230 THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES 



and the time consumed in collecting the honey, must be an im- 

 portant element of success to any family of bees. Of course the 

 success of the species may be dependent on the number of its 

 enemies, or parasites, or on quite distinct causes, and so be alto- 

 gether independent of the quantity of honey which the bees can 

 collect. But let us suppose that this latter circumstance deter- 

 mined, as it probably often has determined, whether a bee allied 

 to our humble-bees could exist in large numbers in any country; 

 and let us further suppose that the community lived through the 

 winter, and consequently required a store of honey: there can in 

 this case be no doubt that it would be an advantage to our imag- 

 inary humble-bee if a slight modification in her instincts led her 

 to make her waxen cells near together, so as to intersect a little; 

 for a wall in common even to two adjoining cells would save some 

 little labor and wax. Hence, it would continually be more and 

 more advantageous to our humble-bees, if they were to make their 

 cells more and more regular, nearer together, and aggregated into 

 a mass, like the cells of the Melipona ; for in this case a large part 

 of the bounding surface of each cell would serve to bound the ad- 

 joining cells, and much labor and wax would be saved. Again, 

 from the same cause, it would be advantageous to the Melipona, if 

 she were to make her cells closer together, and more regular in 

 every way, than at present ; for then, as we have seen, the spherical 

 surfaces would wholly disappear and be replaced by plane sur- 

 faces; and the Melipona would make a comb as perfect as that 

 of the hive-bee. Beyond this stage of perfection in architecture, 

 natural selection could not lead; for the comb of the hive-bee, as 

 far as we can see, is absolutely perfect in economizing labor and 

 wax. 



Thus, as I believe, the most wonderful of all known instincts, 

 that of the hive-bee, can be explained by natural selection having 

 taken advantage of numerous, successive, slight modifications of 

 simpler instincts ; natural selection having, by slow degrees, more 

 and more perfectly led the bees to sweep equal spheres at a given 

 distance from each other in a double layer, and to build up and 

 excavate the wax along the planes of intersection; the bees, of 

 course, no more knowing that they swept their spheres at one par- 

 ticular distance from each other, than they know what are the 

 several angles of the hexagonal prisms and of the basal rhombic 

 plates; the motive power of the process of natural selection having 

 been the construction of cells of due strength and of the proper 

 size and shape for the larvae, this being effected with the greatest 

 possible economy of labor and wax; that individual swarm which 



