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We must suppose the Melipona to make her cells truly spherical, and of equal sizes; and this would not be very surprising, seeing that she already does so to a certain extent, and seeing what perfectly cylindrical burrows in wood many insects can make, apparently by turning round on a fixed point.
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 would all be replaced by plane surfaces; and the Melipona would make a comb as perfect as that of the hive-bee.
But the most numerous and interesting of the clay artificers are the workers of a species of social bee, the Melipona fasciculata. The Meliponae in tropical America take the place of the true Apides, to which the European hive-bee belongs, and which are here unknown; they are generally much smaller insects than the hive-bees and have no sting.
We must suppose the Melipona to make her cells truly spherical, and of equal sizes; and this would not be very surprising, seeing that she already does so to a certain extent, and seeing what perfectly cylindrical burrows in wood many insects can make, apparently by turning round on a fixed point.
"Gardner, in his travels, states that many species of Melipona build in the hollow trunks of trees, others in banks; some suspend their nests from the branches of trees, whilst one species constructs its nest of clay, it being of large size." F. Smith, of the British Museum, found from four hundred to five hundred dead workers, but no females.
The cells of Melipona are hexagonal, nearly approaching in regularity those of the Hive bee, while the honey cells are irregular, being much larger cavities, which hold about one-half as much honey as a cell of the Humble bee.
We must suppose the Melipona to have the power of forming her cells truly spherical, and of equal sizes; and this would not be very surprising, seeing that she already does so to a certain extent, and seeing what perfectly cylindrical burrows many insects make in wood, apparently by turning round on a fixed point.
In the series between the extreme perfection of the cells of the hive-bee and the simplicity of those of the humble-bee, we have the cells of the Mexican Melipona domestica, carefully described and figured by Pierre Huber.
Reflecting on this case, it occurred to me that if the Melipona had made its spheres at some given distance from each other, and had made them of equal sizes and had arranged them symmetrically in a double layer, the resulting structure would have been as perfect as the comb of the hive-bee.
As in the cells of the hive-bee, so here, the three plane surfaces in any one cell necessarily enter into the construction of three adjoining cells. It is obvious that the Melipona saves wax by this manner of building; for the flat walls between the adjoining cells are not double, but are of the same thickness as the outer spherical portions, and yet each flat portion forms a part of two cells.
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