The cells were not dug out of a block of wax as Huber described, nor were they made according to Darwin, circular at first, and then made into hexagons by the pressure of their neighbors.  Here was no question of reciprocal obstacles, seeing that the cells were made one by one, and these first outlines were sketched on a kind of table.  It would appear therefore that the hexagonal form is not the result of any mechanical necessity, but that it forms the plan resulting from the experience, the intelligence, and the will of the bee.  Another curious thing which I accidentally noticed was that the cells built upon the tin were not provided with any other floor than the tin itself.  The engineers of the working party evidently reasoned that the tin was sufficient to retain the liquid honey, and that it was not necessary, therefore, to line it with wax.  But a little while after, when some honey was placed in the cell, they probably found that the metal effected some change in it, for upon taking counsel together they covered the surface of the tin with a kind of diaphanous varnish.

If we wish to throw light on all the secrets of this geometrical architecture, we shall find many more interesting questions to examine—­for example, that of the form of the first cells, which are attached to the roof of the hive—­a form which is modified so that the cells can fit its curve and touch the roof at the greatest possible number of points.

It would be necessary to notice also, not only the direction in which the main streets of the hive run, but the alley-ways and passages which run in and out and around the comb, as much for the circulation of the air as for the traffic; and it should be remarked that these are planned so as to avoid long detours or confusion in the traffic....

Before we leave this subject let us, only for a minute, stop to consider the wonderful and mysterious way in which the bees make their plans and work together when they are occupied in carving out their cells, on both sides of the comb, where neither can see the other.  Look through one of these transparent combs, and you will see clearly and sharply cut out in this diaphanous wax a network of prisms arranged in so perfectly fitting a manner that one might think they were stamped out of steel.

Those who have never seen the inside of a hive can have little idea of the appearance of these honeycombs.  Let us take a countryman’s hive in which the bee has been left free to work as he pleases.  This bell-like shape is divided from top to bottom by five, six, eight, and sometimes ten, slices of wax, so to speak, perfectly parallel with each other, which take the exact shape of the curve of the walls of the hive.  Between each one of these slices is a space of about half an inch in which the bees move about.  When they begin to build one of these slices at the top of the hive, the wall of wax is quite thick, and hides entirely the fifty or sixty bees