254 THE UEE NATION 



often do things badly which afterwards have to be set right. 

 Huber saw a worker building with the wax at her disposal 

 on that which its comrades had already put together. But 

 it was not arranged in the same way, and made a corner 

 with the first. " Another bee perceived it, pulled down the bad 

 work before our eyes, and gave it to the firot in the requisite 

 order so that it might exactly follow the original direction." 

 Other observers, as for instance Darwin, have seen similar 

 cases. " It was really curious," says Darwin (" Origin of 

 Species," p 232), " to note in cases of difficulty, as when 

 two pieces of comb met at an angle, how often the bees 

 would pull clown and rebuild in different ways the same cell, 

 sometimes recurring to a shape which they had at first 

 rejected." 



