4.82 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 
contracted; but in winter well-stored magazines are es- 
sential, while from their state of comparative inactivity 
spacious communications are less necessary. On the re- 
turn of spring, however, when the cells are wanted for 
the reception of eggs, the bees contract the elongated 
cells to their former dimensions, and thus re-establish 
the just distances between the combs which the care of 
their brood requires?. But this.is not all. Not only do 
they elongate the cells of the old combs when there is an 
extraordinary harvest of honey, but they actually give to 
the new cells which they construct on this emergency a 
much greater diameter as well as a greater depth”. 
The queen-bee in ordinary circumstanees places each 
egg in the centre of the pyramidal bottom of the cell, 
where it remains fixed by its natural gluten: but in an 
experiment of Huber, one whose fecundation had been 
retarded, had the first segments of her abdomen so swell- 
ed that she was unable to reach the bottom of the cells. 
She therefore attached her eggs (which were those of 
males) to their lower side, two lines from the mouth. As 
the larvee always pass that state in the place where they 
are deposited, those hatched from the eges in question 
remained in the situation assigned them. But the work- 
ing-bees, as if aware that in these circumstances the cells 
would be too short to contain the larvee when fully grown, 
extended their length, even before the eggs were hatched‘. 
Bees close up the cells of the grubs, previously to their 
transformation, with a cover or lid of wax: and in hang- 
ing its abode with a silken tapestry before it assumes the 
pupa state, the grub requires that the cell should not be 
too short for its movements. Bonnet having placed a 
@ [hid. 1, 348. > Tbid. 1. 227. © Huber, i. 119. 
