HOW HONEYBEES PRODUCE HONEYCOMB 



267 



canals on Mars. He maintains that 

 nature does nothing in straight lines. 

 You never saw an absolutely straight 

 tree, a straight mountain ridge, a 

 straight brook in a meadow. You 

 never have known a woodchuck to dig 

 a square hole nor any other kind with 

 angles, neither does the woodpecker 

 make an angular hole, [f we enter 

 the realm of the honeybee and of other 

 members of the Hymenoptera, we shall 

 observe that no mud wasp makes 

 angles on the sides of its cells. The 

 carpenter bee does not bore an angular 

 opening. All excavations and all nests 

 of all forms of animal life are normally 

 free from angular outlines. He that 

 gives the matter consideration will nat- 

 urally feel that the hexagons of the 



"The Melipona itself is intermediate 

 in structure between the hive and the 

 bumblebee, but more nearly related to 

 the latter ; it forms a nearly regular wax- 

 en comb of cylindrical cells in which the 

 young are hatched, and, in addition, some 

 large cells of wax for holding honey. 

 These latter cells are nearly spherical and 

 of nearly equal sizes, and are aggregated 

 into an irregular mass. But the import- 

 ant point to notice is that these cells are 

 always made at that degree of nearne-- n 1 

 each other that they would have in 

 tersected or broken into each other if 

 the spheres had been completed ; but 

 this is never permitted, the bees build- 

 ing perfectly flat walls of wax between 

 the spheres which thus tend to inter- 

 sect." 



QUEEN CELLS, PEANUT-SHAPED, WITH NO SURROUNDING PRESSURE ARE ALWAYS 



CIRCULAR. 



honeybee's comb are associated with 

 something beyond and outside of bio- 

 logical law. This circular habit con- 

 tinues even with some of the social Hy- 

 menoptera. It is known to every boy that 

 has dug out a bumblebees' nest, that 

 the honey is in tubes of wax, or in i-^epa- 

 rate and irregularly rounded cells of wax. 

 Darwin was puzzled by this fact, be- 

 cause at one end of the series he had 

 the cells of the hive bee in a double 

 laver, each one hexagonal prism, and 

 at the other the bumblebees that 

 utilize their old cocoons which are cir- 

 cular, or make a wax tube. He reasoned 

 regarding the intermediate form of the 

 Melipona domestica, which was care- 

 ful lv described and figured by Pierre 

 Huber. and decided :- 



Therein is the secret. The honey- 

 bee has not learned to make hexagons, 

 but she crowds so much into a little 

 space, putting her tubes so close to- 

 gether that they intersect. The sides 

 are flattened, and the cells become hex- 

 agonal. Only three forms can be put 

 together without interstices — the 

 square, the triangle, and the hexagon. 

 The hexagon most nearly approaches 

 the circle and would be well adapted to 

 curved or circular larvae. If the 

 honeybee had plenty of room, she 

 would make all her cells circular. 

 This is proved by the circumstantial 

 evidence, that when she has a suffi- 

 ciently important larva to care for, she 

 takes plenty of room and makes a cir- 

 cular cell for the queen. The cells at 



