Studies in Insect Life and Other Essays (Paperback)


Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chapter III BOMBUS, THE HUMBLE-BEE There is something friendly, something homely about the humble-bee which is entirely lacking in the more specialised honey-bee and in the rather terrifying wasp. Perhaps it is the popular delusion that they have no sting which endears them to us. Nevertheless, this is a delusion, for both the queen and the workers have stings and occasionally use them, but the poison is weaker than that of their allies and the pain inflicted correspondingly less. On the other hand, certain advantages rest with the humble-bee, it does not, like the honey-bee lose its sting when used but can withdraw it and use it again another day. Unless handled or misused, however, the queens do not sting human beings, though if the nest be disturbed in an unmannerly way the workers will often strike out. The economy of the household is also more attractive to the average man than is that of the bee-hive. It is less ordered, less specialised, and is carried on more on the lines of the comfortable city firms of a century ago and less on the lines of an up- to-date trust or syndicate. Few trusts or syn dicates awake our deeper affections, and, as Bagehot said about Political Economists, No one really mourns when they die. Humble-bees are dwellers in cool or, at any rate, temperate climates. Perhaps they flourish best about our latitude, but they are found far north passing the seventeenth parallel, and their comfortable and homely booming is a welcome, if unexpected, note in the monotonous wastes of Greenland, Siberia and Alaska. But few species occur in the Tropics, though they are found high up in the Himalayas. Africa does not know them except along the Mediterranean Coast, and, until introduced into New Zealand, they were absent from Australasia. Altogether ...

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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Chapter III BOMBUS, THE HUMBLE-BEE There is something friendly, something homely about the humble-bee which is entirely lacking in the more specialised honey-bee and in the rather terrifying wasp. Perhaps it is the popular delusion that they have no sting which endears them to us. Nevertheless, this is a delusion, for both the queen and the workers have stings and occasionally use them, but the poison is weaker than that of their allies and the pain inflicted correspondingly less. On the other hand, certain advantages rest with the humble-bee, it does not, like the honey-bee lose its sting when used but can withdraw it and use it again another day. Unless handled or misused, however, the queens do not sting human beings, though if the nest be disturbed in an unmannerly way the workers will often strike out. The economy of the household is also more attractive to the average man than is that of the bee-hive. It is less ordered, less specialised, and is carried on more on the lines of the comfortable city firms of a century ago and less on the lines of an up- to-date trust or syndicate. Few trusts or syn dicates awake our deeper affections, and, as Bagehot said about Political Economists, No one really mourns when they die. Humble-bees are dwellers in cool or, at any rate, temperate climates. Perhaps they flourish best about our latitude, but they are found far north passing the seventeenth parallel, and their comfortable and homely booming is a welcome, if unexpected, note in the monotonous wastes of Greenland, Siberia and Alaska. But few species occur in the Tropics, though they are found high up in the Himalayas. Africa does not know them except along the Mediterranean Coast, and, until introduced into New Zealand, they were absent from Australasia. Altogether ...

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Product Details

General

Imprint

General Books LLC

Country of origin

United States

Release date

February 2012

Availability

Supplier out of stock. If you add this item to your wish list we will let you know when it becomes available.

First published

February 2012

Authors

Dimensions

246 x 189 x 4mm (L x W x T)

Format

Paperback - Trade

Pages

66

ISBN-13

978-0-217-05745-5

Barcode

9780217057455

Categories

LSN

0-217-05745-4



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