168 
INSECTA. 
cells. The cells of the males are of an intermediate size, be- 
tween those of the preceding and those of the labourers, and 
placed here and there. Bees always continue their combs from 
above downwards. They stop the little chinks and apertures of 
their domicil with a species of mastich, which they collect from 
different trees, called propolis. 
Copulation takes place in the beginning of summer out of the 
hive, and, according to M. Huber, the female returns to it with 
the genital organs of the male attached to the extremity of her 
abdomen. Itis thought that this single fecundation vivifies all 
the eggs she may lay in the course of two years, and perhaps 
during the whole of her life. She produces the different batches 
in rapid succession, and does not cease, laying till autumn. 
Réaumur estimates the number laid by a female in the spring 
during the space of twenty days at twelve thousand. Guided 
unerringly by her instinct she makes no mistake in selecting 
their appropriate cells. Sometimes, however, as where the 
total number is not sufficient, she places several eggs in one. 
The labourers subsequently make a selection. All those which 
she lays in the ensuing spring produce labourers and are hatched 
in four or five days. 
Bees take care to furnish their larve with patée in quantities 
proportioned to their age, and on which they cling with their 
bodies curved into an arc. Six or seven days after they are 
hatched, they prepare to undergo their metamorphosis. Shut 
up in their cells by the labourers who close the orifice with a 
convex lid, they line the parietes of their domicil with a tissue 
of silk, spin a cocoon, become nymphs, and, at the expiration 
of about twelve days, issue forth in their perfect state. The 
labourers immediately clean out the vacant cells, in order that 
they may be prepared for the reception of another egg. This 
is not the case however with the royal cells; they are destroyed 
and new ones constructed if necessary. The eggs containing 
males are produced two months later, and those of the female 
soon after the latter. 
This succession of generations forms so many particular 
communities, prepared to form new colonies, and known by the 
name of swarms. A single hive sometimes produces three or 
four; but the last are always small. Those which weigh from 
six to eight pounds are the best. Finding themselves too much 
confined in their habitation, they frequently leave their natal 
locality. Particular signs intimate to the owner the loss with 
