284 ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



bees had excavated too quickly, and convex on the opposed 

 side where the bees had worked less quickly. In one well 

 marked instance, I put the comb back into the hive, and 

 allowed the bees to go on working for a short time, and 

 again examined the cell, and I found that the rhombic plate 

 had been completed, and had become perfectly flat: it was 

 absolutely impossible, from the extreme thinness of the little 

 plate, that they could have effected this by gnawing away 

 the convex side ; and I suspect that the bees in such cases 

 stand on opposite sides and push and bend the ductile and 

 warm wax (which as I have tried is easily doiic) into its 

 proper intermediate plane, and thus flatten it. 



From the experiment of the ridge of vermilion wax we 

 can see that, if the bees were to build for themselves a thin 

 wall of wax, they could make their cells of the proper shape, 

 by standing at the proper distance from each other, by exca- 

 vating at the same rate, and by endeavouring to make equal 

 spherical hollows, but never allowing the spheres to break 

 into each other. Now bees, as may be clearly seen by exam- 

 ining the edge of a growing comb, do make a rough, circum- 

 ferential wall or rim all round the comb ; and they gnaw this 

 away from the opposite sides, always working circularly as 

 they deepen each cell. They do not make the whole three- 

 sided pyramidal base of any one cell at the same time, but 

 only that one rhombic plate which stands on the extreme 

 growing margin, or the two plates, as the case may be; and 

 they never complete the upper edges of the rhombic plates, 

 until the hexagonal walls are commenced. Some of these 

 statements differ from those made by the justly celebrated 

 elder Huber, but I am convinced of their accuracy; and if 

 I had space, I could show that they are conformable with 

 my theory. 



Ruber's statement, that the very first cell is excavated out 

 of a little parallel-sided wall of wax, is not, as far as I have 

 seen, strictly correct; the first commencement having always 

 been a little hood of wax; but I will not here enter on de- 

 tails. We see how important a part excavation plays in the 

 construction of the cells; but it would be a great error to 

 suppose that the bees cannot build up a rough wall of wax in 

 the proper position — that is, along the plane of intersection 



