324 THE INSECT WORLD. 
forms a part. It takes between its legs one of the flakes of wax 
adhering to the rings of its abdomen, kneads it with its mandibles, 
moistens it with its saliva, and gives it the appearance of a soft 
filament, which it sticks on to a projecting point of the roof. To 
this first layer it adds others, till it has exhausted all its wax. 
Then it leaves its post, and returns to the fields; another worker, 
another mason, as they are sometimes called, succeeds it, and con- 
tinues the laying of the foundations. Presently shapeless blocks 
of wax hang down from the roof. It is in these blocks that other 
workers, with their mandibles, hollow out and form the first cells. 
While the workers continue to prolong the foundation-wall, and 
whilst the first cells are being shaped, new ones are roughly 
sketched out or rough hewn, and the work advances with a mar- 
vellous rapidity. 
Each cell forms a small hexagonal cup, closed on one side only 
by a pyramidal base, produced by the meeting together of three 
rhombs. The honeycombs are the result of two layers of cells 
placed back to back, arranged in such a way that the bases of 
the one become the bases of the other, the base of each little cell 
being formed by the union of the bases of three opposite cells. 
The bees begin by forming the base of the cell; they then add 
the six sides, or walls, which are to complete the hexagonal cup. 
At the same time others set to work on the opposite side of the 
comb, and construct little cells back to back with the cells of the 
front surface. They do not finish them off at once. The walls 
are at first very thick: new workers, who succeed those who 
merely mark out the work, being occupied in planing down the 
rough-hewn cells, and in reducing the walls to the desired thick- 
ness. ‘This work is accomplished with an incredible celerity, for 
the bees can build as many as four thousand cells in twenty-four 
hours. There is very good reason for the hexagonal form being 
adopted by the bees in constructing their cells, as it involves a 
question of economy, which these insects have solved in their most 
admirable manner. 
‘““When one has well examined,” says Réaumur,* “the true 
shape of each cell, when one has studied their arrangement, 
* “Mémoires pour servir 4 |’ Histoire des Insectes,’’ tome ‘v., p. 379. 
