134 BETTS : THE FUNGI OF THE BEE-HIVE. 
All measurements were made from pure-culture material (except 
in the case of Gymnoascus selosus and G. ruber, when the material 
was taken direct from the combs, attempts to cultivate these species 
not having been very successful). 
Stains were used but little. Some specimens were stained with 
Haidenhain’s Haemotoxylin in order to make more evident the 
structure of the young fruiting stages. Hoffmann’s Blue was also 
employed occasionally. 
THe RELATION OF THE FUNGI TO THEIR HABITAT. 
It is difficult to determine which of the species here described 
are true bee-hive fungi; and which are merely casual saprophytes, 
only able to gain a footing in the hive after the death of the bees. 
Light may perhaps be thrown on the question by the consideration 
of the conditions prevailing in the hive, and of the behaviour of the 
fungi when growing at different temperatures and on various media; 
some account of the former matter will therefore not be out of place 
here. 
The temperature in a bee-hive while the colony is active is main- 
tained at 32°—34° C.1; in the winter months, when the bees 
hybernate in a cluster and breeding is at a standstill, the temperature 
appears to be about 12° C. in the cluster,” and is of course lower 
in the outer parts of the hive. There are no very exact determina- 
. tions of the hygrometric state of the hive-atmosphere extant (so far 
as I can find); but there seems to be little doubt that it is decidedly 
dry. During the summer months the air is being continually 
changed, partly by convection, but chiefly bv the bees’ own efforts 
in ‘‘fanning”’ at the entrance, and so drawing the stale air out of 
the hive. In the winter the air is doubtless changed more slowly ; 
but can evidently never be quite stagnant so long as the colony is 
alive. In a hive where the bees have died, the conditions are con- 
siderably different. The air is stagnant, and probably damper than 
in a healthy stock; and the temperature is that of the outside atmos- 
phere. These conditions were reproduced with fair accuracy in the 
cultures referred to on p. 4, which were placed out of doors. The 
tubes were provided with rubber caps; in spite of this, the plugs 
became saturated with moisture in most (if not all) cases. The cul- 
1M. Parhon. Ann. Sci. Nat. (Zool.), Series g. Vol. IX, p. 39. 
2Parhon gives 32°C. as the winter temperature (in the cluster), but the balance of 
opinion seems to be in favour of 12°C. Should the bees be disturbed, the temperature 
will rise temporarily to 32° (Tseselsky, Revue Int. d’Apiculture, 1894) ; whence perhaps 
Parhon’s result, the insertion of the thermometer having disturbed the cluster, 
