s latter
circumstance determined, as it probably often has determined, whether
a bee allied to our humble-bees could exist in large numbers in any
country; and let us further suppose that the community lived through the
winter, and consequently required a store of honey: there can in
this case be no doubt that it would be an advantage to our imaginary
humble-bee if a slight modification of her instincts led her to make her
waxen cells near together, so as to intersect a little; for a wall in
common even to two adjoining cells would save some little labour and
wax. Hence, it would continually be more and more advantageous to our
humble-bees, if they were to make their cells more and more regular,
nearer together, and aggregated into a mass, like the cells of the
Melipona; for in this case a large part of the bounding surface of each
cell would serve to bound the adjoining cells, and much labour and wax
would be saved. Again, from the same cause, it would be advantageous to
the Melipona, if she were to make her cells closer together, and more
regular in every way than at present; for then, as we have seen, the
spherical surfaces would wholly disappear and be replaced by plane
surfaces; and the Melipona would make a comb as perfect as that of
the hive-bee. Beyond this stage of perfection in architecture, natural
selection could not lead; for the comb of the hive-bee, as far as we can
see, is absolutely perfect in economising labour and wax.

Thus, as I believe, the most wonderful of all known instincts, that
of the hive-bee, can be explained by natural selection having taken
advantage of numerous, successive, slight modifications of simpler
instincts; natural selection having, by slow degrees, more and more
perfectly led the bees to sweep equal spheres at a given distance from
each other in a double layer, and to build up and excavate the wax along
the planes of intersection. The bees, of course, no more knowing that
they swept their spheres at one particular distance from each other,
than they know what are the several angles of the hexagonal prisms and
of the basal rhombic plates; the motive power of the process of natural
selection having been the construction of cells of due strength and of
the proper size and shape for the larvae, this being effected with the
greatest possible economy of labour and wax; that individual swarm which
thus made the best cells with least labour, and least waste of honey
in the secretion of