The same gradation is observed when returning to smaller cells. Every apparent irregularity is therefore determined by a sufficient motive, and forms no impeachment of the sagacity of the bee.
The common breeding-cells of drones or workers are, occasionally, (after being cleaned,) made the depositories of honey; but the cells are never made so clean, as to preserve the honey undeteriorated. The finest honey is stored in new cells, constructed for the purpose of receiving it, their configuration resembling precisely the common breeding-cells: these honey-cells vary in size, being made more or less capacious, according to the productiveness of the sources from which the bees are collecting, and according to the season of the year: the cells formed in July and August vary in their dimensions from those that are formed earlier; being intended for honey only, they are larger and deeper, the texture of their walls is thinner, and they have more dip or inclination: this dip diminishes the risk of the honey’s running out, which from the heat of the weather, and the consequent thinness of the honey, at this season of the year, it might otherwise be liable to do. When the cells, intended for holding the winter’s provision, are filled, they are always closed with waxen lids, and never re-opened till the whole of the honey in the unfilled cells has been expended. The waxen lids are thus formed;—The bees first construct a ring of wax within the verge of the cell, to which other rings are successively added, till the aperture of the cell is finally closed with a lid composed of concentric circles.
The brood-cells, when their tenants have attained a certain age, are also covered with waxen lids, like the honey-cells; the lids differ a little, the latter being somewhat concave, the former convex. The depth of the brood-cells of drones and working bees is about half an inch; their diameter is more exact, that of the drone-cells being 3⅓ lines[AA], that of the workers 2⅗ lines. These, says Reaumur, are the invariable dimensions of all the cells, that ever were, or ever will be made.
[AA] A line is the twelfth part of an inch.
From this uniform, unvarying diameter of the brood-cells, when completed, their use has been suggested, as an universal standard of measure, which would be understood, in all countries, to the end of time.
“While heav’n-born Instinct bounds their measur’d view,
From age to age, from Zembla to Peru,
Their snow-white cells, the order’d artists frame,
In size, in form, in symmetry the same.”
Evans.