INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 54a 



namely, about one third of an inch, which is just wide enough to allow them 

 to pass easily and have access to the young brood. On the approach of 

 winter, when their honey-cells are not sufficient in number to contain all the 

 stock, they elongate them considerably, and thus increase their capacity. 

 By this extension the intervals between the combs are unavoidably con- 

 tracted ; but in winter well-stored magazines are essential, while from their 

 state of comparative inactivity spacious communications are less necessary. 

 On the return of spring, however, when the cells are wanted for the recep- 

 tion of eggs, the bees contract the elongated cells to their former dimensions, 

 and thus re-establish the just distances between the combs which the care 

 of their brood requires. 1 But this is not all. Not only do they elongate 

 the cells of the old combs when there is an extraordinary harvest of honey, 

 but they actually give to the new cells which they construct on this emer- 

 gency a much greater diameter as well as a greater depth. 2 



The queen-bee in ordinary circumstances places each egg in the centre of 

 the pyramidal bottom of the cell, where it remains fixed by its natural 

 gluten ; but in an experiment of Huber, one whose fecundation had been 

 retarded had the first segments of her abdomen so swelled that she was 

 unable to reach the bottom of the cells. She therefore attached her eggs 

 (which were those of males) to their lower side, two lines from the mouth. 

 As the larvae always pass that state in the place where they are deposited, 

 those hatched from the eggs in question remained in the situation assigned 

 them. But the working-bees, as if aware that in these circumstances the 

 cells would be too short to contain the larvae when fully grown, added to 

 their length, even before the eggs were hatched. 3 



Bees close up the cells of the grubs, previously to their transformation, 

 with a cover or lid of wax ; and in hanging its abode with a silken tapestry 

 before it assumes the pupa state, the grub requires that the cell should 

 not be too short for its movements. Bonnet having placed a swarm in a 

 very flat glass hive, the bees constructed one of the combs parallel to one 

 of the principal sides, where it was so straight that they could not give to 

 the cells their ordinary depth. The queen, however, laid eggs in them, and 

 the workers daily nourished the grubs, and closed the cells at the period of 

 transformation. A few days afterwards he was surprised to perceive in the 

 lids holes more or less large, out of which the grubs partly projected, the 

 cells having been too short to admit of their usual movements. He was 

 curious to know how the bees would proceed. He expected that they 

 would pull all the grubs out of the cells, as they commonly do when great 

 disorders in the combs take place. But he did not sufficiently give credit 

 to the resources of their instinct. They did not displace a single grub 

 they left them in their cells ; but as they saw that these cells were not deep 

 enough, they closed them afresh with lids much more convex than ordinary, 

 so as to give to them a sufficient depth ; and from that time no more holes 

 were made in the lids. 



The working-bees, in closing up the cells containing larvae, invariably 

 give a convex lid to the large cells ot'drones, and one nearly flat to the smaller 

 ceils of workers ; but in an experiment instituted by Huber to ascertain 

 the influence of the size of the cells on that of the included larvae, he trans- 

 ferred the larvae of workers to the cells of drones. What was the result ? 

 Did the bees still continue blindly to exercise their ordinary instinct ? On 

 ' Huber, i. 348. 2 jfcid. u. 227. 



3 Ibid. i. 119. 



