124 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



the young. In the case of large cells, M. Huber took ad- 

 vantage of a queen that was busy depositing the eggs of 

 workers, to remove all the common cells adapted for their 

 reception, and left only the large cells appropriated for 

 males. As this was done in June, when bees are most 

 active, he expected that they would have immediately 

 repaired the breaches he had made ; but to his great 

 surprise they did not make the slightest movement for that 

 purpose. In the meanwhile the queen, being oppressed by 

 her eggs, was obliged to drop them about at random, pre- 

 ferring this to depositing them in the male cells, which she 

 knew to be too large. At length she did deposit six eggs in 

 the large cells, which were hatched as usual, three days 

 after. The nurse-bees, however, seemed to be aware that 

 they could not be reared there, and though they supplied 

 them with food, did not attend to them regularly. 

 M. Huber found that they had been all removed from the 

 cells during the night, and the business both of laying and 

 nursing was at a complete stand for tv^elve daj^s, when he 

 supplied them again with a comb of small cells, which the 

 queen almost immediately filled with eggs, and in some 

 cells she laid five or six. 



The architecture of the hive, which we have thus de- 

 tailed, is that of bees receiving the aid of human care, and 

 having external coverings of a convenient form, prepared 

 for their reception. In this country bees are not found in 

 a wild state; though it is not uncommon for swarms to 

 stray from their proprietors. But these stray swarms do 

 not spread colonies through our woods, as they are said to 

 do in America. In the remoter parts of that continent 

 there are no wild bees. They precede civilization ; and 

 thus when the Indians observe a swarm they say, " The 

 white man is coming." There is evidence of bees having 

 abounded in these islands, in the earlier periods of our 

 history ; and Ireland is particularly mentioned by the 

 Venerable Bede as being " rich in milk and honey." * 

 The hive-bee has formed an object of economical culture 



* " Hibemia dives lactis ac mellis insula." — Btda, Hist. Eccles. i. 7. 



