EARLY WORK IN THE BEE.CITY gI 
building similar in construction, and as densely 
crowded with human beings, brings the whole 
problem to a sharp definition. In sucha building, 
unless a through-current of air could be estab- 
lished, the preservation of life must soon become 
impossible. Yet the bees have triumphantly over- 
come all difficulties. Whether in winter or summer, 
the air within the hive is almost as pure as that in 
the open, while the temperature can be regulated 
at will, For the ordinary purposes of the hive— 
honey-brewing, and the hatching of the young 
brood—it is kept uniformly at 80° to 85°. When 
the wax-makers are at work, it rises suddenly to 
95° or so, while at the time of ‘the swarming- 
fever it is often allowed to go even higher. In 
the hottest days of summer, however, unless the 
emigration-furore possesses the colony, the interior 
of a well-made hive seldom shows a temperature 
of more than 80°. And all this is brought about 
in a very simple fashion. 
The sanitary expert, of merely human stock, 
could attack the problem in only one way. He 
must have a through-current of air, impelled either 
mechanically or automatically ; and he must have 
heating-apparatus acting within the building itself, 
or warming the incoming draught of air. But the 
bees work on totally different principles. They 
will have nothing to do with the through-current 
system of ventilation. If the ingenious bee-master 
pierce air-holes in the walls of a hive, the bees 
