2i8 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
highest possible resistance to downward strain. As 
comb or foundation so placed has no horizontal walls, 
it is clear that it will have no perpendicular ones 
if suspended as at B. The sides of the hexagons 
are in this case either horizontal, and consequently 
useless in resisting down strain, or are subjected to 
the great disadvantage of all inclining 3odeg. to 
the perpendicular, towards which any pull would tend 
to bring them, thus throwing the whole of the 
tension on the comparatively weak midrib, making 
stretching, distortion, or even rupture, all but inevit- 
able. 
When we inquire how it happens that bees na- 
turally arrange their cells in a manner which statical 
laws show to be the most desirable, we are met by 
facts as beautiful in their adaptation as they are re- 
markable in their method of achievement. Some of 
these attracted the attention of, and greatly charmed, 
the older Huber, although it appears to me he failed to 
see their inner meaning, or give to them their proper 
interpretation. We have already learned (page 170, 
Vol. I.) that each surface involved in comb is, in all 
respects, the result of interaction of two bees scoop- 
ing simultaneously, or of one bee working alternately 
on its opposite sides. If we now take a piece of 
foundation, cut at its top edge, through the upper 
angles of the hexagons, as at A, Fig. 65, and bring 
it against the top bar [tb), we find we have given to 
the bees, according to our last statement, an impossible 
task, since the openings 0, 0 are too small to permit 
a bee to enter in order to operate on the upper 
surfaces of the sides (j-, j) of the hexagons. But this 
