COMMUNITY OF BEES lA A HIVE. 15 



Their patience puts me in mind of a well-known 

 patient donkey. At Carisbrooke Castle, in the Isle 

 of Wight, where Charles the First was confined as 

 a prisoner in 1647, there is a very deep well, three 

 hundred feet deep, and, in order to draw the water, 

 there is a contrivance of a great wooden wheel, which, 

 when it is turned, draws up the bucket. This wheel 

 is made so large and broad that a donkey stands 

 inside, and turns it by stepping on, as if walking, 

 although, in fact, the poor animal never really ad- 

 vances an inch, for, as it moves, the wheel of course 

 moves from under its feet. What dull work does this 

 seem, always stepping on, but always in the same 

 place ! But the donkey, like the bees, is patient. 

 One donkey was known to do it for fifty years, and 

 another for forty years. 



CHAPTER V. 



COMMUNITY OF BEES IN A HIVE. 



The next thing to notice, as we see the bees in hun- 

 dreds going in and out of the same little door, is the 

 fact of their living and working together, and helping 

 one another. They form thus, what is called a com- 

 munity or colony. 



In thus living together they are different from 

 most insects and animals. Indeed, but few do the 

 same. We may find in many cases vast numbers of 

 insects living together in the same place, such as 

 swarms of gnats in a damp cellar, or millions of 



