is genuine
poison, flowing into the wound from an oval
bag or reservoir, in the body of the animal connected
with the sting; and its virulence is such, as
even to occasion death, sometimes, from a single
puncture: its effects, however, are various on
different people. That the pain is occasioned
by the poison is evident from the fact that the
wound is slight from the sting of a bee exhausted
of its poison, while the smallest portion of
this fluid introduced with the point of a pin produces
accute pain. It has, when applied to the
tongue, a sweetish taste at first, but soon becomes
burning and acrid, and continues so for
several hours.

It has long been ascertained, that the welfare
of the queen is indispensable to the welfare of
the hive, and that no more than one of these is
suffered to remain for any considerable length
of time, in the same community. As soon, therefore,
as a young one appears, she is persecuted
by her parent, until she either falls a victim to
her malignity or collects round her a party and
marches off—The latter she readily achieves
if the population has become so crouded as to
throw many of the industrious part out of employ.
Accordingly, as soon as the young queen
is able to walk, she begins her cry, which may
be distinctly heard at the distance of six or eight
yards. She visits different parts of the hive,
fastens her feet to the combs, and with visible
exertion forces out a sound, which appears to
be the signal of removing; for the first clear day
after it is given, the young swarm issues, if their
queen elect is not previously destroyed. It frequently
happens that two, and sometimes three
rival queens, of the same age, assume the reins
of government, but the right to the throne is always
settled by single combat between the
queens, and terminates in the destruction of all
but one; the common people always manifesting
on these occasions, too much good sense, to engage
in the broil of princes and strife of ambition.
Furnished as they are, with such deadly
weapons, and with such dexterity in using them,
one would suppose that those feuds would sometimes
terminate in the death of both parties,
which would be attended with the most serious
consequences to the colony: but here nature has
imposed a law to regulate those contests which
does not exist among the operatives or lower
classes, whose lives are, comparatively, of little
consequence, and who frequently fall victims to
wounds mutually inflicted. This fact is supported
by the authority of M. Huber, an intelligent
naturalist, who gives an interesting account of
their combats; part of which we will extract.
This author tells us, that in one of his hives,
constructed for observation, two young queens left
their cells, almost at the same moment. When
they observed each other, they rushed together
apparently with great fury, and came into such
a position, that their antenae were mutually siezed
by their fangs, the head, the breast and
belly of the one, were opposed to the same parts
of the other; their bodies had only to be curved,
that they might be reciprocally pierced with
their stings and both fall dead together. When
they found themselves in this position, they
separated with the utmost precipitation and fled.
A few minutes after, however, their mutual terror
ceased, and they again sought each other.
Immediately on coming in sight, they again rushed
together and resumed their former position.
The result of this rencontre was the same. They
disengaged themselves hastily and retreated.
During all this time, the workers were in great
agitation; and the tumult seemed to increase,
when the adversaries separated. They even
interrupted them in their flight and retained them
prisoners for about a minute, but unlike hotheaded
politician showed no disposition to quarrel
thereof. At length, the queen, which, after the
strongest or the most enraged, darted
at her rival when unperceived or off guard,
and with her fangs took hold of the origin of
her wings, then rising above her, curved her
own body, and inflicted a mortal wound upon
her enemy, who immediately fell down, dragged
herself languidly along, and soon expired."

In her birth, the queen bee appears to be an
exception to the common order of nature; for
notwithsatanding the difference in her organization
and functions, she is hatched from the same
kind of egg as the common laboring bee, and
seems to owe her superiority to different nursing.
The aliment which she is fed during
her maggot state, is of a stronger taste and smell
than that given to others. The cell which
she is bred is composed of as much wax, as
would make one hundred and fifty common
ones; it is also different in shape and position;
the common cells being complete hexagons, but
this is entirely circular, hangs perpendicularly,
is much longer and larger in its periphery than
a common cell. Whether the queen ever
deposits an egg in a royal cell is not altogether
certain, but that the labouring bees frequently
supply such a cell with an egg taken out of
another, and thus rear a queen, has been ascertained
to a certainty, and must in most cases
take place where artificial swarms are formed.

