Chap. VII. 
CELLS OF THE HIVE-BEE. 
225 
nearly so great as it at first appears : all this beautiful 
work can be shown, I think, to follow from a few very 
simple instincts. 
I was led to investigate this subject by Mr. Water- 
house, who has shown that the form of the cell stands 
in close relation to the presence of adjoining cells; and 
the following view may, perhaps, be considered only as 
a modification of his theory. Let us look to the great 
principle of gradation, and see whether Nature does not 
reveal to us her method of work. At one end of a short 
series we have humble-bees, which use their old cocoons 
to hold honey, sometimes adding to them short tubes of 
wax, and likewise making separate and very irregular 
rounded cells of wax. At the other end of the series we 
have the cells of the hive-bee, placed in a double layer: 
each cell, as is well known, is an hexagonal prism, with 
the basal edges of its six sides bevelled so as to fit on 
to a pyramid, formed of three rhombs. These rhombs 
have certain angles, and the three which form the pyra¬ 
midal base of a single cell on one side of the comb, enter 
into the composition of the bases of three adjoining cells 
on the opposite side. In the series between the extreme 
perfection of the cells of the hive-bee and the simplicity 
of those of the humble-bee, we have the cells of the 
Mexican Melipona domestica, carefully described and 
figured by Pierre Huber. The Melipona itself is inter¬ 
mediate in structure between the hive and humble bee, 
but more nearly related to the latter : it forms a nearly 
regular waxen comb of cylindrical cells, in which the 
young are hatched, and, in addition, some large cells of 
wax for holding honey. These latter cells are nearly 
spherical and of nearly equal sizes, and are aggregated 
into an irregular mass. But the important point to 
notice, is that these cells are always made at that 
degree of nearness to each other, that they would have 
L 3 
