Insect Study 



451 





Honey-comb 



Teacher's Story 



: HE structure of honey-comb has been for ages 

 admired by mathematicians, who have meas- 

 ured the angles of the cells and demonstrated 

 the accurate manner in which the rhomb- 

 shaped cell changes at its base to a three faced 

 pyramid; and proven that, considering the 

 material of construction, honey-comb exem- 

 plifies the strongest and most economic struc- 

 ture possible for the storing of liquid contents. 

 While recent instruments of greater precision 

 in measuring angles, show less perfection in 

 honey-comb than the ancients believed, yet the fact still stands that 

 the general plan of it is mathematically excellent. 



Some have tried to detract from bee skill, by stating that the six-sided 

 cell is simply the result of crowding cells together. Perhaps this was the 

 remote origin of the hexagonal cell ; but if we watch a bee build her comb, 

 we find that she begins with a base laid out in triangular pyramids, on 

 either side of which she builds out six-sided cells. A cell just begun, is as 

 distinctly six-sided as when completed. 



The shape of the cell of a honey-comb is six-sided in cross section. 

 The bottom is a three-sided pyramid and its sides help form pyramids 

 at the bottom of the cells opposite, thus economizing every particle of 

 space. In the hive, the cells lie horizontal usually, although sometimes 

 the combs are twisted. 

 The honey is retained 

 in the cell by a cap of 

 wax which is made in a 

 very cunning fashion; 

 it consists of a cir- 

 cular disc at the mid- 

 dle supported from 

 the six angles of the 

 cell by six tiny girders. 

 The comb is made fast 

 to the section of the 

 hive by being plas- 

 tered upon it. The 

 foundation comb sold 

 to apiarists is quite 

 thick, so that the 

 edges of the cell may 

 be drawn out and al- 

 most complete the 

 sides of the cell. 

 However, the founda- 

 tion comb is expensive and is ordinarily used by the bee-keeper simply as 

 a starter, which means a little strip a few inches or so in width fastened 

 to the top of a section just to give the bees a hint that this is the direction 

 in which the comb should be built, a hint which the bees invariably take. 



A section of honey. Note the caps to the cells, each 

 supported by six girders. 



