Does the increase of heat supply, to a certain extent, the place of food? Does it render their aliment more nutritive? I have reason to believe, that during the winter, and previous to the breeding season, a small hive consumes as much food as a large one. Do the inmates of the small hive consume individually a greater quantity? and is this greater consumption necessary to keep up the requisite degree of warmth? I propose these inquiries to the Naturalist. After this discovery, as important as it is inexplicable, I varied my experiments in order to insure absolute certainty; and to obtain the most unequivocal proofs of the fact, I united three swarms in autumn, and when I weighed the hive in spring, I found that it had scarcely consumed a pound weight of provisions more than a single hive. I went farther. I had a large hive, well-peopled, and amply provisioned. Without removing it from its place, I joined to it the bees of four other hives. This enormous population produced so strong a heat, that during the whole winter, which was severe, there was heard from them a loud humming, like that which proceeds from a hive on the evening of a fine day in spring. The vapour expelled by the continual vibrating of their wings was condensed, and formed icicles at the entrance of the hive during the hard frosts. Well, when in spring I weighed this hive, which contained five families, and from which had exhaled so much moisture, I found it but three lbs. lighter than my ordinary hives. It threw excellent swarms, long before the others in the apiary, and I was well re-
