142 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



see that the contraction of the cell may diminish the 

 size of a bee, even to the extinction of life, just as the 

 contraction of a Chinese shoe reduces the foot even to 

 uselcssness *." We know, on the contrary, that the 

 queen-bee will not deposit eggs in a cell either too 

 small or too large lor the proper rearing of the young. 

 In the case of large cells, M. Huber took advantage 

 of a queen that was busy depositing the eggs of work- 

 ers, to remove all the common cells adapted for their 

 reception, and left only the large cells appropriated for 

 males. As this was done in June, when bees are most 

 active, he expected that they would have immediately 

 repaired the breaches he had made, but to his great 

 surprise they did not make the slightest movement 

 for that purpose. In the meanwhile the queen being 

 oppressed by her eggs, was obliged to drop them 

 about at random, preferring this to depositing 

 them in the male cells which she knew to be too 

 large. At length she did deposit six eggs in the 

 large cells, which were hatched, as usual, three days 

 after. The nurse-bees, however, seemed to be aware 

 that they could not be reared there, and, though they 

 supplied them with food, did not attend to them re- 

 gularly. M. Huber found that they had been all re- 

 moved from the cells during the night, and the busi- 

 ness both of laying and nursing was at a complete 

 stand for twelve days, when he supplied them again 

 with a comb of small cells, which the queen almost 

 immediately filled with eggs, and in some cells she 

 laid five or six. 



The architecture of the hive, which we have thus 

 detailed, is that of bees receiving the aid of human 

 care, and having external coverings of a convenient 

 form, prepared for their reception. In this country 

 bees are not found in a wild state; though it is not 

 * North American Uev , Oct. 1828, |>. 355. 



