340 ARCHITECTURE OF BEES. 



stand neither the rules nor the principles of the 

 arts which they practise so skilfully, and that 

 the geometry is not in the bee, but in the great 

 Geometrician who made the bee, and made all 

 things in number, weight and measure*." 



Before the time of HUBER, no naturalist had 

 seen the commencement of the comb, nor traced 

 the several steps of its progress. After many 

 attempts, he at length succeeded in attaining the 

 desired object, by preventing the bees from form- 

 ing their usual impenetrable curtain, by suspend- 

 ing themselves from the top of the hive ; in short, 

 he obliged them to build upwards, and was thereby 

 enabled, by means of a glass window, to watch 

 every variation and progressive step in the con- 

 struction of comb. 



Each comb in a hive is composed of two ranges 

 of cells backed against each other : these cells, 

 looking at them as a whole, may be said to have 

 one common base, though no one cell is opposed 

 directly to another. This base or partition between 

 the double row of cells is so disposed as to form 

 a pyramidal cavity at the bottom of each, as will 

 be explained presently. The mouths of the cells, 

 thus ranged on each side of a comb, open into two 

 parallel streets (there being a continued series of 

 combs in. every well filled hive). These streets 



* Reid. 



