264 SPECIAL INSTINCTS. 



where I suppose that the bees had excavated too quickly, 

 and convex on the opposed side wliere the bees had worked 

 less quickly. In one well-marked instance, I put the comb 

 back into the hive, and allowed the bees to go on working 

 for a short time, and again examined the cell, and I found 

 that the rhombic plate had been completed, and had 

 become perfectly flat: it was absolutely impossible, from 

 the extreme thinness of the little plate, that they could 

 have affected this by gnawing away the convex side; and 

 I suspect that the be'es in such cases stand on opposite sides 

 and push and bend the ductile and warm wax (which as I 

 have tried is easily done) into its proper intermediate 

 plane, and thus flatten it. 



From the experiment of the ridge of vermilion wax we 

 can see that, if the bees were to build for themselves a 

 thin wall of wax, they could make their cells of the proper 

 shape, by standing at the proper distance from each other, 

 by excavating at the same rate, and by endeavoring to 

 make equal spherical hollows, but never allowing the 

 spheres to break into eacli other. Now bees, as may be 

 clearly seen by examining the edge of a growing comb, do 

 make a rough, circumferential wall or rim all round the 

 comb; and they gnaw this away from the opposite sides, 

 always working circularly as they deepen each cell. They 

 do not make the whole three-sided pyramidal base of any 

 one cell at the same time, but only that one rhombic plate 

 .which stands on the extreme growing margin, or the two 

 plates, as the case may be; and they never complete the 

 upper edges of the rhombic plates, until the hexagonal 

 walls are commenced. Some of these statements differ 

 from those made by the justly celebrated elder Huber, but 

 I am convinced of their accuracy; and if I had space, I 

 could show that they are conformable with my theory. 



Huber's statement, that the very first cell is excavated 

 out of a little parallel-sided wall of wax, is not, as far as I 

 have seen, strictly correct; the first commencement having 

 always been a little hood of wax; but I will not here enter 

 on details. We see how important a part excavation plays 

 in the construction of the cells; but it would be a great 

 error to suppose that the bees cannot build up a rough wall of 

 wax in the proper position — that is, along the plane of inter- 

 section between two adjoining spheres. I have several 



