The Life of the Bee 
calculation, the industry, our little people 
of emigrants will be called upon to display in 
order to adapt this new dwelling to their re- 
quirements. In the void round about them 
they must lay the plans for their city, and 
logically mark out the site of the edifices 
which must be erected as economically and 
quickly as possible, for the queen, eager 
to lay, is already scattering her eggs on 
the ground. And in this labyrinth of 
complicated buildings, so far existing only 
in imagination, laws of ventilation must be 
considered, of stability, solidity; resistance 
of the wax must not be lost sight of, or 
the nature of the food to be stored, or the 
habits of the queen; ready access must be 
contrived to all parts, and careful attention 
be given to the distribution of stores and 
houses, passages and streets—this, however, 
is in some measure pre-established, the plan 
already arrived at being organically the best 
—and there are countless problems besides, 
whose enumeration would take too long. 
Now the form of the hive that man offers 
to the bee knows infinite variety, from 
the hollow tree or earthenware vessel still 
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