INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



391 



they substitute in the place of the removed sides of the cells, 

 forming of it thick and massive walls and heavy and shapeless 

 pillars, which they introduce between the comb and the top 

 of the hive so as to agglutinate them firmly together. Huber, 

 who first in modern times witnessed this remarkable modifi- 

 cation of the architecture of bees, observed that not only are 

 they careful not to touch the bottoms of the cells, but that 

 they do not remove at once the cells on both sides of the 

 comb, which in that case might fall down ; but they work al- 

 ternately, first on one side and then on the other, replacing 

 the demolished cells as they proceed with mitys, which firmly 

 fixes the comb to its support. 



The object of this substitution of mitys for wax seems clear. 

 While the combs are new and only partially filled with honey, 

 the first range of cells, originally established as the base and 

 the guide for the pyramidal bottoms of the subsequent ones, 

 serves as a sufficient support for them ; but when they con- 

 tain a store of several pounds, the bees seem to foresee the 

 danger of such a weight proving too heavy for the thin waxen 

 walls by which the combs are suspended, and providently 

 hasten to substitute for them thicker walls, and pillars of a 

 more compact and viscid material. 



But their foresight does not stop here. When they have 

 sufficient wax, they make their combs of such a breadth as to 

 extend to the sides of the hive, to which they cement them 

 by constructions approaching more or less to the shape of 

 cells. But when a scarcity of wax happens before they have 

 been able to give to their combs the requisite diameter, a 

 large vacant space is left between the edges of these combs, 

 which are only fixed by their upper part, and the sides of the 

 hive ; and they might be pulled 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 magazines occurred to Huber. A comb, 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, 



c c 4 



