268 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



BUTTONS. PENNIES, LEAD PENCILS— ANYTHING CIRCULAR— WHEN MASSED HAVE EACH 



ONE SURROUNDED BY SIX. 



the edge of the comb, where there is 

 no pressure on the sides, are in outline 

 always circular, never hexagonal. 



As pointed out years ago by Cowan, 

 an English investigator, these "cells 

 behave mutually like soap bubbles, 

 which when isolated are round ; but if 

 they touch each other, the united films 

 form a perfectly flat wall. If there are 

 many, those in the centre will be hexa- 

 gonal, while those on the outside will 

 have their free sides curved." This is 

 exactly the situation though, as Cowan 

 states, it is denied by some. 



After the bees have manipulated the 

 wax they press it down in a crowded, 

 irregular mass, which, under a micro- 

 scope, looks about like a mass of mortar 

 slumped off from the hod of the carrier. 

 Then the bees scoop out the wax into 

 little holes, and that scooping manifests 

 itself as vestigial, circumstantial evi- 

 dence in the pittings all over the queen- 

 bee cell which give it its peanut-shell 

 roughness. Regarding this Cowan 

 says : 



"As the wax is scooped out it is put 

 on the side walls, which are thereby 

 thickened, and give the mouth of the 

 cell a circular form, in all stages of its 

 progress. Many cells are found into 

 which a bee cannot enter, but as the 

 wax is always added to the top edge 

 she has only to work down inside a 

 very little way, and we presume she 

 does much in the same way that a 



bricklayer would do when building a 

 chimney from the outside, into which 

 he could not introduce his whole body." 



Darwin made extended experiments 

 regarding this, and found that the 

 bees always scoop out the wax from 

 spherical cavities. 



"I separated two combs, and put be- 

 tween them a long, thick, rectangular 

 strip of wax : the bees instantly began 

 to excavate minute circular pits in it ; 

 and as they deepened these little pits, 

 they made them wider and wider until 

 they were converted into shallow 

 basins, appearing to the eye perfectly 

 true or parts of a sphere, and of about 

 the diameter of a cell. It was most 

 interesting to observe that, wherever 

 several bees had begun to excavate 

 these basins near together, they had 

 begun their work at such a distance 

 from each other, that by the time the 

 basins had acquired the above-stated 

 width (i.e. about the width of an ordi- 

 nary cell), and were in depth about 

 one-sixth of the diameter of the sphere 

 of which they formed a part, the rims 

 of the basins intersected or broke into 

 each other. As soon as this occurred. 

 the bees ceased to excavate, and be- 

 gan to build up flat walls of wax on 

 the lines of intersection between the 

 basins, so that each hexagonal prism 

 was built upon the scalloped edge of 

 a smooth basin, instead of on the 

 straight edges of a three-sided pyramid 



