THE COMB-BUILDERS
IN the foregoing chapters an attempt has been made to show that the
honey-bee lives and moves and has her being in a world which must be
actuated by something better than mere instinct, in the common usage of
the term. To the modern biologist—the earnest out-of-door student of
life under all its manifestations—this may appear as a rather obvious and
unnecessary gilding of gold, and the only question yet undecided may seem
to be where in the scale of reason the honey-bee is to find her equitable
place.
All bee-lovers must plead guilty to an inveterate partizanship, the
writer frankly among their number. There is no laodiceanism in
bee-craft; and, all the world over, it may be said that, where a few
beehives have been got together, there is always to be found a red-hot
enthusiast not far off. The word “freemasonry,” in the English tongue,
has grown to be a synonym for the truest fraternity; but just as real,
and almost as far-reaching, is the brotherhood among keepers of bees. No
doubt, among themselves the tendency is rather to magnify the virtues and
achievements of their charges: to be over-lavish of inference from too
scanty or too isolated facts. And the proved impossibility of having
anything to do with the honey-bee without being carried away sooner or
later on a high wave of enthusiasm, makes any attempt at holding the
balances truly between the zealous bee-lover and the interested but
temperate-minded reader, a difficult and delicate task. Any writer on
the honey-bee nowadays must be reckoned an ultra-specialist in an age of
specialism; and here it is not easy to preserve the sense of proportion
undimmed, especially for one admittedly speaking out of the ranks of
beemanship, where all are aiders and abettors in ardour, impatient of any
estimation falling short of high-water mark.
The story of the Comb-Builders, however, sets none of the usual pitfalls
in the way of the over-enthusiastic penman. In its soberest incident and
least important detail it is so wonderful, that exuberance of language is
as powerless to exaggerate, as a niggardly tongue to minimise, its true
and due effect. If the ordering of the bee-commonwealth—the intricate
systems of sanitation, division of labour, treatment of the queen and
worker-larva, and the like—is subject for marvel, and seems infallibly to
denote the possession of high faculties, a much greater degree of acumen
must be conceded to the worker-bee when we come to consider her as the
designer and builder of honeycomb.
It is here that she shines in her most significant light. The
complicated structures with which she fills the bee-city do not call for
unwearying toil alone: they could never have been fashioned unless the
combined arts of engineer, architect, and mathematician had been brought
to bear on them. Nor are they merely simple constructive and
mathematical problems which the honey-bee is called upon to face; nor,
though difficult, unvarying, and so amenable to instinctive solution. In
almost every comb built we see special and necessarily unforeseen
difficulties met and triumphantly overcome. In the construction of the
six-sided cell, with its base composed of three rhombs or diamonds, the
bee has adopted a form which our greatest arithmeticians admit to be the
best possible for her requirements, and she endeavours to keep to this
form wherever practicable. But it constantly happens, in her work of
comb-building, that local conditions interfere with her plans; and then
she will make five-sided cells, or square cells, or triangular, or any
other form, just as the need impels her. It is a facile, comfortably
finite thing to put all this down to a mysterious essence called
instinct, with which the organism of the bee has been divinely dosed, as
men serve electricity to a Leyden jar. But it was not instinct that made
Wren put the steel cable round the dome of St. Paul’s, nor instinct that
lifted the crown-stones to the top of the Great Pyramids. These are
works of a creature more highly equipped and instigated; yet their
supremacy is all of a piece with the honey-comb, which is made of a
material fragile, light as air, but which, by the art of the bee, becomes
capable not only of supporting, but of suspending a weight thirty times
as great as its own.
That the bee does not collect her building materials, but derives them
from her own body, is a fact that has come to light only within the last
hundred and fifty years or so, although several shrewd guesses at the
truth are to be found in the works of the mediæval bee-masters. The
wasp, who has much of the ingenuity of the honey-bee, but is doomed to
exercise it in a far more humble direction, makes a six-sided cell; but
her matter is collected from outside, and can only be put to
comparatively simple uses, as it is incapable of bearing tensile strain.
