186 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



and preventing its further descent. They then filled up the 

 space above, joining the comb which had become detached to 

 that from which it had been separated, and they concluded 

 their labours by removing the newly constructed comb below, 

 thus proving that they had intended it to answer a merely tem- 

 porary purpose. 



Similarly, Dr. Dzierzon, an experienced keeper of 

 bees, and the observer who first discovered the fact of their 

 parthenogenesis, makes the general remark, 



The cleverness of the b3es in repairing perfectly injuries to 

 their cells and combs, in supporting on pillars pieces of their 

 building accidentally knocked down by a hasty push, in fasten- 

 ing them with rivets, and bringing everything again into proper 

 unity, making hanging bridges, chains, and ladders, compels our 

 astonishment. 



Lastly, as still farther corroboration of such facts, I 

 shall quote the following from Jesse's ' Gleanings : ' l 



Bees show great ingenuity in obviating the inconvenience 

 they experience from the slipperiness of glass, and certainly 

 beyond what we can conceive that mere instinct would enable 

 them to do. I am in the habit of putting small glass globes on 

 the top of my straw hives, for the purpose of having them filled 

 with hone/ ; and I have invariably found that before the bees 

 commence the construction of combs, they place a great number 

 of spots of wax at regular distances from each other, which 

 serve as so many footstools on the slippery glass, each bee 

 resting on one of these with its middle pair of legs, while the 

 fore claws were hooked with the hind ones of the bee next above 

 him ; thus forming a ladder, by means of which the workers 

 were enabled to reach the top, and begin to make their combs 

 there. 



Herr Kleine, in his pamphlet on Italian Bees and Bee- 

 keeping (Berlin, 1855), says that on substituting during 

 the absence of the bees a hive filled with empty comb for 

 their own hive, the returning bees exhibit the utmost 

 perplexity. As the substituted hive stands in the exact 

 spot previously occupied by their own hive, the return- 

 ing b ^es fly into it without observing the change. But 

 finding only empty combs inside, ( they stop, do not know 



1 Vol. i., pp. 22-3 (3rd cd.). 



