216 THE LORE OF THE HONEY-BEE 
A simple experiment will at once give a clue to 
this. Ifa hive, in which a swarm has constructed 
about half its depth of comb, be canted a little 
sideways, so as to throw the combs out of the per- 
pendicular, and the hive be then left for several 
days, it will be found on examination that all 
building, from the moment of disturbance, has 
followed on the new line of verticality. The combs 
will all be slightly bent to one side. This means 
either that the bees have a natural sense of the 
perpendicular, or that they work by the plumb- 
line, as humanity is constrained to do. The fact 
seems to be that the hanging cluster of wax- 
making bees performs the office of a living 
plummet, and really guides the comb in its down- 
ward progress. 
Yet, do bees always suspend their combs? Do 
they never construct a waxen storehouse, raising 
it tier above tier from the floor of the hive, after 
the system of the more intelligent creature, Man ? 
The first commentary on this is, that such a 
departure from their common methods would be 
no improvement, but a retrograde step. These 
long comb-walls of the bees have a close analogy 
to the modern transatlantic sky-scraper building. 
The trouble with all such buildings is to provide 
them with sufficient base for their height. If 
American engineers had at their disposal a material 
of adequate tensile strength, and there were any- 
thing in nature to hang them from, it would be, 