Beeswax alone, of all constructive materials in the world, seems to meet
every requirement. It can be worked into plates as thin as the 1/180th
part of an inch, which is the normal thickness of the cell-wall. It is
indestructible to all the elements save heat. It can be rendered soft
and easily workable, or allowed to harden, while still retaining its
suppleness and life. It is a bad conductor of heat, and therefore
conserves the heat of the hive. Vermin do not prey upon it: so far as is
known there is only one creature that will eat it—a peculiar kind of
moth-larva, against which, however, a strong stock can always hold its
own. And then, as the raw materials for its production are secretions of
the bee’s own body, the work of preparing it can be carried on when
darkness or stress of weather have put an end, for the time being, to
work out of doors.
The first labour undertaken by a swarm, directly it has gained possession
of its new quarters, is the building of combs. The apparent revulsion of
feeling which succeeds the excitement of swarming soon passes off, and
the energies of the whole party are at once concentrated on furnishing
and victualling the new hive. The older bees commence foraging, each bee
as she goes forth hovering a moment with her head towards the hive, to
fix its location and appearance in her memory. By far the greater
portion, however, remain at home and unite in a dense cluster for
wax-making. Time is everything in these first operations of the new
colony. The queen, with whom egg-laying has probably been suspended for
a day past, or even longer, is overburdened with fecundity, and must be
supplied with thousands of brood-cells without delay. The foragers will
be coming home laden with nectar and pollen, and will need instant
storage-room. Wax must be made with all possible expedition, and the
young bees crowd together in the roof of the hive, with their queen snug
and warm in their midst.
No doubt one of the chief reasons why swarming bees unite themselves in
the solid pendant mass of the cluster so soon after leaving the
parent-hive, is to hasten this process of wax-formation. It has been
proved that wax is most easily generated under the influence of great
heat, and this is well secured in the heart of the cluster. By the time
the scouts have decided on the new home, and the swarm must rise again on
the wing, a great number of the bees will have their wax-pockets filled,
and will be ready for the work of comb-making. When a swarm is hived,
even if it be only a short time after its issue, the little white
wax-scales can be seen protruding from the armour-joints of many of the
bees, and these are often dropped and lost in the general confusion.
One of the most difficult things to observe in bee-life is the actual
process of comb-building. The crush is so great, and the movement of the
bees so incessant, that at first the comb seems to grow of itself rather
than be made by the busy multitude, for ever obscuring it from the
watcher’s eyes, or giving him but the rarest glimpse now and then of its
white, delicate frailty of pattern. These early efforts of the
comb-builders, produced as they are under forced circumstances, are
occasionally faulty of design, as though hastily knocked together.
Sometimes the first groups of cells made by a swarm will have a yellow,
moist, spongy appearance, with thick, irregular walls, and are obviously
little more than temporary vats to hold the incoming nectar until the
proper honey-cells can be constructed. This emergency-comb is specially
interesting, as affording one more instance of the worker-bee’s
ever-ready resource in the presence of difficulties. In the ordinary way
the mason-bee hangs quietly in the cluster until her wax-secreting organs
have done their work, and the six little oblong scales of brittle
material are ready for manipulation. These protrude from under the hard
plates of her abdomen, three on each side, looking much like half-posted
letters. At one of the knee joints of her hind-leg she has a peculiar
implement, of which there is not the slightest trace in the queen-bee.
This is like a pair of nippers, but instead of two converging points, it
is furnished on one side with a row of sharp, stiff bristles; and on the
other with a shallow spoon. With this special tool the worker-bee grips
the wax-scale, and draws it out of its pocket. It is then transferred to
her jaws, and she hurries off with it to the comb-building. Arrived at
an unfinished cell, she sets to work to chew up the raw wax into a paste,
incorporating it with her saliva, and materially increasing its bulk.