The Drones, a considerable number of which
are sometimes found in a hive, are about a third
longer than a labouring bee, have no stings, and
are somewhat different in the conformation of
several other parts of the body, as the trunk and
antennae, &c. They do not collect honey, but
consume the labor of others; and instead of entering
the cells for repose, as others do, they
cluster together on the combs. They are supposed
to be the males, and are required to render
the queen prolific; but whatever be their
use, it is well known that they neither labour in
the hive nor out of it; but like a pampered nobility,
feast and riot on the sweat and labour of
the industrious part of the community. Their
career, however, is but short; they make their
appearance in the spring, frequently in great
numbers; and toward the latter end of August or
beginning of September, are entirely destroyed.
They are sometimes killed within the hive
and carried out; but more generally are driven
out and forbidden to return. Even the young
drones or those in the larvae state, are dragged
from their cells, and carried out; so completely
are these voluptuaries destroyed, that not an
individual is left to relate the tragical history of the
fate of his brethren. The cause of this sudden
and total expiration is far from being evident,
for in the early part if the season, as well as
under some particular circumstances of the
community, they are not only tolerated but fed.
Whether the labourers are stimulated to this
seemingly unnatural massacre by their queen, by
the trespass of the drones upon their winter
stores; upon their failure of sufficient sustenance
from abroad; or some hidden instinct implanted
in their nature, remains yet to be discovered.

We next come to notice some of the peculiarities
exhibited by the workers, or labouring
bees, who not only from the main body of the
commonwealth, but are essential to its existence:
as without their incessant labour and aid
the queen, the males, and even the young brood
would quickly perish.

On taking a slight view of a hive, the superficial
observer will see nothing but the appearance
of anarchy and confusion, a closer inspection,
however, will exhibit something very different;
the first thing which strikes the eye is a large
body of bees adhering to the comb about the
centre of the hive, somewhat resembling an inverted
cone, and apparently inactive. They are
however employed in a process which the greatest
chemists have not yet been able to discover,
the manufacture of wax. The farina and
honey of the flowers, which is eaten by the bees,
entering the stomach undergoes a separation,
part no doubt serving as nourishment, whilst
another part oozes out through the joints between
the rings which compose the hinder parts of
their bodies, in the form of small white scales.
Those employed in building cells, are here
supplied with materials for their work, a number of
whom are contently moving in every direction
gathering up the wax as it is formed, and carrying
it off to places where it is wanted. Some of
the laborers who come in from the fields loaded
with honey or flower-dust, are employed in feeding
those which compose the column; while others
bend their course towards their combs by
running up the sides of their dwelling. Those
loaded with honey, disgorge the contents of
their honev bags into the cells prepared for that
purpose: those who have their legs charged
with pellets, thrust them into cells, and wipe
off their burdens, leaving them lying in little
balls of various sizes; these are taken up by
Others, who mixing a little honey knead them
up with the fore feet, and pack the mass in the
cells for future use, this is what is commonly
called bee bread. Others come in loaded with a
kind of glutinious substance, called by the ancients
propolis, which they employ in stopping
up the chinks and crevices which their owner has
neglected to close, never using it except to
fasten their combs, if the hive be properly
constructed. When the bees begin to work with
it, it is soft: but it acquires a firmer consistence
every day, till at length it assumes a brown colour
and becomes much harder than wax. The
bees thus loaded not being able to relieve
themselves of this burden, on account of its tenacious
quality, are assisted by others, who take it off
with their teeth and apply it to its intended
purpose. Another class is employed in feeding and
nursing the young brood, for soon after the
queen deposits an egg the embryo bursts its
shell, and appears a living worm which requires
feeding until it arrives to a certain state of existence
when it begins to refuse its nourishment;
its guardians then kindly close it up with a wax
lid, and leave it to spin itself up in the form
of an aurelia: here it undergoes a metamorphose
similar to that of the silk worm. When it has
come to its full time, which in warm weather
generally amounts to twenty-one days from the
time the egg was laid, it then eats through the
web it has spun and begins to gnaw at the door
of it's prison; two bees instantly attend, and after
they have assisted the young one in coming
out of its confinement, the one picks tip the wax
lid with which the cell was closed, and carries it
off, while the other rights up the cell, which is
then filled with honey.

