428 INSTINCTS OF BKES. 



their works, speedily begun to run out waxen braces from 

 the comb to each side of the glass, and by continuing this 

 device until they could make an attachment to the roof, they 

 met with no mishap. The work when completed presented a 

 curious specimen of wise adaptation of means to a special 

 end. The most of those braces were subsequently removed. 

 Could our most skillful master-builders contrive, under similar 

 circumstances, a better mode of procedure ? 



I shall finish what I have to say on this subject by narrat- 

 ing an instance of sagacity which seems to approach as near 

 to human reason, as any thing in the bee which has ever 

 fallen under my notice. I once placed a swarm of bees, 

 temporaril}' into a small model hive, which I had constructed 

 to test the feasibility of some new plans for facilitating the 

 storing of surplus honey in small tumblers. The bees soon 

 filled the hive, and stored about a dozen glasses with honey. 

 I was called away from them, for a few days, and was much 

 surprised, on my return, to find that the honey which had 

 been stored in the hive and sealed for Winter use, was all gone, 

 and that the cells which had contained it, were filled with 

 eggs and young worms ! The hive stood in a covered bee 

 house, and the bees had built a large quantity of comb on 

 the outside of the hive, into which they had transferred the 

 honey taken from the interior. This very laborious and un- 

 usual procedure, was manifestly adopted to give the poor 

 queen a place within the hive, for laying her eggs : for this 

 purpose they deliberately uncapped and emptied all the cells 

 so carefully sealed over, instead of using the new comb on 

 the outside, for the brood. 



" Shall then proud sophists, arrogant and vain. 

 Spurn all the wonders of the honey'd reign, 

 And bid alike one mindless inflaence own 

 The social bee and crystalizing stone ? 



