. The honey-makers. Bees. The Worker 143 size of the cells they are building and with no apparent order or design create a fabric marvellous for order and design. Each inner cell when finished is a six-sided hollow prism, open at one end and closed at the other. No cell stands alone ; excepting on the edges of the comb, each is sur- rounded by six others, and the walls of each are common to the adjoining cells. The walls, although so thin, are water-tight, so that the enclosed nectar cannot pass from one cell to another. The comb of the hive-bee is two cells deep, the cells standing end to end
. The honey-makers. Bees. The Worker 143 size of the cells they are building and with no apparent order or design create a fabric marvellous for order and design. Each inner cell when finished is a six-sided hollow prism, open at one end and closed at the other. No cell stands alone ; excepting on the edges of the comb, each is sur- rounded by six others, and the walls of each are common to the adjoining cells. The walls, although so thin, are water-tight, so that the enclosed nectar cannot pass from one cell to another. The comb of the hive-bee is two cells deep, the cells standing end to end and opening on opposite sides of the sheet of comb, each cell thus being easily accessible. In order that the honey may be the more readily re- tained the cells slant up a little and in addition are slightly curved. The partition X-Y, be- tween the two sets of cells, is ,~^ X heavier than the side walls, and as the bottom of each cell is concave on the inside, the cells on opposite sides of the comb do not stand base to base, but the base of one is so placed that the slanting walls of the bases of the opposite cells form its concavity. Thus upon looking down into an empty cell, the edges of three or sometimes four others are seen crossing back of its transparent base. Thus is greatly strengthened the bases which form the division wall be- tween the two sets of cells. Bees do not place themselves in orderly ranks and work away each at its own cell, but each bee as it were compre- hends the design of a honey-comb in a cake of wax and each contributes its share of labor to the whole without any apparent regard to law 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 Morley, Margaret Warner, 1858-1923. Chicago, A. C. McClurg and company
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublisherch, booksubjectbees
