preliminary exploration of the neighbourhood, and if they
discover a convenient dwelling-place--say, an old basket, or
anything of the kind--they will take possession of it, clean
it, and guard it, sometimes for a whole week, till the swarm
comes to settle therein. But how many human settlers will perish
in new countries simply for not having understood the necessity
of combining their efforts! By combining their individual
intelligences they succeed in coping with adverse circumstances,
even quite unforeseen and unusual, like those bees of the Paris
Exhibition which fastened with their resinous propolis the
shutter to a glass-plate fitted in the wall of their hive.
Besides, they display none of the sanguinary proclivities and
love of useless fighting with which many writers so readily endow
animals. The sentries which guard the entrance to the hive
pitilessly put to death the robbing bees which attempt entering
the hive; but those stranger bees which come to the hive by
mistake are left unmolested, especially if they come laden with
pollen, or are young individuals which can easily go astray.
There is no more warfare than is strictly required.

The sociability of the bees is the more instructive as
predatory instincts and laziness continue to exist among the bees
as well, and reappear each. time that their growth is favoured by
some circumstances. It is well known that there always are a
number of bees which prefer a life of robbery to the laborious
life of a worker; and that both periods of scarcity and periods
of an unusually rich supply of food lead to an increase of the
robbing class. When our crops are in and there remains but little
to gather in our meadows and fields, robbing bees become of more
frequent occurrence; while, on the other side, about the sugar