Chap. VII. CELL-MAKING INSTINCT. 219 



as she already does her cylindrical cells ; and wc uiiist further 

 suppose, and this is the greatest difliculty, that she can some- 

 how judge accurately at what distance to stand from her fellow- 

 laborers when several are making their spheres; but she is 

 already so far enabled to judge of distance, that she alwa3-s 

 describes her spheres so as to intersect largely ; and then she 

 unites tlie points of intersection by perfectly flat surfaces. 

 We have further to suppose, but this is no difficulty, that after 

 hexagonal ])risnis have been formed by the intersection of ad- 

 joining spheres in the same layer, she can jirolong the hexagon 

 to any length requisite to hold the stock of hone}*; in the same 

 way as the rude humble-bee adds cylinders of wax to the circu- 

 lar mouths of her old cocoons, ]5y such modifications of in- 

 stincts, in themselves not very wonderful — hardly more wonder- 

 ful than those which guide a bird to make its nest — I believe 

 tluit the hive-bee has acquired, through natural selection, her 

 inimitable architectural powers. 



But this theory can be tested by experiment. Following 

 the example of Mr. Tegetmeier, I separated two combs, and put 

 between them a long, thick, rectangular strip of wax ; the bees 

 instantly began to excavate minute circular pits in it ; and as 

 they deepened these little pits, they made them wider and 

 wider until they were converted into shallow basins, appearing 

 to the eye jierfectly true or parts of a sphere, and of about the 

 diameter of a cell. It was most interesting to me to observe 

 that, •wherever several bees had begun to excavate these basins 

 near together, they had begun their work at such a distance from 

 each other, that by tlie time the basins had acquired the above- 

 stated width (i. e., about the width of an ordinary cell), and 

 were in d<^pth about one-sixth of the diameter of the sphere of 

 M'hiih they formed a part, the rims of the Ixisins intersected or 

 broke into each other. As soon as this occurred, the bees 

 ceased to excavate, and began to build up flat walls of wax on 

 the lines of intersection between the basins, so that each hex- 

 agonal prism was built upon the scalloped edge of a smooth 

 l)asin, instead of on the straight edges of a three-sided pyramid 

 as in the case of ordinary cells. 



I then put into the hive, instead of a thick, rectangular 

 \)\cce of wax, a thin and narrow, knife-edged ridge, colored 

 with vermilion. The bees instantlv began on both sides to ex- 

 cavate little basins near to each other, in the same way as be- 

 fore; but the ridge of wax was so thin, that the bottoms of the 

 basins, if they had been excavated to the same depth as in tlio 



