1 SWEATING' BEES 149 



it. The size stamped is also uniformly that or 

 worker-cells ; thus there is no room for drone-cells, 

 producing bees which cannot be ' sweated * or made 

 profitable in any way. The visible results of the 

 system are a vastly increased store of honey nearly 

 1000 Ib. were recently made by the bees of fifteen 

 hives and so far no sign of ' overstrain ' among 

 the bees. When the system has had another twenty 

 years of trial, it may possibly show certain strains 

 developing a tendency to forget how to construct 

 comb-foundation, just as some breeds of fowls are 

 forgetting how to hatch their eggs. We cannot 

 suggest an improvement in the architecture of the 

 cells, because they are mechanically perfect in economy 

 of material and space. But the readiness with which 

 the honey bee has accepted and incorporated in its 

 comb the materials supplied by man suggests the 

 possibility of further experiments to determine how 

 far its mechanical instinct is capable of modification. 



