Insect architecture / [Anon].

  • James Rennie
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

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    combs in any other direction, We endeavoured to puzzle them with a hive glazed above and below, so that they had no place of support but the upright sides of their dwelling; but, betaking themselves to the upper angle, they built their combs perpendicular to one of these sides, and as regularly as_ those — whichthey usually build’ under a horizontal surface. ~The foundations were laid on a place which does not serve .naturally for the base, yet, except in the dif- ~ ference of direction, the first row of cells resembled those in ordinary hives, the others being distributed on both faces, while the bottoms alternately corre- - sponded with the same symmetry. I put the bees to clination to carry their combs, by the shortest way, to the opposite side of the hive (for they prefer uniting them to wood, or a surface rougher than. glass), I covered it with a pane. Whenever this, smooth and slippery substance was imterposed .he-, tween them and the wood, they departed from. the, straight line hitherto followed, and bent the struc+ ture of their. comb at. a right angle to what was. al- tremity might. reach another side of the. hive, which _-had been left free. ‘“< Varying this experiment in several ways, I saw the bees constantly change the direction of ‘their combs, when I presented to them a surface too smooth to admit of their clustering on it. They al- — ways sought the wooden sides. I thus compelled them to curve the combs in the strangest shapes, by placing a pane at acertain distance from their edges. These results “indicate a degree of instinct truly wonderful. They denote even more than instinct: for glass is not a substance against which bees can be warned by nature. In trees, their natural abode, there is nothing that resembles it, or with the same
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