io8 THE LIFE OF THE BEE 



too of man that all his genius is comprised in his fashion of 

 handling kindred necessities ? And if it appear to us that 

 his manner of treating these is the best there can possibly 

 be, the reason can only lie in the absence of a judge superior 

 to ourselves. But it is well that argument should make way 

 for fact ; and indeed, to the objection based on an experi- 

 ment, the best reply of all must be a counter-experiment. 



In order to satisfy myself that hexagonal architecture 

 really was written in the spirit of the bee, I cut off and re- 

 moved one day a disc of the size of a five-franc piece from 

 the centre of a comb, at a spot where there were both brood- 

 cells and cells full of honey. I cut into the circumference 

 of this disc, at the intersecting point of the pyramidal cells ; 

 inserted a piece of tin on the base of one of these sections, 

 shaped exactly to its dimensions, and possessed of resistance 

 sufficient to prevent the bees from bending or twisting it. 

 Then I replaced the slice of comb, duly furnished with its 

 slab of tin, on the spot whence I had removed it ; so that, 

 while one side of the comb presented no abnormal feature, 

 the damage having been repaired, the other displayed a sort 

 of deep cavity, covering the space of about thirty cells, with 

 the piece of tin as its base. The bees were disconcerted 

 at first ; they flocked in numbers to inspect and examine this 

 curious chasm ; day after day they wandered agitatedly to and 

 fro, apparently unable to form a decision. But, as I fed 

 them copiously every evening, there came a moment when 

 they had no more cells available for the storage of provisions. 

 Thereupon they probably summoned their great engineers, 

 the most distinguished sculptors and waxworkers, and invited 

 them to turn this useless cavity to profitable account. 



