HOW HONEYBEES PRODUCE HONEYCOMB 323 



new soap bubble instincts that give As a matter of fact in my lectures to 



me, sir, the title of geometrical, hexa- my classes I have always held to that 



gonal artist. You will be surprised to opinion and have tried to demonstrate 



learn that my first soap bubbles were experimentally the fact that such forms 



like the cells of a bumblebee, but I have cannot be formed in any other way 



gradually worked through the various than by pressure. The distribution of 



stages. It took me decades and de- pressure in the fluid content would in- 



cades but I have at last come to artistic evitably result in the circular outline 



perfection." of the bounding walls unless they were 



There is no doubt but that gravita- absolutely rigid. The evidence given 



tion, not skill, brought the balls to the by the free cells in the comb seems to 



ground, and that pressure made beau- me to be sufficient justification for this 



tiful angles within the pile of bubbles, opinion. 



That is the way in which I feel I congratulate you, however, on hav- 

 about Darwin's claim as a part of his ing worked out the thesis in such corn- 

 evolutionary theory that honeybees plete detail and in having massed the 

 have learned how to make hexagons, arguments in favor of it in such a cora- 

 The honeybee, instead of learning plete and convincing fashion. From 

 could not from the very first have my point of view you are absolutely 

 avoided making hexagons, when she correct. 

 rubs off rough wax and scrapes the in- 

 terior of her rising cylindrical pile of a nothing left to be said on the other 

 series of circles of wax. side. 



Stanford University, California: David 



cannot add or state the case better. Starr Jordan, Chancellor. 



Yale University, Osborn Zoological I do not think that you have left any 



Laboratory, New Haven, Connecti- opportunity for anything to be said on 



cut: Alexander Petrunkevitch, Pro- the other side. Bees make hexagons 



fessor of Zoology, Sheffield Scientific because being round animals working 



School. close together, they cannot make any- 



I have carefully read your article, and tmn §" but cylinders, and cylinders be- 



find that I cannot add anything to it, c ? me hexagons where they lie side by 



nor state the case better. There can be Slde - 



no question whatever as to the truth ***** 



of your statement that the hexagons "1 AGREE with you/' 



are the outcome of physical forces. In Harvard University, Bussey Institution 





former years I have worked a great for Research in Applied Biology, 

 deal on bees and have noticed the ir- Forest H ill s , Boston, Massachusetts : 

 regularity of the cells to which you call Economic Entomology, Professor 

 attention and which is apparent even tc W M> wheeler Dean 

 a casual observer. There is no more in- 

 tention in the hexagon construction of In re g" ard to your paper on the hon- 

 the bee cell than in the spiral curve of e y bee l would say that I agree with 

 a snail or the radial structure of a ^ ou tnat # the fundamental shape of the 

 starfish. bee ce ^ is circular in cross section. I 

 ***** believe the paper making wasps show 

 "you are absolutely correct" tne tran sition from circular to hexa- 

 Purdue University, Lafayette, Indi- ? onalcell s m«ch better than the bees. 



ana : School of Science, Stanley Coul- The ? rSt cdI form f d ^ the ™ other 1S 



ter, Dean. circular as are also the cells built 



' " around it, until they are carried up 



1 think that you prove your thesis high enough to interfere with the 



beyond _ the possibility of successful other cells when the outlines become 



contradiction. I have for a long time hexagonal. This is beautifully seen 



been perfectly convinced that the hex- in any of the combs of any of our pa- 



agonal shape of the honeybee cells was per wasp nests and has been carefully 



due to pressure and not to any opera- worked out by Janet in his papers on 



tive intelligence on the part of the bee. the European wasps 



