The Progress of the Race 



of the colony. And indeed we find that 

 all species of bees existing in cold and tem- 

 perate regions have abandoned this primi- 

 tive method. The intelligent initiative 

 of the insect has evidently received the 

 sanction of natural selection, which has 

 allowed only the most numerous and best 

 protected tribes to survive our winters. 

 What had been merely an idea, therefore, 

 and opposed to instinct, has thus by slow 

 degrees become an instinctive habit. But 

 it is none the less true that in forsaking 

 the vast light of nature that was so dear 

 to them and seeking shelter in the ob- 

 scure hollow of a tree or a cavern, the 

 bees have followed what at first was an 

 audacious idea, based on observation, 

 probably, on experience and reasoning. 

 And this idea might be almost declared 

 to have been as important to the destinies 

 of the domestic bee as was the invention 

 of fire to the destinies of man. 



375 