The resulting soft, ductile matter is then applied to the work, and
moulded into its needed shape. In this way, with hundreds of workers
going and coming, the delicate white fabric of brood and honey-comb is
built up with extraordinary rapidity.
How the coarse, spongy comb, which swarms will sometimes manufacture, is
produced cannot be definitely stated. It has all the appearance of
having been made from raw wax, hurriedly masticated and kneaded up with
honey, and probably this is its actual composition. The secretion from
the salivary gland, is necessarily slow, and with time pressing and a
horde of impatient foragers dinning about her ears, eager to unload and
be off again to the clover, the ingenious mason-bee appears to have hit
on the idea of using the contents of her honey-sac as a substitute.
Nothing, however, but a mechanical admixture can take place between honey
and the raw wax. This dissolves only under the influence of the bee’s
saliva, which has intensely acid properties.
To understand all that the bees have accomplished when a new empty hive
has been filled throughout with waxen comb, it is necessary to follow the
operations of the swarm pretty closely during the first few weeks of its
separate life. It is a big undertaking, the building of an entire, new
bee-city, and the problems that confront the builders are many and
complicated. In the first place, whether she ever attains it or not, the
worker-bee will aim at nothing short of perfection. Hereditary
experience tells her exactly what are the home-requirements of the
colony, and she now sets to work to fulfil them in the best imaginable
way.
A city is to be built which is to accommodate twenty or thirty thousand
individuals. Vast nursery-quarters must be constructed, as there may be
as many as ten or twelve thousand youngsters to cradle at one and the
same time. For at least six months of the year no food will be
obtainable from outside, so that the city must contain large storehouses
capable of holding more than a six months’ supply. As the temperature in
winter can be kept up only by the bodily warmth of the inhabitants, life
in the city must be concentrated into the smallest possible space; and
the materials of which the city is built must be heat-conserving, while
its construction must allow of perfect ventilation at all times, and in
summer it must permit a free circulation of air, that the surplus heat
can be readily carried off. The city must be a fortress as well as a
home, and be closed in on every side as a protection against its many
enemies, as well as the weather.
There is another, and just as vital a condition governing its
construction—the necessity for strict economy in material. If there were
any natural substance having the qualities of tenacity, lightness,
ductility, and strength which the bees could obtain out of doors instead
of wax, no doubt they would use it for comb-building, and they would not
spend hours of precious time and consume large quantities of hard-won
stores in the manufacture of their own material. But it seems there is
nothing in nature possessing the needful properties. Bees collect a
resinous substance, notably from the buds of the poplar, which they use
for stopping up crevices. They dilute this also into a varnish, with
which they paint the finished combs, and sometimes even combine it with
wax to form a rough filling; but it appears to be useless in
cell-construction. The whole city must needs be made of wax, and wax
alone; and the bees are as careful of this precious substance as a miser
of his gold.
Starting with these conditions—efficient house-accommodation for the
colony secured at the least cost in time, labour, and material—the bee
tackles the problem before her with an ingenuity that is little short of
astounding. She appears to begin with the central dominant unit of the
difficulty, and to work outward, vanquishing subsidiary problems as she
goes. Her line of reasoning seems to run somewhat in this way. To raise
the young, and store the honey, there is needed some kind of cell or
receptacle. The young larvæ being cylindrical in form, a cylindrical
cell is indicated; and this shape will serve also for the honey-barrels.
Not a few, however, but many thousands of these vessels will be required:
they must therefore be placed close together, as well for economy of
space as for natural warmth. The cells could be grouped together mouth
upwards in horizontal planes, storey above storey; but such a method of
construction would be economically unsound. To prevent sagging in the
heat of the hive, and under the weight they will be called to bear, the
cell-bases would have to be thickened collectively into a substantial
floor, which would need shoring-up at intervals—after the manner of the
wasps. But in this, much valuable material would be diverted from its
proper use. Obviously, a better plan would be to lay all the cells on
their sides, and pile them up into a vertical wall. And, just as
obviously, if two walls of these superimposed cells were placed back to
back, so that one central vertical sheet of wax would serve to stop the
ends of all the cells, right and left, a saving of half the material used
for the cell-bottoms would at once be effected.
