450 HYBERNATION OF INSECTS. 
we may infer, that though bees are not strictly torpid at 
that lowest degree of heat which they can sustain, yet 
that when exposed to ¢hat degree they consume consi- 
derably less food than at a higher temperature ; and con- 
sequently that the plan of placing hives im a north aspect 
in sunny and mild winters may be adopted by the apiarist. 
with advantage. John Hunter’s experiment, indeed, 
cited above, in which he found that a hive grew lighter 
in a cold than in a warm week, seems opposed to this 
conclusion; but an insulated observation of this kind, 
which we do not know to have been instituted with a 
due regard to all the circumstances that required atten- 
tion, must not be allowed to set aside the striking facts. 
of a contrary description recorded by Reaumur and cor- 
roborated by the almost universal sentiment of writers 
on bees.—After all, however, on this point, as well as on 
many others connected with the winter economy of these 
endlessly-wonderful insects, there is evidently much yet 
to be observed, and many doubts which can be satisfac- 
torily dispelled only by new experiments. 
The degree of cold which most inseets in their diffe- 
rent states, while torpid, are able to endure with impu- 
nity, is very various; and the habits of the differen: 
species, as to the situation which they select to pass the 
winter, are regulated by their greater or less sensibility © 
in this respeet. Many insects, though able to sustain a 
degree of cold sufficient to induce torpidity, would be 
destroyed by the freezing temperature, to avoid which 
they penetrate into the earth or hide themselves under 
non-conducting substances ; and there can be little doubt 
that it is with this view that so many species while pupse 
