196 
THE HIVE AND HONEY-BEE. 
sufficiently developed to impel her to fly abroad, and 
seek for honey .and pollen among the flowers. 
“ I made, further, the following observations respecting 
the domestic employments of the young Italian bees: 
“ 1 . On the 20th of May, I took out of the hive all the 
combs it contained, and replaced them after examination. 
On inspecting them half an hour later, I was surprised to 
see that the edges of the combs, which had been cut on 
removal, were covered by Italian bees exclusively. On 
closer examination, I found that they were busily engaged 
in re-attaching the combs to the sides of the hive. When 
I brushed them away, they instantly returned, in eager 
haste, to resume their labors. 
“ 2. After making the foregoing observations, I inserted 
in the hive a bar from which a comb had been cut, to as¬ 
certain whether the rebuilding of comb would be under¬ 
taken by the Italian bees. I took it out again a few hours 
subsequently, and found it covered almost exclusively by 
Italian workers, though the colony, at that time, still con¬ 
tained a large majority of common bees. I saw that they 
were sedulously engaged in building comb ; and they 
prosecuted the work unremittingly, whilst I held the bar 
m my hand.* I repeated this experiment several days in 
succession, and satisfied myself that the bees engaged in 
this work were always almost exclusively of the Italian 
race. Many of them had scales of wax visibly protruding 
between their abdominal rings. These observations show 
that, in the early stage of their existence, the impulse for 
comb-building is stronger than later in life. 
“ 3. Whenever I examined the colony during the first 
three weeks after the Italian bees emerged, I found the 
brood-combs covered principally by bees of that race: 
* I have had a queen which continued to lay eggs in a comb, after It was removed 
from the hive. 
