CREATION BY EVOLUTION 



cavernous structure, such as a hollow tree; or maybe they 

 are enticed into a skip, or hive, by a beemaster. Then their 

 first task is to clean out their new home, smoothing out the 

 walls, and next the worker bees begin to produce wax. A 

 row of them hang on to the top of the hive, and they sup- 

 port a second row, and these a third, 

 and so on until they have a living string 

 or network of bees hanging from the 

 roof. All these bees are producing wax, 

 and in order to do this they must be fed 

 on honey. The wax is secreted by the 

 hinder part of the bee, pressed forward 

 by the legs, and shaped and moulded 

 by the jaws (Fig. 5) . Parallel with this 

 veil of bees will be a second and a third, 

 and maybe more; and every member of 

 the veil is passing wax forward up to 

 the top, where a waxen foundation for 

 the honeycomb is being formed. As 

 soon as a stout foundation has been laid 

 the veil of wax workers breaks up and 

 the bees begin to work independently 

 of one another. Now they add their 

 film of wax indiscriminately to one or 

 another part of the comb. 



The whole of this procedure seems 

 thoroughly unorganized. None of the 

 bees have ever seen a honeycomb before. They are all 

 working in complete darkness. They have no one to direct 

 them, no foreman or master builder, yet so accurate are 

 the results of their work that the cells they make are of 

 uniform size and are so arranged that each cell is hexag- 

 onal in cross section — and a six-sided structure contains 



[188] 



Fig. 4. 

 swarming 



Bees 



