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 medieval 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 ;35th 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 
