REST OF INSECTS, 413 



{appeared propertional to the number of bees fanning 

 themselves. 



• If some cultivators of bees shut up the entrance of 

 their hives in winter without prejudice to the bees, it 

 must be considered that the air will penetrate through 

 the straw composing them. I confided an experiment 

 on this to M. Burnens, then at a distance from me. 

 Having closed down a very populous straw hive fast 

 on its board, he found that a piece of the finest paper, 

 suspended by a hair before the entrance, oscillated 

 above an inch off the perpendicular line. He poured 

 liquid honey through an opening in the top, when a 

 buzzing soon began, and a tumult increasing within, 

 several bees departed. The oscillations now became 

 stronger and more frequent. His experiments were 

 made at three o'clock,the sun shining and the thermo- 

 meter in the shade standing at 44°.'* 



Svvamraerdam also seems to indicate that bees re- 

 main active during tiie winter, and in order to enable 

 them to bear its inclemency, they both fortify their hive 

 and provide a store of honey. ^ The order,' he says, 

 ' in which bees that live in the winter months conduct 

 themselves is this : they first open the cells and eat the 

 honey deposited in the lowest part of the hive, ascend- 

 ing by degrees to the upper parts. This they do in 

 order to preserve a mutual warmth between them; and 

 the female deposits her eggs in the little cells as they 

 are emptied. Therefore I discovered both stock and 

 nymphs about the beginning of March. Let no one 

 be surprised at this, since towards the beginning of 

 August I have seen some thousand eggs enclosed in 

 the ovary of a female bee; so that it is natural for the 

 bees at any time of the year to lay their eggs and in- 

 crease their family, '| 



* Iluber on Bees, p. 295. t Cook of Nature, i, 160. 



