314 HOW THE WORK GOES ON. 
determine whether it is safe to excavate it, or whether they must stop 
short, and not push their mining operations further. 
The building, as everybody knows, is destined to serve two ends. 
The cells are generally used in summer as cradles, in winter as maga- 
zines of pollen and honey,—a granary of abundance for the republic. 
Each vessel is closed and sealed with a waxen lid, a clétwre religiously 
respected by all the people, who take for their subsistence only a single 
comb,—and when that comb is finished pass on to another, but always 
with extreme reserve and sobriety. 
It has been said and repeated that the construction is absolutely 
uniform. Buffon goes so far as to pretend that the cell is but the iden- 
tical form of the bee, which posts itself in the wax, and by the friction 
of its body, a blind manceuvre, obtains an impress of itself, a hollow, an 
identical cell. A baseless hypothesis, which the least reflection would 
show to be improbable, even if observation did not contradict it. 
In reality, their work is extremely various, and diversified in 
numerous different ways. 
In the first place, the combs are pierced in the centre by corridors or 
little tunnels, which do away with the necessity of traversing two sides. 
Economists in everything, the bees are specially economical of time. 
Secondly, the form of the cells is by no means identical. They 
prefer the hexagon,—the form which is best adapted to secure the 
greatest possible number of cells in the smallest area. But they do not 
slavishly bind themselves to this form. The first comb which they 
attach to the framework would cling to it very insecurely, and only by 
its projecting edges, if it were composed of six-sided cells. They there- 
fore make it with five sides only; and fashion it of pentagonal cells 
with broad bases, which attach themselves solidly to the wood on a con- 
tinuous line. The whole is agglutinated and sealed, not with wax, but 
with their gum, or propolis, which, as it dries, becomes hard as iron. 
The great royal cellules, or cradles of the future mothers, which may 
be seen by the side of the combs, are not six-sided, but of the form of 
an oblong egg,—which secures the royal favourites considerable ease, 
and a great facility of development. 
Finally, you may, with a little attention, detect important differ- 
