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Show 228 INSTINCT. CnAP. VII. h as acqu.u ed , thr oug h natural selection, her inimitable architectural powers. . But this theory can be tested by ~xpenment. Follo·w- I. ng the examp le of Mr· Tegetmeier, I. separated tw.o b d P com s, an ut between them a long, thick, square .s tnp f . the bees instantly began to excavate minute o wax. d h 1' 1 circular pits in it ; and as they d~epene . t ese Itt e pits, they made them wi~~r and wid~r until they wer~ converted into shallow basins, appeanng to the eye peifectly true or parts of a sphere, and of about the diameter of a cell. It was most interesting to me to observe that wherever several bees had begun to excavate these basins near together, they had begun their work at such a distance from each other, that by the time the basins had acquired the above stated width ( i. e. about the width of an ordinary cell), and were in depth about one sixth of the diameter of the sphere of which they formed a part, the rims of the basins intersected or broke into each other. As soon as this occurred, the bees ceased to excavate, and began to build up flat walls of wax on the lines of intersection between the basins, so that each hexagonal prism was built upon the festooned edge of a smooth basin, instead of on the str~ight edges of a three-sided pyramid as in the case of ordinary cells. I then put into the hive, instead of ~ thick, sq~are piece of wax, a thin and narrow, knife-edged ndge, coloured with vermilion. 'fhe bees instantly began on both sides to excavate little basins near to each other, in the same way as before ; but the ridge of wax was so thin' that the bottoms of the basins, if they had been. excavated to the same depth as in the former expen-ment would have broken into each other from the oppo~ite sides. The bees, however, did no~ suff~r this to happen, and they stopped their excavatwns In due CHAP. VII. CELLS OF THE HIVE-BEE. 229 time; so that the basins, as soon as they had been a little deepened, came to have flat bottoms ; and these flat bottoms, formed by thin little plates of the vermilion wax having been left ungnawed, were situated, as far ~s t~e ey~ could ~udge, exactly along the planes of Imaginary Intersection between the basins on the op- P?sit~ sides of the ridge of wax. In parts, only little bits, In other parts, large portions of a rhombic plate had been left between the opposed basins, but the work, from the unnatural state of things, had not been neatly performed. The bees must.hav~ worked at very nearly th~ .same rate on the opposite sides of the ridge of vermiliOn wax, ~s they circ~larly gnawed away and deepened the basins on both sides, in order to have succeeded in t~us leaving flat plates between the basins, by stopping work along the intermediate planes or planes of intersection. Considering how flexible thin wax is, I do not see that there is any difficulty in the bees, whilst at work on the two sides of a strip of wax, perceiving when they have gnawed t~e wax. away to the proper thinness, and then stoppmg theu work. In ordinary combs it ~as app~ared to me that the bees do not always succeed I~ workmg at exactly the same rate from the opposite sides; for I have noticed half-completed rhombs at the base of a just-commenced cell, which were slightly concave on one side, where I suppose that the bees had excavated too q~ckly, and convex on the opposed side, where t~e bees had worked less quickly. In one wellmarked Instance, I put the comb back into the hive, and allo;ved the. bees to go on working for a short time, and again examined the cell, and I found that the rhombic ~late had been completed, and had become perfectly fiat : It was absolutely impossible, from the extreme thinness of the little rhombic plate, that they could have effected |
