Among all insects, bees stand first in the variety of the useful products which they give us; and next to the silk-moths in the importance of these products. They seem the more remarkable and important, in that so few insects yield articles of commercial value. True, the cochineal insect, a species of bark-louse, gives us an important coloring material; the lac insect, of the same family, gives us the important element of our best glue--shellac; the blister-beetles afford an article prized by the physician, while we are indebted to one of the gall-flies for a valuable element of ink But the honey-bee affords not only a delicious article of food, but also another article of no mean commercial rank--namely, wax. We will proceed to examine the various products which come from bees. HONEY. Of course the first product of bees, not only to attract attention, but also in importance, is honey. And what is honey? We can only say that it is a sweet substance gathered from flowers and other sources, by the bees. We cannot, therefore, give its chemical composition, which would be as varied as the sources from which it comes. We cannot even call it a sugar, for it may be, and always is composed of various sugars, and thus it is easy to understand why honey varies so much in richness, color, flavor, and effects on digestion. In fact, it is very doubtful if honey is a manufactured article at all. It seems most likely that the bees only collect it as it is distilled by myriad leaves and flowers, and store it up, that it may minister to their and our necessities. To be sure, some writers contend that it undergoes some change while in the bee's stomach; but the rapidity with which they store, and the seeming entire similarity between honey and sugar fed to them, and the same immediately extracted from the comb, has led me to believe that the transforming power of the stomach is very slight, if, indeed, it exists at all. To be sure, I have fed sugar, giving bees empty combs at night-fall, and found the flavor of honey early the next morning. In this case, honey might have been already in the bees' stomachs, or might have been carried from other portions of the hive. The method of collecting the honey has already been described. The principles of lapping and suction are both involved in the operation.