The Life of the Bee 
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 suggesting that the pressure 
of the bees’ hooks and teeth may possibly 
produce slight projections at regular in- 
tervals on the opposite side of the comb, or 
that they may be able to estimate the thick- 
ness of the block by the flexibility, elasticity, 
or some other physical quality of the wax; 
or again, that their antenna, which seem so 
well adapted for the questioning of the finer, 
less evident side of things, may serve as a 
compass in the invisible; or lastly, that the 
position of every cell may derive mathe- 
matically from the arrangement and dimen- 
sions of the cells on the first row, and thus 
dispense with the need for further measure- 
ment. But these explanations are evidently 
insufficient ; the first are mere hypotheses that 
cannot be verified, the others do no more 
than transplant the mystery. And useful as 
it may be to transplant mystery as often as 
we possibly can, it were not wise to imagine 
172 
