Insect architecture / [Anon].

  • James Rennie
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insect architecture / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ; bi we 4 is composed of a smooth, shining, horn-like sub- stance, hollowed out in the substance of the limb, and surrounded with a margin of strong and thickly- set bristles. Whatever materials, therefore, may be placed by the bee in the interior of this basket, are secured from falling out by the bristles around it, whose elasticity will even allow the load to be heaped beyond their points without letting it fall. In the case of propolis, when the bee is loading her singular basket, she first kneads the piece she has detached with her mandibles, till it becomes somewhat dry and less adhesive, as otherwise it would stick’.to her limbs. _ This. preliminary process some- times occupies nearly half an hour. She then passes it backwards by means of her feet to the cavity of her basket, giving it two or three pats to make it adhere; and when she adds a second portion to the first, she often finds it necessary to pat it still harder, When she has procured as much as the basket will conye- niently hold, she flies off with it to the hive. ‘Tue Buitpine or rue Cetts. The notion commonly entertained respecting glass hives is altogether erroneous. ~Those who are un- acquainted with bees imagine, that, by means of a and recorded; but it is to be remembered that bees their first operation in such cases is to close up every chink by which light can enter to disturb them, either by clustering together, or by a plaster com- posed_of propolis. . It consequently requires con- siderable management and ingenuity, even with the aid of a glass hive, to see them actually at work. M. Huber employed a hive with leaves, which opened
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