614 
APPENDIX. 
length, is cut off, and a hole is bored through the sides into the hollow, at about 
its middle. The ends of the hollow are then stopped up with clay, and the future 
hive is suspended on a tree, in a horizontal position, with the hole opening to the 
cavity directed also horizontally. Of the hive, thus prepared, a swarm of bees 
speedily take possession, and commence their operations by forming cells for the 
reception of their larvae, and sacs to contain the supex'abundant honey collected 
by them in their excursions. Two such hives, completely formed and occupied, 
were brought to England, safely packed in recent hides. Of these one has 
been forwarded to M. Huber, eminently distinguished for his highly interesting 
observations on the manners of bees ; the other has been presented to the 
Linnean Society. The latter has been carefully divided longitudinally, so as to 
expose its interior; a representation of which is given on the opposite plate, one 
half of the natural size. In this view nearly the whole of the interior is visible ; 
scarcely a score of the cells, and very few of the honey sacs, having been removed 
with the upper portion of the trunk. It represents the comb as it would be seen 
in its natural horizontal position, by an observer looking upon it from above. 
The eye of an observer, accustomed to the regular disposition of the comb in 
the hive of the European bee, is at once struck with the opposite directions 
assumed by it in different parts of that of the Mexican. Instead of the parallel 
vertical layers of comb, we have here layers, some of which assume a vertical, while 
others are placed in a horizontal direction ; the cells of the latter being the most 
numerous. The cells, of course, vary in their direction, in the same manner as 
the comb which they form ; those of the horizontal layers of comb being vertical, 
with their openings upwards, while the cells of the vertical comb are placed in a 
horizontal direction. In the horizontal cells the mouths are partly directed away 
from the entrance to the hive, and partly towards it ; the former direction being 
given to those cells which occupy the middle layers of comb, and the latter to the 
cells which are placed on the side of the hive opposed to the opening. All the 
combs, both vertical and horizontal, are composed of a single series of cells applied 
laterally to each other, and not, as in the Eui’opean hive bee, of two series, the 
one applied against the extremities of the other. The horizontal combs are much 
more regularly formed than the vertical, the latter being broken, and placed at 
uncertain distances, while the horizontal are pei'fectly parallel with each other, 
forming uniform layers, and placed at equal distances. Between these parallel 
combs are processes of wax, partly supporting them, and passing from the base of 
one cell to the junction of others in the next layer. These columns are considerably 
stronger and thicker than the sides of the cells which they support. 
The cells appear to be destined solely for the habitation of the young bees ; 
for in all that have been examined bees have been found. The bee is placed in 