But, so far, the design is still only in its crude, initial stage. The
upright comb, consisting of a double pile of round cells, back to back,
with one flat base between, although a great advance on the single sheet
of horizontal cells, is yet mechanically and economically deficient. The
round cells leave useless interstices, which take much wax in the
filling; while the flat bottoms do not coincide with the form of the
larvæ, and thus still more space is wasted. Clearly, improvement can
only come by altering the shape of the cell; and now the bee seems to
have asked herself-and triumphantly answered—an extremely complex
question.
She knew how much internal cell-space each larva required for growth.
The problem, therefore, was this: of what shape, nearly approaching the
cylindrical, ought such a cell to be made, which would ensure the right
dimensions, but which would occupy the least possible room, have the
greatest possible strength, consume the least possible material in its
manufacture, and possess the property that a number of similar cells
could be built up in a double vertical plane, leaving no interstices
either between the cells or between the planes?
There is only one solution to this problem; and the honey-bee found
it—who shall say how many ages ago?—in the hexagon cell, with its base
composed of three rhombs.
The whole astounding ingenuity of the thing can only be realised when a
piece of nearly perfect, new-made, virgin-comb has been closely examined.
It will be at once seen that the hexagon cells combine together over the
surface of the comb in absolute geometrical union, and that the six-sided
form is round enough for all practical purposes. Looking into the cells
on one side of the comb, it will be noted that their bases take the form
of depressed pyramids, each made up of three diamond-shaped planes.
[Picture: Honey-comb, transmitted light, showing arrangement of cells on
both sides]
Turning the comb over, we see that the cells on this side also have
pyramidal bottoms. If the depth of a cell on one side of the comb be
taken, and added to the depth of a cell on the other side, and then the
width of the whole comb be measured, it will be found that the combined
depth of the two cells perceptibly exceeds the width of the whole comb.
At first glance this seems like a case of the less including the greater,
which is a manifest impossibility. But, holding the comb up to the
light, a further discovery is made, and the seeming paradox is
eliminated. The bottoms of the cells are so thin as to be almost
transparent, and it is at once seen that the cells are not built end to
end, in line, but that each cell-base on one side of the comb covers part
of three cell-bases on the other. If the three diamonds, composing
between them the triangular base of a single cell, be perforated with a
needle, and the comb turned over, it will be found that the three
perforations come each in a separate cell. Thus the saving in the total
width of the comb is effected by allowing the pyramidal bases on each
side to engage alternately like the teeth of a trap; instead of meeting
point-blank, they overlap each other, and the faces of the pyramids are
so contrived that each of them helps to close two cells.
There is another advantage in this arrangement which will be immediately
obvious. The apex and three ribs of each pyramidal cell-base form
foundation-lines for the cell-walls on the other side of the comb. This
means that not only do all cell-walls abut on an arch, but that every
cell-base is strengthened throughout by a triple girdering. The result
is that the amount of wax required in the construction of the comb can be
everywhere reduced to an absolute minimum. It becomes merely a question
of what thickness of wax will retain the honey; and this experience
proves to be no more than 1/180 part of an inch. The whole thing,
indeed, might very well be taken as an ideal exemplar of the triumph of
mind over matter.
The geometric principles brought into play in the construction of
honey-comb have been a favourite study with mathematicians of all ages,
and especially this rhombiform method adopted by the bee in flooring her
cells. The rhomb is best described as a plane-figure whose four sides
are equal, like those of a square, but whose angles are not right angles.
