PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 181 



rison of those that are not. In a hive, however, in which 

 a swarm is recently established, it is generally brought in 

 at all parts of the day. He supposes, in order for its 

 being formed into pellets, that it requires some moisture, 

 which the heat evaporates after the above hour ; but in 

 the case, of recently colonized hives, that the bees go a 

 great way to seek it in moist and shady places*. 



When a bee has completed her lading, she returns to 

 the hive to dispose of it. The honey is disgorged into 

 the honey-pots or cells destined to receive it, and is dis- 

 charged from the honey-bag by its alternate contraction 

 and "dilatation. A cell will contain the contents of many 

 honey-bags. When a bee comes to disgorge the honey, 

 with its fore legs it breaks the thick cream that is always 

 on the top, and the honey which it yields passes under it. 

 This cream is honey of a thicker consistence than the 

 rest, which rises to the top in the cells like cream on 

 milk : it is not level, but forms an oblique surface over 

 the honey. The cells, as you know, are usually hori- 

 zontal, yet the honey does not run out. The cream, 

 aided probably by the general thickness of the honey 

 and the attraction of the sides of the cell, prevents this. 

 Bees, when they bring home the honey, do not always 

 disgorge it; they sometimes give it to such of their com- 

 panions as have been at work within the hive b . Some 

 of the cells are filled with honey for daily use, and some 

 with what is intended for a reserve, and stored up 



a Reaum. v. 302. comp. 433. I have seen bees out before it was 

 liglr. 



b Huber observes that the honey for store is collected by the wax- 

 making bees only (abeilles cirieres'), and that the nurses (abeillcs nour- 

 rices) gather no more than what is wanted for themselves and com- 

 panions at work in the hive. ii. 66. 



