INSTINCT 877 



position to the planes of the rhombic basal plates of 

 future cells. But the rough wall of wax has in every 

 case to be finished off, by being largely gnawed away 

 on both sides. The manner in which the bees build is 

 curious; they always make the first rough wall from ten 

 to twenty times thicker than the excessively thin finished 

 wall of the cell, which will ultimately be left. We shall 

 understand how they work, by supposing masons first to 

 pile up a broad ridge of cement, and then to begin cut- 

 ting it away equally on both sides near the ground, till 

 a smooth, very thin wall is left in the middle; the 

 masons always piling up the cut away cement, and adding 

 fresh cement on the summit of the ridge. We shall thus 

 have a thin wall steadily growing upward but always 

 crowned by a gigantic coping. From all the cells, both 

 those just commenced and those completed, being thus 

 crowned by a strong coping of wax, the bees can cluster 

 and crawl over the comb without injuring the delicate 

 hexagonal walls. These walls, as Professor Miller has 

 kindly ascertained for me, vary greatly in thickness; 

 being, on an average of twelve measurements made near 

 the border of the comb, sh of an inch in thickness; 

 whereas the basal rhomboidal plates are thicker, nearly 

 in the proportion of three to two, having a mean thick- 

 it I ness, from twenty -one measurements, of ^^ of an inch. 

 ' ' By the above singular manner of building, strength is 

 continually given to the comb, with the utmost ultimate 

 economy of wax. 



It seems at first to add to the difficulty of understand- 

 ing how the cells are made, that a multitude of bees all 

 work together; one bee after working a short time at one 

 cell going to another, so that, as Huber has stated, a 



