112 



Insect Architecture. 



CHAPTER V. 



ARCHITECTURE OF THE HIVE-BEE. 



A LTHOUGH the hive-bee (Apis mellifica) has engaged the 

 -^*- attention of the curious from the earliest ages, recent 

 discoveries prove that we are yet only beginning to arrive at 

 a correct knowledge of its wonderful proceedings. Pliny 

 informs us that Astromachus, of Soles, in Cilicia, devoted 

 fifty-eight years to the study ; and that Philiscus the 

 Thracian spent his whole life in forests for the purpose of 



Part of a Honeycomb, and Bees at work. 



observing them. But in consequence (as we may naturally 

 infer) of the imperfect methods of research, assuming that 

 what they did discover was known to Aristotle, Columella, 

 and Pliny, we are justified in pronouncing the statements 

 of these philosophers, as well as the embellished poetical 

 pictures of Virgil, to be nothing more than conjecture, 

 almost in every particular erroneous. It was not indeed 



