REST OF INSECTS. 413 



appeared proportional 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 straws 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 perpen- 

 dicular 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 fre- 

 quent. His experiments were made at three o'clock, 

 the sun shining, and the thermometer in the shade 

 standing at 44^"* 



Swammerdam also seems to indicate that bees 

 remain active during the 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, ascending 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. There- 

 fore 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 increase their 

 family. "t 



* Huber on Bees, p. -'95. f Book of Nature, i. 160. 



