3 oo2 THE JOINTED ANIMALS 



regular hexagon is found in the comb of the Melipona bee, which forms cylindrical 

 cells, but so close together that the partition wall becomes a flat plate, since it is 

 impossible for a thin sheet to be concave Dn both sides at once; modifications from 

 this form combined with modified instincts would eventually produce a regular 

 hexagon. It is to be borne in mind, however, that this form arises not because the 

 bees are aware that a regular hexagon is the most economic form of cell they can 

 adopt, but simply because, when a group of bees stand close to each other, and 

 form cells of pliant wax, whose walls break through at all points on account of 

 their proximity, rendering it necessary to build up a flat wall between, they can- 

 not fashion it in any other way. For at all points of a single cell, six bees at the 

 sides, and six bees below are constantly encroaching and fitting in the sides and 

 corners of their own cells, around that of each single bee. Bees have proved in 

 practice what to the mathematicians is inevitable in theory. Nevertheless, bees 

 are not compelled to form their combs in this or that way without any power of ad- 

 aptation to special circumstances. They construct their comb and hang their con- 

 nections wherever the holding seems likely to be most secure, and thus, on a less 

 complicated plane of intelligence, carry out precisely what human beings accomplish 

 under more complex conditions, namely, they adapt means to ends. The difference 

 is one of degree, not of kind. 



The fact that eggs are laid by a single female of unusual size is noteworthy. 

 Bee colonies, however, unlike those of the social wasps, are permanent, hibernating 

 during the winter. Bach wasp colony or nest originates from a single female, which 

 survives through the winter and by herself lays the foundation of a new colony. 

 Among bees a certain number of workers, or nonfertile females, are set apart as 

 maids-in-waiting, who attend to the queen's wants in the matter of food, which are 

 considerable during the period of laying. A single egg is laid in each cell, and, as 

 mentioned before, larger cells are set apart for the queens; the difference between 

 these and the nonfertile females being entirely brought about by the difference in 

 food. This, however, is not the case with the males, and it is a disputed point 

 whether the queen can control the sex of any particular egg, or whether she can 

 select a male egg as she proceeds with the laying. Certain it is, at any rate, that 

 when she reaches a drone or male cell, which is larger, she deposits an egg which 

 will become a male. It has usually been asserted that unfertilized eggs become 

 males, while those which are fertilized turn out females. This may be the case, 

 and certainly would tend to bear out the general truth that absence of nutrition 

 tends to give the male element greater preponderance in the progeny, though the 

 immediate physical conditions on which the sex of the offspring depends are imper- 

 fectly known. A superabundance of males is, as a rule, associated with failing pro- 

 visions and loss of bodily energy, and this is borne out by the fact that when the 

 queen is old she is apt to lay too many drone eggs. This, however, is a failing 

 which the community cannot put up with, and if the queen be unable to produce 

 profitable offspring she is put to death. Still both bees and queens well know that 

 the one supreme calamity which can befall the bee community is to be left without 

 a queen, not because they need her rule, but because on her alone rests the future of 

 the colony. And it has been asserted that if two queens only remain, and are con- 



