110 THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 



Fall, the males perish, while the impregnated females, 

 retreating into Winter quarters, remain dormant till warm 

 weather restores them to activity, that each may become 

 the mother of a new family. 



The honey-bee, however, is so organized that it must 

 live in a community during the entire year ; for while the 

 balmy breezes of the Spring will quickly thaw the frozen 

 body of a torpid wasp, the bee is chilled by a temperature 

 no lower than 50 ; and it would be as impossible to re- 

 store a frozen bee to animation, as to recall to life the 

 stiffened corpses in the charnel-house of the Convent of 

 the Great St. Bernard. Bees, therefore, in cool weather, 

 must associate in large numbers, to maintain the heat 

 necessary for their preservation ; and the formation of new 

 colonies, after the manner of wasps and hornets, is out of 

 the question. Even if the young queens, like the mother- 

 wasps, were able, without any assistance, to found new 

 colonies, they could not maintain the warmth requisite for 

 the development of their young. And if this were pos- 

 sible, and they were furnished with a proboscis, for gath- 

 ering honey, as long as that of a worker, baskets on their 

 thighs for carrying bee-bread, and pouches on their abdo- 

 mens for secreting wax, they would still be unable to 

 amass treasures for our use, or even to lay up the stores 

 requisite for their own preservation. 



How admirably are all these difficulties obviated by the 

 present arrangement ! Their domicile being well supplied 

 with all the requisite materials, the bees have added 

 thousands, in the full vigor of youth, to their already nu- 

 merous population, while such insects as depend upon 

 the heat of the sun are still dormant. They can thus 

 send off early colonies, strong enough to take full advan- 

 tage of the honey-harvest, and to provision the new hive 

 against the approach of Winter. From these considera- 



