SECTION 22 OBSERVATION. 323 



bees must have worked at very nearly the same rate in circularly gnawing 

 away and deepening the basins on both sides of the ridge of vermilion 

 wax, in order to have thus succeeded in leaving flat plates between the 

 basins, by stopping work at the planes of intersection. 



"Considering how flexible thin wax is, I do not see that there is any 

 difficulty in the bees, whilst at work on the two sides of a strip of wax, 

 perceiving when they have gnawed the wax away to the proper thinness, 

 and then stopping their work. In ordinary combs it has appeared to me 

 that the bees do not always succeed in working at exactly the same rate 

 from the opposite sides; for I have noticed half-completed rhombs at the 

 base of a just-commenced cell, which were slightly concave on one side, 

 where I suppose that the bees had excavated too quickly, and convex on 

 the opposite side where the bees had worked less quickly. In one well 

 marked instance, I put the comb back into the hive, and allowed the 

 bees to go on working for a short time, and again examined the cell, 

 and I found that the rhombic plate had been completed, and had become 

 perfectly flat: it was absolutely impossible, from the extreme thinness 

 of the little plate, that they could have effected this by gnawing away 

 the convex side; and I suspect that the bees in such cases stand on 

 opposite sides and push and bend the ductile and warm wax (which, as 

 I have tried, is easily done) into its proper intermediate plane, and thus 

 flatten it. 



"From the experiment of the ridge of vermilion wax we can see that, 

 if the bees were to build for themselves a thin wall of wax, they could 

 make their cells of the proper shape, by standing at the proper distance 

 from each other, by excavating at the same rate, and by endeavouring 

 to make equal spherical hollows, but never allowing the spheres to break 

 into each other. Now bees, as may be clearly seen by examining the 

 edge of a growing comb, do make a rough, circumferential wall or rim 

 all round the comb ; and they gnaw this away from the opposite sides, 

 always working circularly as they deepen each cell. They do not make 

 the whole three-sided pyramidal base of any one cell at the same time, 

 but only that one rhombic plate which stands on the extreme growing 

 margin, or the two plates, as the case may be; and they never complete 

 the upper edges of the rhombic plates, until the hexagonal walls are 

 commenced. Some of these statements differ from those made by the 

 justly celebrated elder Huber, but I am convinced of their accuracy; 

 and if I had space, I could show that they are conformable with my 

 theory. 



"Huber's statement, that the very first cell is excavated out of a little 

 parallel-sided wall of wax, is not, as far as I have seen, strictly correct; 

 the first commencement having always been a little hood of wax; but I 

 will not here enter on details. We see how important a part excavation 

 plays in the construction of the cells; but it would be a great error to 

 suppose that the bees cannot build up a rough wall of wax in the proper 

 position that is, along the plane of intersection between two adjoining 

 spheres. I have several specimens showing clearly that they can do this. 

 Even in the rude circumferential rim or wall of wax round a growing 

 comb, flexures may sometimes be observed, corresponding in 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 cutting 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 



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