204 THE LIFE OF THE BEE 



and a European. In these preliminary remarks, therefore, we 

 will confine ourselves to what actually lies within the range 

 of our eyes, refusing the aid of hypothesis, be this never so 

 probable nor so imperious. We shall mention no facts that are 

 not susceptible of immediate proof; and of such facts we will 

 only rapidly refer to some of the more significant. 



I02 



Let us consider first of all the most important and most 

 radical improvement, one that in the case of man would have 

 called for prodigious labour : the external protection of the 

 community. 



The bees do not, like ourselves, dwell in towns free to 

 the sky and exposed to the caprice of rain and storm, but 

 in cities entirely covered with a protecting envelope. In a 

 state of nature, however, in an ideal climate, this is not the 

 case. If they listened only to their essential instinct, they 

 would construct their combs in the open air. In the Indies 

 the Apis dorsata will not eagerly seek hollow trees or a hole 

 in the rocks. The swarm will hang from the crook of a 

 branch, and the comb will be lengthened, the queen's eggs 

 be laid, provisions be stored, with no shelter other than that 

 which the workers' own bodies provide. Our Northern bees 

 have at times been known to revert to this instinct under the 

 deceptive influence of a too gentle sky, and swarms have been 

 found living in the heart of a bush. 



But even in the Indies the result of this habit, which 

 would seem innate, is by no means favourable. So considerable 

 a number of the workers are compelled to remain on one spot, 