Lest the labourers within the hive should be
diverted from their work, by the approach of
petty adversaries, a set of sentinels are placed
the entrance, which are increased in number
according to the extent of assailable points.
The fidelity with which these discharge their
duty, is admirable indeed. They arrange themselves
around the opening with their heads towards
it, their posteriors elevated, and their
wings in constant motion; altogether presenting
the most threatening attitude. Nothing can pass
them without their notice, nor any danger drive
them from their post. The means by which they
become acquainted with the countenance and
person of the individuals composing their own
community, so as instantly to distinguish them
from others on the same stand, remains yet a
mystery. Some have supposed they have a
watch word or signal, which they make and
require to be answered. If they have, it is such
as one as I could never learn: their vigilance
and sagacity were only to be overcome by
treachery. Wishing on a particular, occasion, to
---??????------unreadable line ------??????--------
the sentinels, by force, from their post, and let
them in: but rallied so quickly, that my
poor refugees were soon driven out and many of
them mortally wounded. It was in vain I destroyed
their vigilant watchmen; their places
were immediately supplied; other expedients
were resorted to, but with little more success.
It was not until stupefied by the intoxicating effects
of the fungus pulverulentus, or puff ball,
that a victory could be gained; and the wretched
outcast admitted to the rights of hospitality
and the privileges of citizenship.

Should a larger animal, such as a snail, make
its way into a hive, it is put to death; but as the
bees are unable to divest themselves of so huge
a carcass, by dragging it out, they cover it over
with propolis and wax, and thus prevent its
spreading infection in the hive.

The structure of the cells, which are exclusively
the production of the workers, has excited
admiration in every contemplative mind. It
would seem that the nicest rules of geometry
had been consulted for their composition, as it is
demonstrable that their figure is the best adapted
for containing the greatest possible quantity
in the least possible space : -they are hexagonal
prisms, formed in the exactest proportion. The
bottoms are composed of six triangular panes, of
such a shape as when combined, to form a solid
angle on the opposite side, which is made the
foundation of one of the corners of a similar cell.
The partitions of these cells are not thicker than
the finest paper; but they are so strengthened
by their disposition, and the thick border around
the mouth, as to resist all the motions of the bee
within their. The combs which are double, are placed
parallel to each other, mostly at right angles
to the side of the hive on which the bees are
accustomed to enter, with spaces between them
large enough to give the bees a free passage in
and out. This space is generally about four
lines. Beside these, they leave holes or passages
through the body of the comb, with their
verges rounded off by cells of still decreasing
depth, which permit a readier access to all parts
of the hive than could be otherwise obtained.—
The celerity with which a swarm of bees, if
received into a hive, where they find themselves
lodged to their minds, bring the works of the
combs to perfection is amazing. Their diligence
and labors are so great, that in a single day, according
to Buffon, they are able to make cells,
which lie upon each other numerous enough to
contain three thousand bees. Indeed there
reigns throughout the whole of this little empire,
such an universal harmony, such complete order,
and close attention to business, as we, in vain,
Look for among the societies and policies of men,
though they denominate themselves the lords
of creation. The mind, in looking for something
to equal it, is rather led to contemplate
some remote and happier ????, or some new
or organization of society, where uncorrupted souls
may have exchange a spirit of selfishness and
competition, for universal philanthropy, and
cooperation; where each individual is concerned
only for the public good.

