PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 187 



queen, for this purpose, enters the large cells of the 

 males, and continues in them without motion a very long 

 time. Even then the workers form a circle round her, 

 and brush the uncovered part of her abdomen. The 

 drones while reposing do not enter the cells, but cluster 

 in the combs, and sometimes remain without stirring a 

 limb for eighteen or twenty hours ^. 



Reaumur observes, that in a hive the population of 

 which amounts to 18,000, the number that enter the hive 

 in a minute is a hundred; which, allowing fourteen hours 

 in the day for their labour, makes 84,000 : thus every 

 individual must make four excursions daily, and some 

 five. In hives where the population was smaller, the 

 numbers that entered were comparatively greater, so as 

 to give six excursions or more to each bee ^. But in 

 this calculation Reaumur does not seem to take into the 

 account those that are employed within the hive in build- 

 ing or feeding the young brood ; which must render the 

 excursions of each bee still more numerous. He pro- 

 ceeds further to ground upon this statement a calcula- 

 tion of the quantity of bee-bread that may be collected 

 in one day by such a hive ; and he found, supposing 



is brooding the eggs ; but upon further consideration we incline to 

 lluber's opinion, that it has no connexion with it, the ordinary tem- 

 perature of the hive being sufficient for this purpose; and the cir- 

 cumstance of their entering unoccupied cells proves that this attitude 

 has no particular connexion with the eggs. Huber, i. 212. — "When 

 large pieces of comb," says Wildman (p. 45), " were broken off and 

 left at the bottom of the hive, a great number of bees have gone 

 and placed themselves upon them." This looks like incubation. 

 Reaumur however affirms (p. 591) that if i)art of a comb falls and 

 loses its perpendicular direction, the bees, as if conscious that they 

 would come to nothing, pull out and destroy all the larvae. They 

 might perhaps remain perpendicular in the caseobserved by Wildman. 

 ' Rcauin. v. 431. Huber, ii. 212. '• Reaum. v. 432— 



