THE BEE-MASTER 45 



employment of a hive having each side formed 

 of four parallel plates of glass, with thin strata 

 of air between. As thus formed, the escape of 

 heat is so effectually prevented that the bees 

 work without the necessity of covering the hive 

 with any opaque material, and thus they are 

 always open to observation without being dis- 

 turbed by the sudden admission of light into a 

 hive previously dark." 



The writer wound up by saying that these 

 experiments appeared to him to have an 

 important bearing upon the theory of the forma- 

 tion of honeycomb cells, and by expressing the 

 desire that they might be repeated and extended 

 by other observers. It is of interest to note 

 that among those present at the reading of the 

 paper, and who afterwards spoke on. the subject, 

 were " Mr. J. Lubbock " and Dr. Lankester. 

 Tegetmeier's observations were, naturally, the 

 subject of considerable discussion at the time of 

 their enunciation, and though his theory was 

 by some doubted, it has since been generally 

 adopted by scientists. Referring to the dis- 

 cussion, a writer in the Daily Telegraph says 

 that it had always been a favourite argument 

 in favour of " design," that the bee, by making 

 its cell in a hexagonal form, had achieved perfec- 

 tion in the adaptation of means to ends, such a 

 shape allowing a maximum of economy in the 

 utilisation of the wax, and that this pre-supposed 

 an exact knowledge of mathematical laws. 



