394 



INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



of building cells, yet how can we conceive of that which in 

 particular circumstances forces them to act in an opposite di- 

 rection, and determines them to demolish what they have so 

 laboriously constructed ? 1 



Drones, or male bees, are more bulky than the workers ; 

 and you have been told, in speaking of the habitations of in- 

 sects, that the cells which bees construct for rearing the 

 larvae of the former are larger than those destined for the 

 education of the larva? of the latter. The diameter of the 

 cells of drones is always 3^ lines (or twelfths of an inch), 

 that of those of workers 2§- lines ; and these dimensions are 

 so constant in their ordinary cells, that some authors have 

 thought they might be adopted as an universal and invariable 

 scale of measure, which would have the great recommend- 

 ation of being every where at hand, and at all events would 

 be preferable to our barley-corns. Several ranges of male 

 cells, sometimes from thirty to forty, are usually found in 

 each comb, generally situated about the middle. Now as 

 these cells are not isolated, but form a part of the entire 

 comb, corresponding on its two faces — by what art is it 

 that the bees unite hexagonal cells of a small with others 

 of a larger diameter, without leaving any void spaces, and 

 without destroying the uniformity and regularity of the 

 comb ? This problem would puzzle an ordinary artist, but 

 is easily solved by the resources of the instinct of our little 

 workmen. 



When they are desirous of constructing the cells of males 

 below those of workers, they form several ranges of interme- 

 diate or transition cells, of which the diameter augments pro- 

 gressively, until they have reached that range where the 

 male cells commence ; and in the same manner, when they 

 wish to revert to the modelling of the cells of workers, they 

 pass by a gradually decreasing gradation to the ordinary 

 diameter of the cells of this class. We commonly meet with 

 three or four ranges of intermediate cells before coming to 

 those of males ; the first ranges of which participate in some 

 measure in the irregularity of the former. 



• Huber, ii. 228. 



