308 
MR. NEWPORT ON THE TEMPERATURE OF INSECTS. 
through this wooden hive into the straw one above it. The hive being thus enlarged 
the bees did not swarm, but extended their combs from above downwards, and filled 
about one fourth of the interior with them. When they had become perfectly recon- 
ciled to their enlarged dwelling, a second thermometer, similar to the one introduced 
through the top of the straw hive, was passed through the side of the box, about three 
inches from the top, so that it might not touch the combs, from which it was distant 
about three or four inches, while its bulb extended about an inch into the interior of 
the box or wooden hive, and the mercury in the scale indicated from time to time the 
amount of free heat developed, uninfluenced by contact with the bodies of the bees. 
The original thermometer still indicated the apparent temperature at the top of the 
hive among the combs as before. The observations were begun upon the tempera- 
ture of the wooden, or sub-hive, in the middle of July, when the bees had become 
more quiet than in the time of swarming, and when the internal temperature of the 
hive is diminishing. It was soon evident that the quantity of free heat developed 
under these circumstances in the lower part of the hive, where there were no bees 
congregating, was very considerable, and was often equal to, or even greater than that 
of the apparent heat of the top of the straw hive, where the bees were in a state of 
great activity. Sometimes the quantity of free heat at the bottom of the hive amounted 
to 12 0, 8 above that of the external atmosphere, when its temperature was 67°'2 Fahr., 
and when the temperature at the top of the hive was only 13°T above, even at 3 o’clock 
in the afternoon, at which time, in the month of July, the hive is generally hottest, 
from the numbers of bees which then return from the fields. Sometimes in the even- 
ing, when the temperature of the atmosphere is almost always sinking, the free heat in 
the lower part of the hive has amounted to 16 0, 8 above that of the external atmosphere 
at a temperature of 64°, while at the top of the hive the difference has been only 15°'7- 
In these cases the quantity of free heat developed must very far have exceeded the 
amount indicated by the thermometer, since the constant ventilation at the entrance 
of the hive admitted the cool air, and expelled the warm. In all the observations 
thus made care was taken to notice through the window at the back of the hive that 
there were no bees in contact with the bulb of the thermometer. This I had ample 
opportunities of doing, and found that when a bee alighted, even but for a moment, 
upon the bulb of the thermometer, the mercury rose in the scale at least one degree, 
and immediately subsided again when the bee had departed. This is a further proof 
that the temperature of a single bee in a state of activity is greatly above that of the 
medium in which it is living. But it may be urged, perhaps, that this proves very 
little, ana that the rising of the thermometer may occur from the circumstance that 
the bee which came into contact with the bulb had passed suddenly from the top, 
and heated part of the hive, to the lower and cooler, and that the transition of the 
insect from one part of the hive to the other was too sudden to have allowed of its 
being cooled down to the temperature of the lower medium before it touched the 
thermometer. That this was not the case is proved by the circumstance that the 
