CHAP. VIII.] CELL-MAKING INSTINCT. 209 



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 done) 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 excavating 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 examining the edge of a growing comb, 

 do make a rough, circumferential 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. 



Huber'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 details. 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 between two adjoining spheres. I have several 

 specimens showing clearly that they can do this. Even in the rude 

 circumferential rim or wall of wax round a growing comb, flexures 

 may sometimes be observed, corresponding in position to the planes 

 of the rhombic basal plates of future cells. But the rough wall of 

 wax has in every case to be finished off, by being largely gnawed 

 away on both sides. The manner in which the bees build is 

 curious ; they always make the first rough wall from ten to twenty 

 times thicker than the excessively thin finished wall of the cell, 

 which will ultimately be left. We shall understand how they 

 work, by supposing masons first to pile up a broad ridge of cement 



