NOW" HONEYBEES PRODUCE HONEYCOMB 



26 s 



wonderful skill of the bee in making 

 angles and perfect hexagons in their 

 comb cells. There are two errors in 

 such commendations. First, the bee 

 does not voluntarily make hexagons. 

 The hexagons are the result of physical 



in series — that is, one after another — 

 take the little plates of wax secreted 

 from between the body scales and pack 

 them into circles as crude as a child 

 would make when she makes her mud 

 pies. Under the microscope there is 



THE BEES, LIKE HUGE GUN SWABS, COMPARED WITH SIZE OF CELLS, PRESS IN TO CLEAN 



THE SIDES. 



It is this going in with the consequent pressure on all sides when the wax is warm and soft that 

 presses the circular cells into hexagons. 



laws. They have nothing to do with 

 the "intent" of the bee, nor has the in- 

 tent of the bee anything to do with 

 them. Secondly, they are not perfect. 

 Careful measurement of the various 

 cells has shown that there is variation, 

 due to difference in the size of adjoin- 

 ing cells. At one time it was thought 

 that there could be no better standard 

 of measurement than these hexagons. 

 Naturalists have studied and argued as 

 to how the bees have learned to make 

 them. Even so careful a naturalist as 

 Darwin in his interesting chapter, 

 "Cell-making Instinct of the Hive-Bee," 

 tries to prove his theory of special se- 

 lection by teaching that the bee has 

 learned through the influence of her 

 environment. He admits that the bee 

 makes a rough, circumferential wall or 

 rim all around the comb, and then he 

 tries to explain how the bee has learned 

 to make the hexagons. The honey- 

 bee deserves not one particle of credit 

 for making a beautiful hexagon. All 

 she does is to make a cylinder of wax, 

 and a mightv crude one at that. Bees 



here no symmetry nor beauty, but only 

 the crudest kind of work. The bee 

 heaps up these pellets one after an- 

 other, and the action of a physical law, 

 and that action only, does the rest. 

 She is as little responsible for the hexa- 

 gonal form as she is for the movements 

 of a planet. Both are under control of 

 physical laws totally separate and dis- 

 tinct from any animal organism. For 

 a lifetime, I may have watched that 

 planet on every clear night when it is 

 visible above the horizon, and I may 

 repeatedly have observed that it moves, 

 but I shall never learn how to make it 

 move, nor shall I ever take to myself any 

 credit for its movement. Through un- 

 thinkable ages honeybees have been 

 making crude cylinders of wax, but 

 they never yet have been able to make 

 a hexagon nor to learn how to make one. 

 Darwin and a host of minor lights, 

 chiefly the utilitarian beekeepers, to 

 the contrary notwithstanding. In 

 making this statement T Haim no orig- 

 inality. Eong ago Cheshire, and 

 Cowan said practically the same thing. 



