Hexagonal Cells by Bees and Wasps. 137 
as on the sheet of artificial bases exhibited, that the bees have at 
once availed themselves of this adventitious aid? does it not 
almost naturally occur to us, that these hexagonal ground-plans 
must be exactly such plans as they are accustomed to erect their 
hexagonal cells upon? does it not impress upon our minds the 
possibility, and even something more than that, the probability, 
that in whatever manner bees first commence their work, for 
instance, by making cylindrical excavations, does it not appear 
almost certain, that the bases of several cells are formed, and that 
each is perfectly pyramidal in shape, before a single wall is com- 
menced? Such must be the conclusion arrived at by all who 
believe that insects can only work in one direction, and I think it 
must be admitted, that the very fact of the bees at once accepting 
the plan furnished, argues strongly in favour of the supposition 
that bees, when left entirely to their own resources, construct a 
precisely similar basement. 
I would now direct attention to a large piece of a comb of the 
common wasp, Vespa vulgaris, and also to another of drone cells 
of the hive-bee, Zpis mellifica, and I would point to a very marked 
difference in the construction of the cells; those of the hive-bee 
have always, whether finished or unfinished, a thickened rim of 
wax, the sides of the cells themselves are so thin and brittle that 
a constant traversing of the working bees over them would other- 
wise break and more or less destroy them. It is quite evident 
then, that whenever an addition is made to the height of a cell, 
this thickened rim must be scraped down to the same thinness as 
the planes of the hexagon beneath. This rim is always found on 
the cells, even when no further addition is intended to be made. 
The wasp, you will observe, never requires a strengthening rim, 
the walls of her cells are carried up in hexagonal planes, to me, 
as evidently as if constructed by the hand of a mason. 
Does then the fact of the bee always adopting the thickened 
rim indicate a different process of building, whereby the hexa- 
gonal-shaped cell is ultimately produced? or is it simply a neces- 
sity for insuring the safety of her work? Had it heen removed 
when the cell was finished, I should have been led to suppose, 
that the cells of the hive bee were built by a different process ; 
but, as it is always present, it rather appears to indicate the neces- 
sity of the rim as a mode of securing and strengthening the work. 
So much, indeed, does the hexagonal principle appear to guide 
wasps in their operations, that one species, Apoica pallida, not 
only builds hexagonal cells, but she also, occasionally, constructs 
the entire comb itself of a hexagonal shape; now, here is no 
