546 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 



the smaller cells of workers ; and the last, of the plan pursued by them 

 when it becomes necessary to bend their combs. 



You must have observed that a comb newly made becomes gradually 

 thinner at its edges, the cells there, on each side, progressively decreasing 

 in length ; but in time these marginal cells, as they are wanted for the 

 purposes of the hive, are elongated to the depth of the rest. Now sup- 

 pose bees, from an augmentation of the size of their hive, to have occasion 

 to extend their combs either in length or breadth, the process which they 

 adopt is this : they gnaw away the tops of the marginal cells until the 

 combs have resumed their original lenticular form, and then construct upon 

 their edges the pyramidal lozenge-shaped bottoms of cells, upon which 

 the hexagonal sides are subsequently raised, as in their operation of 

 cell-building. This course of proceeding is invariable : they never extend 

 a comb in any direction whatever without having first made its edges 

 thinner, diminishing its thickness in a portion sufficiently large to leave 

 no angular projection. Huber observes, and with reason, in relating this 

 surprising law which obliges bees partially to demolish the cells situ- 

 ated upon the edges of the combs, that it deserves a more close ex- 

 amination than he found himself competent to give it ; for if we may to 

 a certain point form a conception of the instinct which leads these animals 

 to employ their art of building cells, yet how can we conceive of that 

 which in particular circumstances forces them to act in an opposite di- 

 rection, and determines them to demolish what they have so laboriously 

 constructed ? * 



Drones, or male bees, are more bulky than the workers ; and you have 

 been told, in speaking of the habitations of insects, that the cells which 

 bees construct for rearing the larvae of the former are larger than those 

 destined for the education of the larvae of the latter. The diameter of the 

 cells of drones is always 3 lines (or twelfths of an inch), that of those of 

 workers 2f lines ; and these dimensions are so constant in their ordinary 

 cells, that some authors have thought they might be adopted as an uni- 

 versal and invariable scale of measure, which would have the great recom- 

 mendation of being everywhere at hand, and at all events would be 

 preferable to our barley-corns. Several ranges of male cells, sometimes 

 from thirty to forty, are usually found in each comb, generally situated about 

 the middle. Now as these cells are not isolated, but form a part of the 

 entire comb, corresponding on its two faces by what art is it that the 

 bees unite hexagonal cells of a small with others of a larger diameter, 

 without leaving any void spaces, and without destroying the uniformity 

 and regularity of the comb ? This problem would puzzle an ordinary 

 artist, but is easily solved by the resources of the instinct of our little 

 workmen. 



When they are desirous of constructing the cells of males below those 

 of workers, they form several ranges of intermediate or transition cells, of 

 which the diameter augments progressively, until they have reached that 

 range where the male cells commence; and in the same manner, when they 

 wish to revert to the modelling of the cells of workers, they pass by a 

 gradually decreasing gradation to the ordinary diameter of the cells of this 

 class. We commonly meet with three or four ranges of intermediate cells 



i Huber, ii. 228. 



