182 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



will have vanished, and the cross section will be 

 nearly circular — the typical form, again, to which the 

 cells in this way are always approximating. 



The details that have passed before us, and of which 

 hereafter we shall see the practical import, are 

 many and various. Are any disappointed that, during 

 their discussion we have deprived our bee of the 

 mathematical laurels some would force upon her little 

 brow? It cannot be; for surely we have not dis- 

 graced her. Rather have we given her new honours, by 

 disclosing adaptations and variations truly astonishing; 

 while all that we have said has not removed her from 

 the front rank of dumb artificers : for even man, with all 

 his art, has not been able to give to wax equal beauty 

 to that it yields at once to the simple tools of its 

 own producer. Yet that which is brick, mortar, and 

 wood, to the bee, must mainly strike us in its 

 utilitarian aspect ; for her combs are rows of rooms 

 unsurpassably suitable for feeding and nurturing the 

 larvae, for giving safety and seclusion during the 

 mystic sleep of pupahood, for ensconcing the weary 

 worker seeking rest, and for safely warehousing the 

 provisions ever needed by the numerous family, and 

 by all during winter's siege. Corridors run between, 

 giving sufficient space for the more extensive quarters 

 of the prospective mother, and affording every facility 

 to the busy throng walking on the ladders the edges 

 of their apartments supply ; while the planning of 

 the whole is such that the exactions of modern 

 hygiene are fully met by air, in its native purity, 

 sweeping past the doorway of every inhabitant of the 

 insect city. 



