Hive-Bees. 151 



" Having seen bees," says the elder Huber, " work both 

 up and down, I wished to try to investigate whether we could 

 compel them to construct their combs in any other direction. 

 We endeavoured to puzzle them with a hive glazed above 

 and below, so that they had no place of support but the 

 upright sides of their dwelling ; but, betaking themselves to 

 the upper angle, they built combs perpendicular to one of 

 these sides, and as regularly as those which they usually 

 build under a horizontal surface. The foundations were laid 

 on a place which does not serve naturally for the base, yet, 

 except in the difference of direction, the first row of cells 

 resembled those in ordinary hives, the others being dis- 

 tributed on both faces, while the bottoms alternately corre- 

 sponded with the same symmetry. I put the bees to a still 

 greater trial. As they now testified their inclination to 

 carry their combs, by the shortest way, to the opposite side 

 of the hive (for they prefer uniting them to wood, or a 

 surface rougher than glass), I covered it with a pane. 

 Whenever this smooth and slippery substance was interposed 

 between them and the wood, they departed from the straight 

 line hitherto followed, and bent the structure of their comb 

 at & right angle to what was already made, so that the pro- 

 longation of the extremity might reach another side of the 

 hive, which had been left free. 



" Varying this experiment in several ways, I saw the bees 

 constantly change the direction of their combs, when I 

 presented to them a surface too smooth to admit of their 

 clustering on it. They always sought the wooden sides. I 

 thus compelled them to curve the combs in the strangest 

 shapes, by placing a pane at a certain distance from their 

 edges. These results indicate a degree of instinct truly 

 wonderful. They denote even more than instinct : for glass 

 is not a substance against which bees can be warned by 

 nature. In trees, their natural abode, there is nothing that 

 resembles it, or with the same polish. The most singular 

 part of their proceeding- is changing the direction of the 

 work before arriving at the surface of the glass, and while 

 yet at a distance suitable for doing so. Do they anticipate 



