EARLY WORK IN THE BEE-CITY 91 



building similar in construction, and as densely 

 crowded with human beings, brings the whole 

 problem to a sharp definition. In such a building, 

 unless a through-current of air could be estab- 

 lished, the preservation of life must soon become 

 impossible. Yet the bees have triumphantly over- 

 come all difficulties. Whether in winter or summer, 

 the air within the hive is almost as pure as that in 

 the open, while the temperature can be regulated 

 at will. For the ordinary purposes of the hive — 

 honey-brewing, and the hatching of the young 

 brood — it is kept uniformly at 80° to 85°. When 

 the wax-makers are at work, it rises suddenly to 

 95" or so, while at the time of the swarming- 

 fever it is often allowed to go even higher. In 

 the hottest days of summer, however, unless the 

 emigration-furore possesses the colony, the interior 

 of a well-made hive seldom shows a temperature 

 of more than 80°. And all this is brought about 

 in a very simple fashion. 



The sanitary expert, of merely human stock, 

 could attack the problem in only one way. He 

 must have a through-current of air, impelled either 

 mechanically or automatically ; and he must have 

 heating-apparatus acting within the building itself, 

 or warming the incoming draught of air. But the 

 bees work on totally different principles. They 

 will have nothing to do with the through-current 

 system of ventilation. If the ingenious bee-master 

 pierce air-holes in the walls of a hive, the bees 



