THE BEE-MASTER 43 



paper. It is entitled On the Formation of the 

 Cells of Bees, and opens with the statement 

 that he had recently been engaged in making a 

 series of experiments with a view to determine 

 the typical form of bees' cells, and had arrived 

 at some interesting results. The paper 

 proceeds : — 



" My first experiment consisted in placing a 

 flat parallel-sided block of wax in a hive con- 

 taining a recent swarm. In this, cells were 

 excavated by the bees at irregular distances. 

 In every case where the excavation was isolated 

 it was hemispherical, and the wax excavated 

 was added at the margin so as to constitute a 

 cylindrical cell. As other excavations were made 

 in contact with those previously formed, the 

 cells became flat-sided, but from the irregularity 

 of their arrangement not necessarily hexagonal. 

 When the block was coloured with vermilion 

 the employment of the excavated wax in the 

 formation of the sides of the cells was rendered 

 more evident. The experiment has been repeated 

 with various modifications as to the size and 

 form of the block of wax, but always with the 

 same results — viz. that the excavations were in 

 all cases hemispherical — that the wax excavated 

 was always used to raise the walls of the cells — 

 and that the cells themselves, before others were 

 formed in contact with them, were always 

 cylindrical. Mr. Charles Darwin, to whom I 

 communicated these facts, has repeated the 

 experiments with similar results. When these 

 experiments are taken into consideration in 

 connection with the facts that in the commence- 

 ment of a comb the rudiments of the first-formed 



