HYPOTHESIS OF HUBER. 395 



in which they have established themselves, their works sel- 

 dom extend beyond the limits attained by them during the 

 first year of their occupation. We had an opportunity for 

 several years of observing the motions of a swarm, which 

 had taken up its abode in the roof of Dunsinnan House, in 

 Perthshire, when we observed, that in the year of their first 

 establishment, they had constructed seven combs of about 

 eighteen inches in length : in the second year an elongation 

 was made to two of the side combs, and here the bees ap- 

 peared to have arrived at the ne plus ultra of their operations, 

 for no addition was afterwards made to their combs. 



One of the proofs that Huber adduces in support of his 

 hypothesis of the origin of wax is, that swarms newly settled 

 do not bring home pollen, and, consequently, that as honey 

 is known to be in their stomach, it must be the constituent 

 of wax. Now this alleged proof of Huber is not based on 

 truth, for we never had a swarm, nor ever saw a swarm 

 belonging to others, in which there were not a number of 

 bees actually with pollen on their legs, and that on the fol- 

 lowing clay it was not also conveyed into the hive in a consi- 

 derable quantity. It is scarcely possible to suppose that this 

 circumstance could have escaped the observation of Huber, 

 which has been verified by even the most common observer 

 of the motions of bees, and yet it is attested by Rennie in 

 the Insect Architecture as confirmatory that pollen cannot 

 be the element of wax. The contrary, however, being con- 

 firmed, and it being established beyond the possibility of 

 a doubt, that pollen is conveyed by a swarm into a hive on 

 the very day of its being hived, and further, that they bring 

 it along with them from the parent hive, all tends to throw an 

 additional light on our hypothesis, that pollen is actually the 

 constituent principle of wax. Let a person examine his hive 

 on the third or fourth day after the swarm has been settled, 

 and he will not find a single particle of the pollen deposited 

 in any of the cells. What then has become of the great 

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