unendingly for the profit of the great household.

While the greater part of the kindred of the bees either construct the
nests for their young in the manner of our wasps or hornets, building
them entirely in the open air, or excavate underground chambers in the
fashion of our bumble-bees, our domesticated form at some time in the
remote past adopted the plan of choosing for its dwelling-place some
chamber in the rocks, or cavity in a hollow tree which could be shaped
to the needs of a habitation. Owing to the size of these cavities, they
were enabled to form societies composed of many thousands of
individuals; while the species which adopted nests, in other conditions,
were much more limited as regards their numbers. Thus the bumble-bee,
which abides underground, dwells in very small communities, probably for
the reason that the conditions of the soil it inhabits make it difficult
to excavate and maintain large rooms. It is this habit of resorting to
hollow spaces, as well as the instinct to store up honey in wax cases,
which has made the common bee valuable to man.

[Illustration: Feeding Silkworms with Mulberry Leaves in Japan]

At best the opportunities which the wilderness affords, in the way of
fit dwelling-places for the swarm which goes forth from a hive, are
much less than can readily be provided by art. In almost all cases the
wild bees have to expend a great deal of labor in searching for a fit
residence; and after such is found it requires a great deal of toil and
expenditure of the costly wax in order to shape the cavity so that it
may comfortably accommodate the multitude, and be reasonably safe from
the attacks of other insects. Thus it has come about that the bee has,
in a way, welcomed the interference of man with his ancestral
conditions; and, though the species exists in the wildernesses of its
native land, the domesticated varieties have so far taken up with man
that in other countries they do not wander far from the limits of
civilization. Now and then an uncared-for swarm which cannot find
accommodations about the parent hive will betake itself to the
wilderness; though it generally continues to seek sustenance from
the abundant flowers of the tilled fields where it finds species, such
as clover and buckwheat, from which it has been long accustomed to win
the harvest of pollen and honey.

In North America the honey-bees, which were brought by the early
settlers, and which had been kept on the fr