In the facts recorded in this chapter we have striking evidence of "the struggle for existence" which seems to have been ordained as "a law of nature" in this world. We can readily discern some useful purposes connected with it, both as regards conquerors and vanquished. For, on the one hand, it is for the benefit of the race that the strongest individuals should, as a rule, survive to propagate it; and, on the other, it is better for a sharp and speedy end to occur to a weak community, rather than that it should perish by the slow pangs of hunger, or from inability to continue the rearing of a progeny. But, even in this respect, as in several others, bees furnish a serious difficulty to the theory of evolution. For it is not the strong and victorious community which propagates the race, but the individual queen; and she, of course, may be weaker than the one whose stock has been destroyed by the more numerous robbers. The case evidently is not a genuine one of "survival of the fittest," so far as the succeeding generations are concerned; nor do we find any special adaptation for future advantages secured. The battle is lost and won, but there can be no impress made, even by successive victories, on the general physical condition of the stronger party; for the fight is never undertaken by a single drone or queen, who alone can transmit any qualities to posterity. CHAPTER XVII. HIVES. Natural Abodes of Wild Bees--Taking Honey from Roof of House-- Straw Skeps--Cottager's Hive--Supering--Nutt's Collateral Hive--Village Hive--Woodbury Hive--Abbott's Hives--Sectional Supering--Stewarton Hive--Carr-Stewarton Hive--Observatory Hives--Bee-houses. In a state of nature bees avail themselves of hollow trees, crevices in rocks, or other cavities of various kinds. Swarms escaped from apiaries will frequently find an entrance to the space between the roof and upper ceilings of houses, and extraordinary quantities of comb, brood, and bees have been taken from such places. Two gentlemen, well known to the writer, have given the following account in _The Bee Journal_ for July 1, 1882, of their successful taking of bees, brood, comb, and honey, from the roof of a house at Lockinge, near Wantage, Berks. "The house is very old, and built of lath and plaster in the old style, with gables. There was a bricklayer at our service to open walls where suggested. We commenced at the back gable, and the bees were situated, one lot in the roof, and two others in the walls. [Illustration]