139 



CHAPTER VI. 



ARCHITECTURE OF THE HIVE-BEE CONTINUED FOBM OF 

 THE CELLS. 



HE obstruction of which M. Huber complains only ope- 

 rated as a stimulus to his ingenuity in contriving how he 

 might continue his interesting observations. From the time 

 of Pappus to the present day, mathematicians have applied 

 the principles of geometry to explain the construction of the 

 cells of a bee-hive; but though their extraordinary regu- 

 larity, and wonderfully-selected form, had so often been 

 investigated by men of the greatest talent, and skilled in all 

 the refinements of science, the process by which they are con- 

 structed, involving also the causes of their regularity of form, 

 had not been traced till M. Huber devoted himself to the 

 inquiry. 



As the wax-workers secrete only a limited quantity of wax, 

 it is indispensably requisite that as little as possible of it 

 should be consumed, and that none of it should be wasted. 

 Bees, therefore, as M. Keaumur well remarks,* have to solve 

 this difficult geometrical problem : a quantity of wax being 

 given, to form of it similar and equal cells of a determinate 

 capacity, but of the largest size in proportion to the quantity 

 of matter employed, and disposed in such a manner as to 

 occupy the least possible space in the hive. This problem 

 is solved by bees in all its conditions. The cylindrical form 

 would seem to be best adapted to the shape of the insect ; 

 but had the cells been cylindrical, they could not have been 

 applied to each other without leaving a vacant and superfluous 

 space between every three contiguous cells. Had the cells, 

 on the other hand, been square or triangular, they might 



* Reaumur, vol. v., p. 380. 



