WAX AND COMB CONSTRUCTION. 
179 
irregularities do not occur of such magnitude that how- 
ever they may look to the bee’s eye can be readily detected 
by man’s.’ 
The best observers, such as Reaumur (139), 
Huber (68), Hunter (69), and others, have noticed 
some of these, although they passed them by with 
merely a mention. 
Being much interested in the subject, and in order 
to satisfy ourselves upon this point, we some years ago 
determined to carry out a series of measurements 
upon combs built naturally. We have also taken a 
large number of im- 
pressions of natural 
comb, which show 
with the greatest 
accuracy the shapes 
of the cells. The 
combs examined 
were those of black 
bees in England, 
Italian bees in Italy, 
and Carniolan bees 
in Switzerland ; also 
various bees in 
Canada and the 
United States of . . . . ^ 
. . Fiv. 6i;. — Comb with Various-sized Cells. 
America. ^ 
It would be impossible within the limits of this 
work to give all our experiments, so we shall content 
ourselves by giving a summary. 
There are different kinds and sizes of cells in a hive. 