This industrious and economal people, have a
host of enemies to encounter. They are not
however of their own household. Many animals
fond of honey and hating labour, wage incessant
warfare upon them. The aggressions of most,
they are able, in some measure, by their superior
vigilance and foresight, to repel. Man, alone,
proves himself their invincible and implacable
foe. His avarice is so insatiable, that he
even furnishes them with habitations, promotes
their population and their labours, from the
treacherous motive of increasing his rapine and
plunder.

Ah, see where robb'd and murder'd in that pit
Lies the still heaving hive at evening snatch'd,
Beneath the cloud of guilt—concealing night,
And fixed o'er sulphur, while, not dreaming ill,
The happy people, in their waxen cells,
Sat tending public cares, and planning schemes
Of temperance, for winter poor: rejoic'd
To mark, full flowing round, their copious stores.
Sudden the dark oppressive steam ascends;
And, used to milder scents; the tender race,
By thousands tumble from their honey'd domes,
Convolv'd and agonizing in the dust.
And was it then for this ye roamed the spring,
Intent from flower to flower? For this you toil'd
Ceaseless the burning summer heats away?
For this in autumn, searched the blooming waste,
Nor lost one sunny gleam? For thb sad fate'
O, man! tyranic lord! how long, how long
Shall prostrate nature groan beneath your rage,
A waiting renovation? When oblig'd,
Must you destroy? of their ambrosial food
Can you not borrow; and in just return
Afford them shelter from the wintry winds;
Or as the sharp year pinches, with their own
Again regale them on some smiling day.
THOMPSON.
The idea suggested in the concluding lines of
the poet—that of obtaining a part of their honey
without destroying the bees, has engaged the
attention of the feeling part of mankind for ages.
The Greeks, according to Pliny, were at considerable
pain in taking the honey without destroying
them. Among the moderns, Thorley, White,
Weldman and Christ, have made successive
improvements in the construction of hives or boxes,
by which a portion of their treasure might be
obtained without serious injury to the colony.—
According to the plan devised by the last of
these gentlemen, bees are kept in hives consisting
of a number of open ended boxes set one
upon another, having a moveable lid or covering
for the upper one. This upper skep or box,
when filled may be removed, the lid placed upon
the next, and an empty box added below.

This plan, however, has been found, liable to
some objections, as it is necessary to cut the
combs horizontally, by means of a fine wire
drawn between the boxes, a quantity of honey
from the cells, thus broken, trickles down among
the bees below, and becomes grievously annoying.
To obviate this difficulty another method
has been devised, that of placing the boxes laterally.
As this is deemed an important improvement,
I have prepared a model of an apiary or
bee house, exhibiting the whole arrangement,
by which it will be seen that a hive may be kept
for any number of years, regularly yielding its
wax and honey, and instead of growing worse,
will, if properly attended, grow better and stronger
every year. The honey is also obtained more
pure than in the common way of taking it, and
enjoyed without remorse; the necessary concomitant
of cruelty and injustice.

I have thus, in a cursory manner, traced the
natural history of the bee, and pointed out of
some of the peculiarities of the several species
which form one great colony, whose labors are
carried on for the public good. Of their practical
treatment, by which the cultivation may be
enabled to turn their labors to the best account,
I have said very little. The limits of a single
essay, would not permit me, had I the qualification
to do justice to this part of the subject.

I shall therefore conclude with recommending
it to some abler pen, ns the subject of a future essay.
And as the bee, with indefatigable assiduity,
roves from flower to flower, collecting its
nectared tribute, undismayed by the comparative
insignificance of its own puny contribution, so
may we, stimulated by so bright an example of
individual industry and perseverance, and with
so happy an illustration of the advantages resulting
from united exertion, explore untiring, the
fields of science, and by a similar co-operation
and union of effort, be able to realize equally
successful results.

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