11 NOVEMBER 1932, Page 12

The process of research is not less interesting than the

discovery. A comb-ful of bee grubs is removed from the hive and put into an incubator (kept approximately at blood-heat). The young bees when they hatch are singularly docile. They may be freely handled and are easily marked by the new material with circles of any desired colour. For the first three tte four days they avoid the light as instinctively as, later, they seek it. If introduced to the hive at once they are ejected, probably because the cellulose spot smells, but after a few days nothing to their disadvantage is noticed. The observa- tion hives (one of an old and less efficient stamp was used by Maeterlinck when he was writing his bee) enable the career of each marked bee to be progressively followed.