154 



PERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 



eggs, and sometimes into empty ones ; and that they remain 

 in this situation fifteen or twenty minutes, so motionless that, 

 did not the dilatation of the segments of the abdomen prove 

 the contrary, they might be mistaken for dead. He supposes 

 their object is to repose from their labours. 1 The queen, for 

 this purpose, enters the large cells of the males, and continues 

 in them without motion a very long time. Even then the 

 workers form a circle round her, and brush the uncovered 

 part of her abdomen. The drones while reposing do not 

 enter the cells, but cluster in the combs, and sometimes re- 

 main without stirring a limb for eighteen or twenty hours. 2 



Reaumur observes, that in a hive the population of which 

 amounts to 18,000, the number that enter the hive in a 

 minute is a hundred ; which, allowing fourteen hours in the 

 day for their labour, makes 84,000 : thus every individual 

 must make four excursions daily, and some five. In hives 

 where the population was smaller, the numbers that entered 

 were comparatively greater, so as to give six excursions or 

 more to each bee. 3 But in this calculation Reaumur does not 

 seem to take into the account those that are employed within 

 the hive in building or feeding the young brood ; which must 

 render the excursions of each bee still more numerous. 

 He proceeds further to ground upon this statement a calcula- 

 tion of the quantity of bee-bread that may be collected in one 

 day by such a hive ; and he found, supposing only half the 

 number to collect it, that it would amount to more than a 

 pound ; so that in one season one such hive might collect a 

 hundred pounds. 4 What a wonderful idea does this give of 

 the industry and activity of these little useful creatures ! 



i It has been supposed, and the supposition was adopted originally in this 

 work (Vol, I. 1st ed. p 371. ), that the object in this ease is brooding the eggs ; 

 but upon further consideration we incline to Huber's opinion, that it has no 

 connection with it, the ordinary temperature of the hive being sufficient for this 

 purpose ; and the ch-cumstance of their entering unoccupied cells proves that 

 this attitude has no particular connection with the eggs. (Huber, i. 212.) " When 

 large pieces of comb," says Wildman (p. 45.), " were broken off and left at the 

 bottom of the hive, a great number of bees have gone and placed themselves upon 

 them." This looks like incubation. Reaumur, however, affirms (p. 591.) that 

 if part of a comb falls and loses its perpendicular direction, the bees, as if con- 

 scious that they would come to nothing, pull out and destroy all the larvae. They 

 might perhaps remain perpendicular in the case observed by Wildman. 



a Reaum. v. 431. Huber, ii. 212 3 Reaum. v. 432. 



4 Reaum. v. 434. 



