HIVE-BEES. in 



" Having seen bees," says the elder Hnber, " work both 

 Tip and down, I wished to try to investigate whether we 

 could compel them to construct their combs in any other 

 direction. We endeavoured to puzzle them with a hive 

 glazed above and below, so that they had no place of support 

 but the upright sides of their dwelling ; but, betaking them- 

 selves to the upper angle, they built combs perpendicular 

 to one of these sides, and as regularly as those which they 

 usually build under a horizontal surface. The foundations 

 were laid on a place which does not serve naturally for the 

 base, yet, except in the difference of direction, the first 

 row of cells resembled those in ordinary hives, the others 

 being distributed on both faces, while the bottoms alternately 

 corresponded with the same symmetry. I put the bees to 

 a still greater trial. As they now testified their inclination 

 to carry their combs, by the shortest way, to the opposite 

 side of the hive (for they prefer uniting them to Avood, or a 

 surface rougher than glass), I covered it with a pane. 

 Whenever this smooth and slippery substance was inter- 

 posed between them and the wood, they departed from the 

 straight line hitherto followed, and bent the structure of 

 their comb at a right angle to what was already made, so 

 that the prolongation of the extremity might reach another 

 side of the hive, which had been left free. 



" Vaiying this experiment in several ways, I saw the 

 bees constantly change the direction of their combs, when 

 I presented to them a surface too smooth to admit of their 

 clustering on it. They always sought the wooden sides. 

 I thus compelled them to curve the combs in the strangest 

 shapes, by placing a pane at a certain distance from their 

 edges. These results indicate a degree of instinct truly 

 wonderful. They denote even more than instinct : for 

 glass is not a substance against which bees can be warned 

 by nature. In trees, their natural abode, there is nothing 

 that resembles it, or with the same polish. The most 

 singular part of their proceeding is changing the direction 

 of the work before arriving at the surface of the glass, and 

 while yet at a distance suitable for doing so. Do they antici- 

 pate the inconvenience which would attend any other mode 



