198 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 



Wren put the steel cable round the dome of 

 St. Paul's, nor instinct that lifted the crown- 

 stones to the top of the Great Pyramids. These 

 are works of a creature more highly equipped and 

 instigated ; yet their supremacy is all of a piece 

 with the honey-comb, which is made of a material 

 fragile, light as air, but which, by the art of the 

 bee, becomes capable not only of supporting, but 

 of suspending a weight thirty times as great as its 

 own. 



That the bee does not collect her building 

 materials, but derives them from her own body, 

 is a fact that has come to light only within the last 

 hundred and fifty years or so, although several 

 shrewd guesses at the truth are to be found in the 

 works of the mediaeval bee-masters. The wasp, 

 who has much of the ingenuity of the honey-bee, 

 but is doomed to exercise it in a far more humble 

 direction, makes a six-sided cell ; but her matter is 

 collected from outside, and can only be put to com- 

 paratively simple uses, as it is incapable of bearing 

 tensile strain. Beeswax alone, of all constructive 

 materials in the world, seems to meet every re- 

 quirement. It can be worked into plates as thin 

 as the ■j^'Ca. part of an inch, which is the normal 

 thickness of the cell- wall. It is indestructible to 

 all the elements save heat. It can be rendered 

 soft and easily workable, or allowed to harden, while 

 still retaining its suppleness and life. It is a bad 

 conductor of heat, and therefore conserves the heat 



