THE FOUNDATION OF THE CITY 113 



resources — let them imagine a dome of straw or osier, divided 

 from top to bottom by five, six, eight, sometimes ten, strips 

 ot wax, resembling somewhat great slices of bread, that run 

 in strictly parallel lines from the top of the dome to the 

 floor, espousing closely the shape of the ovoid walls. Between 

 these strips is contrived a space of about half an inch, to 

 enable the bees to stand and to pass each other. At the 

 moment when they begin to construct one of these strips 

 at the top of the hive, the waxen wall (which is its rough 

 model, and will later be thinned and extended) is still very 

 thick, and completely excludes the fifty or sixty bees at work 

 on its inner face from the fifty or sixty simultaneously engaged 

 in carving the outer, so that it is wholly impossible for one 

 group to see the other unless indeed their sight be able to 

 penetrate opaque matter. And yet there is not a hole that 

 is scooped on the inner surface, not a fragment of wax that 

 is added, but corresponds with mathematical precision to a 

 protuberance or cavity on the outer surface, and vice versa. 

 How does this happen ? How is it that one does not dig 

 too deep, another not deep enough ? Whence the invariable, 

 magical coincidence between the angles of the lozenges ? 

 What is it tells the bees that at this point they must begin, 

 and at that point stop ? Once again we must content ourselves 

 with the reply that is no reply : " It is a mystery of the 

 hive." Huber has sought to explain this mystery by sug- 

 gesting that the pressure of the bees' hooks and teeth may 

 possibly produce slight projections at regular intervals on 

 the opposite side of the comb, or that they may be able 

 to estimate the thickness of the block by the flexibility, 

 elasticity, or some other physical quality of the wax ; or 



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