WAX, AND BEE ARCHITECTURE. 177 



struction of so-called " transition " cells. The name is 

 misleading, and based on a misconception, for bees 

 pass at once from worker to drone, or vice versa, 

 and then build accommodation cells as necessity 

 determines, until the regularity of the new pattern 

 is established. It is singular that the form given to 

 these irregular cells, in all the books I have yet 

 seen, is such as no bee ever did or could con- 

 struct, as it contains an acute angle bounded by 

 straight lines to the angular point. This matter is 

 not unimportant, for, if the books be believed in, 



Fig. 39.— Cell Forms Impossible and Actual. 



A, Impossible Cell—/, Angular Point 61° ; h, Head of Bee (Natural Size). B, 

 Comb, with Accommodation Cells— a, Normal Worker Cell ; b, Pseudo-Cell ; 

 c, Oval Cell ; d, Normal Drone Cell ; e, Truncated Angle, giving Room for 

 Bee's Head. 



the manner of cell elaboration cannot be understood. 

 Even Langstroth, to whom the debt of apiculture is 

 very great, has an illustration of the intermediate 

 cell with a prolonged internal angle of 62 , which a 

 number of English writers have improved (?) to 51 , 

 whereas about ioo° is the limit the bee can reach. By 

 giving a copy (A, Fig. 39) of the cell (Fig. 48) of 

 Langstroth, into which I insert a bee's head (//), of 

 the natural size, the mistake becomes evident ; for 

 how could this bee bring her jaws and maxillae into 



Q 



