PHYSIOLOGY. 297 



and PLINY * have been supposed to regard their 

 existence as extending to ten years ; though the 

 language of the former applies to the existence of 

 the community, and not to individual bees : and 

 provided the hive be never changed, nor the 

 combs renewed, it is not likely that any one family 

 should have its existence prolonged beyond that 

 period ; as the accumulation of silken pellicles 

 with which the breeding cells are successively 

 lined, would render them unfit for use in a very 

 few years. In addition to the diminution of the 

 cells by this succession of silken linings, they are 

 also diminished further by the excrement of the 

 larvae, which is never cleaned out, but confined 

 behind each lining : both together, therefore, soon 

 render the cells unfit for use as brood cells. 

 MR. HUNTER found three of these layers deposited 

 in a single season, and counted upwards of twenty 

 in the cells of an old comb ; which, upon an average 

 of three a year, would correspond with the period 

 fixed by the ancients ; though this observation by 

 no means proves that the hive upon which it was 

 made, or any other, might not have had a much 

 more protracted existence. MR. ESPINASSE tells 

 us that he once took a hive which had stood 

 fourteen years, having found that it had become 



* " Alveos nunquam 



Ultra decem annos durasse proditur." PLINY. 

 o5 



