APIS. 
355 
The hive is, of course, quite dark within, and to carry on 
the numerous operations which we have noticed are done 
there, either sight of a peculiar nature must lend its aid, 
or some faculty residing in a sensation analogous to 
touch, but which it may be cannot be known, nor where 
it may lie, but if it exist its organ is most probably the 
antennse. We can, it is true, compute their eyes, which 
comprise more than sixteen thousand, namely, about 
eight thousand in each of the compound organs placed 
laterally upon the head, each separate eye being an 
hexagonal facet furnished with its separate lens and 
capillary branch of the optic nerve, and also edged with 
short hair; in this hair, therefore, may lie the particular 
sensation which guides them, for we cannot be sure that 
this large congeries of hexagonal facets facilitate sight in 
the dark, as in number and position they do not exceed 
or differ from the analogous structure and number of the 
same organs in many other insects which we know to be 
only seers by day, and which repose at night; but the 
hairy addition to the eyes of these bees is a structure 
not observed in them. 
This constitution of the hive and its various opera¬ 
tions continues during the remainder of the season until 
the approach of winter cautions them from venturing 
abroad, when, if the temperature of the hive is much 
lowered, they hibernate and remain in a torpid con¬ 
dition until the sunshine of the following spring, and 
with it the flowering of plants, rouses them again to re¬ 
sume their suspended labours. The population of the 
hive having continued to increase, although not so 
vigorously as at first, up to the very intrusion of winter, 
and the renewed year giving renewed energy to the 
queen, the population thence rapidly further increasing, 
2 a 2 
