HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



413 



cell is a distinct, separate, and in some measure an indepen- 

 dent structure, agglutinated only to the neighbouring cells, 

 and that when the agglutinating substance is destroyed, each 

 cell may be entirely separated from the rest.^ 



You must not imagine that all the cells of a hive are of 

 precisely similar dimensions. As the society consists of three 

 orders of insects dilFering in size, the cells which are to con- 

 tain the larv^ of each proportionally differ, those built for 

 the males being considerably larger than those which are in- 

 tended for the workers. The abode of the larvae of the queen 

 bee differs still more. It is not only much larger than any 

 of the rest, but of a quite different form, being shaped like a 

 pear or Florence flask, and composed of a material much 

 coarser than common Avax, of which above one hundred times 

 as much is used in its construction as of pure wax in that of 

 a common cell. The situation, too, of these cells (for there 

 are generally three or four, and sometimes many more, even 

 up to thirty or forty, in each hive) is very different from that 

 of the common cells. Instead of being in a horizontal they 

 are placed in a vertical direction, with the mouth downwards, 

 and are usually fixed to the lower edge of the combs, from 

 which they irregularly project like stalactites from the roof of 

 a cavern. The cells destined for the reception of honey and 

 pollen differ from those which the larvae of the males and 

 workers inhabit only by being deeper, and thus more 

 capacious ; in fact, the very same cells are successively ap- 

 plied to both purposes. When the honey is collected in great 

 abundance, and there is not time to construct fresh cells, the 

 bees lengthen the honey cells by adding a rim to them. 



You will be anxious to learn the process which these 

 ingenious artificers follow in constructing their habitations: 

 and on this head I am happy that the recent publication of a 

 new edition of the celebrated Huber's New Observations on 

 Bees, in which this subject is for the first time elucidated, will 

 enable me to gratify your curiosity. 



1 Memoirs of the Wernerian Society, ii. 259. This, however, has been denied 

 by Mr. Watcrhouse, and seems inconsistent with the account given by Huber 

 hereafter detailed ; but Mr. G. Newport asserts that even the virgin cells are 

 lined with a delicate membrane. (Westwood, Mod. Class, of Ins. ii. 284. ) 



