544 INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 
the contrary, they now placed a nearly flat lid upon these large cells, as if 
well aware of their being occupied by a different race of inhabitants.' 
On some occasions bees, in consequence of Huber’s arrangements in the 
interior of their habitations, have begun to build a comb nearer to the ad- 
joining one than the usual interval; but they soon appeared to perceive 
their error, and corrected it by giving to the comb a gradual curvature, so 
2s to resume the ordinary distance.? 
In another instance in which various irregularities had taken place in the 
form of the combs, the bees, in prolonging one of them, had, contrary to 
their usual custom, begun two separate and distinct continuations, which in 
approaching instead of joining would have interfered with each other, had 
not the bees, apparently foreseeing the difficulty, gradually bent their 
edges so as to make them join with such exactness that they could after- 
wards continue them conjointly.° 
In constructing their combs, bees, as you have been before told, in my 
Letter on the Habitations of Insects, form the first range of cells — that by 
which the comb is attached to the top of the hive — of a different shape 
from the rest. Each cell, instead of being hexagonal, is pentagonal, having 
the fifth broadest side fixed to the top of the hive, whence the comb is 
much more securely cemented to that part than if the first range of cells 
had been of the ordinary construction, For some time after their fabrica- 
tion the combs remain in this state; but at a certain period the bees attack 
the first range of cells as if in fury, gnaw away the sides without touch- 
ing the lozenge-shaped bottoms; and, having mixed the wax with propolis, 
they form a cement well known to the ancients under the names of JZitys, 
Commosis, and Pissoceros, which they substitute in the place of the re- 
moved sides of the cells, forming of it thick and massive walls and heavy 
and shapeless pillars, which they introduce between the comb and the top 
of the hive so as to agglutinate them firmly together. Huber, who first 
in modern times witnessed this remarkable modification of the architecture 
of bees, observed that not only are they careful not to touch the bottoms 
of the cells, but that they do not remove at once the cells on both sides of 
the comb, which in that case might fall down; but they werk alternately, 
first on one side and then on the other, replacing the demolished cells as 
they proceed with mitys, which firmly fixes the comb to its support. 
The object of this substitution of mitys for wax seems clear. While the 
combs are new and only partially filled with honey, the first range of cells 
originally established as the base and the guide for the pyramidal bottoms 
of the subsequent ones, serves as a sufficient support for them ; but when 
they contain a store of several pounds, the bees seem to foresee the dan- 
ger of such a weight proving too heavy for the thin waxen walls by which 
the combs are suspended, and providently hasten to substitute for them 
thicker walls, and pillars of a more compact and viscid material. 
But their foresight does not stop here. When they have sufficient wax, 
they make their combs of such a breadth as to extend to the sides of the 
hive, to which they cement them by constructions approaching more or 
less to the shape of cells. But when a scarcity of wax happens before 
they have been able to give to their combs the requisite diameter, a large 
vacant space is left between tiie edges of these combs, which are only fixed 
by their upper part, and the sides of the hive; and they might be pulled 
1 Tuber, i, 255, + 2 Thid, ii, 289, 5 [bid, ii, 240. 
