APIS

In Mythology, a' bull, to which di\ were paid by the Egyptians, especially at Men phis. He was require*! to be black, with peculiar arks. One of this description was always maintain suffered to live beyond twenty-five years. He was then buried with much solen nity; and Belzoni wo that the bones discovered in one of the Bare terred by him, belonged to an in al. The i made by the Persian conqueror Cam by sea on the Apis, and the disasters which were supposed to have he fallen him in consequence of that act, are detailed in the history of Hero dot us, book ii. Apis. (Lat. apis, a bee.) The Linna?an genus, now subdivided into different families, is thus charact i I mouth horny; jaw and lip membranaceous at the tip; tongue inflected; feelers four, unequal, filiform; anti short, filiform, those of the fen ale sub clavate; wings flat: sting of the females and neuters pungent, and concealed in the abdomen. The insects of this extensive genus live, bob in large societies, and some are solitary; then nectar of flowers, honey, and ripe fruit; the larva i and without feet; the pupa n-^rw bles the perfect insect. The characters of the Linnaean genus are applies a variety of forms, now the types of nut included by Latreillc in a fan lly of Aculeate Hyn i l roushabitsinsect's,of each under of the the subgenera term An tho phil a,of this or Mi with interest, aris in nd the separation of the individuals into three sexual modifications, viz.., the prolific fen ales, or queens; (he unprolif.c females, or workers; and the t ales, or drones. The nolicy of the-hive bee (Apis v/rH/Jira, Lin.) has been studied with so much diligence and detail, that we pi mystery of nature with ai. and often feel in clined to regard what Iluher relat the le , the highly interesting observations of the writer. and those especially on which his reputation chiefly rests. have been confirn ed by subsequent observers, both i tilic entomologists as well as practical apiarians. The hive-bee is distinguished from all other species of the modern genus Apis, by bavin: rior pair of legs furnished with a sn ooth and concavi on the outer surface, and fringed ket adapted for the conveyance of pollen; and in I destitute of spines at the extren ity; 1 ■ the tarsi, in the workers, being of an oblong form, with its inner surface clothed with hairs disposed in transvi rse rows; by the trophi being ol an elongated for n axillary palpi being almost obsolete ami com simile joint. The different individuals ol the social Apis me more nearly resemble fach other in their grade of d opement — as regards their locomotive powers, organs of sense, and instinctive endowments — than the ants. No individual among them is without wings; and the ind i of the workers, or in perfect fei least their tasks are le arduous, than fall to the lot o Apterous labourers of the ant tribes. As bees, like most other winged insects, are annua go through the whole e ential i c within the year, the histoi - the whole, and we have only to choose the point in th cle at which to con n ence it. As some individuals, however, always survivi and begin to breed early in which quits the parent slock, we shah bi. and trace their operations thro us The first young swarm in England is generally sent off in.Iune. The migration see,..; to depend on w« space in the mother-hive, not on an instinctive change on the part of the brood; for it there I ■ the operations of the increasing comn unity. bi naturally swarm; and skilful apiai vantage of this circumstance, and. by h akin! additions to the hive, retain the whole year's the same building. The swarm consists in about six or seven you sand individuals, of \ l-30th part are males, the rest females: and ol only, for the most part, is prolific, an ' queen. Her body is longer than that of either or worker; her colours are brighter and purer, ally of a darker shade: fhi -: the abdomen are of a deeper ami brighter yellow, and are times orange; the hei er than that of the unprolific female, and the b der; her mandibles are notched, and her sting is curved j but the most obvious distinctive character is the prop or. [s. 76]