And yet, for all this, there exists not a single instance of a swarm refusing its duty, or allowing itself to be baffled or discouraged by the strangeness of its surroundings, except only in the case of the new dwelling being absolutely uninhabitable, or impregnated with evil odours. And even then the bees will not be disheartened or bewildered; even then they will not abandon their mission. The swarm will simply forsake the inhospitable abode, to seek better fortune some little distance away. And similarly it can never be said of them that they can be induced to undertake any illogical or foolish task. Their common-sense has never been known to fail them; they have never, at a loss for definite decision, erected at haphazard structures of a wild or heterogeneous nature. Though you place the swarm in a sphere, a cube, or a pyramid, in an oval or polygonal basket, you will find, on visiting the bees a few days later, that if this strange assembly of little independent intellects has accepted the new abode, they will at once, and unhesitatingly and unanimously have known how to select the most favourable, often humanly speaking the only possible spot in this absurd habitation, in pursuance of a method whose principles may appear inflexible, but whose results are strikingly vivid. When installed in one of the huge factories, bristling with frames, that we mentioned just now, these frames will interest them only to the extent in which they provide them with a basis or point of departure for their combs; and they very naturally pay not the slightest heed to the desires or intentions of man. But if the apiarist have taken the precaution of surrounding the upper lath of some of these frames with a narrow fillet of wax, they will be quick to perceive the advantage this tempting offer presents, and will carefully extract the fillet, using their own wax as solder, and will prolong the comb in accordance with the indicated plan. Similarly--and the case is frequent in modern apiculture--if all the frames of the hive into which the bees have been gathered be covered from top to bottom with leaves of foundation-wax, they will not waste time in erecting buildings across or beside these, or in producing useless wax, but, finding that the work is already half finished, they will be satisfied to deepen and lengthen each of the cells designed in the leaf, carefully rectifying these where there is the slightest deviation from the strictest vertical. Proceeding in this fashion, therefore, they will possess in a week a city as luxurious and well-constructed as the one they have quitted; whereas, had they been thrown on their own resources, it would have taken them two or three months to construct so great a profusion of dwellings and storehouses of shining wax. {43}