INSTINCT OF INSECTS. ST 7 



credit to the resources of their instinct. They did not displace a single 

 grub — they left them in their cells ; but as they saw that these cells were 

 not deep enough, they closed them afresh with lids much more convex 

 than ordinary, so as to give to them a sufficient depth ; and from that time 

 no more holes were made in the lids. 



The working-bees, in closing up the cells containing larvae, invariably 

 give a convex lid to the large cells of drones, and one nearly flat to the 

 smaller cells of workers; but in an experiment instituted by Huber to 

 ascertain the influence of the size of the cells on that of the included 

 larvae, he transferred the larvae of workers to the cells of drones. What 

 was the result? Did the bees still continue blindly to exercise their ordi- 

 nary instinct ? On the contrary, they now placed a nearly jiat lid upon 

 these large cells, as if well aware of their being occupied by a different 

 race of inhabitants.^ 



On some occasions bees, in consequence of Ruber's arrangements in the 

 interior of their habitations, have begun to build a comb nearer to the 

 adjoining one than the usual interval ; but they soon appeared to perceive 

 their error, and corrected it by giving to the comb a gradual curvature, so 

 as to resume the ordinary distance.^ 



In another instance, in which various irregularities had taken place in 

 the form of the combs, the bees, in prolonging one of them, had, contrary 

 to their usual custom, begun two separate and distant continuations, which 

 in approaching instead of joining would have interfered with each other, 

 had not the bees, apparently foreseeing the difficulty, gradually bent their 

 edges so as to make them join with such exactness that they could after- 

 wards continue them conjointly.^ 



In constructing their combs, bees, as you have been before told, in my 

 letter on the habitations of insects, form the first range of cells — that by 

 which the comb is attached to the top of the hive — of a different shape 

 from the rest. Each cell, instead of being hexagonal, is pentagonal, having 

 the fifth broadest side fixed to the top of the hive, whence the comb is 

 much more securely cemented to that part than if the first range of cells 

 had been of the ordinary construction. For some time after their fabrica- 

 tion the combs remain in this state ; but at a certain period the bees attack 

 the first range of cells as if in fury, gnaw away the sides without touching 

 the lozenge-shaped bottoms ; and having mixed the wax with propolis, 

 they form a cement well known to the ancients under the names o{ Mitys, 

 Commosis, and Pissoceros, which they substitute in the place of the 

 removed sides of the cells, forming of it thick and massive walls and 

 heavy and shapeless pillars, which they introduce between the comb and 

 the top of the hive so as to agglutinate them firmly together. Huber, who 

 first in modern times witnessed this remarkable modification of the archi- 

 tecture of bees, observed that not only are they careful not to touch the 

 bpttoms of the cells, but that they do not remove at once the cells on both 

 sides of the comb, which in that case might fall down ; but they work 

 alternately, first on one side and then on the other, replacing the demolished 

 cells as they proceed with mitys, which firmly fixes the comb to its 

 support. 



The object of this substitution of mitys for wax seems clear. While 



' Huber, i. 233. 2 Ibid. ii. 239. ^ Ibid. ii. 240. 



49 