In such a figure there are necessarily two greater angles and two
smaller, facing each other in pairs. The three rhombs composing the base
of the honey-cell lean together, as has been seen, in the form of a blunt
pyramid; and—treating all angles as negligible factors—the bluntness of
this pyramid is found to coincide very aptly with the shape of the
full-grown larvæ. But this is not the only reason for the particular
inclination given by the bee to the rhombs forming the base of each cell.
Economy rules here, as in everything else she undertakes; and the truth
that she has chosen the one and only form of cell-base which takes the
least possible material to construct has received very striking
confirmation.
The story is an old and famous one, but it will bear repeating. A great
naturalist once put himself to an infinity of trouble in measuring the
angles formed by the rhombs in a vast number of comb-cell bases, and he
found that these showed remarkable uniformity. It will be clear that the
hollow pyramid of the cell-bottom will be either deep or shallow,
according to the shape of the three rhombs composing it. The apex of the
pyramid is formed by the meeting of three equal angles, one from each
rhomb; and it is plain that this apex will be sharp or blunt, according
to whether the meeting angles are wide or narrow. It was, of course,
impossible to ascertain the dimensions of these angles with absolutely
microscopical nicety; but, dealing only with the most perfect comb, the
naturalist found that the two greater angles in the rhombs measured very
nearly 110°, and the two lesser angles 70°. He also found that the
angles formed by the conjunction of the cell-sides with the bases had the
same dimensions as those of the rhombs. Assuming therefore that,
mathematically, the angles of the rhombs and cell-sides should be equal,
he was able to calculate exactly the angles for which the bees were
evidently striving in the construction of the rhombs—109° 28′ and 70°
32′.
Another bee-lover scientist, ruminating over these figures, was much
impressed by them, and determined to find out the reason why the bee made
such constant choice of this particular shape of rhomb. He therefore
conceived the idea of submitting the bee’s judgment on this cell-base
question to an independent authority. Without disclosing his object, he
propounded the following problem to one of the greatest mathematicians of
the day.
“Supposing,” said he, in effect, “you were required to close the end of
an hexagonal vessel by three rhombs or diamond-shaped plates, what angles
must be given to these rhombs so that the greatest amount of space would
be enclosed by the least amount of material?”
It was a difficult problem, but the mathematician worked it out at last,
and his answer was “109° 26′ and 70° 34.”
Now, the difference between the calculation of the man and the
calculation of the bee was an exceedingly small one. No one thought of
calling into question the work of the man, who was pre-eminent in his
world of figures. It was therefore accepted as a fact that the bee had
made a trifling mistake—so trifling, however, that, in the matter of
comb-building, it was of no importance. Her reputation was unimpaired:
to all intents and purposes the honey-cell was still a perfect example of
utmost capacity secured by least material.
But another mathematician—a Scotsman this time—went over the whole
business again, and he proved conclusively that the bee was right, while
the first mathematician was wrong. He showed that the true answer to the
problem of the angles was 109° 28′ and 70° 32′—identically the figures
obtained by estimation of the honey-comb.
* * * * *
In the foregoing pages the principles involved in the construction of
honey-comb have been gone into rather minutely, because it is here that
the lines of thought between the old and the new naturalists seem to make
a typical divergence. Both schools are, in the main, agreed on the point
that all forms of life emanate from the one omnipotent source; and it
matters little whether we speak of the vast periods of time, during which
the creation of all things was effected, as ages, or under the old
Biblical metaphor of days. But whereas the old school appears to insist
on different qualities of life—immortal soul in man, and a mystic,
subconscious, perishable thing called instinct in the brute creation—the
new school is unable to see any distinction between the intellectual
equipment of man and brute, but that of degree. Between the honey-bee
and her masters there is indeed a great gulf fixed, but it is conceivably
not unbridgable. And unless we are determined at all cost of logical
violence to force a favourite set of square opinions into the round holes
of observed fact, it is difficult to see how the old position is long to
remain tenable.
