Following the example of
Mr. Tegetmeier, I separated two combs, and put between them a long,
thick, square strip of wax: the bees instantly began to excavate
minute circular pits in it; and as they deepened these little pits,
they made them wider and wider until they were converted into shallow
basins, appearing to the eye perfectly 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 straight edges of a three-sided
pyramid as in the case of ordinary cells.
I then put into the hive, instead of a thick, square piece of wax, a
thin and narrow, knife-edged ridge, coloured with vermilion. The 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 experiment, would have broken into each other
from the opposite sides.
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