424 PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



How long our little active creatures repose before they take a second 

 excursion 1 cannot precisely say. In a hive the greatest part of the 

 inhabitants generally appear in repose, lying together, says Reaumur, but 

 this probably for a short time. Huber tells us, that bees may always be 

 observed in a hive with the head and thorax inserted into cells that con- 

 tain eggs, and sometimes into empty ones ; and that they remain in this 

 situation fifteen or twenty minutes, so motionless that, did not the dilata- 

 tion of the segments of the abdomen prove the contrary, they might be 

 mistaken for dead. He supposes their object is to repose from their 

 labors.^ The queen, for this purpose, enters the large cells of the males, 

 and continues in them without motion a very long time. Even then the 

 workers form a circle round her, and brush the uncovered part of her 

 abdomen. The drones while reposing do not enter the cells, but cluster 

 in the combs, and sometimes remain without stirring a limb for eighteen 

 or twenty hours. ^ 



Reaumur observes, that in a hive the population of which amounts to 

 18,000, the number that enter the hive in a minute is a hundred ; which, 

 allowing fourteen hours in the day for their labor, makes 84,000 : thus 

 every individual must make four excursions daily, and some five. In 

 hives where the population was smaller, the numbers that entered were 

 comparatively greater, so as to give six excursions or more to each bee.^ 

 But in this calculation Reaumur does not seem to take into the account 

 those that are employed within the hive in building or feeding the young 

 brood ; which must render the excursions of each bee still more numerous. 

 He proceeds further to ground upon this statement a calculation of the 

 quantity of bee-bread that may be collected in one day by such a hive ; 

 and he found, supposing only half the number to collect it, that it would 

 amount to more than a pound ; so that in one season one such hive might 

 collect a hundred pounds.'' What a wonderful idea does this give of the 

 industry and activity of these little useful creatures ! And what a lesson 

 do they read to the members of societies that have both reason and 

 religion to guide their exertions for the common good ! Adorable is that 

 Great Being who has gifted them with instincts which render them as 

 instructive to us, if we will condescend to listen to them, as they are pro- 

 fitable. 



While I am upon this part of the story of bees, I cannot pass over the 

 account Reaumur has given from Mailiet of the transportation of hives 

 in Egypt from one place to another, before alluded to^^ to enable them to 

 make in greater abundance their collections of honey, &:c. Towards the 

 end of October, when the inundations of the Nile have ceased, and 



' It hns been supposed and the supposition was adopted originally in this work (Vol. I. 

 1st ed. p. 371.), that the object in this case is brooding: the e^gs ; but upon further con- 

 sideration we incline to Iluber's opinion, that it has no connection with it, the ordinary tem- 

 perature of tlie hive being sufficient for this purpose ; and the circumstance of their enter- 

 ing unoccupied cells proves that this attitude has no particular connection with the eggs. 

 (Hiihtr, i. 212.) " When large pieces of comb,"' says Wiidman (p. 45.), " were broken off 

 and left at the bottom of the hive, a great number of bees have gone and placed themselves 

 upon them." This looks like incubation. Reaumur, however, affirms (p. 591.) that if 

 part of a comb falls and loses its perpendicular direction, the bees, as if conscious that they 

 would come to nothing, pull out and destroy all the larvx. They might perhaps remaia 

 perpendicular in the case observed by Wiidman. 



« Reaum. v. 431. Huber, ii. 212. 3 Reaum. v. 432, 



* Reaum. v. 434. * Reaum. v. 698. 



