REAUMUR 273 



over the difficulty by watching bees that were partially 

 benumbed by the cold of a spring morning. He failed 

 to note the antenna- cleaning comb on the fore tibia, or 

 the spike on the mid leg. 



Maraldi had supposed that the bees found their wax 

 ready-made on leaves and flowers. Swammerdam, as 

 we have seen, thought that wax is, in some fashion or 

 other, elaborated by the bees out of the bee-bread, which 

 he did not recognise as a mass of pollen. By the time 

 of Reaumur the origin of the bee-bread presented little 

 difficulty. The use of pollen in the fertilisation of 

 flowers was now generally known, and Geoifroy had de- 

 scribed the pollen-grains of a number of common flowers. 

 Eeaumur still held the old belief of Swammerdam, that 

 bee-bread is the raw material from which wax is made. 



In ancient times Pappus had illustrated the advan- 

 tage of the hexagonal cells of the honeycomb, by 

 proving that of all elongate regular solids, which could 

 be employed in the construction of honey- cells, the 

 hexagonal prism is the most economical of material. 

 Eeaumur proposed to the geometer Koenig to determine 

 what angles are most suitable for the rhombic plates 

 which form the pyramidal ends of the cells, and Kcenig's 

 reply, agreeing exactly with Maraldi's measurement of 

 the angles in an actual honeycomb, became universally 

 celebrated. This incredibly exact correspondence of 

 bee-instinct with mathematical theory has however since 

 been broken down ; the typical form of the cell is rarely, 

 if ever, realised. 



Reaumur did not discover where or how wax is 

 formed ; he thought that the bees regurgitate it from 

 their mouths as a soft paste. He gives useful informa- 

 tion about propolis and its use in stopping chinks. 



The old question, how the eggs of the queen are 



