CHAPTER XXVI 
THE LONG NIGHT IN THE HIVE 
PT HERE are few things more mystifying to the 
student of bee-life than the way in which 
winter is passed in the hive. Probably nineteen out 
of every twenty people, who take a merely 
theoretical interest in the subject, entertain no 
doubt on the matter. Bees hibernate, they will tell 
you—pass the winter in a state of torpor, just as 
many other insects, reptiles, and animals have been 
proved to do. And, though the truth forces itself 
upon scientific investigators that there is no such 
thing as hibernation, in the accepted sense of the 
word, among hive-bees, the perplexing part of 
the whole question is that, as far as modern 
observers understand it, the honey-bee ought to 
hibernate, even if, as a matter of fact, she does not. 
For consider what a world of trouble would be 
saved if, at the coming of winter, the worker-bees 
merely got together in a compact cluster in their 
warm nook, with the queen in their midst; and 
thenceforward slept the long cold months away, 
until the hot March sun struck into them with the 
tidings that the willows—first caterers for the year’s 
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