With regard to this particular question of comb-building, an attempt is
still being made to show that it is entirely due to the working of
certain natural laws, and is independent of any intelligence or volition
which the bees are supposed to exercise. We are told that the cells are
always begun in a circular form, but that they afterwards assume the
hexagon shape quite automatically, in obedience to the laws of mutual
interference and pressure. As a proof of this, it is pointed out that
the outside cells of the comb, not being subject to these laws, are
usually more or less rounded.
The pressure-theory is hardly worth serious consideration, as it is
obvious that the growth of a honey-comb is perfectly free and
untrammelled in every way. If the bee makes her comb-cells with six
sides and a pyramidal base unthinkingly, and under the yoke of imperious
obligation, it is certainly not because the cells force this shape upon
one another, like Buffon’s peas in a bottle.
And if we believe that the bee works blindly under the law of mutual
interference, any close examination of the results of her work must bring
us to the conviction that we are only putting aside one marvel for
something more wonderful still. For then we see a natural law taking on
a very unnatural quality—that of intelligent adaptation to circumstances.
The comb, intended for use in the hive-nursery, is made in two sizes.
That used for cradling the worker-brood has cells measuring ⅕ inch
across, and a fraction less than ½ inch deep, while that designed for
raising the drone-larva is built up of cells having a diameter of ¼ inch,
and a depth of about ⅝ inch. These different-sized cells are not mingled
indiscriminately over the comb, but are grouped together in large blocks.
Some of the combs will be entirely composed of worker-cells, which are
always in the vast majority; other combs will be made up of both kinds.
The bees begin a comb by attaching a small block of wax to the roof of
the hive. On either side of this they hollow out depressions, which
become the bases of the first cells. The work is then extended downwards
and sideways, the cell-bases being multiplied in all directions as fast
as possible, so that there are a great number of unfinished cells in
progress long before the walls of the first cells have been completed.
There is a very reasonable motive for this procedure. When a house is
being built, as much of the foundations as possible are laid in at the
commencement, to allow a large body of bricklayers to get to work on the
walls at the same time; and the bee extends her comb-foundations on the
same principle.
When about half the comb has been finished for worker-brood, it may be
decided to commence building drone-cells. As the bases of the
drone-cells are larger than those of the worker-cells, it follows that a
change must be effected in the ground-plan of the comb. The bees prepare
for this transition very cleverly, evidently studying how the regularity
of the comb may be least interrupted. Sometimes the change is contrived
without any appreciable loss of space, but more often several misshapen
cells have to be made before the symmetrical progress of the comb is
resumed. This depends largely on the inherited skill of the bees, which
varies according to their strain, as all experienced bee-keepers know.
Now, if the work of comb-building is carried through by the bees under
blind compulsion of the natural laws of mutual interference and pressure,
what other law, it may be asked, interferes with these in turn when the
transition from one size of cell to another must be made? If it is all a
sort of crystallisation going on independently of the bees’ will or wish,
it appears more than curious that the mill should grind large or small,
just as the needs of the hive demand it.
But the whole position is really little else than a flagrant example of
the evils of argument from a simile. Soaked peas in a bottle will swell
to hexagons, or rather, dodecahedrons, by the law of mutual interference.
Soap-bubbles will do the same with no more constriction than their own
weight. But peas and bubbles are things self-contained and separately
existing, before being brought together. If the bees made a vast number
of separate, round cells, and then combined them simultaneously, no doubt
all but the outside cells would assume the hexagon form. But the essence
of the whole art and ingenuity of comb-building lies in the fact that
there is no such thing as a separate cell. Each single compartment in
the comb shares its parts with no less than nine other compartments. And
to talk of mutual interference when there is no separate existence is
ploughing the sands indeed.
