


324 THE INSECT WORLD. 
of which it forms a part. It takes between its legs one of the 
flakes of wax adhering to the rings of its abdomen, kneads it 
with its mandibles, moistens it with its saliva, and gives it the 
appearance of a soft filament, which it sticks on to a projecting 
point of the roof. To this first layer it adds others, till 1t has 
exhausted all its wax. Then it leaves its post, and returns to the 
fields ; another worker, another mason, as they are sometimes called, 
succeeds it, and continues the laying of the foundations. Presently 
shapeless blocks of wax hang down from the roof. It is in these 
blocks that other workers, with their mandibles, hollow out, and 
form the first cells. While the workers continue to prolong the 
foundation-wall, and whilst the first cells are being shaped, new 
ones are roughly sketched out or rough hewn, and the work 
advances with a marvellous rapidity. 
Hach cell forms a small hexagonal cup, closed on one side only 
by a pyramidal base, produced by the meeting together of four 
rhombs. ‘The honeycombs are the result of two layers of cells 
placed back to back, arranged in such a way that the bases of the 
one become the bases of the other, the base of each little cell 
being formed by the union of the bases of three opposite cells. 
The bees begin by forming the base of the cell; they then add 
the six sides, or walls, which are to complete the hexagonal cup. 
At the same time, others set to work on the opposite side of the 
comb, and construct little cells back to back with the cells of the 
front surface. They do not finish them off at once. The walls 
are at first very thick: new workers, who succeed those who 
merely mark out the work, being occupied in planing down the 
rough-hewn cells, and in reducing the walls to the desired thick- 
ness. ‘This work is accomplished with an incredible celerity, for 
the bees can build as many as four thousand cells in twenty-four 
hours. There is a very good reason for the hexagonal form being 
adopted by the bees in constructing their cells, as it involves a 
question of economy, which these insects have solved in their most 
admirable manner. 
‘“When one has well examined,” says Réaumur,* “the true 
shape of each cell, when one has studied their arrangement, 
* “ Mémoires pour servir a l’Histoire des Insectes,’’ vol. v., p. 379. 




