INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 545 
down by the weight of the honey, did not the bees ensure their stability 
by introducing large irregular masses of wax between their edges and the 
sides of the hive. A striking instance of this art of securing their maga- 
zines occurred to Huber. Acomb, not having been originally well fastened 
to the top of his glass hive, fell down during the winter amongst the 
other combs, preserving, however, its parallelism with them. The bees 
could not fill up the space between its upper edge and the top of the hive, 
because they never construct combs of old wax, and they had not then an 
opportunity of procuring new: at a more favourable season they would 
not have hesitated to build a new comb upon the old one; but it being in- 
expedient at that period to expend their provision of honey in the elabora- 
tion of wax, they provided for the stability of the fallen comb by another 
process. They furnished themselves with wax from the other combs, by 
gnawing away the rims of the cells more elongated than the rest, and then 
betook themselves in crowds, some upon the edges of the fallen comb, 
others between its sides and those of the adjoining combs ; and there 
securely fixed it, by constructing several ties of different shapes between it 
and the glass of the hive : some were pillars, others buttresses, and others 
beams artfully disposed and adapted to the localities of the surfaces joined. 
Nor did they content themselves with repairing the accidents which their 
masonry had experienced; they provided against those which might 
happen, and appeared to profit by the warning given by the fall of one of 
the combs to consolidate the others, and prevent a second accident of the 
same nature. These last had not been displaced, and appeared solidly 
attached by their base; whence Huber was not a little surprised to see 
the bees strengthen their principal points of connection by making them 
much thicker than before with old wax, and forming numerous ties and 
braces to unite them more closely to each other, and to the walls of their 
habitation. What was still move extraordinary, all this happened in the 
middle of January, at a period when the hees ordinarily cluster at the top 
of the hive, and do not engage in labours of this kind.* 
You will admit, I think, that these proofs of the resources of the archi- 
tectural instinct of bees are truly admirable. If, in the case of the substi- 
tution of mitys for the first range of waxen cells, this procedure invariably 
took place in every bee-hive at a jived period — when, for example, the 
combs are two-thirds filled with honey —it would be less surprising; 
but there is nothing of this invariable character about it. It does not, 
as Huber expressly informs us*, occur at any marked and regular period, 
but appears to depend on several circumstances not always combined. 
Sometimes the bees contentthemselves with bordering the sides of the upper 
cells with propolis alone, without altering their form or giving them greater 
thickness. And it is not less remarkable that, from the instances last cited, 
it appears that they ave not confined to one kind of cement for strengthen- 
ing and supporting their combs, but avail themselves of propolis, wax, or a 
mixture of both, as circumstances direct. 
Not to weary you with examples of the modifications of instinct we are 
considering, I shall introduce but three more:—the first, of the mode in 
which bees extend the dimensions of an old comb; the second, of that 
which they adopt in constructing the male cells and connecting them with 
1 Huber, ii, 280. 9 Ibid. ii, 284. note *, 
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