576 



INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



It is the ordinary instinct of bees to lay the foundation of their combs 

 at the top of the hive, building them perjoendicularly dowmvards ; and 

 they pursue this plan so constantly, that you might examine a thousand 

 (probably ten thousand) hives, without finding any material deviation from 

 it. Yet Huber in the course of his experiments forced them to build their 

 combs perpendicularly upward' ; and, what seems even more remarkable, 

 in an horizontal direction.^ 



Tiie combs of bees are always at an uniform distance from each other, 

 namely, about one third of an inch, which is just wide enough to allow 

 them to pass easily and have access to the young brood. On the approach 

 of winter, when their honey-cells are not sufficient in number to contain 

 all the stock, they elongate them considerably, and thus increase their 

 capacity. By this extension the intervals between the combs are 

 unavoidably contracted; but in winter well-stored magazines are essential, 

 while from their state of comparative inactivity spacious communications 

 are less necessary. On the return of spring, however, when the cells are 

 wanted for the reception of eggs, the bees contract the elongated cells to 

 their former dimensions, and thus re-establish the just distances between 

 the combs which the care of their brood requires.^ But this is not all. 

 Not only do they elongate the cells of the old combs when there is an 

 extraordinary harvest of honey, but they actually give to the new cells 

 which they construct on this emergency a much greater diameter as well 

 as a greater depth.'* 



The queen-bee in ordinary circumstances places each egg in the centre 

 of the pyramidal bottom of the cell, where it remains fixed by its natural 

 gluten ; but in an experiment of Huber, one whose fecundation had been 

 retarded had the first segments of her abdomen so swelled that she was 

 unable to reach the bottom of the cells. She therefore attached her eggs 

 (which were those of males) to their lower side, two lines from the mouth. 

 As the larvaj always pass that state in the place where they are deposited, 

 those hatched from the eggs in question remained in the situation assigned 

 them. But the working-bees, as if aware that in these circumstances the 

 cells would be too short to contain the larva? when fully grown, added to 

 their length, even before the eggs were hatched.'^ 



Bees close up the cells of the grubs, previously to their transformation, 

 with a cover or lid of wax ; and in hanging its abode with a silken tapestry 

 before it assumes the pupa state, the grub requires that the cell should not 

 be too short for its movements. Bonnet having placed a swarm in a very 

 flat glass hive, the bees constructed one of the combs i)arallel to one of 

 the principal sides, where it was so straight that they could not give to the 

 cells their ordinary depth. The queen, however, laid eggs in them, and 

 the woikers daily nourished the grubs, and closed the cells at the period 

 of translorniaiion. A few days afterwards he was surprised to perceive in 

 the lids boles more or less large, out of which the grubs partly projected, 

 the cells having been too short to admit of their usual movements. He 

 vas curious to know how the bees would proceed. He expected that 

 lh;'y would pull all the grubs out of the cells, as they commonly do when 

 great disorders in the combs take |)lace. But he did not sufficiently give 



> Hnlicr. ii. 134. « Ibid. ii. 216. » Ibid. i. 348. * Ibid. ii. 227. 



» ll).d. i. ll'.i. 



