390 



INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



invariably give a convex lid to the large cells of drones, and 

 one nearly flat to the smaller cells of workers ; but in an ex- 

 periment instituted by Huber to ascertain the influence of the 

 size of the cells on that of the included larvae, 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. 1 



On some occasions bees, in consequence of Huber's ar- 

 rangements in the interior of their habitations, have begun to 

 build a comb nearer to the adjoining one than the usual in- 

 terval ; but they soon appeared to perceive their error, and cor- 

 rected it by giving to the comb a gradual curvature, so as to 

 resume the ordinary distance. 2 



In another instance, in which various irregularities had 

 taken place in the form of the combs, the bees, in prolonging 

 one of them, had, contrary to their usual custom, begun two 

 separate and distant continuations, which in approaching in- 

 stead of joining would have interfered with each other, had 

 not the bees, apparently foreseeing the difficulty, gradually 

 bent their edges so as to make them join with such exactness 

 that they could afterwards continue them conjointly. 3 



In constructing their combs, bees, as you have been before 

 told, in my letter on the habitations of insects, form the first 

 range of cells — that by which the comb is attached to the top 

 of the hive — of a different shape from the rest. Each cell, 

 instead of being hexagonal, is pentagonal, having the fifth 

 broadest side fixed to the top of the hive, whence the comb is 

 much more securely cemented to that part than if the first 

 range of cells had been of the ordinary construction. For 

 some time after their fabrication the combs remain in this 

 state ; but at a certain period the bees attack the first range 

 of cells as if in fury, gnaw away the sides without touching 

 the lozenge-shaped bottoms ; and having mixed the wax with 

 propolis, they form a cement well known to the ancients 

 under the names of Mitys, Commosis, and Pissoceros, which 



i Huber, i. 233. 



2 Ibid. ii. 239. 



3 Ibid. ii. 240. 



