3i6 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
varieties. Fortunately, it is in the very nature of things 
impracticable to “hybridise” our hive bees with dorsata, 
over which we may inscribe “ Requiescat in pace!' 
But it is still necessary to point out that the 
smaller the creature, the greater, relatively, are its 
powers, both for a mechanical and a physiological 
reason. First, other things being equal, as an animal 
is enlarged, its weight increases as the cube, and its 
strength as the square only, of the ratio of the lineal 
increase. Thus, if a man could be developed until his 
6ft. stature became i8ft., his weight would be increased 
no less than twenty-seven times ; while his muscles, 
because three times their former width and thickness, 
would have only nine times their former power. Such 
a man would be just able to stand; but if he were to 
stoop to pick up a pebble, he would be too weak to 
rise again to the erect posture. This aspect of the 
question is quite mechanical, and may be further 
illustrated thus : An ordinary lucifer match, supported 
horizontally at the ends, will bear about 7000 times 
its own weight suspended from its centre ; but by 
enlarging it 240 times, it becomes a great baulk 
of timber, which would be broken by once its 
own weight similarly suspended. Here we have 
the reason why ants can build nests which, in 
relative size, utterly transcend anything bigger creatures 
can accomplish ; why some insects can jump even a 
hundred times or more their own height, while the 
gazelle can, at a push, do twice, and man and the horse 
once theirs, leaving the elephant to disdain jumping, 
as unsuited to his ponderous dignity. 
The physiological reason is equally striking. Creatures 
