HABITS AND INTELLIGENCE OF BEES 131 



to the same species of flower during each visit to 

 the fields, a seemingly unimportant fact first re- 

 corded by Aristotle, which has acquired new signifi- 

 cance since we have learned what is the true relation 

 existing between the bees and the flowers they visit. 



Is the bee entitled to the eulogies which have 

 been lavished upon her for so long as a tribute to 

 instincts which some naturalists have held to be 

 little short of reason ? Entomologists of the present 

 day seem to incline to the opinion that she is not. 

 Despite the habits and wonderful social economy 

 of bees, their acts upon analysis do not appear to be 

 the result of such a highly developed intelligence 

 as has been supposed. 



For many generations naturalists have been loud 

 in their praises of the architecture of the honeycomb, 

 and they went into ecstasies when the mathema- 

 ticians conclusively proved after much disputing 

 amongst themselves that the bee in the structure 

 of her hexagonal cell had solved the recondite 

 problem of constructing her waxen storehouses with 

 the maximum of strength and capacity combined 

 with the minimum expenditure of material. Yet, 

 however difficult it may be to believe it, it is now 

 quite certain that the bee evinces no very extraordin- 

 ary intelligence in producing the exquisite workman- 

 ship displayed in the honeycomb, with all its inter- 

 esting arrangements of planes and angles. The first 

 instinct of the bee was undoubtedly to construct a 

 circular cell, and at present the work is always com- 

 menced by excavating a circular pit in the layer of 

 wax from which the work proceeds. A moment's 

 reflection will show that if all the cells were circular 

 they would not fit closely together, and this would 



