APIS MELLIFICA. 



to pass without incommoding each other. In addition to 

 these interspaces, the combs are perforated in various places so 

 as to allow a passage for the bees from one street to another, 

 thus saving them much time. 



The shape of each cell is not, as might have been expected, 

 cylindrical, or that which seems best adapted to the form of 

 the maggot, or even of the bee constructor, but it is hexago- 

 nal, the only form which allows the cell to be of the largest 

 size in proportion to the quantity of matter employed, and at 

 the same time to be so disposed as to occupy in the hive the least 

 possible space. The form of the base of each cell, which is 

 in apposition with the one on the opposite side, is also such 

 as to gain greater strength and more capacity with less expen- 

 diture of wax, the latter consideration being one of great im- 

 portance to bees, which do not secrete a very large quantity 

 of this material: and the most profound mathematicians and 

 most skilful geometers have found the solution of the problem 

 relating to the attainment of the preceding objects as derived 

 from the infinitesimal calculus to have a surprising agreement 

 with the actual measure of the different angles formed by the 

 walls of the cells. 



There may generally be observed one or more cells wider 

 and shallower than the rest, placed either on the edge of a comb 

 or partition, or against the mouths of the cells, and projecting 

 beyond the general surface of the comb. These are called 

 the royal cells ; but as they are not adapted to the form of the 

 queen, nor ever lined with the silken covering of the chrysalis, 

 the supposition that she is bred in them seems impossible. 



Having now generally described the comb, the consideration 

 of those instinctive operations by which its several compart- 

 ments are furnished with their destined contents deserves at- 

 tention. 



The comb seems at first to be formed entirely for propa- 

 gation, and indeed to be essentially related to that function, 

 for if the workers lose their queen they make no combs, and 

 the reception of honey is therefore its secondary use. Wasps 

 and hornets make combs, although they collect no honey. 



As soon as the young colony has prepared a few combs, 

 the female begins to exclude her eggs. The first that she lays 

 produce the imperfect females or workers, the subsequent ones 

 produce the males, and perhaps the fertile females, or queens. 

 The eggs are deposited at the bottom of the cells, often before 



9 



