INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 4.83 
swarm in a very flat glass hive, the bees constructed one 
of the combs parallel to one of the principal sides, 
where it was so straight that they could not give to the 
cells their ordinary depth. The queen, however, laid 
eges in them, and the workers daily nourished the grubs, 
and closed the cells at the period of transformation. A 
few days afterwards he was surprised to perceive in the 
lids, holes more or less large, out of which the erubs 
partly projected, the cells having been too short to admit 
of their usual movements. He was curious to know how 
the bees would proceed. He expected that they would 
pull all the grubs out of the cells, as they commonly 
do when great disorders in the combs take place. But 
he did not sufficiently give credit to the resources of their 
instinct. ‘They did not displace a single grub—they left 
them in their cells: but as they saw that these cells were 
not deep enough, they closed them afresh with lids much 
more convex than ordinary, so as to give to them a suf- 
ficient depth; and from that time no more holes were 
made in the lids. 
The working bees, in closing up the cells containing 
larvae, invariably give a convex lid to the large cells of 
drones, and one nearly flat to the smaller cells of work- 
ers: but in an experiment instituted by Huber to ascer- 
tain the influence of the size of the cells on that of the 
included larvee, he transferred the larvae of workers to 
the cells of drones. What was the result? Did the bees 
still continue blindly to exercise their ordinary instinct ? 
On the contrary, they now placed a nearly flat lid upon 
these large cells, as if well aware of their being occupied 
by a different race of inhabitants *. 
2 Huber, 1. 233. - 
Z12 
