. The honey-bee; its nature, homes and products. Bees. WAX. 63 The cells of the first row laid down are pentagonal in shape. This gives them a stronger attachment to the hive than if they had had the hexagonal figure of the succeeding rows. But no form besides the six- sided prism would have answered all the conditions of the problem " how with the least expenditure of material to secure the greatest available space with the best arrangement for the purposes to be ; Approached from the purely theoretical side, the question has been investigated by Fig. 14.—Dia
. The honey-bee; its nature, homes and products. Bees. WAX. 63 The cells of the first row laid down are pentagonal in shape. This gives them a stronger attachment to the hive than if they had had the hexagonal figure of the succeeding rows. But no form besides the six- sided prism would have answered all the conditions of the problem " how with the least expenditure of material to secure the greatest available space with the best arrangement for the purposes to be ; Approached from the purely theoretical side, the question has been investigated by Fig. 14.—Diagram of Cells. It requires no great acumen to determine that a hexagon of some sort is the geometrical figure which must be adopted. An equilateral triangle would make a very unsuitable abode for an insect with a Fig. 15.—Supposed Circular Cells. nearly round body. A square cell would hardly be more convenient. A series of circles would, of course, leave interstices between them, causing a useless expenditure of space, material, time and Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Harris, William Hetherington, 1835-. London, The Religious tract society
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectbees, bookyear1884
