196 THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 



sufficiently developed to impel her to fly abroad, and 

 tseek for honey and pollen among the flowers. 



" I made, further, the following observations respecting 

 the domestic employments of the young Italian bees : 



"1. On the 20th of May, I took out of the hive all the 

 combs it contained, and replaced them after examination. 

 On inspecting them half an hour later, I was surprised to 

 see that the edges of the combs, which had been cut on 

 removal, were covered by Italian bees exclusively. On 

 closer examination, I found that they were busily engaged 

 in re-attaching the combs to the sides of the hive. When 

 I brushed them away, they instantly returned, in eager 

 haste, to resume their labors. 



" 2. After making the foregoing observations, I inserted 

 in the hive a bar from which a comb had been cut, to as- 

 certain whether the rebuilding of comb would be under- 

 taken by the Italian bees. I took it out again a few hours 

 subsequently, and found it covered almost exclusively by 

 Italian workers, though the colony, at that time, still con- 

 tained a large majority of common bees. I saw that they 

 were sedulously engaged in building comb ; and they 

 prosecuted the work unremittingly, whilst I held the bar 

 in my hand.* I repeated this experiment several days in 

 succession, and satisfied myself that the bees engaged in 

 this work were always almost exclusively of the Italian 

 race. Many of them had scales of wax visibly protruding 

 between their abdominal rings. These observations show 

 that, in the early stage of their existence, the impulse for 

 comb-building is stronger than later in life. 



" 3. Whenever I examined the colony during the first 

 three weeks after the Italian bees emerged, I found the 

 brood-combs covered principally by bees of that race : 



* I have had a queen which continued to lay eggs in a comb, after it was removed 

 from the hive. 



