The Life of the Bee 
sults can be due to chance alone, or to the 
mere force of circumstance. The wasps, 
for instance, also build combs with hex- 
agonal cells, so that for them the problem 
was identical, and they have solved it in a 
far less ingenious fashion. Their combs 
have only one layer of cells, thus lacking 
the common base that serves the bees for 
their two opposite layers. The wasps’ 
comb, therefore, is not only less regular, 
but also less substantial; and so waste- 
fully constructed , that, besides loss of ma- 
terial, they must sacrifice about a third of 
the available space and a quarter of the 
energy they put forth. Again, we find that 
the trigone and melipone, which are veri- 
table and domesticated bees, though of less 
advanced civilisation, erect only one row 
of rearing-cells, and support their horizon- 
tal, superposed combs on shapeless and 
costly columns of wax. Their provision- 
cells are merely great pots, gathered to- 
195 
