The honey collected by these bees is said not to be so unpalatable nor so surfeiting as that of Europe. By unpalatable I conceive the writers merely to mean, that it has less of that peculiar flavour which European honey possesses. A writer in the 15th volume of the Philosophical Transactions, states that their honey is always in a fluid state, and as clear as rock water, forming an agreeable beverage, which taken on an empty stomach in the quantity of about half a pint, acts medicinally in about two hours, but not so when taken with the meals. There is a species of bees in Guiana which gather very delicious honey, and have no stings. These also construct their combs in a different manner from the hive-bee of our hemisphere. According to Huber's translator, _there are bees in India that construct under the boughs of a tree a single comb of very large dimensions_. The most interesting account of exotic bees that I have met with, is in Mr. Basil Hall's highly instructive and entertaining Journal written on the coasts of Chili, Peru and Mexico, in 1820, -1, and -2, of which I shall here give a transcript. "From the Plaza, we went to a house where a bee-hive of the Country was opened in our presence. The bees, the honey-comb, and the hive, differ essentially from those in England. The hive is generally made out of a log of wood from two to three feet long and eight or ten inches in diameter, hollowed out, and closed at the ends by circular doors, cemented closely to the wood, but capable of being removed at pleasure. "Some persons use cylindrical hives, made of earthenware, instead of the clumsy apparatus of wood; these are relieved by raised figures and circular rings, so as to form rather handsome ornaments in the verandah of a house, where they are suspended by cords from the roof, in the same manner that the wooden ones in the village are hung to the eaves of the cottage. On one side of the hive, half-way between the ends, there is a small hole made, just large enough for a loaded bee to enter, and shaded by a projection to prevent the rain from trickling in. In this hole, generally representing the mouth of a man, or some monster, the head of which is moulded in the clay of the hive, a bee is constantly stationed, whose office is no sinecure[J], for the hole is so small, he has to draw back every time a bee wishes to enter or to leave the hive. A gentleman told me that the experiment had been made, by marking the sentinel; when it was observed that the same bee continued at his post a whole day. [Footnote J: If the Mexican bees enter the hives with as much rapidity and in as great numbers as Reaumur states they do in this part of the world, it would indeed be no sinecure. He observes that the population of a hive amounts to 18,000, and that a hundred enter in a minute; if as many go out in the same time, I think the sentinel must rather stand on one side of the entrance than within it.]