300 
MR. NEWPORT ON THE TEMPERATURE OF INSECTS. 
of 1835. They were continued almost uninterruptedly until the spring of the present 
year. I had long doubted the statements of naturalists that the Hive Bee does not 
hybernate, but maintains a very high temperature in its dwelling throughout the 
whole winter. This statement is so at variance with everything that is known with 
regard to the habits of insects in this country,, especially those of the same class, the 
Humble Bees, that were it really the case it could not fail to be looked upon as quite 
anomalous in the economy of British insects. Swammerdam, Reaumur, and Huber 
were all of opinion that the Hive Bee does not at all enter into a state of hybernation, 
but continues active during the winter. Huber states expressly*, that so far from 
bees becoming torpid in winter, the temperature of a populous hive ranges from 86° 
to 88° Fahr. when the thermometer in the open air is several degrees below freezing. 
But these authors have been deceived with regard to the real fact. The Hive Bee 
certainly does not become torpid, but if entirely undisturbed it passes into that con- 
dition in which its temperature of body and quantity of respiration are very greatly 
diminished ; — a state of deep sleep in the combs, but a sleep which, so far from being 
continued at a very low atmospheric temperature, then becomes broken, and is only 
continued at a moderate temperature. It is true that when the hive is disturbed in 
the winter, and it becomes so very readily, its temperature is soon raised to a great 
height. There can be no doubt but that this was the case in the observations made 
by the authors just noticed. They must necessarily have disturbed the bees when 
they introduced the thermometer to take the temperature of the hive, since, as I am 
about to prove, there are periods during the winter when the temperature of the hive 
is so greatly reduced, and the bees are so inactive, that the temperature is scarcely 
above that of the open atmosphere ; and when the temperature of the air is increased 
rapidly, that of the hive is even below it for a short period, just as we saw in the ob- 
servations on the temperature of larvae during sleep ; but if at that very period the 
hive become disturbed, its temperature is raised in the course of a few minutes by 
the excitement of the bees to a very great amount above that of the atmosphere, as 
shown in Table XVI. Nos. 204, 205, so that we may fairly conclude that Huber and 
the other naturalists were deceived in their observations by arousing the bees while 
introducing the thermometer. 
The observations detailed in the accompanying Tables on the hive were commenced 
in October, when only a very few bees venture abroad, and were continued with but 
few intermissions to the end of September in the following year, when the bees are 
becoming inactive, and the temperature of the hive is very much reduced. All my 
observations on the Hive Bee were confirmatory of the conclusions deduced from 
observations on other insects, and proved that this useful and interesting little spe- 
cies does not form an exception to the general rule. 
From previous observations on the temperature of insects I had found that the 
* New Observations on the Natural History of Bees, by F. Huber. (Translation.) Third Edition. Edin- 
burgh, 1821, p. 224. 
