78 On placing the Entrance to Beehives. 



Three days afterwards I opened the lower hole, and the bees 

 forsook the upper one, preferring to enter below. Why they 

 did this may appear strange; but it can be accounted for, not, as 

 some would imagine, from their having blocked up the upper 

 opening with their combs, which was not the fact, but from the 

 singular position of the bees when forming their cells. This 

 requires explanation, particularly for those who are not acquainted 

 with their very curious mode of beginning their cells. 



To an ordinary observer, a swarm beginning to form their 

 cells appears only a confused mass of bees, hanging together 

 in a dense cluster : but, on closer examination, the busy workers 

 within may be seen through the numerous openings left all round 

 the cluster for those bees to have free ingress and egress, which 

 are employed in forming the cells. The bees in my hive having 

 ascended to the top, as already mentioned, began of course to 

 form their cells in the manner described. When they came to 

 the openings in the cluster, it was easier for them to drop into 

 the empty space below, to get out, than to make their way to a 

 particular point above : for, in this case, they must either have 

 travelled round the cluster, or first dropped down, and then 

 crept up the side of the hive, in order to get out at the hole 

 above ; and the same inconvenience would have attended their 

 return to the hive. All this I observed by having glass at the 

 back of the hive : and it was surprising to see how fast the bees 

 dropped down to get out of the hive, after I had opened the 

 lower hole. One might almost suppose that whoever invented 

 the common hive was aware of the fact just mentioned ; for its 

 construction is admirably adapted to the formation of the cells. 



The charge against bees, of their losing time by having to 

 ascend through their hives, is not worth attention ; at least I 

 had no reason to complain of it in my six-feet hive, for the bees 

 filled the lower half of it in a fortnight. After that, I admitted 

 them into the upper division. They went up at once to the top, 

 and began their cells as they had done in the space below. Al- 

 though there was an entrance in the centre of this upper division, 

 they never made use of it, but preferred going up and down 

 through the whole hive. To ascertain if this was not the mere 

 effect of habit, I closed the lower opening. This caused much 

 confusion at first, but the bees soon got used to the upper en- 

 trance. After a few days, I o{)ened the lower one again ; and 

 they soon forsook the top opening, and seemed pleased to go out 

 and in again by their favourite way. 



It may be asked what caused the bees still to prefer the lower 

 entrance, when their combs were finished, and the previous 

 reason of their clustering no longer existed. To this I have to 

 observe, that, the combs being fixed at the top, there was not 

 the same thoroughfare left to pass between them as below. Bees 



