CRADLE CELLS.
HONEY CELLS.
I suppose every one knows that bee cells are hexagonal, or six-sided. If they were made circular, you can easily understand that there would be a great deal of space and material wasted, for the spaces between the cells would need to be filled up. Then, again, if they were made diamond-shaped, there would still be places to fill in. It is true they might be made four-sided, but apart from the fact that such cells would not be strong enough, it is not possible for them to be made thus, for the angles would be too great for the bees to get their jaws into the corners. It has been found that six-sided cells are the strongest and the most economical, but how the bees found this out, too, is a mystery.
There are three kinds of bee cells: firstly the cradle cells, in which the young bees are reared. They are 1⁄2 inch deep and 1⁄5th inch in diameter. There will therefore be about twenty-eight in a square inch of comb, but as the drone is slightly larger than the worker, his cradle must be bigger. We find accordingly that the drone cells are 1⁄4th inch in diameter, or about eighteen to the square inch.
Then there are the royal cells, which are altogether different. In them the young queens are reared, and in appearance they are something like acorn cups. In Plate XX. you see a picture of a frame of comb, taken from the hive with the bees still on it. The bee-man is pointing to two of these queen cells, and you will see that they hang downwards, in a place where the ordinary comb has been cut away to make room for them.
Lastly there are the honey cells, which are of the same size as the cradle cells, but instead of being built horizontal they are made sloping upwards. By constructing them in this way honey stored in them is prevented from running out over the combs.
The back of the cells, or the dividing wall between the two sets, is not flat, as we might imagine. If you look at the sketches you will see that the cells are fitted into one another so cleverly that the bottom of one cell forms half of the bottoms of two cells of the other side of the comb. All the cells of one sort, say for instance the honey cells, are made exactly the same size, and do not differ by the fraction of an inch. How the bees are able to measure the width when building them is a mystery. Perhaps the antennæ have some important part to play in this matter, but if so it has yet to be discovered. Another thing which is as curious as it is mysterious is how the sculptors on each side of the comb are able to fit in the cells so neatly that each one is in its right place with regard to the cells on the other side of the dividing wall. It is certain that the workers cannot see through the wall of wax, and yet the two lots of cells correspond exactly.