The Life of the Bee 
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, occupied solely with the mainte- 
nance of the heat required by those who are 
moulding the wax and rearing the brood, 
that the Apis dorsata, hanging thus from 
the branches, will construct but a single 
comb; whereas if she have the least shelter, 
she will erect four or five or more, and will 
proportionately increase the prosperity and 
population of the colony. And indeed 
we find that all species of bees existing in 
cold and temperate regions have abandoned 
this primitive method. The intelligent 
initiative of the insect has evidently received 
the sanction of natural selection, which has 
allowed only the most numerous and best 
protected tribes to survive our winters. 
What had merely been an idea, therefore, and 
opposed to instinct, has thus by slow degrees 
become an instinctive habit. But it is none 
the less true that in forsaking the vast light 
of nature that was so dear to them and 
seeking shelter in the obscure hollow of a 
306 