There are other circumstances connected with the work of the
comb-builders which go far to confirm the position that bees do exercise
reason, and that of a high order. It has been said that the interior of
a hive in daytime is not altogether deprived of light. Probably, during
the hours of greatest activity, the bees have always enough light to see
their way about by means of their wonderful indoor-eyes, which, under the
microscope, have all the solemn wisdom of an owl’s. It is a fact,
however, that comb-building is usually carried on at night-time, when
other employments are in temporary abeyance. Possibly the—to our
eyes—profoundest darkness may be no darkness at all to the bees; but, to
all appearances, as we can judge of them, honey-comb is virtually made in
the dark.
But combs are built side by side, often simultaneously. They grow
downwards together, yet always preserve their right distance apart; so
that, when finished, there will be an intervening gangway between the
sealed surfaces of about a quarter of an inch, which is just enough to
allow the two streams of bees to pass each other, back to back. How are
these distances preserved, seeing that the bees at work on the bottom
edge of each comb are separated by a space of, perhaps, an inch and a
half of empty darkness?
A simple experiment will at once give a clue to this. If a hive, in
which a swarm has constructed about half its depth of comb, be canted a
little sideways, so as to throw the combs out of the perpendicular, and
the hive be then left for several days, it will be found on examination
that all building, from the moment of disturbance, has followed on the
new line of verticality. The combs will all be slightly bent to one
side. This means either that the bees have a natural sense of the
perpendicular, or that they work by the plumbline, as humanity is
constrained to do. The fact seems to be that the hanging cluster of
wax-making bees performs the office of a living plummet, and really
guides the comb in its downward progress.
Yet, do bees always suspend their combs? Do they never construct a waxen
storehouse, raising it tier above tier from the floor of the hive, after
the system of the more intelligent creature, Man?
[Picture: Comb built upwards]
The first commentary on this is, that such a departure from their common
methods would be no improvement, but a retrograde step. These long
comb-walls of the bees have a close analogy to the modern transatlantic
sky-scraper building. The trouble with all such buildings is to provide
them with sufficient base for their height. If American engineers had at
their disposal a material of adequate tensile strength, and there were
anything in nature to hang them from, it would be, scientifically, a
better plan to suspend these buildings than to erect them, because the
house would then naturally tend to keep its verticality, and the
base-problem would cease to exist. On the same principle the bees,
having at hand a material of almost ideal tensility, and a suitable
hanging-beam, wisely suspend their heavily, weighted combs from the roof,
instead of erecting them, like certain kinds of ant-structures.
But it is undoubtedly long racial experience, and not inability to follow
the humanly approved method, that guides them here. Rarely—so rarely
that the writer, in the course of many years spent among bees, has seen
only a single example of it—bees will build comb _upwards_, if
circumstances will allow no other way. And this would seem not only to
drive the last coffin-nail for the poor instinct-theory, but to carve its
epitaph as well.
In the instance referred to, a glass-bottomed box had been inverted over
the feed-hole of a common hive, and had there remained forgotten. As the
season progressed, the hive grew great with bees and honey, and it became
imperative to build additional store-comb in the box overhead. But its
slippery glass roof would give no foothold to the builders. Time and
again they must have tried to get upon it, with their wax-hods filled and
ready, and each time failed: the ordinary way of comb-building was
clearly impossible. Then the engineers of the hive, inspired by the
difficulty, got to work in another way. On the wooden surface below they
laid out the plan of a garner-house, not after their usual method of
parallel combs, but a regular, oblong house, with cellular storerooms,
and communicating passages in between. Upon this they raised storey
above storey of horizontal cells, until the glass roof was nearly
reached. At this stage, apparently, the honey-flow came to an end in the
fields, for the cells in the store-house were never sealed, though all
were nearly full of honey; and later in the season it was found and
carried away by the bee-master, who still preserves it as a curiosity.
He bears a well-known name, {218} and his testimony as to the making of
this unique little honey-house is beyond question; but, indeed, it
carries in itself infallible evidence of its authenticity. All
honey-cells made by bees have a slight upward inclination, which helps,
as has been already explained, to retain their contents until they can be
capped over. And every cell in the storehouse clearly showed this upward
slant.