Moreover, many bees have to remain idle for many days
during the process of secretion. A large store of honey is
indispensable to support a large stock of bees during the winter; and
the security of the hive is known mainly to depend on a large number
of bees being supported. Hence the saving of wax by largely saving
honey must be a most important element of success in any family of
bees. Of course the success of any species of bee may be dependent on
the number of its parasites or other enemies, or on quite distinct
causes, and so be altogether independent of the quantity of honey
which the bees could collect. But let us suppose that this latter
circumstance determined, as it probably often does determine, the
numbers of a humble-bee which could exist in a country; and let us
further suppose that the community lived throughout the winter, and
consequently required a store of honey: there can in this case be no
doubt that it would be an advantage to our humble-bee, if a slight
modification of her instinct led her to make her waxen cells near
together, so as to intersect a little; for a wall in common even to
two adjoining cells, would save some little wax. Hence it would
continually be more and more advantageous to our humble-bee, if she
were to make her cells more and more regular, nearer together, and
aggregated into a mass, like the cells of the Melipona; for in this
case a large part of the bounding surface of each cell would serve to
bound other cells, and much wax would be saved.
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